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Comment by handy2000 | Hacker News Reader

handy2000

There are many reasons for this, one of the key reasons being less insidious than you imply. Americans see Israelis as people with the same "western" values, same cultural and ethical norms. Most Americans are not shocked by tribal violence in Yemen (as despicable as it is by general humanistic standards), but can relate and identify with Israelis both experiencing violence and inflicting it.

I agree with you that we need to always provide clear context for what is happening in this specific situation, not rush to judgment and not to be as reactive in general. Israelis are defending themselves, Hamas is clearly using their own people as human shields. Saying that, Israel does have other options in this war, options that would reduce the civilian death count (e.g. allowing women and children leave Gaza for Israel, even at the cost of an increased terrorist activity).

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Worth noting how treacherous is the American assumption that Israelis are just geographically displaced westerners, since a plurality of Israeli Jewish trace their origins to West Asian and North African states.

I don't necessarily see how this is treacherous. Most Israelis, at least at and around the time of founding the state of Israel, were European immigrants. Some of the founders of Israel weren't even religious. Of course, it's safe to assume that at least practicing Jews carried over some traditions and, perhaps, values from their non-western origin, but it's not like fifth generation Polish Jews were in all respects non-westerners by the time they moved to Israel.

Once again: a plurality of Israeli Jewish people are not in fact European, but were instead forcibly expelled from Tunisia, Yemen, Morocco, Egypt, Iraq, etc. The west's persistent belief that Israelis are culturally just like them, and see the world in the same terms, is problematic and not just a little bit racist. Moreover, there's a particularly disquieting subtext that Jewish people could be expelled from the Levant and a just status quo ante restored to the region; that outcome would probably amount to a genocide of the Mizrahim. See also: "decolonization".

It also helps to understand that the "browner" an Israeli citizen is, the less likely they are to agree with liberals like me in the west about Israel's policies towards Palestinians. Israeli citizens of middle eastern ethnic origin are much more conservative than those of European origin.

I see, thanks for clarifying.

I believe they are a majority now.

> the less likely they are to agree with liberals like me in the west about Israel's policies towards Palestinians

Not quite true? From what I read, any solidarity with the Palestinians is considered treacherous.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=JQS-_9K5-Dk&t=592

> ...more conservative than those of European origin

Speak about racism and decolonization, immediately followed by this? The capitalists funding settlements and displacements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, or the Kahanists & JDL aren't necessarily only Mizrahi or only Ashkenazi.

I mostly agree with your extra added context. But a significant part of Israel does see itself as "Western". It's true that there are also 20% Arab citizens of Israel (some of whom also consider themselves "Western", but not all) and I think around 20% religious Jews (again, some would consider themselves "Western" but not all).

I don't think it's a stretch to consider big parts of Israel as very similar culturally to the US.

> Moreover, there's a particularly disquieting subtext that Jewish people could be expelled from the Levant and a just status quo ante restored to the region; that outcome would probably amount to a genocide of the Mizrahim. See also: "decolonization".

Also a genocide of the Ashkenazim. While certainly some have dual-passports and some legal claim to "go back" to Western countries (but not all by a long shot!), we're talking 2nd/3rd/4th generation people in many cases. Forcing people to go to countries they have no connection to, which people fled in many cases because of the Holocaust, would be itself an act of ethnic cleansing. Which already happened to the grandparents of many of these people.

> It also helps to understand that the "browner" an Israeli citizen is, the less likely they are to agree with liberals like me in the west about Israel's policies towards Palestinians. Israeli citizens of middle eastern ethnic origin are much more conservative than those of European origin.

True. Though right about now, almost everyone in Israel has moved "rightward" in their views, I believe, and unlike the response in the West, the Israeli public is very sure that the only thing to do that makes sense is to destroy Hamas, somehow. (The "somehow" is an important differntiator between different value systems - some people worry more about Palestinian civilians, and some, regrettably in my mind, worry less.)

Jews from the Middle East, too, are often seen as Westerners of a sort, because European colonialism treated e.g. Algerian and Iraqi Jews as intermediate between Europeans and other local populations. They were accorded privileges and often merged into European society. Look at the Sassoon family of Iraq as one striking 19th-century case.

I suppose it is similar to how educated Ismaili Muslims are viewed as Western-adjacent, because their hereditary spiritual leaders the Aga Khans have been resident in Europe, and intermixed with the European aristocracy, for a very long time now.

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