If you are anti-Zionist, what do you think Israel should do?

[Poudretteite]

Should Israel open its borders? Be given back to the Palestinian people? Where should the Jewish people go? What about the high risk of genocide?

Interested to hear as many people over the last few days have said they are anti-Zionist and that it's different to antisemitism.

I think that it's all very complicated, and in recent years, especially on SM, it's been reduced to simplistic slogans and memes, and phrases that people can chant . It does no-one any favours.

No, their descendants do. Those living there at the time israel was formed became Israeli citizens I suppose whether they wanted to or not including the remaining Arabs. 20% of the citizens of Israel are ethnically Arab now and I am assuming most claim to be ethnically Palestinian.

Even Hamas know they went too far this time and are trying to backtrack saying that they didn’t try to kill civilians (except it was all caught on real-time video….).

And Hamas do hide behind civilians knowing Israel has a morality that they don’t.

But….starving babies in a medieval siege will only win a pyrrhic victory; it is not how civilised nations behave, regardless of provocation (though, given Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, I am not sure who is civilised any more). I hope wiser heads in Israel and the U.S prevail. Israel has enough firepower to achieve their war objectives without targeting women and children.

The massive problem is that (the kleptocrat) Yasser Arafat rejected a really good peace deal (in my opinion because it compromised his kleptocracy) and the Palestinians then elected in Hamas, an organisation whose stated aim is the genocide of Jews (or at least ethnic cleansing out of Israel). How do you deal with a population with this aim?!

But, since then, the Israeli’s have acted very poorly too, allowing apartheid around Jerusalem and extreme Jews settling in the Palestinian areas. These are every bit as bad as Hamas, but thankfully a minority within Israel far less powerful. They honestly believe that they have a G-d-given right to the land and are the chosen people.

So, all-in-all it is a massive mess! Personally, post Hamas, I think the Israelis should unilaterally withdraw from the new settlements and help the Palestinians to become a proper trading partner and a modern society. Jerusalem should also become a global city, administered by a coalition of Jews and Moslems.

Someone needs to be the ‘bigger person’ here and Israel, backed by the might of the U.S, should take this role. There is nothing that Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran would like to see less than Jews and Palestinians living peacefully side by side in prosperity.

It’s always telling on these threads how often those who disagree with the pro Palestine faction are called things like “fascists” “ignorant” and told to “do some reading” or “educate themselves

Those disagreeing with pro-Israel are often told to “do some reading” and “educate themselves”. Just today, on another thread, someone was telling me that I was spreading misinformation and they hoped the next person to come along would do some research before forming an opinion. All without offering up a single fact or argument.
Never been called a fascist though.

It is not even remotely "anti-Zionist" (and certainly not antisemitism) to be horrified and disgusted by the way the Palestinians have been treated, and particularly those in the Gaza strip.

I have zero connection to either side. I grew up where there were no Jewish people and no history whatsoever of antisemitism. There were no Palestinians either and no one even vaguely associated with them. No on knew enough to have a problem with either side.

When I went to the USA, my roommate was doing a PhD on Palestinian childhood. She had to visit the Gaza strip and West Bank each summer for years for her research and still does now that she's a professor. Her reports were deeply shocking, with people routinely being forced to queue for hours to get through crossing points for jobs and to see family members in other Palestinian areas, supplies being cut off, routine bombing of civilian areas, and on and on. Conditions in the Gaza strip are horrible right now, but they're not much more horrible than they're always been.

Of course the attack on Israel that just happened cannot possibly be justified. It was horrific. It was also inevitable and it's surprising similar attacks haven't happened more often. We would not accept the kind of life that the Palestinians have had for generations now since their land was taken.

There's no perfect solution at this point, but at the VERY least, the Israelis should be stopped from oppressing the Palestinians. They should not be allowed to blockade necessary supplies or create daily misery for people relying on jobs or wanting to see family and friends in the West Bank/Gaza strip. Palestinians have traditionally had fewer rights in Israel and that's wrong.

There are people here saying that if the Palestinians were given their own country, things wouldn't improve. That's lame excuse-making. Of course they should have their own country. I think the Gaza strip should go to Israel and an equivalent or larger area of Israel added on to the West Bank so that the Palestinians aren't cut off from each other. It should go without saying that Israeli settlers should get out of Palestinian areas. The USA has added fuel to the fire by supporting the Israelis when they've encouraged settler encroachment.

I think many people my age see the Israelis as the aggressors and if the Israelis don't change, they're going to find that support from the US disappears over time as we get older and the elderly people who enable Israel disappear.

What Hamas has done is utterly evil and wrong, but desperate people do desperate things and ordinary Palestinians are being punished for it. The situation did not have to get to this point.

They obviously don't feel safe in Israel either though.

Are you saying that Israel were so successful in their massacres and ethnic cleansing in 1948 that very few 'Arabs' there now are actually Palestinian?

“The UN stole the land from the Arabs to create Israel just 75 years ago.”

Um, pardon?

The area that is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza was under British Mandate and had been since 1920. The British weren’t Arabs.

