ExIsraeliAnarchist

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to just get up and move country? Or to try to immigrate from a war zone to a developed country? Have you seen how the (especially non white/european) people who try are being treated??
As an ex-Israeli I was lucky enough to be able to do it many many years ago because I have dual nationality and family elsewhere I was able to depend on, but most Israelis, never mind Palestinians, don’t have either, or the money to be able to afford to move, or a country that will allow them in.
Check your privilege.

I was lucky enough to have dual nationality and left many years ago, but then I always knew I would because I never felt like I fit in there, so I have no regrets, except for not leaving sooner - before the army would have been better, but I wasn’t able too get out of it.

Be prepared though - life as an immigrant and a foreigner can have it’s own challenges, as can being a Jew outside of Israel, and the “grass” - the political and social aspects of life might be different, but it isn’t necessarily greener - fascism is on the rise more or less everywhere you go, as is the cost of living.

You only get one life, as long as you aren’t harming anyone - do what’s best for you, and remember that to create a better society the workers of the world need to unite, so it doesn’t matter where you are physically, you can and should still be part of a force for change.

I don’t want to give too much personal information, but if you have any questions, I can do my best to answer.

It’s disingenuous to post those wikis without also posting these

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora

and because people can’t separate acknowledgment of reality from support of it - I don’t support Israel, which is occupying some Palestinian lands, and is undeniably oppressing Palestinians who deserve to be free. At the same time, other parts of the land are the ancestral land of the Jewish people, they didn’t just “decide” this or “turn up one day” out of nowhere, it’s historical fact. But you know what? Both can be and are true, and ignoring history doesn’t change that, it only makes your position weaker because you’re clearly speaking from ignorance, deliberate or otherwise, and don’t (or refuse to) understand the true complexity of this conflict and the history of the region.

Oh, my criticism wasn’t of you, but of the person who replied to you with a load of nonsense. People tend to ignore/simplify/skew the history to fit their agenda (or are too lazy to make the kind of effort you are to understand), so it’s good to look at the actual documented history.

As for the Hagia Sophia comparison, I can see where you’re coming from, but this is all on a much bigger scale, which by default makes it much more complicated t figure out. But the first step is wanting to know, and you’re there, so good job!

That person really doesn’t seem to know what they’re talking about (Jews did not originate in Egypt, the UN didn’t “shove” anyone to the land, Jewish settlement has been continuous in the region, and after decades of pogroms which culminated in the Holocaust, many who were in the diaspora ended up returning since they didn’t feel safe anywhere else, but more importantly, like so many fleeing war and genocide today - were simply not welcomed by the “allies”. There is also no such argument that anyone who lives on that land qualifies as Jewish, that’s not how Judaism works, there are Israelis and Palestinians of all and no religion), I recommend reading some actual sources for yourself if you want to know more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Judaism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora

And of course I have to defend myself in advance - despite all of the above, I am not denying that the state of Israel is occupying some lands illegally, and is oppressing and ethnically cleansing Palestine.
Both peoples have a rightful claim to parts of that land (and will, eventually, have to share other parts, or all die trying to be the only ones in control), and all deserve to live peacefully side by side on their homelands.

a functioning government

Tell me you know nothing about Israeli politics without saying you know nothing about Israeli politics (the country is run by a bunch of literal criminals. Do they care about the Palestinians? No. But do they care about the Israelis who aren’t directly related to them, and even then not always? Also no. If someone told you “Israel the only democracy in the middle east” you’d call bullshit, and you’d be right, so don’t pull out a “functioning government” when it’s convenient. they are run by fascists, standing up to those in power is becoming harder and harder, just look at the last few elections and the reactions to protests)

How about they just stay in Israel and quit expanding into other peoples countries?

That’s fine, so how about people say that, instead of shit like “from the river to the sea”?

People making the point you just did are clearly not the one’s I’m talking about, and pretending like no one thinks and says out loud that Jews have no place in the region is basically gaslighting.

That person defined anti-semitism such that significant fraction of Jew are anti-semites by that definition.

and, as a Jewish anti-zionist, I disagreed with them.

But that still doesn’t change the fact that actual antisemites hide behind the excuse of anti-zionism to continue to spread antisemitism. the thread we’re commenting on is a live example of this, and minimising this fact helps the antisemites.

I do think there can be legitimate criticism of Israel and zionism that is not antisemitic (like accepting that Jews deserve a safe place to live on our ancestral land, but also that ethno-states are a bad thing), but I do agree that, especially online almost all anti-zionism comes from an antisemitic place, or at least an ignorant one.

It’s interesting how often people who oppose the existence of Israel (not to be confused with being rightfuly critical of its actions) are the first too make us feel unwelcome and tell Jew who facing antisemitism outside of Israel, that we just need to deal with it (and even expect it, acording to you), and if we don’t like it, we should just leave… But where is it we should be going…?
It’s almost as if what you really want is for Jews to just not exist.

I don’t completely disagree with you about not everyone being brown, but comparing a photo of modern people to those 2000+ years ago is disingenuous. A lot has happened to the gene pool since, not to mention living conditions and skin protection have improved dramatically.

What’s disturbing is that the Israelian government seems to care very little about those hostages.

They don’t care at all, Netanyahu and his right wing cohorts are so concerned with holding on too their seats that they don’t even realise that taking responsibility for this mess and focusing on freeing the hostages would get a lot of the population to back them again (they shouldn’t, but they would), to them conflict = distraction = more time to fund more illegal settlements to make sure another conflict is always coming up, all so they can keep living like kings at the expense of the whole region.

And of course not at the same level, but Hamas leadership aren’t acting in the best interest of their people either, yes, they are reacting to oppression which is understandable, but they’re doing it a way that won’t ever lead to that oppression ending, but only to their population to be decimated (if they had attacked only military targets and power/water supply and transportation routs like destroying roads and railways, they could have shut Israel down, add maybe banks or other financial institutions, and they would have put the Israeli government in a much harder position)

Sorry to link to facebook, but this is a relevant post I saw a few days ago to do with this, in Hebrew, see general idea bellow

https://www.facebook.com/lan2lan.sta2sim/posts/pfbid0sok4nDuSW3tNixKg6Ba9oSZz21t9gKLNTeEarKo6KQrQjHkqYehJRRnEe1uPUbul

Basically the man in the photo speaking too Netanyahu, Shmuel Medad, is one of those who joined the meeting uninvited at the last minute and who wasn’t known to any of the other families. This and other photos from the meeting of parents hugging Netanyahu were not taken by anyone in the original group of families, but have been published as ‘officially’ from the families of the kidnapped and in their name.

Medad is the head of honenu a far right nationalist legal aid organisation.

He is close friends and works with another man, Hagai Ben Artzi.

Hagai Ben Artzi is Sarah Netanyahus’ brother.

And it gets worse, Shmuels’ wife Etti has started a protest camp opposing the existing protest camp already started by the families of the kidnapped, to ‘represent’ the families that are pro-Netanyahu, and shout abuse at the other families that are calling for him to e made accountable.

I wish I could say they at least get money or something, but they’re probably happy just being considered “close to” the PM.

Just to give people an idea of how bad the corruption is at every level and how Netanyahu is only looking out for himself (he’s thrown the entire region in to war to try and cling to power, he does 5 of these ‘mini’ corruptions before breakfast)…

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