u/Humorous_forest

I want to begin by apologizing for my last post. I made broad generalizations about both sides of the Palestinian Israeli conflict, especially pro Israelis, and for that I am sorry.

For this post I will share why I believe there shouldn't be a Jewish state. I accept that my reasoning and arguments may be flawed. Therefore I am willing to listen to counter arguments presented to me constructively and respectfully.

Here are the most common reasons given for why the existence of Israel is necessary and why I don't believe they are valid:

1. The Jewish people need a state of their own as a refuge from antisemitism: In the immediate aftermath of the holocaust, such logic made perfect sense. However, that was a long time ago. Looking back, I see two reasons for why this logic doesn't hold. First, there are significant Jewish communities in many countries. Therefore in order for us to face an existential threat without a Jewish state, the governments of every country on earth would have to simultaneously become genocidal against Jews. Such a thing has never once happened in the history of the world to Jews or to any ethnic/ethnoreligious group as far as I know. Second, Jews in the US have never been under existential threat for the country's nearly 250 year history. While many Americans hold antisemitic views, no law has ever been made at any level of government in our country explicitly targeting Jews specifically. The fact that the US has no history of explicitly anti Jewish laws shows that a single form of antisemitism has never been powerful enough in America to pose an existential threat to American Jews. In America, antisemitism isn't a unifying force, but rather it's split between the far right and far left.
2. Jews, like all other peoples, have a right to national self determination: The difference between Zionism and other peoples' nationalisms is that Zionism calls for building a Jewish state in a region that other groups, most notably the Palestinians, call home. I believe the only state which should exist in former mandatory Palestine is a multiethnic state for all its citizens just as much as it is for Jews. I believe in a state for Jews, not a Jewish state.
3. The Jewish connection to the Levant means Israel is necessary: While Jews certainly have historical and religious ties to the land we call Eretz Yisrael, again so do other peoples such as Palestinians and Druze.

So is a Jewish state necessary?

Something that’s not discussed enough is just how charged the Palestinian Israeli conflict is. It makes sense that this is the case. I mean, if you ask people to have a calm conversation about terrorism, or about the living nightmare in Gaza,
many would tell you no. This conflict gets a lot of attention relative to the number of people directly involved for a number of reasons. Also, it’s unusually polarizing in that people’s positions on it are deeply tied to personal values.

I lean closer to the pro Palestine side because that side aligns with my values more than the pro Israel side. Personally, I would say I have a strong sense of justice. That makes it easier for me to sympathize with the side which says there can’t be peace without justice.

The people who take the Palestinians’ side against Israel are the same people who advocate for other causes I believe in. The pro Palestinians are often the same people promote anti-racism, environmentalism, stronger workers rights for CVS and Starbucks employees, abolishing ICE, anti imperialism, fighting against the military industrial complex, and more. Greta Thunberg, for example, is one of my heroes. And before you go on to say she’s antisemitic because of some octopus toy, consider that there’s a Jewish girl in the photo you’re referring to. On the other hand, pro Israelis are often the same people who support Trump, weapons companies, and Islamophobia. Rednecks in East Tennessee hang Israeli flags in their hunting sheds. Evangelical Christians who don’t believe in science support Israel.

What I hate the most, though, is the polarization. Polarization is how the top 1% divide us and direct our anger at each other instead of at the elite. We need to work to build bridges, not fan the flames of hatred and division. But in today’s world, that seems harder than ever before. How can we find common ground when each side of the Israeli Palestinian conflict not only has different opinions, but different facts?

It seems to me there are two polar opposite views about Jews’ place in the land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. 

On the pro Israel Zionist side, the belief is that Jews constitute a nation and have primary rights to this land because of the ancient Israelite kingdoms which existed thousands of years ago. The narrative then goes that the Jewish people therefore have a right to a state on some or all of the land. 

On the pro Palestinian anti Zionist side, the belief is Jews are a religious group who do not constitute a unique ethnicity, nor have ties to any particular land. This narrative goes on to conclude that modern Israeli Jews are European colonizers and should therefore either submit to Arab Palestinian rule or return to Europe.

I consider my stance anti Zionist since I don’t believe us Jews have a right to a state. However I do believe we constitute an ethnoreligious group with historical, cultural, and spiritual ties to the land we call Eretz Yisrael. According to some people I’m a Zionist if I believe my people have any such ties to the land. Furthermore, I believe Palestinians also constitute an ethnic group with ties to the same land which they call Palestine, and that they can never be truly equal with full rights and dignity in a Jewish state.

