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Comment by EdwardDiego | Hacker News Reader

Boycotting Israel gets your company in trouble with various state governments in the US, like no supplying services to the government, and in Arkansas, it gets even more viral in that people you supply services to are forbidden from supplying services to the government.

My RH contract specifically forbade boycotting Israel, I'm sure for those reasons.

And of course, I imagine that Israel has laws about doing business there that look dimly on being boycotted.

It's very very dumb legislation, and I think derives from a very odd facet of belief found in some American Protestant belief systems - that for Jesus to come back, the State of Israel has to exist.

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> It's very very dumb legislation, and I think derives from a very odd facet of belief found in some American Protestant belief systems - that for Jesus to come back, the State of Israel has to exist.

I remember reading Bill Clinton's biography. At some point, he mentioned that a pastor told him something along these lines, and that it was an important realisation for him. (I read that years ago, could be slightly wrong but that was the idea).

I found that extremely disturbing that archaic religious beliefs would influence foreign policies.

That being said, it's well known that our former French president got advised by an astrologer [1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/jun/25/jonhenley.theo...

> I found that extremely disturbing that archaic religious beliefs would influence foreign policies

Why? As a former atheist, I’ve come to the realization that the alternative—at least at scale—to traditional religion isn’t people being hyper rational engineers. It’s different and less well established unprovable and illogical beliefs. Have you read some of the social “science” stuff that gets published? All the “woo” stuff? People believe that stuff and it gets executed into policy. (The reasons for the atheism being former are unrelated to that observation, my point is just that I get where your initial take is coming from.)

The belief that more rational beliefs are possible is not exactly debatable, is it? Certainly, the “woo” stuff you referenced is not the only alternative? That people have to believe in some “religion” and that common “religions” at the current point in history are at peak possible rationality… well, there’s no real reason to believe that, is there?

Sure if s person is willing to completely ignore reality for pie in the sky…

There are at least three different claims here that I'd like to unpack:

1) "If you really have to pick a belief system to put your faith in, you can do much worse than traditional religion." Now, I'm a lifelong atheist, and atheism is one of the few things I never changed my mind on, but I came to the conclusion that this is probably true: at the very least, traditional religion is a stable belief system that won't destroy your life.

2) "A lot of people who aren't traditionally religious, actually follow some random bullshit creed that's much worse than religion." I agree with this, there is a genuine human need religion fulfills and many might want to "fill the void" with subpar alternatives.

3) "If you are an atheist, then you necessarily fall into case (2)." Which is blatantly false, as the existence of millions of perfectly well-adjusted and functioning atheists shows.

To be clear, I’m not asserting that (3) is the case. I’m just saying that as a practical matter it’s a small number and a lot of people that abandon traditional religion fall into your (2).

Believing religious woo doesn't preclude one from believing non-religious woo. If anything, believing religious woo seems correlated with believing non-religious woo: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/07/27/what-dri...

Evidence that such a correlation exists for “white evangelicals” in the US tells us nothing about whether it exists for religious people in general - including religious Americans from other racial/religious backgrounds, and non-Americans. Your observation might not be true for religion at all, only for a very specific type of it

>at the very least, traditional religion is a stable belief system that won't destroy your life.

That might be true in liberal western democracies, but there are many parts of the world where your particular choice of religion may well destroy your life or straight up get you killed, if the people behind the next coup don't share your beliefs. Even in the west you might hinder your own success if you pick a non-majority system.

The idea that religious people don't have bullshit creeds outside their religion is a false one.

Religious people in America act religious on Sunday and like ruthless, immoral "greed is good" capitalists on Monday, flexibly switching ideologies for their convenience.

You're describing someone with a ruthless flexible ideology. A truly religious person would apply the principles of their religion during the week too.

I'd rather the people in charge were patient, thoughtful and rational. But it is interesting to consider that a rational person may, under some circumstances, want irrational leadership.

Easy example at the moment, I think it is obvious from game theory that there are situations where a rational actor in the US would order a nuclear strike on Russia. Under such circumstances, I'd rather the person with the power to do so acted irrationally. Following this line of thought, it is reasonable to support extremely religious people with irrational ideals for high office - as long as what they actually do gets a good outcome. Eg, a strong belief in a higher power might sometimes drive the sort of people who are willing to decentralise executive authority amongst the masses.

