Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryanwhitney | Hacker News Reader

I believe they're referring to when Joe Biden said "I am a Zionist."

What did he mean then? Israel exists as a Jewish state so I really don't know what people mean when they say it.

Zionism can be both the nationalist movement for making Israel a Jewish state as well as the interpretation that such a movement is inherently colonial and racist.

So Zionism for Israelis might just mean "we support and advocate for a Jewish state in the land of Israel" which also includes two-state solutions but it can mean "we are a colonial and ethno-religious racist state" to the ones being displaced by the movement (like Palestinians).

Using the same word for two completely different things is very confusing.

Also the Arabs took the land from the Byzantine empire in the 7th century AD.

> Also the Arabs took the land from the Byzantine empire in the 7th century AD.

A historical event from 1300 years ago is a bit irrelevant to contemporary issues.

"A historical event from 1300 years ago is a bit irrelevant to contemporary issues."

1300 years vs 78 years, what is the cutoff?

78 years is not that far ago in terms of human generations, the children of the people displaced are still alive, and they've disputed it all the time since then.

Don't understand why you think 78 years is a long time, even less why you think it's equivalent to 1300 years.

The problem is that you assert 78 years is soon enough for the Palastinian claim to the land to still matter but 1300 years is too long for the Byzantine claim to still matter so we have a paradox of the heap situation where you have to choose a hard cutoff time period after which all claims to land are invalid.

There's no need to be technical about a social aspect of human life, there's no paradox of the heap when considering the human aspect: people alive have felt in their skin and soul the displacement of their parents which is not true at all for a claim 1300 years old.

Do the 800,000 jews arab countries expelled after Israel was created have the right to return?

Do they want to?

Moreover, there are Palestinians that would like the generationally farmed land back that they lived on last week, last month, last year, five years ago, etc.

Shouldn't they have the right to land that has been illegally stolen from them that recently?

"Do they want to?"

Why wouldn't they want to? Are you suggesting that living in Israel is preferable for Jews than living in a Muslim country?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com