I’m not defending religion here. I’m with you on that. I’m just saying that it’s wrong to generalize an entire demographic for the action of a specific entity that has little to do with them. Israel =/= Jews or Judaism. Again, this is like judging all 1.9 billion muslims for the actions of the Taliban. It’s fine if you want to be critical of Judaism or islam or any other religion, it’s also fine if you want to be critical Israel or Afghanistan or any other state, but judging an entire demographic for the actions of a state just because of their religion? Now we’re starting to get too close to bigotry territory.

That’s not true. Zionism originates from the Jewish scriptures. Basically, Judaism talks about how Jews were promised by God, via the scriptures and the old prophets, the land of Israel as a homeland. It is the duty of Jews to resettle the holy land and establish a theological society that is based on the divine laws and systems laid out in the Torah. By doing so, Jews would achieve salvation for themselves, and eventually for the rest of the world. This global salvation will be marked by global harmony and the coming of the messiah who will guide the world in the path of God.

Virtually all Jews agree that Israel is their homeland and that they will eventually reclaim the holy land and settle it in a way that would bring salvation as they await the coming of the Messiah. Traditionally Zionism was seen as something that is out of human control and is entirely up to God’s will. Essentially Jews will go back to Israel when God wills it and people have no say in the matter, any attempt by humans to accelerate the salvation is seen as blasphemous as it’s an act of rebellion against God’s will.

That’s when modern Zionism split. Modern Zionists believe that political and secular Zionism is a tool given by God to enact his divine plan and to initiate the return of Jews back the land of Israel. Therefore following this type of Zionism is actually following God’s will and it’s the duty of religious Jews to pursue it.

Obviously, there’s a great deal of debate among Jews about which theological branch is correct, but either way, the origins of Zionism aren’t purely secular or nationalist.

I mean some do and some don’t. It’s the same as any other nationality. Israelis aren’t a monolith.

No, there’s a difference between being critical of a religion and judging an entire religious demographic on the actions of a particular state.

Russia accused them of a genocide in Donbass.

The point is that trying to rebuild countries is usually a very bad idea, especially by force. Germany and Japan after WWII are very rare examples in history.

This is just ignorant. There’s only 14 million Jews in the world and 90% of them either live in the US or Israel. If there were 1.9 billion Jews like there were muslims, for example, we would start seeing a bunch of different states that act very differently from other. I think most people can agree that Iran under the Mullah regime and Afghanistan under the Taliban are evil, but at the same time, there are also islamic countries like Albania and Kazakhstan that are pretty normal. Trying to judge all Jews off the actions off of the actions of Israel, it’s like judging all muslims off of the actions of Pakistan or all Christians off of the actions of Brazil. It’s just silly.

I think it’s a little different. The Israelis who actually live or travel outside of Israel tend to usually be the educated, open minded ones. They’re usually the ones who want a two state solution and oppose wars. The whackos tend to stay in Israel. Not all Israelis are whackos, but all the Israeli whackos stay in Israel. It’s kind of like how the Americans who travel or live abroad tend to be liberal, but the MAGA types never even leave the country.

The reason for this is that Israel has a lot of ultra orthodox Jews, and they can be pinpointed as THE source of the insanity inside the country. They don’t contribute economically, they’re always calling for wars and violence but they refuse to participate in the military, they throw tantrums when anything doesn’t go their way, and they’re always trying to coerce society to be more religiously extreme.

This is the type of unhinged take that shouldn’t be welcomed in discourse. The reason why people are critical of Israel or Russia or Saudi Arabia or Iran or whatever is because they’re not bothered enough by the death and suffering. The whole point is to get them to deradicalize as a society so they won’t dehumanize other people. We went to bring them to the level everybody else is at, radicalizing ourselves to dehumanize them, that’s just making the problem worse.

What in the actual fuck? Hell no.

I feel like people like this have always been antisemitic and they’re just waiting for an excuse or justification to go mask off. Gross.

The study refers to Palestinians living in Israel as “Arabs”. If the study doesn’t properly identify the individuals it’s researching I have serious doubts about the legitimacy of the results.

My understanding is that Israel has a distinction between Israeli citizens who are ethnically Arab and Palestinians from the Palestinian territories who aren’t citizens and are de facto treated as foreigners.

Russia said the same exact thing about Ukraine… maybe this is not a wise option in general.

Middle East Eye is a notorious propaganda outlet, especially on this conflict. I would take anything they say with a grain of salt, including their interpretations of polls and surveys. I personally recommend everybody here to actually look at the original source and the same information referenced directly from there. The survey cited in this article is pretty extensive, and I think it’s worth taking a look at:

https://en.idi.org.il/articles/60357

Of course he is. President dipshit is on a mission to make everything worse

Having body cams on cops was the one of the best decisions we’ve made as a society in recent years. Not only do they flush out shitty cops like this, but they have also protected good cops from false accusations and violent people. They need to be required everywhere and cops must have them on their entire shifts or they’ll face criminal investigations.

I did misread your comment, and I apologize for that but my point still stands. We’re not doing a survey here, we’re simply observing the current state of leftist culture and discourse in society. Looking at the the left right, can you say that purity testing is prominent element of it? It’s a simple yes or no question, and I think the answer is a yes if we’re being honest.

That’s not what I’m asking, I’m saying you can’t judge now many people are not engaging in purity testing.

That’s a moot point. First of all, I’m not casting judgement, I’m simply pointing out the state of leftist unity. You can’t deny that purity testing is a huge element in leftist discourse, and if you are going to anyway then you’re simply not being honest. It doesn’t matter how self identifying leftists do or don’t purity test, the point is that enough do where it’s a cornerstone of leftist culture.

That’s exactly what confirmation bias is. “All the toupees I see are bad, therefore, all toupees are bad.” Confirmation bias with a basis of fact to it, still completely ignoring the toupees you don’t notice.

That’s not what confirmation bias is. Confirmation bias is when you actively seek out information that support your preexisting beliefs. My opinion is not confirmation bias, but a simple observation.

Academics all over the world are in consensus about this, and you can be sure they’ve examined all the sources available to them. Tankies are the only ones who want to argue otherwise.

It’s a similar to MAGA in a way. MAGA’s biggest problem, as an ideology, is that it revolves around blind loyalty to a single idiot and therefore the entire movement starts and stops with his whims, no matter how contradictory, damaging, or nonsensical. You could say it’s confirmation bias that I have this opinion, but I think given recent events, this opinion does have a basis of fact to it. The same applies to the left when it comes to purity testing. It’s really not hard to see how prominent purity testing is in leftist discourse.

You’re right, BUT it will never happen. Hearing different perspectives and understanding other viewpoints will not only broaden your horizons, but it will also deradicalize you… but the people who you are asking to do this are the radicals who are allergic to ideologically diversity. Purity testing is one of the hallmark defining traits of the modern left, and the further left you go the more extreme it gets. The far left will excommunicate anybody who doesn’t agree with on just about everything. You simply can’t have a serious movement with this type of mentality being as prominent as it is.