I live in a post religious society and it's easy to forget that these things still matter for the rest of the planet.
They've weaponized anti-semitism against their detractors. And, who wants to be accused of racism? Even false accusations stain your reputation.
The irony is that it's probably one of the most racist countries I've ever seen in my entire life. They made a shrine to a terrorist (Baruch Goldstein). The president proudly called miscegenation "a tragedy". If you can imagine a white US president openly calling for whites and blacks to stop having babies - that's the level of racism this state's supporters endorse when weaponizing anti semitism.
Not sure what you're talking about here. Baruch Goldstein has no "shrine"* and besides fringe groups in Israel he is generally not accepted. Compare that with the monthly salaries Palestinian terrorists receive from the PLO and their rockstar status in Palestinian society.
* he has a grave, Israeli law can't really prevent that. The Israeli government has ruined most of the site of his grave despite his family's appeals.
On the flip side, human nature being what it is, giving any person or set of people unconditional approval is creating conditions where evil can thrive.
Maybe go look up Jonathan Pollard. If Israel is our close friend, why would they need to spy on us?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard
https://www.military.com/history/jonathan-pollard-was-one-of...
The same reason why the US spies on the Bundeskanzler.
An actual reason I have heard is that it is as important to have independent information on your allies than it is on your enemies. Even if it is only for better coordination.
Basically, boosting Israel makes politicians popular with big swaths of their electorate. Pissing those electorates off makes things tough on a corporation, so they generally try not to.
As a secular Jew in Western Europe, I've distanced myself from my religious community due to its insistence on tying my identity to Israel. Where I live, it's less taboo to critique Israel than in the U.S., but still tricky.
Advocates of Israel's right-wing politics have blurred the line between criticizing Israel and anti-Semitism, an endeavor helped by actual anti-Semites. I've grown up with these supporters, but can't quite call them a "lobby" due to their loose organization and lesser influence here compared to the U.S.
Speaking out brings risks: being labeled a leftist extremist, clashing with fellow Jews, or unwittingly aiding anti-Semites. And that's if you are Jew.
This creates a pervasive, cautious silence that I imagine is even more stifling in countries with highly organized pro-Israel lobbying.
My horrid crime that made me literally Hitler?
Disagreement if a tag should be named "jews" or "judaism" on the Politics Stack Exchange site. I made an off-hand comment that I renamed the tag from "jews" to "judaism" and the very first response was that I had been "reported to the ADL" (whether they actually did: who knows? Probably not).
That such an incredibly boring, banal, and benign disagreement exploded in accusations of anti-Semitism so quickly has made me rather distrustful of these accusations in general unless I can verify things. Anti-Semitism is real, but so are narcissistic people abusing it to "win the argument". If you need to defend yourself with "but I'm not anti-Semitic!" then you've already kind of lost the argument, right?
Is it really so hard to "critique" Israel? I see daily calls for Israel to be abolished one way or the other (either violently with the help of Iran or with a Palestinian return). You can hear these opinions from politicians, on the news and social media, campuses and schools.
You might be labeled as a leftist as you said because this is generally a leftist stance, that's fair no? If I held a rightwing view I will probably be labeled as a right winger. Most Israelis I know think twice before they identify as Israelis in certain parts of Europe, they don't want a random cab driver to start lecturing them about apartheid (or do something worse). So I'm really intrigued why you think its such a taboo thing to criticize Israel or even openly call for its destruction.
- Strong lobby in both political parties.
- Boomers with their Judeo-Christians “values”.
- Israel intelligence agencies controlling/influencing ADL, ADL pressuring three letter agencies in US to further influence big tech.
