Are these somewhat extreme views?

[confusedthirtysomething2]

I’ve changed a few details…

My niece (let’s call her Stella) visited for the summer. She’s just graduated from Oxford and spent a lot of time protesting for Palestine. I’m half Ashkenazi but I completely understand the backlash against the Israeli govt and what they’re doing. However, some of her views concerned me and I don’t know whether I’m being over dramatic.

Firstly, something about Palestinians being the original levantines and Jews in Israel are European converts.

It’s a myth that democracy is the right/only way to run a country.

The Islamic revolution in Iran was a backlash against American imperialism so the pictures of women in Iran prior to the Islamic revolution was never what the people wanted and it’s only the past ten years they’ve had a fascist government.

Japan are only rebelling against China for independence because they’ve forgotten their own heritage and have been brainwashed by the west.

She’s always been very left but I found these views quite fringe. She’s a lovely, intelligent woman (always had straight As) but I’m worried she’s on a slippery slope. Or AIBU because I’m not really used to having my worldview challenged? I live in a rural town and never went to uni.

Tbf China is technically a communist country

I'm not sure what this means. Do you mean that it shouldn't be questioned because other things are going on?

Critical thinking needs to be a compulsory subject on the curriculum so that all governments can be held to account. At the moment propaganda is winning.

It’s cognitive dissonance. When faced with facts that go against what a person believes to be true, there are three options: accept it and adjust their beliefs, double down and try to rationalise it in any way possible, or ignore it.

It causes psychological discomfort to have your beliefs questioned, which is why people sometimes go to great lengths to maintain their beliefs, even when presented with facts demonstrating otherwise.

Some of these are true.

Some are not.

Democracy is only one way to run a country. Strictly speaking the U.K. is a constitutional monarchy and there are plenty of countries that are monarchies, dictatorships, oligarchies, republics etc.

The Islamic revolution in Iran was partially a response to a lot of American and British intervention and control in that area.

Japan is its own country and has never "rebelled" against China although they have had several wars which the Chinese have mostly lost.

It’s an example of ideological subversion of the younger generation by the hostile powers opposed to democracy. Something that’s been going on in the West for decades.

Yuri Bezmenov, a KGB propaganda expert who deflected to the West was warning is about it but the majority didn’t listen:

Does your niece know that the Iranian regime executed all the students and intellectuals that supported the Islamists overthrowing the shah as soon as the revolution was complete? It was a bloodbath.

Re China, it’s the same argument as Russia against the Ukraine: the people of Ukraine/Japan have forgotten where their ethnic roots are and which sphere of influence they belong to, so we must remind them.

How ironic that the same far left that condemns every manifestation of ethnonationalism in the West supports it when it comes to non-Western regimes oppressing other countries.

Palestinians being the original levantines and Jews in Israel are European converts.

Both sides are claiming to be the original (only) occupants. There are equivalent views that say Palestinians don't exist. Before Zionism, Jews and Palestinians lived reasonably peacefully together. This view is extreme, but it tends to be held in opposition to the view that says only Jews are the original occupants. Extremism begets extremism.

It’s a myth that democracy is the right/only way to run a country.

That's true. There are many ways. Democracy is one. It's very flawed and is being undermined where it exists, but it does seem better than other ways.

The Islamic revolution in Iran was a backlash against American imperialism so the pictures of women in Iran prior to the Islamic revolution was never what the people wanted and it’s only the past ten years they’ve had a fascist government.

The Islamic revolution was a backlash against British and American imperialism originally. They organised the overthrow of the elected leader, Mosaddegh, in 1953 (I think) largely because he wanted the oil revenues to come to Iran. They imposed the unpopular Shah who ruled by terror and torture. The US in particular supported Saddam in his war against Iran that killed thousands of Iranians. The religious government there has never been liberal. How popular is has been in the past is hard to say. It was the choice of the people at the time, but it became pretty fundamentalist from the word go. Marjane Sartrapi's (may have spelled that wrong) graphic novel Persepolis is a really good account of this.

Japan are only rebelling against China for independence because they’ve forgotten their own heritage and have been brainwashed by the west.

You mean Taiwan? The Chinese government is totalitarian, but it has lifted its people out of poverty in an amazing way. It's also making great inroads into African countries, usually with the support of the people and leaders. Taiwan in really their business, not ours.

This.

It’s a myth that democracy is the right/only way to run a country. This is a legitimate and potentially interesting starting point for discussion and I wouldn't say it's particularly controversial. Secondary school and even uni students are often presented with these kinds of thought exercises -- looking at certain regimes in Latin America, for example, where citizens appear to have consciously traded "freedom" for security, or cases like post-Saddam Hussein Iraq where "the West" went to great pains to ensure democratic-ish elections and the public appeared to "freely choose" more authoritarian options. I'd only worry if she's refusing to consider (or allow others to articulate) an argument FOR the relative merits of democracy either in general or in specific cases.

The other three points are just historically inaccurate.

Pretty extreme but with grains of not-extremism in them, if that makes sense? So I'm pretty left wing and could find some places to meet her on American imperialism, democracy being imperfect, and colonialism in the Middle East, which are positions that a lot of left wingers could probably agree with at least slightly. But the actual opinions as you've understood them are heading down a radicalisation spiral, which is not unusual for university students and which she'll probably refine as she gets older.