Before that, it was controlled by the Ottoman Empire, who also weren’t Arabs. Before that, the Mamluks ( also not Arabs). Before that… anyway, the idea that the UN ‘stole’ the land from Arabs is based on the idea that the Arabs who’d lived there for centuries (but weren’t in control) somehow had more of a right to the land than the Jews who’d also lived there for rather more centuries (and also weren’t in control).

The irony is that if the Palestinians had accepted the UN mandate, they would have got a lot more land than they ended up with.

@SomeCatFromJapan genuinely interested to know why this group of Jews. Who seem to be quite orthodox feel this way. Why do they not want to see the Jewish people in Israel? Whether I agree or not I would have assumed religious Jews would prefer to live in Israel, not protest against its existence

@SomeCatFromJapan I also saw parts of the protest on the news. I didn't see any anti semitic chants though

@Parkingt111 religious beliefs - they believe that Jewish exile from Israel can only be ended by the Messiah, and the secular re-establishment of a Jewish state is sinful.

I think this is a good take. As is condemning the horrific actions of Hamas while also condemning the brutal collective punishment of Israel and their previous mistreatment of Palestinians. NI has an imperfect peace, but it's thousands of times better than before the GFA.

@Parkingt111 ,

I am very much a secular Jew, so my religious knowledge is far from great, but I think the sect you refer to believes that the Jews should only return to the Holy Land when the messiah comes….and that hasn’t happened yet.

Yes, some ultra Orthodox Jews are against an Israeli state. I’d like to understand why. I can’t quite believe it’s because of their supporting the Palestinians, I suspect it’s more likely to do with a tenet of their religion, but happy to be corrected if I’m wrong

And where do these beliefs stem from? Is it from religious scripture or just their own personal views

And where do these beliefs stem from? Is it from religious scripture or just their own personal views

Sorry, that's about as far as my knowledge of their beliefs extends.

Why should the Jews?

Where do you think the Palestinian people should live? Do you want the west to got and cause another war in the middle east by taking a piece of land from all the neighbouring countries to form a country for the Palestinian? From what I hear people other than Hamas and the Israeli government are not opposed to coexistence and the ones not sure could be convinced.

@Anactor that's a very clear summary of the governance of the Levant since the Crusades, and admirably succinct. The British Mandate came about after TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) defeated the Ottoman (Turkish) rulers who supported Germany in WW1.

You're being disingenuous. Here are the facts from the BBC:
The land which would become Israel was for centuries part of the Turkish-ruled Ottoman Empire. After World War One and the collapse of the empire, territory known as Palestine - the portion of which west of the River Jordan was also known as the land of Israel by Jews - was marked out and assigned to Britain to administer by the victorious allied powers (soon after endorsed by the League of Nations).

The bottom line is that approximately 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from their homes. Regardless of who controlled the land, they and their ancestors lived there for generation after generation in the exact same way that many European families have lived for generations in areas that been controlled by different powers.

I don't believe you actually think anyone is entitled to have their descendants return to an area hundreds of years after they last lived there and take land from the current residents and that's why your post will be so unclear and fuzzy.

The Jewish people needed a homeland, but we would not be having the problems we're having today if they hadn't set out to take just about everything and force people to live in grinding poverty. The current situation could have been avoided.

It's a strange one - as I understand it (Jewish people may correct me) that very Orthodox Jews think that Israel can only exist with the coming of God, it has to be born from holiness, not the creation of people. They also disapprove of the fact that this Holy Land is not only secular and democratic, but allows equality for women, and gays.

Zionism clashes with their beliefs that have been interpreted from Scriptures.
Something along those lines but they also seem to be acutely aware of the human conflict Zionism brought with it.

seems sensible. I don’t know how possible. But there are no easy options.

I found this on Wikipedia on the beliefs of Neturei karta. Not sure how reliable it is

Neturei Karta believe that the exile of the Jews can end only with the arrival of the Messiah, and that human attempts to establish Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel are sinful. In Neturei Karta's view, Zionism is a presumptuous affront against God. Chief among their arguments against Zionism is the Talmudic concept of the so-called Three Oaths, extracted from the discussion of certain portions of the Bible. It states that a pact consisting of three oaths was made between God, the Jewish people, and the nations of the world, when the Jews were sent into exile. One provision of the pact was that the Jews would not rebel against the non-Jewish world that gave them sanctuary; a second was that they would not immigrate en masse to the Land of Israel. In return, the gentile nations promised not to persecute the Jews. By rebelling against this pact, they argued, the Jewish people were engaging in rebellion against God.

This is what should happen, firstly after a terrorist attack the perpetrators should be caught or killed which I think mainly happened. They area should be secured which I think happened. The security failure should be addressed.finally negotiating should start to secure hostages. This is what should happen and not the war crimes and genocide which is happening now. In the future it should be accepted that the idea of of Zion in the Middle East is flawed. The state of Israel should be immediately brought to America where their friends are and there is plenty of space. They could clear out UTAH maybe and create Zion there. No more blood shed.