- The usual tactics of infiltration into big corps especially ones that can influence public opinions, you can read a little about Roy Bollock case
>The ADL operates as a private intelligence agency, sending spies, infiltrators, disruptors, and agents provocateurs into the camps — both Jewish and non-Jewish — of those who disagree with its view of Jewish interests. Also like an intelligence agency, it maintains a huge database containing personal information on politicians, writers, dissidents, activists, publishers, bloggers, and even unaffiliated private citizens so that — should any of these people “get out of line,” in the opinion of the ADL — they can be threatened, “exposed,” blackmailed, and thus silenced with maximum effectiveness. [1]
- And especially for Facebook with their shady business, they live on selling the users data to advertisers, the company won’t do anything to cut that money flow, take a look at twitter in the same case how ADL managed to cut around 60% of ads companies, it’s mostly about money and influence.
[1] redice.tv/news/the-adl-and-domestic-spying-roy-bullock-case-revisited
For example on twitch, Spanish streamers[1] say a lot of things that would get an English streamer canceled and/or banned for saying it. And for other languages I'm sure the gap is even bigger.
The same with the group being criticized. Criticism against Russians is not moderated the same way as criticism against Jewish people.
To be clear I'm not in favor of hate speech, I'm just pointing out that moderation isn't 100% equal.
[1] I mean the language of the stream, not the nationality of the streamer
People are not criticizing ethnic Russians. They are criticizing citizens of the Russian state, which includes people who aren’t ethnically Russian but doesn’t include people who are ethnically Russian in e.g. Ukraine. It’s arguable how much responsibility Russian citizens have for the present situation but it’s more than zero.
Similarly while it’s fine to criticize Israelis for the actions of Israel, it’s not fine to criticize Jewish people in general for it.
I agree, kind of, but let's also please realize that it's similar to criticizing US citizens for the actions of the US state. I wouldn't criticize the average American for the actions of the CIA or for the war in Afghanistan, because the average American might or might not agree with those actions.
In other words, I think it's correct to criticize the country, but incorrect to criticize specific people unless they are personally doing bad things.
Some do, and are rarely denounced for that. Alas.
Also, when the internet will ever learn, if you try to censor something you will just give it more exposure, I personally would never know about this documentary but now I will watch it.
I'm also willing to bet that when it gets manually reviewed it will be reinstated.
I never got an explanation from fb at the time, but now when I try to log in it states a reason: I have broken community rules regarding "dangerous people and organizations". Which is really a laughable accusation regarding me, a convinced pacifist since 50 years back. But I'm honestly concerned that this might have further implications for me. Who else gets to know that I'm considered associated with "dangerous persons or organizations"?
Anyway, we are as a society still grappling for how to deal with the sudden and immense power over public opinion generation as well peoples most private lives that social media companies have acquired lately. I don't have a complete solution, but this is untenable.
They have known this for a while they do nothing about it.
Should Coca-Cola and its followers also be banned?
Who decides where the line of "dangerous" is drawn?
Still wrong to target the host, but I could see how they could justify it.
Since 9/11 Americans can't trust anything with an "arabic background", they are constantly bombarded by the media, so they can't ever discover that the middle east is much more than a place with oil or "weapons of mass destruction".
Al Jazeera hires top journalists, they are well-funded. They are just very concerned when talking about Qatar, which in a geopolitical sense, doesn't matter, all other news are typically very unbiased.
Only a few news outlets from Europe are similar in quality.
Americans rarely want to see the truth anyways, so they stick with those republican/democrat-leaning media outlets, eating Mc Donalds, going bankrupt on a hospital emergency and believing in the American dream: you need to be asleep to believe on it.
Doesn't seem like the sign of a good news org if you can't say a word of criticism about the country you're headquartered at. Makes me wonder what else is rotten in there, how can we know the rules of the country aren't dictating a bunch of other stuff to the news? News should be as independent as possible.
The main State-sponsored media outlet in my country is considered to be of a pretty high quality. It has some international recognition.
