this post was submitted on 06 May 2024
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Israel is a settler colony and an ethno state. It doesn’t have a “population”, but a settler regime.
I don’t care about the religion of the oppressors and settlers. Israelis are oppressor and settlers who are living in stolen Palestinian land. Israel is an illegitimate settler colony that the UN has condemned since its inception and creation by antisemites who believed that Jews had no place in Europe and wanted to get rid of them. The majority of Jews condemn Israel. Israelis do no represent Jews and thinking so is antisemitic.
So, first of all - I basically agree with you and will be playing devil's advocate a little bit here. But some things I want to point out:
Definitely not all Jews or Israelis support the Israeli government as it is. But over 40% of Jews in the world live in Israel, which makes it not the majority, but a very big chunk of Jews. While they might condemn the current government, it is difficult to argue that they condemn the idea of Israel when they are living there. However, a second point follows right from here:
Yes. But also it was created a long time ago. Not too long ago, but long enough so that there are generations of people who have been born into this state as innocent people.
Basically, I dislike the idea of how Israel was created and claiming some birthright to return to a land. Depending on how far you want to go you can always find different peoples living in any region. No one would reasonably argue that we should evacuate Manhattan and return it to Native Americans. And this analogy works in both ways: evacuate Israel to give the land back to Palestine as well as evacuating the region of Palestinians to create Israel. Shlomo Sand once said he is a post zionist because the mess has already been created, maybe that is the take I most agree with, although really, there is no fair or "right" solution to this. Which is why it makes this conflict so complicated and frustrating.
The fair and right solution is to give the land to the people who have been living there for thousands of years and let them decide what to do. The West has no right to tell them what to do after all it has giving them is colonialism (UK) after colonialism (USA and Israel) . It is as simple as that.
And many people want also to give the Americas back to the natives who have been living there for tens of thousands of years. However, this is a more difficult endeavor. Israel is the first one that needs to be abolished.
I don't think this is what you mean, but it sounds a lot like you want to replace one ethno state with another ethno state by pushing out all the Jews that have migrated to Israel during the last 80ish years as well as their descendants.
I doubt this is what you would want, but I just want to point this out, because it sounds dangerous and might be taken like this.
My guess is that you, just as most people, would not want the "migrants" displaced, but not in power and especially not suppressing the rights and targeting the people who lived there and are still living there. We all basically want them to be a big happy secular family who don't care about each other's background and see the person. (Which is the big problem because this family hates one another.) Yes, a lot of Israel's population has come to Israel somewhat unlawfully, but again: the mess has already been created. Telling a 17 year old whose grandparents migrated Israel from Hungary to please fuck off and go back to Hungary would be not more rightful than displacing Palestinians back in 1948.
Palestine has always been a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic place, so no, it never was and will never be an ethno state. Also, I cannot make decisions for what the Palestinians decide to do with the settlers, but they have in the past given asylum to the Jews who faced persecution in Europe. There has always been Jews living in Palestine. Israel should be abolished and whoever wants to be part of Palestine can go through the nationalization process. Westerners have no right to dictate how the Palestinians handle the settler-colonial problem, that is for the native people to decide, and they have that right given to them by international law. This is the right of self determination.
If your solution to ethnic cleansing is ethnic cleansing, that solution might suck.