Show me a person who is completely ‘rational’ across their entire belief system and maybe we’ll have a conversation - I haven’t seen it and I am surrounded by highly educated, highly rational people, most of whom would profess to be atheist or agnostic.

I believe it’s part of human nature. It’s exhausting being totally rational

I agree that atheists are irrational and biased too. We can't assume politicians to behave as cold calculators, whether they're atheist or not.

However very religious people are dogmatic (almost by definition). As such, they are less likely to review certain positions based on facts.

Why do you think theology protects against woo?

It seems like atheism might be correlated with false beliefs around social studies, but probably anti-correlated around false beliefs like "trump still the election".

I’m not really making a political point. But as a longtime democrat I lived through all the “the Supreme Court stole the election” and “Diebold machines” and “Putin altered vote tallies for Trump” stuff including among highly educated atheists and agnostics. Most people are largely ignorant about stuff they don’t study specifically.

Theology is the original "woo" stuff, that "protects" us from the so called modern woo stuff like gay marriage.

It’s unlikely that taboos against homosexuality arise from “theology,” given that they exist across societies with starkly different religious traditions. I suspect it has more to do with the importance of biological reproduction in subsistence agriculture societies. My dad grew up in a village in Bangladesh and observed that if you didn’t have kids you died, not even when you’re old and can’t work, but even earlier because you need them for labor. When he was a kid, 1 out of 4 children died by age 5, so there wasn’t exactly a surplus to go around.

You repeatedly pass off very peculiar opinions as "obvious facts" with some quasi anecdata from Bangladesh. I understand the advantage of talking about Bangladesh as there are very few Bangladeshis here to contradict you - but you can use this trick only so many times. However, I will credit you with using the words "I suspect" here.

You are welcome to pretend being progressive is believing in "woo stuff" like civil rights, womens suffrage, gay marriage, race blind immigration etc. The fact of the matter is that - you would not be in this country without the "woo stuff" you are ridiculing.

The conservative culture you have adopted doesn't welcome race blind immigration.

Referring to an earlier discussion when you verbally attacked a legal immigrant for documenting his citizenship process

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31348466

>>> As an ethnic Bangladeshi my kids and I have a right of return. I can obtain Bangladeshi citizenship any time I want.

>> Why are you treating America as some kind of science experiment?

> I try not to! My family was invited here by Americans on certain terms, and nobody has ever really complained. But I think they have every right to complain if they wanted.

Just to be clear- your family was not invited here by a majority of Americans. Just a corporation or university on restrictive terms and got approved by the US government, thanks to MLKs efforts.

A majority of Americans would not welcome you here. Half the country- liberals would not welcome you here, because you would block all progressive laws except Loving vs Virginia, and perhaps race blind immigration, though you take strongly offence when legal immigrants open their mouth, as in the referenced thread. So perhaps, you would also roll back the various 1960s civil rights acts. Half of the conservatives would not want you here because of your skin color, or as you call it - "culture".

> You repeatedly pass off very peculiar opinions as "obvious facts" with some quasi anecdata from Bangladesh.

Apart from my views on guns and legal originalism, I have quite conventional opinions for a desi raised on the east coast of the US in the 1990s.

> I understand the advantage of talking about Bangladesh as there are very few Bangladeshis here to contradict you - but you can use this trick only so many times.

I’m sure there are lots of Indians and Pakistanis on HN. I don’t think we’re so different that they wouldn’t be able to contradict me. But even progressive desis have aunts and uncles. And I don’t know about yours but mine aren’t exactly sitting around discussing Judith Butler.

> You are welcome to pretend being progressive is believing in "woo stuff" like civil rights, womens suffrage, gay marriage, race blind immigration etc.

By “woo stuff” I was referring to saging houses and healing crystals and Druid weddings. (My wife’s from Oregon.)

But as to the issues you mention, the vast majority of Americans support those things. Progressives are the small subset of those people who support those things for distinct ideological and millenarian reasons.

> The fact of the matter is that - you would not be in this country without the "woo stuff" you are ridiculing.