I believe the land in question, as the crossroads of the ancient and medieval world, has a rich cultural history. I believe any nation which governs the land should be a civic nation Jews, Palestinians, and all ethnicities who call it home. Many mainstream anti Zionists believe that such a nation is what the Palestinians are fighting for, but it’s pretty clear to me that Palestinians just want to replace Israel with a Palestinian Arab ethnostate.

Is my stance on this issue hypocritical? Can I be anti Zionist while also being anti Palestine and understanding that neither Israelis nor Palestinians want a civic utopia?

This is an updated version of a post I made to this subreddit last year.

Discourse around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict often devolves to using buzzwords whose meaning isn't fully understood by those using them. In order to help facilitate more constructive dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I feel it is necessary to go over the definitions of some of the terms being used.

The following is a glossary of terms and definitions of them which I have compiled from various sources.

I've also added some commentary discussing what I believe are valuable insights into the conflict these definitions provide us in a comment to this post.

I will update this glossary as people reply to this post:

• Antisemitism: Hatred of Jews as a religious or ethnic group as well as prejudice, discrimination, and violence that targets them.
• Apartheid: A system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination, particularly in South Africa, where it was enforced by the white minority government from 1948 to 1994." (Oxford English Dictionary).
• Colonialism: "Domination of a people or area by a foreign state or nation : the practice of extending and maintaining a nation's political and economic control over another people or area" (Merriam-Webster)
• Conflict: "competitive or opposing action of incompatibles : antagonistic state or action (as of divergent ideas, interests, or persons)." (Merriam-Webster)
• Ethnic Cleansing: The creation of an ethnically homogenous geographic area through the elimination of unwanted ethnic groups by deportation, forcible displacement, or genocide. (Encyclopedia Britannica)
• Genocide: Legal Definition: "Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." (International Genocide Convention)
• Hasbara: Definition - A Hebrew word, translated to English as "explaining", generally used to describe the State of Israel's public diplomacy efforts, particularly in the context of promoting a positive image of Israel and its policies internationally, often via online propaganda.
• Human Shield: Definition - A person or group of people used as protection by someone else. Oxford English Dictionary).
• Intifada: Comes from the Arabic word for 'shaking off,' but often better understood to mean 'uprising,' and according to Encyclopedia Britannica refers to "either of two popular uprisings of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip aimed at ending Israel’s occupation of those territories and creating an independent Palestinian state."
• Jihad: "The Arabic term jihad is properly defined as 'struggle' or 'striving' and is generally described as taking place at two levels: the inner (or greater) and the outer (or lesser). According to the hadith (records of the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad), inner jihad is the struggle within oneself to avoid sinful behavior and live according to the principles of the Qurʾan, Sunna (example of the Prophet Muhammad), and Sharia (values or principles elaborated into Islamic law). Outer jihad, on the other hand, refers to the defense of the Muslim community under attack. This can be a 'soft defense,' such as through verbal or written debate or persuasion (jihad of the tongue, or jihad of the pen), or 'hard defense' (also known as 'jihad of the sword'), such as through physical or military defense of a community." (Oxford English Dictionary)
• Military Occupation (dictionary): Definition - The third definition of the term on Merriam Webster is "a: the act or process of taking possession of a place or area : seizure; b: the holding and control of an area by a foreign military force; c: the military force occupying a country or the policies carried out by it." Commentary - I would argue Israeli military presence in the West Bank fits this definition.
• Military Occupation (IHL): According to IHL, "Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised." Commentary - The West Bank can be considered occupied by this definition too.
• Military Occupation (Military Definition): While there isn't a single agreed upon military definition of the term occupation, these definitions generally introduce the idea that occupations are temporary. While this is true, it's also the case that according to The Politics of Military Occupation by Peter M. R. Stirk, "The significance of the temporary nature of military occupation is that it brings about no change of allegiance. Military government remains an alien government whether of short or long duration, though prolonged occupation may encourage the occupying power to change military occupation into something else, namely annexation."
• Refugee: According to the United Nations Hight Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), refugees "are people who have fled war, violence, conflict or persecution and have crossed an international border to find safety in another country."
• Resistance: "The act of opposing or refusing to accept something, the ability to withstand a force or influence, or the opposition to an action or idea." (Oxford English Dictionary)
• Terrorism: "the use of violent action or the threat of violence to instill fear, often with the aim of coercion or intimidation, generally for political, religious, or ideological goals." (Oxford English Dictionary)
• Zionism: "A political movement, originally focused on establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and now primarily concerned with the development and support of the State of Israel" (Oxford English Dictionary)