r/AskIsrael

What happened to the Israeli left?

So I have many Israeli friends and only a few of them are on the left, and they are very reasonable, critical people, which makes them so different from the general left that has been deep in Hamas propaganda

Israeli leftists don't seem to be all the same because I've seen many of them who were furiously anti-Zionist and look down on Mizrahi Jews while loving Arab nationalists

Is there any chance they could win the election this year? Yair Golan seems like a decent human but people like Ofer Cassif and Hadash as a whole just seem like Palestinian nationalists to me

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u/Sara_Tona — 5 hours ago
▲ 235 r/AskIsrael+2 crossposts

The "Nakba" isn't real. Five Arab armies declared war on Israel in 1948, and they failed to destroy it. The Jews won the war, and the Arabs lost.

u/Nazoreans — 10 hours ago
▲ 0 r/AskIsrael+1 crossposts

Is Israel above international laws?

They seem unstoppable and untouchable. They can do whatever they want. If they want to do a assassination, nobody is safe from Mossad's grip. They can level towns and villages into oblivion. It seems no power in the Middle-East can stop israelis military. Have they basically won and can if they want to control the entire Middle-East?

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u/NefariousnessKooky77 — 10 hours ago
▲ 340 r/AskIsrael+1 crossposts

There is no genocide in Gaza. There never was. The only genocide committed in this war was on October 7.

Thank you for attending my Ted Talk.

u/Nazoreans — 11 hours ago

Why is israeli PR so terrible?

Like, I used to be a big anti-zionist right, but after a while I realized "wait, there's no way israelis are as evil as they say right?". So I went out, did my research, and realized that the conflict is so complex that I could never be an anti-zionist.

Like, the IDF has had quite a few cases where it's not as bloodthirsty as people like to say, and in other cases as you often hear, you'll have some trigger happy soldiers with a questionably complicit commander, kill someone when they might not have had a reason to. So it's not black and white.

There are numerous cases where the IDF could have easily explained it's actions in more detail. But they always settle for 'HAMAS was here, so we hit it', without providing anymore evidence that they CLEARLY have. And somehow act surprised when nobody, even pro-israelis, fully takes their word for it.

edit: Is this lack of explaining in their PR because of a defeatist attitude?

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u/Infamous-Peanut1327 — 9 hours ago

Is it possible that Hamas had recruited converted engineers, physcians or otherwise highly educated people from Europe in order to boost capabilities ?

This is not, in my view, a silly question

We know even from basic history that military planning went along with professionalisation of officers and in the 18th cebtury it become very advanced thanks to the intrododuction of scientific, and mathematical, thinking in the officer instruction.

But this was possible in Ashkhenazi communities, in reformed Christian and, since XIX century, in far east countries, because the religious mebtality was determinant: a mind cannot follow, or reject, "logos" at will

More concretely, we have seen that historically hamas managed to act isolate attacks, small unit raids and ghazi charges with screaming human masses, but until 2023 they did not manage to conceive, plan, fund and execute a complex plan

Let's try to think about it

Hamas, an organization of integralist muslims who dislike logic and the ability to discern by intellect and exoeriments the truth from the BS, managed to

a) conceive a complex plan involving an artillery preparation, movement of fence cutting equipment, paragliders and a fleet of Pick ups . The very idea of artillery prepartation requires historical knowledge - something Hamas cannot do- and a mind trained to think in terms of propedeutical actions that render possible following ones

b) managed to conceive a scheme to acquire the materiel without being fully noticed by Israel and to train shooters in a less improvised way

c) managed to keep , in an environment full of israeli informers, secrecy until the very final hour

I have reasons to think that all this was NOT, or not only, fruit of the mind of original members, but that one or more person, with university education and in his/her young ages used to analytical planning, , had converted to islam and had brought his /her pre musilm logical mentality to the terrorists.

thealternative is that some muslim, but not arab, maybe a professional officer, has helped in this operation, but in this casethe country to whom that officer belong(ed) had committed a clear act of war.

We know, by the way that the integralists are present and active in Universities and, at least in France, they try to convert young men from STEM disciplines and it is a fact that from 2003 to 2023 their rockets have improved, as someone expert in aeronautical engineering had worked about them

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u/Mysterious-House-381 — 5 hours ago

How Can I Make These “Axis of Evil Impressed” Memes Better?

If you have any better ones I’d love to see too.

u/Runofthemilljacket — 5 hours ago

What's the Reptile Enthusiasts community like in Israel.

Just wondering what the Reptile community is like in Israel. I own several Boa Imperators and other animals, and I was wondering what it was like over there.

Would love to know if I ever had the to make Aliyah.

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u/Akiranar — 7 hours ago
▲ 3.4k r/AskIsrael+4 crossposts

Map depicting percentage of jews expelled by each muslim country

u/Baconkings — 1 day ago

We see hat many soldiers on leave can carry their weapons, but can also they stop people in the streets and do searches?

I have seen that many young people in civilian clothes in Tel Aviv carrying rmodern military type carbines isimilar to M4- and I was told that they were soldiers on leave from combat units and that they are fully armed so in case there is an active shooter event there is always someone in the vicinity ready to react

I would want to know if in these difficult times on leave soldiers can also, about security matters, act as police officers, firexample stopping suspicious people, search them for weapons or restrain his/her movement untill the arrive of police officers.

This is something reasonable, but Israel should assure there are no abuses of such powers, because in a polarized society this can happen quite easily

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u/Mysterious-House-381 — 14 hours ago

Are most Israelis completely unaware of the global consensus on the legal status of East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank?