You can’t gaslight me, lol. I grew up in a 95% white Virginia town that voted for Bush, Dole, and then Bush again. The precinct where I live went for Trump over Clinton 58-34 (the same year we moved there). A good chunk of my wife’s family is rural white Trump voters.

There is a wellspring of acceptance for immigrants in this country that’s far broader and deeper than progressivism. Its rooted not in critical race theory, but Christianity, Constitutionalism, and the immigrant history of people who are already here.

Indeed, if minorities and immigrants were as reliant on progressives to be our champions as progressives think, we would be screwed. There’s not that many of them and they have no guns!

> The conservative culture you have adopted doesn't welcome race blind immigration.

The conservative culture my entire family comes from believes in that way less than anywhere in South Georgia or Iowa that I’ve been.

> Just a corporation or university on restrictive terms and got approved by the US government, thanks to MLKs efforts.

I’ve never met a desi (who wasn’t put on TV by white people, anyway) who thinks MLK has anything to do with immigrants. It’s a completely different issue. Much of my family moved to Australia or Canada, which never had a US style civil rights movement. But those countries are also very welcoming of immigrants.

> As a former atheist

Mind if I ask what your path was? I called myself an agnostic starting at about age 12 (and was a doubter from age 5), but eventually worked my way around to concluding that something was going on.

Some of my musings on that subject:

- https://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/06/metanarratives_...

- https://www.questioningchristian.com/2005/05/why_i_call_myse...

These are interesting reads, thank you. I was a professed atheist until my mid 20s, but I’m not sure I ever fully believed my lack of belief. Then when I had kids the feeling became kind of undeniable. Separately, I had I come to admire Christianity. Coming from a part of the world with generational conflict I think the teaching to live like a lamb turn the other cheek is profound. Secular morality diverges quite a bit on that point.

EDIT: There is a lot of stuff in the second one that applies to me. My wife’s faith is very strong. I’m not sure whether I adapted to her beliefs, or as someone raised in an extremely secular setting she made me comfortable allowing myself to believe things that I already felt.

So if your kid turned up one day and said they wanted to convert to Islam, what would be your reaction?

It's not founded on archaic religious belief. Israel is a major ally of the U.S. They are integral part of any foreign policy the US embraces.

The US is a major ally of Israel. Israel is the ultimate pragmatic nation.

Israel is the ultimate pragmatic nation? You mean the religious police state that has illegal nuclear weapons and did its best to provoke an apocalyptic conflict between the US and Iran?

The apartheid state that is dominated by far right extremist that are still living by a 19th century colonialist doctrine?

I didn't use pragmatics as a compliment.

Pretty funny to call Israel an major ally of the US. Because most of the problems the US has in that part of the world are because of that alliance in the first place.

Not mention Israels extremely damaging influence on US domestic politics. Israel working together with Neocons to push the US into some of the worst foreign policy choices since Vietnam. And that's just one aspect of the problem. The list goes on and on.

If Israel is a major ally, then I think the US would be much better of with fewer allies.

> I found that extremely disturbing that archaic religious beliefs would influence foreign policies.

Ahem.

> In the winter of 2003, when George Bush and Tony Blair were frantically gathering support for their planned invasion, Professor Thomas Römer, an Old Testament expert at the university of Lausanne, was rung up by the Protestant Federation of France. [..] President Jacques Chirac wanted to know what the hell President Bush had been on about in their last conversation. Bush had then said that when he looked at the Middle East, he saw "Gog and Magog at work" and the biblical prophecies unfolding. But who the hell were Gog and Magog? Neither Chirac nor his office had any idea. But they knew Bush was an evangelical Christian, so they asked the French Federation of Protestants, who in turn asked Professor Römer. [..] He explained that Gog and Magog were, to use theological jargon, crazy talk. They appear twice in the Old Testament, once as a name, and once in a truly strange prophecy in the book of Ezekiel

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/a...

> That being said, it's well known that our former French president got advised by an astrologer [1]

Former, former, former, former president Mitterand, not president Hollande.

This guardian article is demonstrable nonsense. Professor Römer is either ignorant, or is intentionally gaslighting Bush.