If you're able to discuss them from a place of not completely dismissing them it might be helpful, but also valid to just not engage, obviously!

"Both sides are claiming to be the original (only) occupants."

No @Technonan that's not correct. It is by no means even remotely a mainstream view at all that only Jews are the original occupants. And saying that Jews lived there peacefully is only really said by those who don't know much about it, or those who aren't too bothered about Jewish suffering. I don't appreciate your tone or your seeming implication that the only reason there are issues is because Jewish people also think they deserve self-determination aka Zionism. Zionism isn't extremism. Zionism is Jewish people wanting the right for self-determination in their homeland, the place the religion comes from. The only place our holy sites exist.

@confusedthirtysomething2 maybe ask this poster for more information about your niece's thinking - they seem to be getting their propaganda from the same sources.

Although it’s true that university students should be used to having their views challenged in the academic settings, it’s also true that in the social settings, students can be very reluctant to express opinions outside the current norms.
The current norms unfortunately tend to come from Instagram and TikTok. Critical thinking goes out of the window when young people want nothing more than to fit in with their peers. The views expressed by this young woman are typical of what students are bombarded with on social media. It’s a real problem.
Ideally you’d be able to ask the question “who told you that, and why do you believe them”. In practice, she doesn’t want to question it because that would mean breaking her alignment with her peer group and the current dogma. Most young people aren’t yet mature enough to have the courage to say no to the crowd.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what is happening. I have seen so many 'There are no such people as Palestinians' posts on social media, they can't be ignored, nor can others saying that the old maps show Israel shouldn't be there. Until the rights and wrongs on both sides are recognised, peace will remain elusive.

Zionism is an extreme point of view. It is Zionism, for example, that is driving the illegal settlers in the West Bank who are occupying Palestinian land, attacking Palestinian people and driving them off their farms. Earlier, before the establishment of Israel, the zionist group Lehi carried out terror attacks to push this agenda forward.

There is a massive imbalance of power in this conflict. There is nothing extreme about saying this. It is there right in front of us: one of the best armed countries in the world knocking seven bells out of one of the weakest.

That said, I am no supporter of Hamas and I think that what they did on October 7 was unforgivable. But what Israel has done since is worse.

Left wing? These are more right wing or generally very extreme views. Who has she been spending time with, that would also be concerning me.

I agree with PPs that critical appraisal skills seem to be completely lacking on social media. The Conflict in the Middle East thread is a good example of this. People seem unaware that Hamas is playing a propaganda war as well as a physical one.

So 80% of Jewish people are extremists, but there's otbubg extreme about saying that 80% of Jewish people are extremists.

No idea what the Japan comment is about, but my DC are half-Taiwanese and this kind of thing drives my DD mad. She'd come home from school ranting whenever Taiwan was a topic and someone brought up this kind of argument.

Do these people think the brains of the Taiwanese people are too feeble to comprehend what they actually want? Taiwan has unfettered access to.the internet, excellent news outlets and many of the citizens have family in Mainland China. It's an educated, literate, erudite population that is more than capable of charting its own political path. There's certainly no.need for payernalistic Oxbridge grads to pat them on their heads and tell them they know what's best for them and it isn't what they think.

Agree but unless Labour does something drastic to rescue the humanities, it will die.

I’m an English Lit lecturer, critical thinking is an actual module I teach first and second year undergrads and it’s astonishing how naive some students are. They never fail to surprise me with their ill thought out conspiracies, most often found on TikTok. Lots of often unintentional antisemitism since October 7th and as a half Jewish person, it’s difficult to find a way to challenge it without taking it personally.

Saying it's Zionism that is driving illegal settlers is the same as saying it's Islam that's driving Hamas and various other terrorist groups. But it isn't. It's people who have taken an ideology / religion and then completely misinterpreted it all to suit their own racist narrative.

Zionism is self-determination for Jewish people in Zion aka Israel, their homeland. Please stop misappropriating the term by changing its meaning. It's not an ok thing to be doing.

Zionism is an extreme point of view.

Zionism is a belief in Israel's right to exist as a Jewish homeland. I would say that calling it an extreme point of view, is in itself an extreme point of view.

Zionism is a political nationalist movement with the goal of the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine. I will take the point that it is not an extremist movement in itself, but it has sparked extremism, from Lehi, for example, who attempted to negotiate with Hitler for his support to oppose the British in Palestine, though this was before the Holocaust, but at a time when Jewish people were being persecuted in Nazi Germany; to the West Bank settlers.

This is the way some of the settlers behave: Jewish extremists taunt 'Ali's on the grill' at slain toddler's relatives | The Times of Israel

The problem is, Israel does not recognise the rights of the displaced Palestinians, and the more these rights are not recognised, the more unrest it causes.

Very extreme views yes.

But the bit about Japan is a fairly huge error on your part (unless she actually said Japan in which case it’s a huge error on her part, but I’m less surprised)

Why would Labour want to teach critical teaching -alot of their favored ideologies wouldn't withstand being considered critically (eg the trans ideology).

Zionism is a movement with the goal of the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Israel. I'm a Zionist and want a two state solution. Stop pretending the two things are mutually exclusive.