Comment by cs137 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cs137 | Hacker News Reader

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No. In fact, most Jews I know are intensely critical of Israel's policies and recent actions.

Unfortunately, there is a degree to which antisemitism is disguised behind disproportionate criticism of Israel and the Israeli people, and it's impossible to know, at an individual level, why people hold their opinions.

Does Israel's government do awful things for questionable reasons (like most, if not all, national governments)? Yes. Is Israel the worst government in the Middle East? Far from it. To be honest, it's probably the least repressive, racist, or otherwise obnoxious government in the region (that's not setting a high bar). Israeli Arabs (especially women) have more freedoms in Israel than they would in any of the neighboring countries. Should Israel do better? Of course. It's absurd, though, that there's such a strong interest in BDS while the continuing consumption of Saudi oil goes unquestioned by most.

Also: why is it that the behavior of Israel's government comes up in a discussion about memorializing people who were murdered before the state of Israel even existed? I have Irish (American) ancestry, but no one has ever asked me to answer for the Irish government (or connected me to it in any way, seeing as my Irish ancestors came over in the early 19th century). It's deeply weird that some people are so quick to connect anything having to do with Jews or Judaism with the conduct of one government in particular, which is thousands of miles away from where many Jews live.

Agree with most of your post, but did want to point out one thing:

>[...] most Jews I know are intensely critical of Israel's policies and recent actions.

While that certainly might be true wherever you live, note that the majority of the world's Jewish population lives in Israel, and at least some fairly large portion of that population does support Israel's policies and recent actions. (I assume we're talking about the same things here, i.e. actions with regards to Palestinians, as opposed to all the other stuff happening in the country.)

The plurality of the Jewish population is believed to be in the US (there are some issues around estimation) although it's close.

As for Israelis and support for their government, that is... complicated. Unfortunately, if the Israeli state didn't exist, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Jewish people in the region would likely be murdered by people from neighboring countries. This isn't because Arabs are "innately" warlike or antisemitic (I don't think that's true) but because the states in the region are deeply corrupt, failing states that will (as Russia has done) create an external enemy and launch a war to distract their own people from domestic issues.

The Israeli state is deeply problematic, corrupted by capitalism and some amount of racism (as almost all Western states are). It also has a job that is tough as hell: protecting a vulnerable minority group from millions who would murder them. The middle-of-the-road Israeli understands the need to protect themselves, but isn't a huge fan of the settlements (if he thinks about them at all) and certainly would love to see peace in the region.

> if the Israeli state didn't exist, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Jewish people in the region would likely be murdered by people from neighboring countries. This isn't because Arabs are "innately" warlike or antisemitic (I don't think that's true) but because the states in the region are deeply corrupt

Are you sure? I mean, it's a well-established principle of international relations that the people of a country get to decide what happens to it - this is why the Germans were expelled from Europe after the war.

My understanding is that the Israelis had to remove some people to make way for their state - doesn't this apply to the Palestinians too, if they want their land back? Or am I missing something, did they leave voluntarily because of dissatisfaction with the government etc?

Genuine question, just asking.

> My understanding is that the Israelis had to remove some people to make way for their state - doesn't this apply to the Palestinians too, if they want their land back? Or am I missing something, did they leave voluntarily because of dissatisfaction with the government etc?

Your understanding isn't exactly in line with the history, at least from my Jewish-Israeli perspective. In general, It's a complicated question, over which literal wars have been fought.

I'll try to give a version of events as I understand them. This came out fairly long, sorry.

There were Jews living in Israel originally, who were displaced and moved to other countries about 2000 years ago. There was a Jewish presence in that land from then on, but it was relatively small, though Jews worldwide theoretically yearned to return to Israel.

Beginning in the 1800s and up to the founding of Israel, there was a large movement of Jews to return back to their original land, and Jews started migrating into Palestine. This was afaik completely legal - the land was first ruled by the Ottomans, then the British, and the Jews who moved there bought the land and developed it (it was not a very developed land before then). The British at some point promised the Jews that they would give them that land to build a country on, kind of - it was a vague promise. Then the British decided to hand the land over to the UN.

After the Holocaust, there was a lot of pressure for the Jews to get their own country. The UN came up with a plan to divide Israel up into two countries, one part for the Arabs (Palestinians) and one part for the Jews, with Jerusalem split. The Jews accepted this - the Palestinians rejected it. Then, various Arab countries launched a war on the newly-formed Israel, which had to defend itself.

Most of the Arab population fled from Israel - I think it was partly because leaders of the various Arab countries told them to flee the fighting and let them conquer Israel back, and partly because of fear and of actual Israeli actions against them. How much each part of this is part of the reason the Arabs fled is kind of contested, I believe.

Israel (somewhat surprisingly) managed to win the war, and ended up with most of the land that was promised to both sides, which it kept. The Arabs that had remained in Israel instead of fleeing became Israeli citizens. The Arabs that fled became refugees of various countries. This was the situation until about the 1960s.