I’d say a fair chunk of those that actually care about media outlet trustworthiness (and aren’t just sharing whatever articles come their way barring a few outlets that are in their person blocklist) are aware of the nuances of AJ’s authority and trustworthiness. The reality is that they have built this reputation by doing heaps and heaps of good reporting, not even in spite of being state-sponsored, but really because of it. There are certain topics that you shouldn’t listen to AJ regarding. Otherwise? They do a good job.
I would argue that they just have more polish to their presentation rather than having more integrity, and the coverage in local language is quite different from the one in English
Because they are different govs, with different agendas, each of them see the propaganda of others as evil, but it's still all very much propaganda.
Remember CNN diffused many bits on how WMD were in Irak to justify the war the UN voted against. The USA went to war anyway, and we learned there were no WMD.
Al Jazeera does the same, but for their side.
It is, nevertheless, quite qualitative content for many topics, and give you another points of on the world events than our own medias outlet.
I am sorry, but they aren't. This is just false equivalence, you can just go read BBC's coverage of UK politics and you will see criticism of their government
Speaking personally, as an ex-journalist I found their English-language coverage generally to be pretty well-balanced and well reported - so that's probably why. And I came to them with a pretty sceptical eye. I've heard that their arabic language stories are rather different - but I don't have a way of checking that for myself.
You realize that all media/press is backed by something, right?
Do you prefer click-baity ridden press looking for ad revenue instead? Or media as a business where they avoid reporting anything controversial that would hurt their business/image/relationships/backers.
Just because it doesn't adopt you worldview doesn't mean its a propaganda outlet.
Certainly there's very negative coverage of Quatar's many faults, but that's not the same as constantly pushing a positive agenda. In other areas the reporting seems sound.
A starter for you https://www.aljazeera.com/search/quatar?sort=date
Elon Musk doesn't know how the advertising business works, get's rid of moderation and let's banned people back. Which obviously leads to an increase of antisemitism on Twitter and the ADL justly fights against it.
Now after the lawsuit this guy thinks: Elon is a genius, it must be the jews who control the media who have prejudices against Elon and his management.
Lol what? Advertisers literally pulled out because their ads showed up to actual Nazi, holocaust denying content. The ADL didn't (have to) do anything, the brands' brand safety teams did.
https://www.newsweek.com/adl-has-lost-its-way-elon-musk-righ...
To not base conclusions on a single data point (maybe the Fed Chair is an outlier), US Jews also contributed 50% of all donations to the Democratic party, and 25% to the Republican party: https://www.jpost.com/US-Elections/US-Jews-contribute-half-o...
“If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
-Justice Louis Brandeis
All you have to do is just compare bbc coverage on palestine and ukraine.
The BBC is absolutely biased.
Some people need more evidence than this before they place blame on a group with such a history of prejudice against them.
Hell, I’m from a country that is far less touchy about the plight of the Jewish people compared to, say, the US. But inferring anything from this correlation without considering the wider context is absurd.
GP very obviously thinks that using 2-3x more words to essentially say “Jews control the media” gives their comment more intellectual standing
It's not the first time the ADL has lead a pressure campaign on advertisers of a social media company. They did the something similar with Facebook in 2020.
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/06/29/adl-ceo-facebook-adver...
One interpretation of "Zionism" could mean the idea that Israel should be an ethnically and religiously Jewish state that comprises the Biblical land of Israel, and that everyone else should be second-class citizens; and so simply saying that Israel should be a democracy that gives equal rights to all the people living within its borders, or that Israel should respect the Palestinian territories, would be "Anti-Zionist". Under this interpretation, "Anti-Zionism questions Israel's existence" really means "Anti-Zionism questions the existence of one particular vision for what Israel should be". That's not really a bad thing.
If, on the other hand, "Anti-Zionist" means the abolishing the Israeli government and re-partitioning the territory back into its pre-1948 states -- I mean, yeah, that's pretty bad; but I've never heard any of my left-leaning friends advocate anything like that, and such a desire would be really incompatible with everything else they're in favor of.
But these are just guesses, since you didn't provide much context.