Gog and Magog are well-known figures mentioned in both the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. Playing dumb because it's not also in the Old Testament is not a good look for someone who's supposedly an expert.

This article is a silly hit piece written to fool people who are totally ignorant of religious history.

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

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yajuj-and-Majuj

> This guardian article is demonstrable nonsense. Professor Römer is either ignorant, or is intentionally gaslighting Bush.

Surely you meant gaslighting Chirac ? (which I disagree with, anyway).

> Gog and Magog are well-known figures mentioned in both the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. Playing dumb because it's not also in the Old Testament is not a good look for someone who's supposedly an expert.

Good thing he's an old testament expert and not a Hebrew bible or quran one then. You think Bush was referring to the Gog and Magog from the Hebrew bible or from the Quran or from the old testament ? Should have called an Hebrew or an Islam expert instead of an protestand Old Testament expert ?

Here's a different report of how things happened: https://wp.unil.ch/allezsavoir/george-bush-et-le-code-ezechi... and that might shed a light on why you think Gog and Magog is not as well known in France as you seem to think they are.

It's simply not possible to be an expert on the Old Testament and to be that unaware of the context from which it was derived. Especially as they are also mentioned in the parts that made it into the Old Testament.

Imagine claiming to be a LOTR expert and then feigning ignorance as to the events that took place in the Hobbit!

I'm not religious or even particularly interested and even I am aware of this history. Ridiculous.

I don't understand your point. How do you reach the conclusion that Professor Römer doesn't know about Gog and Magog ? Or that he doesn't know about the multiple interpretations of who or what they may have been ?

I'm not saying Bush didn't say that because I don't know, I can believe it. But it seems odd because 1) Gog and Magog are a somewhat well know part of Islamic eschatology, and 2) I pretty sure Google existed at that point in time, but without it I am sure his staff had access to dictionaries and encyclopedias which would have led them to 3) Encyclopedia or web entries on Darbyism or Dispensationalism, easily answering their questions.

France's Ministry of Foreign affairs isn't advising the President on things like this, they don't have subject matter experts? Forgive me, maybe I give governments too much credit or, but seems like an odd article.

I'd be very worried if international diplomacy fell down to a cabinet member who happened to be well versed in Islamic eschatology or worse, that cabinet members would rely on dictionaries or Wikipedia to understand words or cultural references they don't know.

Calling an expert was the right call.

> France's Ministry of Foreign affairs isn't advising the President on things like this, they don't have subject matter experts?

Seems pretty obvious to me that they wouldn't have experts on every subjects, especially on things like that.

> I'm not saying Bush didn't say that because I don't know, I can believe it. [..] Forgive me, maybe I give governments too much credit or, but seems like an odd article.

There's healthy skepticism and there's something else.

I would imagine President Bush was referring to the prophecy in Revelations 20:7-9. Basically in this case, it means nations who are an enemy to the people of God... not so much crazy talk imho, considering that nations really like to fight each other these days.

I'd say it's crazy talk when you are using that as an argument (among others, of course) to convince a french president (whose country has a clearer separation between state and church than the US) to go to war.

That's fairer.

I grew up in an Evangelical church and I attend a Protestant church now (although not American) and the only place I've ever heard people claim that my fellow congregants believe that about Israel is online from people outside the church.

I'm sure you'll be able to find _someone_ who believes it, but it is so weird to see people claiming something as a fact about your church that you've never encountered in nearly 40 years. What's infinitely more likely is that Christians feel a certain affinity towards Israel due to a shared Judeo-Christian heritage.

Whilst I've definitely got the impression, that _most_ people think of it as a shared heritage, I have now and then had a few people quoting the same prophecy from Zechariah as their reasoning.

> And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it - Zechariah 12:3

The (mis-)interpretation being that for the return of God to occur, the existence of Jerusalem is a pre-requisite. It can't disappear, again. So for that to happen, we should protect Israel, who will protect the city. We should especially protect them because the world will gather against them.

The logic has some major flaws to it, and can be easily worked around, but I've heard it a few times.

Possibly closer to the mark in terms of scripture is Ezekiel 38, which specifies that the Jews are to have returned/gathered from exile/dispersion and be living in peace ("unwalled cities") before an invasion/looting from the north. Of course, it only specifies the movement of peoples, not the political configuration of the land.