For anyone who isn't familiar with the global consensus on the legal status of East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, as explained by the International Court of Justice:

>the prohibition of acquisition of territory by force was emphasized by the Security Council in its resolution 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967 (see paragraph 58 above). The Security Council affirmed this principle by resolution 252 (1968) of 21 May 1968, where it also declared that “all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, including expropriation of land and properties thereon, which tend to change the legal status of Jerusalem are invalid and cannot change that status”. The Security Council has since reiterated this principle in several resolutions dealing with Israel’s purported annexation of Arab and Palestinian territory (for example, Security Council resolutions 267 (1969) of 1 April 1969, 298 (1971) of 25 September 1971 and 478 (1980) of 20 August 1980). More recently, the Security Council, in its resolution 2334 (2016) of 23 December 2016, stated that “the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace” (para. 1).

And as court goes on to explain, the same consensus can be found piles of General Assembly resolutions such as their annual Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine resolution that passed last December with a vote of 151 to 11. Previous versions of that resolution have been calling for a two-state solution negotiated on the basis of international law for decades now, and that's been more or less the case since the second year of the resolution back in 1994 when it was 131 countries in favor with only Israel and the US against.

Anyway, I'm not sure I've ever come across an Israeli who is even familiar with that longstanding consensus, and to the contrary have conversed with many who have a variety of different arguments regarding the legal status of the terrorizes, including more than a few arguments the Israel government has never officially made.

I'm very curious to hear from Israelis though: were you aware of this longstanding consensus, and if so do you know many others who are? And as a bonus question, do you realize much the same as the Golan Heights, but that's Syrian territory and they've been a UN member state since October 1946, two and a half years before before Israel was admitted in May of 1949?

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u/kylebisme — 23 hours ago
▲ 248 r/AskIsrael

Why do Egyptians pretend to care about creating a Palestinian state when they refused to establish one despite decades of controlling Gaza

u/Yakyaktak — 1 day ago

How do Israeli’s view the settler movement in the West Bank? Does the average Israeli citizen support the Hilltop Youth and Tsav 9? Does the Israeli public care that the IDF provides logistical support and security for these groups despite the fact that they are breaking international law?

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u/ACBets — 1 day ago

Why do you think antisemitism exists and is getting more popular (honest question, I'm not Jewish myself)?

It is meant as an honest and objective question, antisemitism is basically as old as humankind from what I know. Why do you think this is the case and how do you think this came to be (and is rising now)?

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u/No-Earth9874 — 1 day ago

Why is Arab propaganda viral and popular?

As I learned more and more about the conflict I completely do not understand the online trend of sympathy Palestinians and hatred for Israel.

How are so many people celebrating Palestinians and wanting statehood for them and completely ignoring the violence that they are committing and want to commit in the future. Giving Hamas a state where they can import all the weapons they want from other Arabs is a fucking nightmare.

Is it because this tickles an anti-semitic part in a lot of people's minds that is just waiting dormant for a reason to hate the Jews?

I know that Arab countries create a lot of propaganda and have a lot of oil money. But I don't understand why Israeli information on the conflict can't get out in the same viral way.

Is there any way you can help me better understand this?

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u/LightAvatar — 1 day ago

Will it end?

I am just a dumb 40yo American. I been told all my life, Israel are our friends. I can prolly never fully understand all the BS of the last 80 years, but honestly. Why can't it stop? Why are there no real peace talks between anybody? Why are there no prominent Jewish leaders on tv everyday condemning this? If people are, where do I go to hear it? Where is the Jewish John Lennon?? I am not getting a direct answer as to what the country of Israel wants. I stopped going to Twitter, because its just rampant racism and rage bait. So I come hear to ask, when? When will this end? What victory will make it worth it? Because right now, there is no victory that makes it a noble cause in my eyes. What will make PEACE? I don't mean to offend anyone with this post, and understand it is way more complex than what I am asking but I do really just want to understand without the nonsense of MSM and an algorithm trying to turn me against my fellow man. Peace and love for all of humanity.

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u/bobarchter — 1 day ago

Weekly Mega Thread

A weekly megathread for controversial topics, politics, current events, and other discussions that are better suited for a single community thread.

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u/AskIsrael — 19 hours ago

Is it really conceivable an Israel without Judea and Samaria alias "West Bank"? GHow to deal with the large Arab populace?

We know that the core of the controversy between Israel and the "Palestinian" population outside Israel is the status of the territory comprised between the Jordan river and the Green Line.

For years in Europe we have been instructed by progressive narrative to call this land "West Bank", but I have , by myself as in school I have not taught about, discovered that this land is actually superimposable to the ancient regions of Judea and Samaria, the real centre of ancient Jewish kingdoms.

So the situation from 1949 to 1967 is quite like the USA had been deprived by Pennsylvanya and Maryland, or England from the areas aroud Liverpool and Manchester. Areas important not only for economical value, but , even more importantly, for historical significance.

So I can imagine that the status of the former West Bank is a very tricky one and cannot be solved easily.

The problem is that in the ancient udea and Samaria there is now a large Arab population who have no intention to leave room for the descendants of the former inhabitants and thst these "reclaimers" do not seem very akin to solve problems with dialogue.

It has been said that settlements were intended to be built and to farm "nullius rem", that is lands who have been neglected for long and that local people did not legitimately claim as theirs

But we see that there are now settlers who actively try to push out legitimate farmers or sheperds from their lands and even the Jewish activists who try to do something are harassed or worse

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