Having said that, in my experience, a lot of people have some vague sense of "Israel should not be a purely Jewish state, should allow equal status to everyone else, should give the right of return to all Palestinians [implicitly meaning that it would no longer be a Jewish majority state]" etc.
And most people don't have a good answer to the question: Poland is a state for ethnic Polish people, Spain is a place for Spanish people, Japan is a place for Japanese people; why can't there be a country that's for Jewish place? Why is a country for Jewish people somehow illegitimate?
(There are good answers given the history why this particular instantiation of Israel is a problem. So good that nobody has been able to solve these problems for so many years. But many people talking about this don't know those reasons - they just vaguely think "Israel bad, not allowing anyone equal rights is 'apartheid'" etc.)
I think the point is that those countries you say are "nation states" are in fact turning away from being nation states, or already have. Most of Europe learned from the 19th and 20th centuries that nationalism (despite being very romantic in many ways) ends in disaster. I am from the UK and it cannot be said to be a nation state, if it ever was. My country is full of people with immigrant backgrounds from all over the world with full citizenship rights who are a million miles from being "ethnically English" or "ethnically Scottish". As it should be.
So yeah in my opinion, an "English nation state" is undesirable. I don't want it. I'm glad we're not one.
Give us a few, I'm interested.
Zionism at its core is the belief that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. This is precisely what "anti-Zionism" opposes. Middle Eastern/Arab "anti-Zionists" advocate for exactly what you mentioned in your second paragraph. Additionally, depending on their political affiliation, some may seek the subjugation, expulsion, or harm of the Jewish population in Israel/Palestine. The percentage of Palestinians advocating for a one-state solution with equal rights for all is at most 33%, according to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR).
Your "left-leaning" friends may not have expressed anything like that and might simply want to express solidarity with the perceived "weaker" side. However, by proclaiming to be "anti-Zionist," they are undoubtedly associating themselves with some aspects of hardcore Palestinian nationalism. It's puzzling to me how this is compatible with traditional left-leaning stances and why any self-described left-leaning person would want to be associated with that, except due to extreme ignorance about the meaning of the words and the actual situation on the ground.
10% of Israelis consider him a national hero, according to Israeli polls: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-733523
The Minister for National Security Ben Gvir had a portrait of Baruch in his living room: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamar_Ben-Gvir
I'd encourage anybody who visits Israel to go and see Kiryat Arba in the west bank settlement where Goldstein lived and where he committed his shooting spree, because it puts his act into context. It's a heavily militarized ethnically cleansed enclave of about 7,500 Israelis in the center of the second largest Palestinian west bank city - Hebron.
Unlike other settlements they often live in the same buildings - in the floors above Palestinians that was confiscated from them. There is netting to trap the trash that they throw down on the citizens "beneath" them as guard in guard towers look on, pointing guns: https://twitter.com/Mondoweiss/status/1668711490025603072
It's the most visible symbol of the kind of racism American supporters of Israel endorse, some of whom are, sadly, all too evident even in this thread.
a) they're in the minority
b) they're not giving any publicity to their private thoughts
Palestinian terrorists however get a rockstar status in Palestinian society including streets named after them and a monthly salary given by the PLO if they're imprisoned.
Though just for context, there is a huge political fight within Israel, partially because of people like Ben Gvir. It's not the whole country supporting this nonsense.
And while 10% of Israelis saying he's a hero is 10% too many, I imagine it's comparable to similar numbers in other countries for similar-ish situations. Still terrible, but not exactly proof that the country is especially racist.
(Though to be fair, it's not like there's zero racism in Israel, though I think it's less about race and more about the national situation/issues around the Palestinians. I don't think it makes sense to think about the Israeli situation in the same way one would think about the racism in the States, for example.)
10% is definitely enough to presume that anybody who throws out an accusation of anti-semitism in defense of Israel is racist by default.
10% is enough to presume that the illegalization of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions in America is an explicitly pro-racist law.