The same groups of people tend to apply that one to the Yom Kippur war, and treat it as already fulfilled. The thing about Jerusalem having to remain as a heavy stone is more what inspires them to defend it.

> for the return of God to occur, the existence of Jerusalem is a pre-requisite.

isn't it amusing how humans think their deity isn't powerful enough so they have to make things possible for him?

This is less a case of "powerful enough" and more that Christianity upholds that God is changeable, and expects people to _act_ and not merely trust that he will do everything for him. (Certain prosperity sects excluded.)

There are several times when significant figures such as Moses, David, Jeremiah, and so on, negotiate a new outcome with their God. There are also other times that their God refuses to act, because the faithless have fallen away.

They "wandered around in the desert", a rather small patch of desert, mind you, because of a lack of faith. The 40-ish years in the desert, to age out those who failed in their duty, rather than to enter into their "Promised Land". Moses was also forbidden from entering Cana'an, because he tried to act on his own, instead of in tandem with his god.

It's much more likely it just wasn't something you encountered in your practice and not that reliable sources analyzing American political and financial support for Israel all happen to make up the part Evangelical Americans play. A quick search for e.g lobbying for Israel in the United States brings up credible sources.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo77sTGpngQ

If you seek to 6 min 5 seconds, the narrator describes an Evangelical pastor by the name of Urban Baxter whose End Time ministry leads a tour to Israel twice a year. The pastor then explains to his tour group / congregation the significance of Armageddon in relation to the current location of the tour group, Megiddo.

> What's infinitely more likely is that Christians feel a certain affinity towards Israel due to a shared Judeo-Christian heritage.

What's really infinitely more likely is that israel and usa share some common enemies, and usa doesn't really have all that many geopolitical allies in the region to chose from. I don't know why everyone reaches for weird religious conspiracies when the obvious geopolitical explanation will do.

Maybe it's because that the religion is one of the most important factors which formed these alliances and adversaries throughout the history.

Without these cultural and religious layers, what remains is same for everyone. A human body.

Sure, you are correct.

But that also means Jews/Christians have a very rocky road together. Technically, "Christians" performed the Holocaust, for starters.

It begs a question - when you add in Islam, why do Christians and Jews suddenly become political allies?

Because radical Islamists attack Christians and Jews equally. Actually they attack everyone that isn't a radical Islamist, including an awful lot of Muslims. In fact the vast majority of the victims of Islamist violence are other Muslims.

It's important to note that we throw around terms like The Muslims as though all Muslims and Christians, etc have the same beliefs and agenda, and that's clearly not the case.

Today's mainstream religion is something entirely different from yesteryear. I'm a Muslim, who has good friends who have faith in any and almost every religion (excl. extremists).

The subject is completely invisible to us except when we discuss interesting parts of the religions we believe.

I for one believe that religion is an ethics and conscience system, and when practiced correctly, all of them points to the same direction, albeit with different narratives and paths.

> when you add in Islam, why do Christians and Jews suddenly become political allies?

Goes back to the Crusades, the Islamic invasion of Europe and the fall of Constantinople

It’s not like Christianity embraced Jews either, but they did not present an existential threat

These are state laws. Alabama, for example, does not share enemies with Israel nor is it involved in any geopolitics. So it's extremely unusual to have such laws even in one state and in this case there are dozens of such states. Do you know of any other state laws concerning other US allies, say KSA?

The reality of course is that being so strongly interlinked with Israel is one of the major reasons why everybody in the region hates them. The Israel alliance is geopolitically harmful to the US.

12 years of Private christian schools.

It still shocks me how people that know nothing are the ones that define what Christian’s believe / behave.

I believe your personal experience. Anecdotes are not data, though.

> > odd facet of belief found in some American Protestant belief systems - that for Jesus to come back, the State of Israel has to exist

This seems to be overwhelmingly true[1].

> "...80% of the surveyed evangelicals believe that the modern rebirth of Israel and the return of millions of Jews to that land are a fulfillment of Bible prophecy and show 'we are getting closer to the return of Jesus Christ.'[1]

> more likely is that Christians feel a certain affinity towards Israel due to a shared Judeo-Christian heritage

This wouldn't really explain it.

