That just shows how meaningless the word is now. I'll bet you didn't know that anti-Zionists were accusing Israel of genocide during the 2014 war with Hamas - a war that lasted 6 weeks and had a death toll of a whopping 2300.
Your perspective on the conflict is totally warped. Israel is not the bully. We're talking about a tiny country of 9 million people that you can drive across in 3 hours at its widest point. It is surrounded by Arab nations that have tried to destroy it several times, and for the past 30 years has been bullied by the proxies of the genocidal Iranian regime. Iran is the real bully in the Middle East.
Right, because we all know mainstream media like the BBC isn't biased. This is the same news organization that published an article complaining about the environmental impact of the IDF whereas the Hamas rockets are much better for the environment. Fucking joke.
I haven't been on Lemmy very long, but it's become painfully clear this site is just an echo chamber for Marxists and anti-Zionists.
LOL at "pro Hamas mobs" - people who dress up like Hamas, celebrate 10/7, call to globalize the intifada (which is exactly what happened in Amsterdam), and openly express sympathy for Hamas ARE PRO-HAMAS.
Pro-Hamas mobs have been marching on our streets and occupying our college campuses for over a year, screaming genocidal chants and telling Jews to go back to Poland. Our businesses and synagogues have been vandalized, firebombed, and shot at. But now all of a sudden one group of unruly soccer fans and you're all, "Well, they were saying bad stuff, they got what's coming to them."
First, Jews have lived uninterrupted in the region for thousands of years. Jews and Arabs are both indigenous to the land.
Second, Zionism is about a return to our ancestral homeland. It was a spiritual movement with Judaism for thousands of years before it was ever a political movement.
Third, the Jews who migrated to Palestine did not kick our or kill people to establish a homeland. That's not how Israel was created. They purchased land legally from the Ottoman Empire and absentee Arab landlords. The violence was started by local Arabs reacting to the mass migration and fueled by the Arab Nazi put in charge of Jerusalem by the British, Amin Al-Husseini, in the 1920's.
Fourth, the war that led to mass displacement of Arabs in 1948 was started the Arabs. Conflict had been going on for decades before that, which is why the British proposed partition, but it was a local conflict. The Arab League rejected partition to establish an Arab state because they preferred to simply destroy Israel. They failed.
Fifth, it might surprise you to know that after Israel re-took Gaza and the West Bank from Egypt and Jordan in 1967 they offered to negotiate a land for peace deal with the PLO. The PLO refused because they adopted the Khartoum Resolution: No recognition of Israel, no peace with Israel, no negotiation with Israel. See a pattern here? So the result was Israel got stuck occupying the two territories full of angry and belligerent Arabs.
Israel has made some terrible mistakes in how they have handled things but the history is kind of important here. Your version of events is a narrative that has been spun by Israel's enemies to vilify it and garner international sympathy for the anti-Zionist cause (which has worked very, very effectively). Do you know about the genesis of the term 'Nakba' for example? It was coined by a Syrian intellectual in reference to the embarrassing loss of the Arab armies to the Jewish state and the "catastrophic" impact that loss would have on pan-Arab nationalism. It had nothing to do with the displacement of Arab Palestinians. It was appropriated for propaganda purposes 20 years later when Arafat and the PLO emerged.
Oh, one more thing. Did you know that the PLO was formed in 1964 and carried out its first terror attack in Israel in 1965? Notice the dates, years before the 1967 war and before Israel came to occupy Gaza and the WB. So it clearly never was about occupation or settlements. It has always been about the mere presence of a Jewish state on Muslim lands. Everything else is propaganda.
Yes, the Middle East is a rough, regressive, oppressive neighborhood. Islam has a lot to do with that.
But there are Muslim countries that have shown an interest in at least progressing from the most archaic and extreme interpretations of Islam. Those countries are pursuing normalization with Israel not because they suddenly like Jews, but because they respect the strength and prosperity of Israel and recognize it as a valuable partner for their own national development. These countries have put their past conflicts with Israel behind them.
Ironically, the people of Iran are among the least antisemitic in that part of the world. They scored lower on the ADL Global 100 than Greece!
Sorry, but we don't need to be deprogrammed out of our Zionism. Most Jews are Zionists, not because they've been brainwashed but because they believe in the idea of self-determination in our ancestral homeland. That's all Zionism is. Everything else you hear about it is nothing but propaganda designed to vilify it.
Anyone who claims to believe in ethnic self-determination should support Zionism. And those of you who don't might want to reflect on why you support ethnic nationalism for Palestinians but not for Jews.
There will always be jihadists and Islamist terrorists will always exist on a small scale, but without the backing of Iran none of it would exist on a scale that can threaten Israel or other countries in the region. The moderate Sunni countries like SA would become the main Muslim influence in the region and could help bring the Middle East into a new era of peace and prosperity.
LOL "commit so many genocides"
That just shows how meaningless the word is now. I'll bet you didn't know that anti-Zionists were accusing Israel of genocide during the 2014 war with Hamas - a war that lasted 6 weeks and had a death toll of a whopping 2300.
Your perspective on the conflict is totally warped. Israel is not the bully. We're talking about a tiny country of 9 million people that you can drive across in 3 hours at its widest point. It is surrounded by Arab nations that have tried to destroy it several times, and for the past 30 years has been bullied by the proxies of the genocidal Iranian regime. Iran is the real bully in the Middle East.