It is possible to make an accusation of anti-semitism that isn't motivated by racism. It's just much rarer than it should be.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/30/world/israel-destroys-shr... / https://archive.ph/RNPRh
> The irony is that it's probably one of the most racist countries I've ever seen in my entire life. They made a shrine to a terrorist (Baruch Goldstein).
"They" here refers, I believe, to the country being racist.
But saying that "they" made a shrine to Goldstein, in the context of an article describing that the Israeli government destroyed it, is like saying that US society is racist because the US government demloished a statue to Hitler put up by the KKK. It's taking the actions of a tiny group, specifically in the context of the government acting against that group, and somehow saying that reflects the whole country.
Oh, and Joe Biden really wants blacks and whites to stop marrying.
That's the level of racism you support if you weaponize anti-semitism in Israel's defense.
The issue that some people characterize as colonization is, in reality, a matter of migration. In fact, one of the early demands of the Palestinian nationalist movement in the 1930s was to halt Jewish immigration, and they sought to enforce this demand through violence. And this violence snowballed to the current ethnic conflict between arabs and jews. If we compare this to the present day, imagine a bunch of trump supporters marching through the streets attacking/murdering Mexican immigrants. It's a no-brainer that these people would be considered racist criminals. But this is exactly what happened in Palestine in the 1930s. And the situation changed only for the worse. Yet, people (especially the left) still sides with those criminals instead of supporting a lasting peace between the Jews and Palestinians.
In addition, a lot of the occupied territories are effectively lands in which Palestinians are to some extent "imprisoned", neither having their own country, nor being granted any kind of citizenship. These lands were won in a war, true, but the standard course of action is either to return them, or to annex them, neither of which Israel has chosen to do (for obvious demographic reasons). But the end result is a situation in which millions of Palestinians were driven out of their home in 1948, and are now refugees living in territories with no self-determinance.
Israel isn't without a complicated history and a complicated existing situation. The same can be said of many countries, btw.
They don't though and there are way more sensible reasons which would explain US support for Israel.
The mainstream Christian theology is that Jesus will return in order to wage war on non-believers and secure earth as the heavenly dominion of the believers (https://www.bibleref.com/Revelation/19/Revelation-19-11.html)
This grand battle and ultimate plundering of the spoils takes place in/near Jerusalem (https://www.bibleref.com/Zechariah/14/Zechariah-14-1.html)
One apparent prerequisite to this battle happening is the construction of The Third Temple which would, of course, require control over the region in which The Third Temple must be rebuilt -- Jerusalem. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_in_Jerusalem)
Also they need to find a red cow. Then Jesus can come with his flaming sword and slaughter ~billions of people.
That's really not the case, not in the literal sense anyway. Also pretty much all mainstream Christians do not spend any significant amount of time thinking about when will Jesus return and and what will happen then.
> Then Jesus can come with his flaming sword and slaughter ~billions of people.
I bet if you asked the pope what he thinks he'd say that's not what the Catholic faith teaches and he's literally infallible (well technically only in very specific cases but let's just ignore that since we're just saying stupid edgy stuff for no reason).
I'm agnostic but I was raised Christian in different communities and on different continents and I have never been taught that Jesus's return is anything but a peaceful end-time where the just go to heaven (and yes, the wicked to hell). Zero mentions of Jesus waging war, if anything it's taught as the end of war and strife.
Not a single person I know associates Jesus with doing violence. I'm sure someone must believe this, but calling it "mainstream" is bad faith. What sort of "mainstream" theology is it if neither me nor anyone I know has been taught this?
https://owl.excelsior.edu/argument-and-critical-thinking/log...
I can't speak for Asia, but multinational brands (like Coca-Cola) are actively avoiding controversy and you don't need activists for such an effect.
You think that multinational brands (like Adidas, Target, PepsiCo, and Anheuser-Busch) have been striving to avoid controversy lately? Really?
