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Comment by EA-3167 | Hacker News Reader

I'm not arguing any of that, obviously this all reeks of corruption and cronyism as almost everything in this admin does.

But that's not what people were focusing on here, it's a lot of "Practically Likud" and the increasingly uncomfortable dog whistle "Zionist".

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If the correct label for a person's beliefs is "an increasingly uncomfortable dog whistle" umm... maybe the label isn't the problem...

When your label applies to 95% of an ethnicity maybe you’re just a bigot hiding behind a cause.

There are more American evangelicals who are Zionists than there are Jews in the entire world bro.

A weird cult existing doesn’t change tbat “Zionism” remain overwhelmingly popular among Jews. Granted since the term has been demonized and represented as something heinous this is the result: https://www.jewishdatabank.org/api/download/?studyId=1277&me...

So 90% believe that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state, but they aren’t stupid and it’s obvious to anyone with a brain that “Zionist” has become a kind of slur in the hands of so many.

It really isn’t hard to understand, it’s just convenient for people to hide behind. You meet a white nationalist and they don’t open with a Hitlergrusse, they talk about “preserving the family” or “13/50” and so on. You didn’t invent this shit.

Well hold on now… you’re upset about people using a term that accurately and precisely describes a set of beliefs… that the believes of those beliefs readily label themselves as…

And then you’re calling 50-120 million Americans “a weird cult”?

Are you a parody? I’m honestly baffled.

And by the way, it’s hilarious to claim that Ellison being Jewish (is he? I honestly have no idea) or Zionism would be “literally the only thing unique about him” compared to the rest of the media barons. Not only is there a lot of other stuff that’s unique about him/his company, as I’ve articulated, but also his Zionist beliefs aren’t unique whatsoever among his peers!

You truly live in a hall of mirrors.

Zionist is a slur, and not only is Ellison uniquely a Zionist, but it’s in fact the only unique thing about him and his company. Totally insane shit.

People who believe in an imminent “end times” are in a cult, I don’t care if the religion is ancient or brand new. “We have to prepare the world for Armageddon, and that can only happen when the Jews return to Israel,” is a batshit thing to believe.

Never mind their overall impact on American policy and politics.

But someone’s belief that their special book gives them a special right to a special plot of land is in fact so special that it can’t even be labeled with its own name…?

Yeah they’re all fucking crazy people.

Calling evangelicals evangelicals is fine. Calling zionists Zionists is fine.

Both terms have besmirched connotations because both belief systems are besmirched. Simple as that.

Zionism isn’t religious for a large number of Jews, it’s just a practical response to centuries of pogroms and genocide. Stellar wordplay though, very much how I expect sincere people to act when pressed on the reality of how the cause they claim to care about has been hijacked by bigots.

Best of luck to you.

>Zionism isn’t religious for a large number of Jews, it’s just a practical response to centuries of pogroms and genocide

And the response is to do your own to another people? Great.

If it’s a practical response then where does the “right” originate from?

I’m beyond reproach if my practical response to needing a bathroom is to break into your home and defecate in your toilet?

but uhh, zionism is the same idea as white nationalism.

a jewish state is the same in concept as a white state - a place where the non-white or non-jews are second class citizens, and really, should be removed because they have no place in the state.

even if 90% of white people believed in a white nationalist state, white nationalism would still be bad on its own merrits. its not racist to be against ethnostates, regardless of whos ethnostate it is

Great rant, but there’s a flaw in your otherwise deeply informed and informative analysis.

21% of Israeli CITIZENS… with full voting rights and legal protections, are Arabs. They’re no less citizens of Israel than black Americans are of the US, and yeah that comes with some measure of mutual ethnic and religious tension… it is the Middle East. That’s not the same as a white “utopia” or the usual South Africa comparison.

A lot of the talk around this is layered bad faith, misinformation, and outright bullshit that’s accepted simply because it’s convenient to do so. After all if you believe that shit you can feel justified in your enmity towards a whole people in the name of justice.

By the way how many Jews are citizens of Arab majority nations? How many even live there? Did they live there at one point and did they all magically leave or was there a huge explosion? Just some food for thought.

Students of history have noticed an inconvenient truth that Western Europe nations were sort of unanimous in systematically converting, suppressing, and expelling Jews over several centuries. Those students, born in Allied nations since WWII, somehow unquestioningly accept that antisemitism is a cardinal sin, and we conclude that all those kings and princesses and rulers must have been wrong and bad and very evil people for enacting such policies.

Russia was historically particularly vicious against the Kievan Rus', and Jews were prohibited from even living in the capital city. The term "beyond the Pale" applied in Ukraine as much as it applied to UK-occupied Ireland. But today on television, we have a pretty and delicate blonde empress making a totes adorbs farce of Catherine the Great's bloody legacy.

The democratic West is now a guaranteed safe haven for Eastern Bloc dissidents and refugees, with open arms and blank checks.

Arab Muslims and Israelis need to get along now, because there's a significant mosque dropped on top of Temple Mount, and they're our last best hope for something. And "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". For now.

That’s the thing, increasingly they do get along. One of the major reasons that Hamas pulled the trigger on October 7 was to make sure that accords between KSA and Israel didn’t proceed. One after another countries in the region have made peace with Israel and vice versa, with notable exceptions that aren’t at peace with anyone.

There's only 21% because of the nakba, which was done in part because the ideals of democracy was incongruous with the ethnical composition of the land.

If it makes you uncomfortable, then your subconscious mind is trying to tell you something.

It makes me uncomfortable when people refer to black people as “thugs” with a wink and a nod as well. You aren’t clever for using dog whistles, it’s been a notable feature of antisemitism to “play with words” as Sartre put it.

Still if I’m to consult my subconscious… it tells me that a lot of people use causes and movements to justify the sort of bullying, hateful, trend-chasing behavior they always displayed all along. It’s when people feel they have free license to let go that you learn more about THEM.

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