Muslims also have a Judeo-Christian heritage (and even believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah), and there's no reason to believe the historical parts of Israel would be different if they were under Muslim control. After all, the Palestinians living there prior to Israel's formation preserved all that stuff for hundreds of years.

1. https://www.npr.org/2019/08/25/753720351/as-u-s-jews-cool-to...

Whoa, I strongly disagree with this.

As someone who attended an evangelical, fundamentalist Baptist church as a child (Hyles Anderson), it is very much their view as well as larger groups like Independent and Southern Baptists (the largest Protestant denomination in the United States) that the existence of the nation of Israel and support for it is a precursor for the second coming of Jesus and the fulfillment of Gods plan.

Additionally, “Christian Zionism” is embraced by Christians in Australia and Western Europe as well.

There are academic sources for this everywhere, but feel free to watch their sermons on YouTube too:

[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-religio...

[2] https://www.brandeis.edu/israel-center/news/newsletter-5-rob...

> What's infinitely more likely is that Christians feel a certain affinity towards Israel due to a shared Judeo-Christian heritage.

Up until they actually travel to the Holy Land to see 1) that the Christians there are either of European descend, or Palestinians (there are very few Christians of Israeli descend), 2) how Palestinians are treated by the State of Israel.

This is kinda eye-opening. You imagine that there is some "shared Judeo-Christian heritage", but after seeing this firsthand you associate the Land more with barbed wire than with Jesus.

Source: been there, seen that.

There is a lot of diversity between churches so I'm not surprised you did not see this while others did. I grew up in the in a Pentecostal cult in the 90s and very much covered revelations, second coming/endtimes, Israel as part of the sermons and randomly speaking in tongues - the best I can describe it is batshit insane (we are talking computer chips as the mark of the beast in the future, single currency, russia as the beast out of the sea, nuclear war coming, lots of death and beheading) However my grandfather in a northeast baptist church which I occasionally went to was very tame and I never saw any of this. Had I exclusively gone to the baptist church I may very well have stuck around in the church.

I grew up in pentecostal churches in the 90s as well and can confirm that what you're stating here isn't hyperbole. Everything is a sign of the end times if you want it to be.

> What's infinitely more likely is that Christians feel a certain affinity towards Israel due to a shared Judeo-Christian heritage.

I don't think historically this makes any sense at all. It's normally just a thing used by right wing politicians to say that muslims are not ok.

> Boycotting Israel

There are legal ways of firing an employee if the employee does something illegal. Bullying is not one of them. And that is my point, people insists that "Google has reasons" that does not justify to commit a crime.

Its unconstitutional and needs to be challenged on a state by state level. In Georgia the state was sued because Abby Martin (a famous critic of Israel) was barred from speaking at a University unless she signed a pledge not to boycott. The state lost but basically changed the law to raise the monetary amount that would trigger the requirement. All these BS laws were pushed quietly by local groups and now it is a uphill battle to challenge them and get them removed. I wish your organization would challenge the law instead of just letting this wrong continue to erode what little freedoms we have left.

Same thing is happening in the culture wars. The nutjobs are slowly getting elected onto school boards and other local positions so they can start adding prayer/ban civil rights related content/remove any references to CRT.

Orthodox Jew would disagree with you considering that there has been a civil war between mandatory IDF service and the orthodox Jews in Israel stating that religion and Zionism are opposites and not the same.

Israel deserves to exist as much as any other country

It absolutely does. It doesn't deserve to deny the existence of another country, Palestine, though.

Good thing that it doesn't. Palestine became a country with thanks to Israel and Oslo Accords for the first time in history.

Cant they just stop killing each other?

I dont believe in made up books saying "this is your promised land"

I also dont believe in madeup books saying ",kill jews"

Just stop landgrabbing and/or killing each other jeez.

Defending Israel is such an NPC mentality, theres no good guys in that war they both commit atrocities.

That’s a big ask. How disproportionate do you think the US response would be to people launching rockets into our country? My guess is that we would kill the majority of them. I don’t think it’s fair to ask Israel to sit on their hands while they are attacked.

