General Discussion

I don't consider this a rabbit hole, expulsions weren't one-sided. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from what is now Israel, but some don't seem to care because it doesn't suit their narrative. It would have been far less messy if people had been allowed to stay where their homes were and on the land they were connected to.

The founders of Israel? I'm assuming yr talking about Ben-Gurion? He was a realist and worked purely from a political stance because Zionism was and still is a political ideology. While he wasn't particularly religious, he did need to get the religious types onside when Israel was created. He had to make some concessions to Orthodox Jews, which is why things like marriage, divorce etc are controlled by religious law and not civil law. Don't quote me on that last bit, as it's been a long time since I read about it. Which means while the founders weren't particularly religious, they catered to the Orthodox and were very into expanding territory, which is why Israel's borders weren't defined when the state was created.

Oh, no. I just realised I used the term Zionism! I got chided just recently from someone in another thread who informed me that studying Israel and Zionism when I was at uni was proof that there's a disproportionate fixation with Zionism, AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!!!! Unfortunately they never returned to answer my question about how much discussion of Israel is acceptable, so I'm still not clear on what the red line in the sand is, not that I really give a shit...

Yes, I agree with you, Many antisemitic people use "Zionism" as an excuse, though I find the attempts to label all discussion of Zionism as antisemitic is merely an attempt to silence criticism of Israel. And let's be real. I've seen the antisemitic ones on FB and it's not hard to miss. I encountered someone who didn't seem capable of saying 'Israel'. He'd call it the 'Zionist entity' or 'Zionist regime'. The way he said it made it very clear there was something boiling away underneath that was really ugly. Along the same lines, blaming Zionists for all the ills in the world is another giveaway, as well as comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.

What's not accurate is what some in this thread have a habit of doing, which is labelling any and all mentions of Zionism and AIPAC and dog knows how many other keywords as being antisemitic. My rule of thumb is that people who aren't Jewish are Zionists, and AIPAC isn't a Jewish organisation. Insisting on conflating them with Jews is just playing into antisemites hands. Have you noticed some who do this have no qualms about attacking J-Street or Jewish Voice for Peace? Because the issue isn't whether an organisation is Jewish, it's about whether the organisation 110% falls in line and defends everything Israel does.

And because I don't think there's much going on in this thread, I'll just finish up by pointing out that AIPAC is a horrible, hardline group, and anyone who claims to support Israel should get behind J-Street instead. And also, Zohran Mandami is a superhero and I suspect some of the attacks on him come from him not only being a socialist, but a Muslim one

https://jstreet.org/