> The League of Nations gave Britain mandatory power over Palestine in 1922. British rule and Arab efforts to prevent Jewish migration led to growing violence between Arabs and Jews, causing the British to announce its intention to terminate the Mandate in 1947. The UN General Assembly recommended partitioning Palestine into two states: Arab and Jewish. However, the situation deteriorated into a civil war. The Arabs rejected the Partition Plan, the Jews ostensibly accepted it, declaring the independence of the State of Israel in May 1948 upon the end of the British mandate. Nearby Arab countries invaded Palestine, Israel not only prevailed, but conquered more territory than envisioned by the Partition Plan. During the war, 700,000, or about 80% of all Palestinians fled or were driven out of territory Israel conquered and were not allowed to return, an event known as the Nakba (Arabic for 'catastrophe') to Palestinians. Starting in the late 1940s and continuing for decades, about 850,000 Jews from the Arab world immigrated ("made Aliyah") to Israel.
Also, it was Ottoman territory for hundreds of years up to WWI. I've had friends tell me for some reason about how Palestine was an independent country before... literally wasn't.
To some it still means favoring any existence of a Jewish state. The inertia isn't there because aside from the original partition plan being pushed by the UK, other countries have attacked Israel several times later in ways they would've have withstood without outside support.
Now that is a valid use of the term. I think the problem it that Zionism means so many different things it is nearly useless as a description. It seems more useful as a slur which has become very common in some circles.
"The inertia isn't there"
I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying Israel could be defeated without US assistance?
> Are you saying Israel could be defeated without US assistance?
US and UK, yes. Not just cause of the weapons and money to Israel. After them, the top recipients of US foreign aid in the area are the bordering countries Egypt and Jordan, so that they don't attack.
And how is that?
Israel has a population of 10 million people and a very modern military and nuclear weapons. If it's existence was ever truly threatened things would get VERY ugly.
I have doubts about their ability to self-defend because otherwise we wouldn't be giving so much money, the situation would be stable. Even if they can severely hurt the attackers, it doesn't really matter if the attackers stop at nothing. We just lost a war against Iran despite having full air superiority and killing their leader. And especially if you're considering the scenario where Israel never got Western support, and thus never got those advanced weapons.
Israel razed Gaza to the ground. It was a genocide.
You're absolutely right, and this is antisemitic propaganda. Israel left more than 20 years ago and didn't return until 2023 due to Hamas terrorism.
They certainly didn't return:
- for five months in 2006 for Operation Summer Rains
- or again in 2006 for Operation Autumn Clouds
- or again in 2008 for Operation Hot Winter
- or again in 2008 into 2009 for Operation Cast Lead
- or again in 2012 for Operation Pillar of Defense
- or again in 2014 for Operation Protective Edge
- or again in 2018 and 2019 for incursions and special-forces actions, like that covert IDF operation in Khan Younis that got fucked up and led to a firefight deep in Gaza (but that couldn't have happened, because they left back in 2005, right?)
- or lastly, before October 7, in 2021 in Operation Guardians of the Walls.
None of those large named operations could have happened, let alone anything smaller than named operations, like special forces or commando raids, because those things are purely Hamas propaganda, and not formal IDF operations.
Right?
Hamas thinks it can destroy Israel with force. It can't anymore than native Americans can destroy the US. And Hamas trying and failing over and over and over and over has made the lives of Palastinians much worse. Hamas gleefully kills any Palestinians that point this out or oppose them in any way.
Just for comparison after Germany lost WW2 they lost 25% of their land and 14 million German living on it were expelled. Has Germany spent the last 78 years trying to get it back? No. Instead they have been doing the smarter option which is creating a peaceful and rich country, which is what the Palastinians should have done.
You're right. It -is- exhausting. Because I never said a word about the merit, or lack thereof, of Israel's actions or reactions, or Hamas'.
I just commented that Israel has spent multiple years in Gaza "since they left".
HOWEVER, you absolutely stated, and get bent out of shape multiple times in this thread alone, at anyone even hinting Israel set foot in Gaza since 2005:
Someone comments saying this exact thing, "Israel has been operating in buffer zones", etc., etc. and you?
"Israel left... Stop telling obvious lies."
Also, it might not be permanent occupation but when you're back there nearly every year for 3-9 months, it might not feel like you ever really left.
It's true that Nazism lacks the religious aspect, and Zionism lacks the pagan aspect.
I hope you can agree that these are aesthetic differences.
Both movements advocate for one ethnicity having the right to live on a particular part of the land, ime. ethonationalism (Nazis: "Blood and soil" vs. Zios: "The chosen people who god promised the land to"), both movements are expansionist (N: "Lebensraum" vs. Z: "Buffer zones" and "Greater Israel"), both movements subjugate another ethnicity that they deem lesser and evil (N: Jews, Black people, Roma, vs. Z: Palestinians, Arabs).
Both movements have commited genocide against the other ethnicities.
So, are Nazis pigs? If they are, then the label fits Zionists as well.
20% is an interesting number, though. The percentage of Palestinians who were Arabs in 1918 was around 90%. I wonder if that might have something to do with why the Arabs are upset?
Oh right, Israel _has_ destroyed nearly all the entire Arab society that lived in Palestine. As opposed to your claim that "Hamas and Iran and Hezbollah _want_ to destroy Israel in the name of Islam".
You think a hypothetical backlash to an ethnic cleansing is worse than the ethnic cleansing itself?
It seems you're the one who seems to be ignoring the factual crimes against humanity that Israel commits, and only care about imagined ones that Israel would be victim to.
It's pretty obvious from the emotional response that you've got some kind of horse in the Israel-Hamas war that I don't, which is fine, but I'm not gonna get called a liar too. So bye.
