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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025

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First, unlike other colonial powers the people making the decisions have no where else to go.

If Americans are so adamant about a jewish state they should give them a small plot of land. Jews have managed 2000 years without a state so it would hardly be anything new. A large portion of jews lived in the middle east without a jewish state for the past 2000 years. A jewish population in an Ottoman style empire would be return to normalacy.

and their military ability to defend themselves they fully expect a return to periodic pogroms and expulsions

Jews require constant conflict with everyone around them in order to maintain group cohesion. If they didn't want to be disliked a good start would be to stop killing large numbers of civilians. The cause of antisemitism is the type of behaviour Ben Gvir and his likes are engaging in.

Second, Israel has the full backing of the USA

Along with Vietnam and Afghanistan? Evangelical Christians who honestly believe Jesus will return if the foreskins in exchange for Israel deal is upheld is shrinking. The fact that the Jewish community is deeply antagonistic towards the Christian groups that support them doesn't help.

If Americans are so adamant about a jewish state they should give them a small plot of land.

Man, I wish that deal was on the table. I'd take a Jewish state in the Patagonia (not the nicest part, though) every day of the week.

Evangelical Christians who honestly believe Jesus will return if the foreskins in exchange for Israel deal is upheld is shrinking.

I’ve posted this before- in practice, Christian Zionism is not driven by the belief that it will bring around the rapture(or connected to American circumcision, which was a WWII-era health program). Christian Zionism is driven by the(in fairness born out by events) belief that siding against Israel will lead to bad things happening to the country that does it.

A large portion of jews lived in the middle east without a jewish state for the past 2000 years. A jewish population in an Ottoman style empire would be return to normalacy.

How do you imagine this happening? Let's say Israel collectively says "You're right, this was a bad idea, we're packing it up and dissolving the country."

Which Arab states do you imagine would take them in?

Jews require constant conflict with everyone around them in order to maintain group cohesion.

The only place they've been in constant conflict with everyone around them is Israel.

The cause of antisemitism is the type of behaviour Ben Gvir and his likes are engaging in.

An even more ahistorical claim. At various times, the Israeli government has been substantially more conciliatory and peacenik than now, and it didn't stop y'all from hating Jews.

If Americans are so adamant about a jewish state they should give them a small plot of land.

"If the world is so adamant about a Palestinian state, they should give them a small plot of land." After all, there's plenty of land outside of Gaza or the West Bank. I'm sure Israel would be happy for the Palestinians to no longer be their neighbors.

Do you think the Palestinians or surrounding Arab nations would accept this if it was actually offered?

Oh, absolutely not. That's a major part of the conflict in the region, and the point of my mirrored statement.

There is absolutely no reason for the rest of the world to want or support a Palestinian refugee crisis. Neo con wars end up with migration crises and these need to be stopped. No more mass movements of arabs.

A jewish population in an Ottoman style empire would be return to normalacy.

The Ottomans are not around any more. Nor is there any replacement; even Erdogan doesn't seem to be that ambitious.

Plus the last ottoman elites declared that pillarization was out of fashion, and so decided to murder all their minorities instead. You can’t really go lower than dead, but I think they’d have even stronger misgivings towards a newly implanted jewish minority.

I’m not convinced that Jews in Israel would give up their only Jewish state for any reason, as I said, Jewish history isn’t one of success and power and so on. Its pogroms, expulsions, culminating in a holocaust. No Israeli will give up Israel to go back to that. And I think this is behind the response to Palestinians— if they lose Israel, Jews will be back in ghettos hoping that the rest of us don’t try to hurt them again. Better to be a pariah state than risk not being a state at all.

And Kamala Harris is hardly an evangelical speaking to evangelicals. Even so, the best they could come up with contra Israel is “we fully support Israel’s right to defend itself, and at worst we’re slowing down the sale of weapons (NB, not even stopping, just slowing). That in the face of protests and arguably at the cost of her winning the election. The elites are fully on board here.