If Native Americans being put into reservations against their will, being evicted from their homes, being treated as second class people, were launching rockets at US civilians, the US would retaliate, sure. But both parties would be in the wrong, same as Israel/Palestine.

> being evicted from their homes

Just FYI, most of evictions Israel is doing are against jewish settlers, not arabs.

> Just stop landgrabbing and/or killing each other jeez.

Both sides think the land belongs to them as both sides inhabited the same land for hundreds* of years. Which side is doing the grabbing then turns into a judgement call.

* - Going by Wikipedia, Muslims Arabs since ~600CE and some form of Israelis since ~1200BCE.

Ethnically they’re the same group of Semitic peoples that have lived in Canaanite land since the late Neolithic

Can you show some data on that? Because a huge amount of the people there are from Western and Central Europe or the former Soviet Union. Those people might have some traces ethnically with people who were still there, but they lived away from there for almost 2000 years.

The best example are the Mizrahi, who never left Palestine.

The Israelites go back to the Bronze Age. They are from a couple of Semitic cities in the Canaanite levant. The same group that spawned phonecians and a bunch of other Mediterranean peoples who colonized much of northern africa and Southern Europe in addition to Anatolia

I certainty don't deny (as some people do) that there were no Jews anymore in Ottoman Palestine.

Then are you saying that if Israel displaces all of the currently present Palestinians and then holds on to the land for 1400-2000 years, they become the rightful owners of that land?

Yes. If in 4000 a bunch of Palestinians show up that used to live in China and start murdering and oppressing people because of what happened to their ancestors I would be against it.

Specially when essentially all of these Palestinians that lived in China had no intention or interest in ever going back to Palestine.

And then one day a dude shows up, and says, "Hey one could argue based on some not very historical evidence that X place is our homeland, so lets just go there and steal that land".

Just as if a bunch of British people had colonized East Africa with the idea of reconquering their homeland.

Both sides inhabited the land for hundreds of years is a nice principle.

The reality is that before the EXPLICITLY colonialist movement of Zionism, there was a small Jewish community there. A small amount of people compared to the overwhelmingly Muslim population.

The waste majority of current population has immigrated from Europe and the Soviet Union.

And of course because the Zionists know that they enacted a law that states that basically everybody who is even vaguely Jewish is free to live there and a lot of them are then settled in the West Bank.

At the same time the countless Muslims who actually lived there, in 1948 and their kids have no rights to return at all.

So according to the current Israeli law, a person who has hasn't grown up Jewish but has Jewish grand parent has a right to live their, but the children of the people displaced in 1948 don't.

Most of the developed world doesn't recognize Palestine.

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

If by most of the developed world you mean western colonists, then no shit

That's a nice fiction to hold on to. The reality is that the West Bank is cut up into zones, its more like a lot of islands with some limited self governments (that are dominated and corrupted by Israel) with Israel controlling all internal travel and Israel is constantly taking more of the land step by step for 40 years.

If its a country, then its boarders are being moved step by step every year.

So it not really a country in any sense other then by a few people who want to claim Israel is not an apartheid state.

Many will argue that settler-colonialist state based on religion does not have automatic right to exist similar to how white Rhodesia or apartheid South Africa (which used to be big friend of Israel) did not have right to exist and do not exist anymore.

What is also true is that jewish, muslim, christian and atheist/other religions living in current territory of Israel and Palestine have right to peacefully live in future state that treat all people equally. With Israeli settlements we are way pass the point of two state solution.

> settler-colonialist state based on religion

Are you referring to Jewish colonialists coming to British ruled Palestine in the early 20th century, Muslim colonialists conquering Byzantine ruled Palestina in the early 7th century, Roman colonialists that exiled Jews and renamed the area Palestina in the early 2nd century after previous conquest, Greeks, Persians, Babylonians, Assyrians or Egyptians?

Or maybe how according to the bible the Israelites conquered the area from the native Canaanites? (Which at least according to Wikipedia is a myth and they actually are those Canaanites)

> With Israeli settlements we are way pass the point of two state solution.

Sadly, English Wikipedia has very little information on the peace agreement that was almost signed at the time of the Annapolis Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapolis_Conference compared to the Hebrew entry on the peace talks themselves https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%97%D7%95%D7%AA... Those talks outline the (pretty obvious) path to pece via territory exchange and the fact they were very close to being signed show to me that maybe common ground can be found again.