It's more correct to say that multinational brands avoid controversy in one political direction. They seem to have no qualms embracing it in the other.
https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/adl-statement-xt...
I'm really trying to parse your logic, and failing.
If I understand it, your chain of reasoning is:
1. Someone "defends Israel".
2. The way they do it in this specific case is by saying the other person is anti-semitic.
3. Because some people in Israel think fairly attrocious things and are racist, this implies that any defense of Israel is implicitly a defense of racism, therefore making the defender racist.
Is that the chain here? Basically, you can't defend a country in which 10% of people are racist, without yourself being racist?
If so, that chain of reasoning is pretty ridiculous. That's like someone saying they like the US, and you deciding they are racist, because in a 2013 poll, 17% of Americans were against interracial marriage. It's a huge and nonsensical logical leap to go from "some action that country X has done is OK" to "I therefore support what any subset, even as small as 10% of the country, thinks".
Qatar threw money at them "to be the best of the best" in global reporting .. pretty much because they can then point to Al Jaz's world class credentials when it comes to the void on bad reporting at home.
I can see a time in the future when they might start strongly bending their international reporting .. but for now at least they play with an even bat on most issues outside their own borders, they've hired a number of top tier global reporters away from prestige journals elsewhere.
I've been observing media across the world for decades .. all media has biases, it actually helps to know what those are.
"are there fox news reporters who are critical of donald trump ?"
"Yes, throughout Donald Trump's presidency and even before, there were reporters and commentators associated with Fox News who, at various times, were critical of him, his actions, or his policies. While Fox News is often seen as leaning conservative and many of its hosts and commentators have been supportive of Trump, it's a diverse network with a range of voices. Some figures who have shown willingness to criticize Trump include:
Chris Wallace: The anchor of "Fox News Sunday," Wallace has frequently asked tough questions of Trump administration officials and has occasionally criticized Trump directly. He's been praised for his moderating of the first 2020 presidential debate, during which he challenged both candidates on their positions.
Shepard Smith: Before his departure from Fox News in 2019, Smith, who anchored "Shepard Smith Reporting," was known for his straightforward news reporting and sometimes offered fact-checks that contradicted claims by Trump or his allies.
Neil Cavuto: The host of "Your World with Neil Cavuto" has been willing to push back against some of Trump's claims, particularly around issues related to the economy and Trump's comments about the Federal Reserve.
Judge Andrew Napolitano: The senior judicial analyst for Fox News often offered legal perspectives that didn't align with the Trump administration's stances. He was notably critical of Trump during the impeachment proceedings.
Bret Baier: As anchor of "Special Report with Bret Baier," Baier aimed for an even-handed approach to news coverage and occasionally highlighted discrepancies between Trump's statements and established facts.
Megyn Kelly: Although she left Fox News in early 2017, during her tenure she had notable confrontations with Trump, especially during the 2016 Republican primary debates.
Juan Williams: A co-host of "The Five," Williams often plays the role of the liberal counterpoint on the show and has frequently criticized Trump.
It's worth noting that while these individuals have criticized Trump on specific issues or actions, they also may have praised him or supported other aspects of his presidency. The extent and nature of their critiques varied."
To me it shows a certain degree of intellectual freedom and non cult like thinking for Fox news.
So you'd need to give the same test to Al-Jazeera to see what kind of diversity of thought they allow. Nothing I've seen makes me think its any good.
This is why it seems like an obscure theory, because people don’t actually think about the words they’re saying.
Here’s Joel Olsteen, whose weekly sermon has 10,000,000 viewers, saying we should be happy about the bad things happening in the world because they’re a sign of the end times (after which he and his followers get to divide the spoils of the earth): https://www.charismanews.com/us/32276-joel-osteen-discusses-...
When I read Wikipedia's page on the Second Coming, at no point does it mention Jesus waging war. So much for being "mainstream theology"...