In 1960, there was another war between the Arab countries and Israel (Israelis generally consider this a war against Israel, cause Israel realized it would be attacked imminently and struck first. I think this is disputed though.) As part of that war, Israel managed to capture territories from other countries, including what is today the land of Palestine (the Gaza strip and the West Bank.) This land had all those refugees still living on it from the war in 1948. This is today's Palestinian population.

Israel gave back part of the land it captured (The Sinai), as part of a peace agreement with Egypt. The Palestinian population continues to live on in the lands Israel captured. Since they were never granted citizenship in any country (not the original countries that owned the territories, and not Israel,) they are still refugees.

That is kind of where the situation is today.

Ah, thanks for the explanation. But isn't this more or less what I describe still, other than people leaving on their own rather than being forced out?

Like, without going into too tricky political discussions, it seems like being physically present on the land gives you some form of title to it. And if the Palestinians/Arabs hadn't left, it would be much more difficult to run the Israeli state. They would have the right to vote, and so they might've voted e.g. against the Hebrew language or for autonomy.

Likewise, if Israel ended up collapsing somehow and Palestine taking over, then they would presumably realize that, well, the sooner these people are not here anymore, the less of a claim to an Israeli state can there possibly be.

If so, I don't see what it has to do with corruption, because it's just a basic fact of countries - one guy has to win and the other one thus loses, and it's a zero-sum game.

The way I see it, even if all of these countries were run like Switzerland, everyone involved would still quickly understand it's very definitively in their material interests to manage the other guys as quick as possible.

What's the way out of this conundrum?

> But isn't this more or less what I describe still, other than people leaving on their own rather than being forced out?

There's a pretty big difference between people being forced out of their home, and people rejecting a plan given by the UN, then starting a war instead. It's not exactly the same people, which makes this somewhat complicated, but some portion of the Arab-Israeli population left at the urging of those countries on the promise that they would wage war and give them all the land instead of just part of it.

> Like, without going into too tricky political discussions, it seems like being physically present on the land gives you some form of title to it.

Again, some (most? all?) of the land that the Jews settled in between the late 1800s and modern Israel, was purchased or given legally. That gives you title to it, at least in the modern world.

> And if the Palestinians/Arabs hadn't left, it would be much more difficult to run the Israeli state.

Arabs make up 20% of the citizenship of Israel today. And yes, this is "problematic".

There's a large question about what sovereignity means in this kind of context. Does it make sense to have a "Jewish" state? How can that be democratic? You can't restrict existing citizens, even if they are non-Jewish, but then how do you maintain it as a homeland for Jews? These are tough questions that I don't think anyone can really answer.

> If so, I don't see what it has to do with corruption, because it's just a basic fact of countries - one guy has to win and the other one thus loses, and it's a zero-sum game.

Many things in life are not zero-sum. But yes, if two different ethnic groups want the same piece of land, and feel they are entitled to it, one of them is going to "lose" in that sense.

> What's the way out of this conundrum?

There isn't really a good way out, not without the Palestinians making in their eyes major concessions. (Though note that Israel has attempted to make plans that made major concessions from their pov, and the Palestinians rejected all these offers.)

The only solution I personally think makes any sense is a two-state solution, whereby the Palestinians get their own state on the existing land, plus possibly some part of Jerusalem (though this is a political non-starter today in Israel.)

But I don't really see this happening. Palestinians don't love this deal (for obvious reasons.) Israel, on the other hand, is the stronger party which means it probably benefits from the existing status-quo, so has no reason to rock the boat right now. And for leaders on both sides, it's possibly better to keep the fighting going.

So really, I don't see anyone with any big incentive to change any of the current situation.

Total aside, but I've not seen this use of the word "plurality" before - I'm reading it here as a synonym for "majority", which might be wrong of me! Is it colloquial to a certain group of English language speakers?

Plurality means the largest but non-majority group.

> The plurality of the Jewish population is believed to be in the US (there are some issues around estimation) although it's close.

It's definitely close, but Wiki still gives it to Israel right now (at least here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country#D...)

> Unfortunately, if the Israeli state didn't exist, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Jewish people in the region would likely be murdered by people from neighboring countries. This isn't because Arabs are "innately" warlike or antisemitic (I don't think that's true) but because the states in the region are deeply corrupt, failing states [...]

I tend to agree that that is what would happen, but I think the neighboring countries have at least a somewhat legitimate beef with Israel and its actions. It's largely promoted by leadership for reasons like you stated, but it is still true that lots of Arab (and Muslim) people think that Israel did something wrong. I mostly don't agree with their POV, but it has a legitimate basis. (And my disagreement is at least partly by saying "yeah, almost every country has a... problematic history, you can't just forever be at war with it for that".)

> The Israeli state is deeply problematic, corrupted by capitalism and some amount of racism (as almost all Western states are). It also has a job that is tough as hell: protecting a vulnerable minority group from millions who would murder them. The middle-of-the-road Israeli understands the need to protect themselves, but isn't a huge fan of the settlements (if he thinks about them at all) and certainly would love to see peace in the region.

I wish that were true about the median (Jewish) Israeli. I don't know if that's right. For sure it's less a topic of conversation inside Israel than it is outside of it, so I agree with the idea that most Israelis don't think about it too much.

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