My personal hope is that the more unreasonable settlements will just be exchanged away and thus won't pose a serious barrier to peace. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic.

To inject some pessimism, I also don't see how a peace agreement can be signed with Hammas and the PIJ in control as in my mind a peace agreement will probably cause them to implode.

Well we can't do much about what the Romans did. Muslim empires conquered Palestine in the 7th century yes, but they didn't widely displace the population. And even in the case of the roman, there was a large diaspora within the roman empire at the time, but not really a whole lot of systematic population replacment.

The colonists movement called Zionism (that is historically closely interlinked with other colonialist movement and has been ever since) that started after WW1 and hit its peak after WW2 and in 1948 quite clearly and explicitly have the goal of whole sale population replacement of the whole region.

The dominate right wing parties plans as far as we can tell is to import as many 'Jewish' people as they can and hope to decrease the amount of people in the West Bank and Gaza. They have pretty clear and deliberate strategy of long term ethnic cleanings, converting land that they agree in theory was gone be Palestinian and settling Israeli citizens on.

If there were Muslim empires from Persia invading Palestine still today, we should fight against that as well but that is long gone. However Israeli colonialism is still fully active and pushing forward literally every day.

As many people have already noted, Israel has practically made a two state solution impossible. The West Bank has been so carved up and systematically been destroyed as a viable state territory that its really can no longer function as such.

The Annapolis Conference was not close to solving anything, it was just another attempt at pressuring Palestinians to politically give more concessions. Bush and his Neo-Con allies had absolute no interest what so ever in a real Palestinian state. In fact Bush did nothing to prevent massive expansion of settlements during his terms and his presidency ended any series possibility of a real 2 state solution.

Zionism started way before WWI

I understand that but not until WW1 was it really in-acted at any kind of scale.

No, but the initial steps were the hardest, they started the ball rolling. It was the initial early steps showed that the Zionist project in Palestine was viable. Then around WWI jews and arabs started to flock to Palestine.

The Israelites are from a couple of the Canaanite cities. They conquered their neighbors who were also canaanites. Many of the cities focused worship on different gods in the Canaanite pantheon. The Israelites had gone to the extreme of denying all deities who weren’t the one they worshiped.

countries are weird things. crafted out of contest, power, emphasis (and cultivation) of differences between groups of people, etc.

The boycotts are not to destroy Israel as a country but to stop Israel colonialism and its virtual imprisonment of millions of people in Gaza plus its systematic exploitation and imprisonment of people in the West Bank.

Protestants and the Israeli lobby have always had a very symbiotic relationship.

> that for Jesus to come back, the State of Israel has to exist.

Imagine thinking that humanity has the power to influence the actions of G_d

Oooh, then you’d see the actions of the opposition as influenced by the devil

A cycle of hate, mind-blown

> odd facet of belief found in some American Protestant belief systems - that for Jesus to come back, the State of Israel has to exist.

Nothing 'odd' here, if one subscribes to the notion that Revelation (the last book of the Bible) is predictive.

The idea was popularized in the 1970s by Hal Lindsey[1] whose 'The Late Great Planet Earth'[2] is amusuingly not for sale ate [1].

I guess that Lindsey was a better book peddler than prophet.

[1] https://www.hallindsey.com/

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Late_Great_Planet_Earth

Israel exists because Israel as a nation state is a tiny ally-island in a sea of enemy-aggressors.

Why do you think so many politicians, that claim atheism, are still in favor of our alliance with Israel?

We need them there.

This claim is always so baffling to me. The strong relationship with Israel has only hurt the US.

In fact the best choice regarding Israel that the US has ever made is telling the Israeli and the British to stop being colonialist asshats in 1954.

The Israel relationship is the source of far more problems then it solves anything for the US in the middle east.

> sea of enemy-aggressors.

The amount of Israeli invasion of the nations around it, plus the constant bombing and invading of their airspace plus the constant assassinations and support for rebellions in those countries would question who the aggressor is.

Not to mention the constant and systematic reduction in the land that based on earlier agreements should belong to Palestinians.

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