Firstly, I think it's only some segments of the population that are turning away from being nation states, and I think that idea is far less common than us liberals think. Many countries are facing "crises" because of immigration. I mean, the UK itself did Brexit partially because of fears of being too beholden to other countries, which isn't exactly the same thing as going back to a nation state, but I think comes from a similar place.
Secondly, as a Jew, I am extremely aware of the history of my people. While I really wish that I didn't live in a world which might one day decide to kill me just for being Jewish, I unfortunately don't live in that world now. I unfortunately have to want there to be at least one country in the whole world which will for sure always take in and defend Jews, because the world has proved the need for that many times throughout history, obviously with the Holocaust being the worst example.
How do I square my progressive sensibilities with my thinking that there needs to be a Jewish country? I don't know. Most people don't have that problem - not many Swedes have to contend with the idea that the country will no longer be Swedish, and that no other country will want to take them in. That's just not a relevant concern for Swedish people.
It is an acutely relevant concern for me.
Put it this way—you wouldn't found a state the way Israel was founded today. You wouldn't found a Roma state in Northern India. Israel is here and it's here to stay and that's it, and there's lots to admire about what Israel is and has become since 1948. Having said that, let's not do it again elsewhere in the world with some other ethnic group lacking a nation state, of which there are so many.
For one thing, I think in practice, it's not true that states are no longer founded this way - well, I guess the question is what "this way" means to you, but if you mean "founded in order to be a country for a particular ethnic group", then I think you're wrong - some ethnic minorities really are splitting off from countries in order to form countries for themselves.
In addition, I think there are certainly some people who think ethnic minorities are entitled to founding a country.
As for Israel's founding, there were certainly some problematic aspects, but let's also remember that in some ways it was a much better way to found a country than many others have done. It was land that belonged to the UN, and the UN proposed to make a country there for Jews, as well as for Palestinians. The Jews living in Israel (for the most part, in land that they legally purchased and developed) accepted this proposal. The reason this wasn't accepted was that the Palestinians rejected it, and Israel was attacked by Arab countries. The land that is now Israel is where it is because of a war of defense waged by Israel.
A lot of bad things happened in that time, for sure, but this was actually far better than the way most countries were founded, in many ways. Not perfect, and it did have the effect of a lot of people being displaced, because they rejected a proposal that would give them that land, for various reasons. But better than a country just deciding to conquer another country and just murdering/cleansing all the locals without any thought to it, as is the founding story of most countries.
This makes sense when you remember why they care so much: their interpretation of the Bible holds that the end times they’re looking forward to will begin with a war involving Israel. They are not looking for peace or long-term happiness, and support any policy which increases the odds of a war. I remember them being very excited by the Gulf War and various points in the Iraq war where it seemed like someone might attack Israel because they’re basically thinking that’s their ticket to heaven showing up.
When did 34% of the current White House staffers become responsible for decades of US foreign policy?
I can sympathize, heaven seems at least better than the other place. What I don't understand is how eschatological (which are essentially fatalistic) beliefs translate into support for Israel. In a world governed by fate it doesn't matter what you do, it's all predetermined anyway. Which seems to align more with the core Christian teachings: we should not judge (because no-one is essentially free from their fatefully determined destiny).
I could be wrong.
The only reason there isn’t mandatory school prayer is because they’d have to agree on whose version to enshrine.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law_in_the_United_Sta...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/us-armed-fo...
[3] https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/06/heres-how-us-milita...
In your own words: We don’t really need to look for a single cause. All of these things are happening and interacting with each other. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37446682
It's a simple concept - you understood it perfectly well when the topic was different. Why do you suddenly find it hard to grasp?
Re trusting an LLM’s answers: HN is full of detailed discussion about how they work and how they hallucinate. There is often delight expressed when someone pastes something from chatgpt that is actually factually correct, but this is because we marvel at the statistical chances, not because we believe chatgpt groks the subject!
