"What is Israel?", Ben-Gvir and reality-checking the big picture
A recent post asked "What is Israel?" in reference to Ben-Gvir's recent clown act, and it quickly filled up with fairly predictable snark and deflection.
For a reality check, consider the state of Arab (and Iranian and Afghani and Pakistani) Muslim (Sunni and Shia) civilization:
- Arab (etc)-on-Arab (etc) political violence has caused 100s of thousands dead, millions displaced, many cities reduced to rubble
- there is at least weekly rocket & missile firings, shootings, suicide and homicide bombings, vehicular rammings, stabbings.. at mosques, markets, hotels, checkpoints, schools, hospitals..
- above noted violence is carried out by a thousand fanatical Islamist-mafia-terror gangs and their support networks, led by entrenched or aspiring warlords (who are also often proxies for aggressive foreign petro-states): IRGC, Hezb, Hamas, PIJ, AQ, ISIS, Taliban, Al Shabaab, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Boko Haram, Ansar Allah, and many dozens of smaller such groups in many lands in the region
- failures of the Arab springs to bring about government by citizen consent in a dozen repressive countries under authoritarian rule: regime critics still routinely brutalized with impunity by state security tough guys; corrupt judicial systems with sham trials; 10s of thousands of political prisoners languishing in terribly cruel conditions; executions.
- failures of civil wars in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya to fully resolve
The region surrounding Israel is a bubbling cauldron of anger, hate, conspiracies, incitement, intimidation and misery.
An adult Israeli has observed all this play out over decades. They have also observed the academic/NGO/media complex accuse Israel of being a particularly heinous regional actor.
This is the context in which some segments of Israeli society have in recent decades adopted highly illiberal ideas, and increasingly talk and sometimes behave with aggression and callousness.
I'll end with a comment about the news event that inspired u/M007_MD's polemic.
The very existence of these flotillas is a backhanded compliment to the advanced morality of Israelis / Zionists / Jews. Why? Because "nice, humane" Western activists would NEVER, NEVER, NEVER try such a stunt where "strong Arab (etc) men" are fighting each other as has taken place frequently and recently in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Afghani-Pakistani borderlands, Iranian-Pakistani (Baluchi) borderlands, and more. Israel's treatment of these activists is very benign by regional standards.
Many Israel critics know this but will deny or try to deflect, because of a special hatred that even they don't fully understand.