My only emotion is exhaustion at hearing the same lies told over and over.it was actually Likud's official election slogan in the 70s and 80s just as ... oh, let me check, Netanyahu, was getting involved in all of this, formally becoming Likud's leader in 1993.
And the destruction of Israel is the explicit goal of Hamas as stated in their charter.
"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it" and called for holy war to establish an Islamic state across historic Palestine.
Look, to be very clear: Hamas is absolutely a terrorist organization who has caused constant harm to both Israelis and the average Palestinian they purport to represent (there have been no elections since 2006, Hamas are the only people with weapons in Gaza, and the average citizen might as well be a hostage - and frankly they’d turn against Hamas a lot more if Israel didn’t steadily inflict collective punishment against them like turning off their electricity or even drinking water for days or weeks for actions of Hamas. All that is doing is making sympathizers of them).
A non-zionist Israel would be one where all peoples had the same right, e.g.
It was never actually Palastinian land. It was Jewish land, then Roman land, then Ottoman land, then British land, then Jewish land after Palastinians attacked Israel and lost. At no point were the Palastinians ever a sovereign country and in fact they incredibly foolishly rejected the UN offer for one.
"other creeds and ethnicities should be second class "
Approximately 2.5 to 2.6 million non-Jews live in Israel, comprising about 25% to 26% of the country's total population. This is compared to less than 1% of the population of Gaza being non-muslim.
The Palestinians are the people who lived there. The Zionists expelled half of them and razed 500 villages to the ground in 1948. It was an ethnic cleansing. They denied them the right to return.
There was a Palestinian identity and there was a Palestinian society. They revolted against the Ottomans, and the British promised them sovereignty. The British betrayed them and caved to the Zionists, and the rest is settler colonialism and apartheid.
Right, like stomping around the comments claiming that anything less than pretending Israel didn't set foot in Gaza between 2025 and October 7, 2023 is filthy Hamas propaganda, the existence of at least six formally named IDF operations being just a pesky bit of reality that can be easily run over by a Merkava Mk V main battle tank.
Or, who am I kidding, of course it won't.
Just for comparison after Germany lost WW2 they lost 25% of their land and 14 million German living on it were expelled. Has Germany spent the last 78 years trying to get it back? No. Instead they have been doing the smarter option which is creating a peaceful and rich country, which is what the Palastinians should have done.
The Palestinians were the only people living on the land before the settlers came. That included Jews and Christians, because Palestinians are not a homogeneous group.
The Zionist settlers are not indigenous, they had no right to settle there. They also took the UN resolution and just started a war where they razed 500 villages. I'm sure if the Palestinian side had won, they would have expelled the settlers. But that is only natural. And beside the point, because the Palestinians didn't start the war, and of course uou expel invaders.
And native americans were living in Canada, US, and Mexico before settlers came. The Palestinians are hardly unique in losing land in a war. In fact this is basically the norm in human history. What is almost unique is how Palestinians have made their lives much much worse pathetically trying to get the land back when they have absolutely no chance of doing so, anymore than Native Americans do.
The jews living in Israel in 2026 are indigenous in the sense they are NOT leaving so any scenario where they do is a stupid fantasy. the Palestinians DID start the war, they rejected their own sovereign state in favor of gambling for everything and lost. But they have spent 78 years just refusing to accept reality while Israel has grown rich and powerful.
Israelis are not indigenous (there are rare exceptions of Mizrahis or Jerusalem Palestinians with some form of citizenship), they are colonists.
It doesn't matter if Israelis are indigenous or not because 7 million people are not going to leave.
It's not rare at all, the majority of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi.
If you mean citizens of the State of Palestine, that’s a political matter, and zero Jews have that citizenship.
If you mean something along the lines of “unbroken lineage of ancestors who never left Palestine", that would also exclude many people who we all consider Palestinian, such as Arafat himself who was born in Cairo.
More specifically there are 0 Jews living in areas under control of the Palestinian Authority, or in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen.
Thank you for providing a perfect example of how the word zionist has become a replacement for kike among jew-haters.
Let's compare figures like, say Nick Fuentes and Hasan Piker.
Fuentes regularly spouts vile anti-semitic rhetoric, painting up a picture of Jews as greedy schemers.
Piker always makes it clear he is talking about Israel, not Jews. Painfully so.
I have not seen a single self-odentified leftist say anything anti-semitic IRL. But I have seen right-wingers do this.
And this same story is reflected in politicians statements as well. The right is anti-semitic.
The ADL claims that the left is, but that is because the ADL wants to conflate Israel with the entire ethnic group of Jews. Which is an obvious and silly bad faith trick. You're also doing the same thing.
"God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse be upon the Jews, Victory to Islam"
That doesn't follow. Not even a little bit.
And it's not really about religion. It's about Palestinians specifically, who are indigenous to Palestine, and are under Israeli apartheid.
The Palestinians who have been exiled by Israel, and their children, cannot live where their grandparents lived (even though they should have a right to return, under UN resolutions that Israel has accepted), but any Jew from, let's say Brooklyn, does.
Also, Islam is the only faith in Israel which is not allowed to self-organize. It is singled out among all religious communities as the only one who is not given this right. Which is of course incredibly discriminatory.
There isn't a single jew living in Gaza. Why is that?
It is very much about religion. Hamas is an explicitly Islamic supremacist organization that calls for the destruction of Israel as a religious obligation.
If you had the option to live as a full citizen in Israel, being told you're part of the dominant ethnicity that's treated as human beings; or staying in Gaza, where you are being bombed to death by the IDF, I wonder which you would choose?
Your argument is essentially stating the conditions of apartheid as negative for dominant ethnic group. I didn't know someone could be so divorced from reality.
Otherwise this is just the good old "Anyone who criticizes Israel is Hamas" trope.