Anti-Zionist Jews

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TPFKA@W
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Anti-Zionist Jews

Post by TPFKA@W »

One of the many things I never knew existed. I found the perspective fascinating.


ex-khobar Andy
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Re: Anti-Zionist Jews

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

Zionism is a political belief that Jewish people have a right to a certain piece of land which was for centuries part of the Ottoman Empire called Palestine. Judaism is a monotheistic religion like Islam and Christianity. Many non-Jews who are opposed to Zionism are labelled as anti-Semites despite the fact that they have nothing against Judaism. Anti-Zionist Jews are plenty and, according to some sources, growing in influence.

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TPFKA@W
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Re: Anti-Zionist Jews

Post by TPFKA@W »

Thanks for the mansplain, I would never have been able to reach any reasonable conclusions upon viewing this video and reading up on it without your help.

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Long Run
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Re: Anti-Zionist Jews

Post by Long Run »

He's still quite popular though.

Image

Darren
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Re: Anti-Zionist Jews

Post by Darren »

Jews have always been, for want of a better term, curious from an observational point of view. None AFAIK heeded the exhortations of countries that seized their property previously to return and start anew.

Jews started the NAACP and contributed greatly to Black literacy in the early 1900's by funding over 5,000 schools for Blacks in the US. They have a unique view of and way of classifying charity. If you wish to convert to Judaism, they'll try to talk you out of it.

In a way some remind me of Sufis that went happily to their deaths when the presiding Muslim rulers could not handle their heresy. It's a sure bet Israel will not go willingly to its death.
Thank you RBG wherever you are!

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TPFKA@W
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Re: Anti-Zionist Jews

Post by TPFKA@W »

It's a sure bet Israel will not go willingly to its death.
Ah yes, the Mossad.

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: Anti-Zionist Jews

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

TPFKA@W wrote:
Fri Jul 17, 2020 4:01 am
Thanks for the mansplain, I would never have been able to reach any reasonable conclusions upon viewing this video and reading up on it without your help.
It wasn't meant as a mansplain but I can see how you reached that conclusion, so I apologize for the tone.

Forty years ago I lived very close (about 1/2 a mile) to Stamford Hill in North London where that piece was filmed. I went to a meeting (organized by the Labour Party IIRC) about anti-Semitism there. To my surprise, there were a few Orthodox Jewish men - instantly identifiable by their dress, beards and ringlets - there. The usual problem was that many people especially on the right equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism and anyone who believes that the Palestinians got a raw deal from the Balfour Declaration in 1918 has to fight that perception. I don't remember the term Neturei Karta but it may well have been in use then. It helped to see that there was a significant Orthodox opposition to Zionism - I was used to seeing more liberal Jewish friends with that point of view but the Orthodox community is usually assumed to be monolithic and to the right of mainstream Israeli politics.

Those guys helped the rest of us - mostly your traditional English leftists somewhere on a wide spectrum between "Why can't we all just get along?" to "We need a revolution now!" - to see that we were not the only ones who had to fight that perception and that they had the same battle within the Orthodox community.

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Re: Anti-Zionist Jews

Post by Big RR »

Interesting Andy, when I was in college (well a bit closer to 50 years ago), support for Israel and zionism was more a position of the left, and any even questioning of that did result in claims of antisemitism. Somehow, this morphed to a right wing positions, with the left moving toward the other side. I had jewish friends who did not embrace zionism (and who even conceded the Palestinians had a point), but many others jumped on the bandwagon.

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Sue U
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Re: Anti-Zionist Jews

Post by Sue U »

The Jewish community worldwide is incredibly diverse in both religious and political philosophies, one often influenced by the other and more or less so depending on which particular branch/school/sect/locality/congregation one chooses to identify with. I consider myself a Zionist (and the Reform movement to which I belong is explicitly so), but I also support Palestinian statehood and pluralistic society for both Israel and Palestine; this I see as resulting from both my religious obligation (tikkun olam) and my commitment to socialism, and are values expressed in what used to be called Labor Zionism, which is now a variety of loosely affiliated cultural and political organizations.

The ultra-Orthodox/Haredi sects who oppose Zionism do so on religious grounds, believing that only the Messiah can establish a Jewish state in the historical Land of Israel and that secular political action to do so is a violation of divine will. They are not really "right wing" in any true political sense, since they largely remove themselves from broader issues of governmental policy except to the extent it affects their insular communities.
ex-khobar Andy wrote:
Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:11 pm
Zionism is a political belief that Jewish people have a right to a certain piece of land which was for centuries part of the Ottoman Empire called Palestine.
That "certain piece of land" had been the territory of the people now called Jews since the late Bronze Age around 1500 BCE, who occupied it until we were kicked out by the Romans after the Bar-Kochba rebellion (130-135 CE) -- and who then re-named it Palestine in an effort to strip Jewish identity from the region.

We could argue for decades about the moral legitimacy of "historical" claims to the land, but that does little to resolve the practical realities of those who live there today. The State of Israel is a fact that cannot be ignored and an institution that will not be dismantled; Palestinians have an equal right of self-determination and nationhood, and it is necessary for both to reach a political solution that ensures their respective survival.
GAH!

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Guinevere
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Re: Anti-Zionist Jews

Post by Guinevere »

That last paragraph - amen.
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké

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