For fun, ask it about something that you know a lot about. Even when it is making stuff up it is really good at prose.
It's not quite the same thing as considering a terrorist who shot up a mosque a hero.
Hence why accusations of anti-semitism in relation to criticism of Israel usually imply that the accuser is an Islamophobic racist. This is what they're defending.
Your statement implies Americans no longer support these wars, I'm sure many still think they were necessary and good. As was Vietnam and a bunch of other atrocities.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-neo-naz....
So, getting very close to 10% by this poll. And at least Israel has an existential struggle with the Palestinians/Arab world, which explains (but doesn't excuse) racism and terrorism - but what's the excuse for American racism?
To support this, see my other comment showing the Federal Reserve chair and political donors exhibit the same over-representation (the donor data is recent, but the Fed chair is since 1970, so it's unlikely this is a new thing that suddenly came out of nowhere): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37465220
It's not limited to the staff either - of the 26 cabinet positions (including president and vice president) in the Biden White House, 7 are held by Jews (2.4% of US population), and just 6 by gentile Whites (55% of US). One of those 6 is Joe Biden himself, and all 3 of his children married Jews. Sources:
https://www.thejc.com/news/world/joe-biden-s-very-jewish-fam...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Joe_Biden#Cabine...
So this prevalence is an aberration compared to the base rate in the population, and therefore this aberration should be presumed to be the norm? Interesting approach.
Now, if you came out saying, "AIPAC is an extremely powerful lobbying group that lobbies for pro-Israel bills and foreign aid," you'd definitely get credit for that. Or "ADL is extremely proactive in 'managing speech' around Israel throughout American culture," you'd get credit for that too.
But no, "Jews are relatively overrepresented yet still clear minorities in positions which are not obviously relevant to US policy or cultural attitudes toward Israel" doesn't hold much explanatory power.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37473807 - Despite your "clear minorities" phrasing, at 7/26 cabinet positions, Jews are the largest group, followed by gentile Whites at 6, Blacks at 5, and Latinos at 3.
[2] https://www.jpost.com/US-Elections/US-Jews-contribute-half-o...
FWIW it’s not quite 50%/25% of donations, but a napkin math estimate of donated money. I.e. there are a few mega-donors (about 50) who are more likely than the general population to be Jewish.
79% of US Christians believe Jesus will have a second coming. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/04/09/christians-v...
The second coming of Jesus is not for fun times. It's for war that kills ~everyone except the true believers, who then get infinite utopia.
4 in 10 Americans and about half of US Christians overall believe we are living "in the end times," and two thirds of "highly religious" adults. I.e. we are approaching that second coming/holy war.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/11/17/how-religion...
Combine that with the fact that US Congress is 90% Christian –– dramatically more so than the US public –– and a pretty alarming decision-making environment emerges.
https://www.axios.com/2023/04/23/lawmakers-more-religious-ge...
Fundamentalists should at least stick to the literal scripture, but I'm not sure they will listen.
The whole thing is immune to logic, in part due to the obviously self-contradictory passages such as we've just found :)
Nice try. But I'm assuming you are just unfamiliar with the history of the Christian church. Or if you just want to weigh in on the side of orthodoxy. But there is obviously a logical conflict between the notions of free will vs the deterministic aspect of religious teaching, sometimes called divine foreknowledge.
It has been the topic of more or less heated discussion up through the ages, where some people claim they have cracked the code (St. Augustine primarily). See these Wikipedia articles for a brief overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_in_theology, and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_in_antiquity#Christi....
Or, maybe it's mainly the link between determinism and nonjudgement that you refer to as "mental gymnastics" etc (even though that's not what you are saying)? Well, granted that's not lifted from any theology that I'm aware of. It just seems a reasonable conclusion, given the premise of a predetermined world. And maybe also a way to sneak in a reminder that religion (and Christianity in particular) is mostly about keeping track of the beam in one's own eye, rather then the mote in someone else's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_and_the_Beam