The vast majority of Israelis say they are not troubled by reports of famine and suffering in Gaza, a new poll released by the Israel Democracy Institute shows.
The survey shows that 79 percent of Jews in Israel were not troubled, or troubled at all, whereas 86 percent of “Arab” respondents were somewhat or very troubled by the reports about the war on Gaza.
The survey was conducted between 27-31 July.
yeah a nation of mostly Zionists would think that, wouldn’t they?
A nation of mostly fascists. Zionism is about the creation of a religious nationalist ethnostate through genocide.
It’s pure unbridled fascism, and Israelis have been indoctrinated to believe it’s okay when they do it since birth, as has a significant proportion of the Jewish diaspora. That’s why the genocide continues, and why Israel is the most dangerous threat to Jewish people since Nazism.
Not quite. Zionism is about creating a secular nationalist ethnostate through genocide, with religious dressing simply as a way to get more religious Jews on board. It’s no coincidence that early Zionist leaders were all unapologetically atheist.
That’s not true. Zionism originates from the Jewish scriptures. Basically, Judaism talks about how Jews were promised by God, via the scriptures and the old prophets, the land of Israel as a homeland. It is the duty of Jews to resettle the holy land and establish a theological society that is based on the divine laws and systems laid out in the Torah. By doing so, Jews would achieve salvation for themselves, and eventually for the rest of the world. This global salvation will be marked by global harmony and the coming of the messiah who will guide the world in the path of God.
Virtually all Jews agree that Israel is their homeland and that they will eventually reclaim the holy land and settle it in a way that would bring salvation as they await the coming of the Messiah. Traditionally Zionism was seen as something that is out of human control and is entirely up to God’s will. Essentially Jews will go back to Israel when God wills it and people have no say in the matter, any attempt by humans to accelerate the salvation is seen as blasphemous as it’s an act of rebellion against God’s will.
That’s when modern Zionism split. Modern Zionists believe that political and secular Zionism is a tool given by God to enact his divine plan and to initiate the return of Jews back the land of Israel. Therefore following this type of Zionism is actually following God’s will and it’s the duty of religious Jews to pursue it.
Obviously, there’s a great deal of debate among Jews about which theological branch is correct, but either way, the origins of Zionism aren’t purely secular or nationalist.
Early modern Zionists (including Herzl himself) overwhelmingly didn’t believe in God in the first place.
You should look up Theodor Herzl. Early Zionists were straight up voting on whether they’d build their Jewish state in Palestine or Uganda, and the vote was pretty narrow if I’m not mistaken. The rationale for choosing Palestine was that it’d be easier to get religious Jews (which the guys who were thinking up this stuff were absolutely not) on board. Like, do you think Ben Gurion or Golda Mier were having theological debates?
But this is separate from what I’m talking about. I’m specifically talking about the origins of the idea itself. It’s undeniably based in Jewish religious scriptures. That’s where the idea comes from even if modern Zionism evolved to be something different.
Okay this is going nowhere, so define Zionism. What do you think Zionism is?
I’m not debating what Zionism is. You made a false claim about the origins of Zionism and I corrected. That’s all there is to it
Russia gave them a completely autonomous oblast to settle and build years before that vote, but they didnt like the area. Same lattitude as northern japan. No war needed. No people to displace. self rule written into the constitution of Russia. Yiddish offiical language. But they didnt like the area so they left it empty. They could go there now and have an israel 2 if they wanted. They dont want that area because its not their biblical favorite area. All this genocidal behavior was a choice they made. They already had a “homeland”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast
“If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.” Ben-Gurion (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth’s “Ben-Gurion”).
I think there’s been a pretty significant divergence from the original Zionist leaders to modern day Zionism. The seeds were there, obviously, but things have deteriorated even further in the past few decades.
What meaningful divergence is there? Since the 19th century, Zionists such as Herzl were discussing means to ethnically cleanse the local populace via economic domination.
In practice, Zionists starting coming in droves armed, aiding the British in committing atrocities and suppressing Palestinian dissent and resistance. Then during the Nakba, they would straight up rape, murder, and rob the Palestinians.
Is the divergence in Zionism similar to that of Nazism, where the initial good peacenik Nazis simply wanted to peacefully relocate Europe’s Jewish population to madagascar? Are we going to act like the very pursuit of an ethnostate is not problematic in and of itself?
To be charitable I think our fellow poster meant that Zionists went from at least some modesty to a full embrace of revisionist Zionism. To further the Nazi analogy, it would be like going from Italian fascism to Nazism.
You’re probably right. I don’t think they meant any ill. If anything, I made my words a bit harsh because I was fed a similar myth growing up. Sometimes you need a new direct and visceral perspective to see something in a new light. We need to be as ruthless towards Zionism on an ideological basis as we are towards Nazism.
Source on genocide being included in Zionism theory?
oh I see, zionists were going to take the land peacefully, You are claiming that was the plan? Shall I show you quotes from zionists about how they thought about that?
Not sure about peacefully, ethnic cleansing is a crime in any case, but it’s a notch down genocide. That’s why I was curious if the early theoricians mentioned something akin to it or not. So far, it seems they didn’t.
Technically it’s not explicitly about genocide, but here’s the big guy on the topic:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Herzl
Again, this isn’t technically a genocidal idea in and of its own (though still crime against humanity stuff), but implementing it would inevitably wade pretty deep into genocide territory, as seen in the Nakba.
This seems to be a weak source.
I have found a detailed article that claims that while the historical Zionism did mention relocating non-Jewish people, killing them was only a fringe opinion among ultra-nationalist religious people. But this opinion has been spreading with every major conflict until those extremists got power in the current government and was further accelerated by the October 7 attack. https://theconversation.com/in-israel-calls-for-genocide-have-migrated-from-the-margins-to-the-mainstream-250010
As I said, Herzl wasn’t explicitly calling for total extermination here, but what he was calling for could only happen via genocide. This is why the Nakba included so many bloody massacres (which, yes, those constitute a genocide).
People seem to forget that when it came to Nazi rhetoric, the Nazis initially claimed they just wanted to “move the Jews”.
There’s a reason why the concentration extermination camps were called “The Final Solution” and not “First Attempt at creating an Aryan haven!”
For anyone curious, here’s a website where you get to guess whether a quote is from a Nazi or Zionist: https://zionism.wtf/#zionist-or-nazi