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Comment by dralley

2 days ago

Less than half of Israelis are Askenazi, and unless your solution is to "ethnically cleanse" by sending people back to the countries their grandparents fled, it hardly matters.

Americans and Europeans have the false notion that Israeli Jews are predominantly European. They are not.

18 comments

dralley

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siltcakes  2 days ago

Returning land to the people it was brutally taken from is not “ethic cleansing”. The right of return is still valid.

  • adrian_b  2 days ago

    While I agree that the land has been taken by force, unfortunately returning the land is no longer an acceptable option.

    The land of Israel has been developed in such a way that it has become completely different from what it was one century ago, and there is no doubt that its previous owners could have never succeeded to do a similar development, due to a combination of lacking both the financial means and the skilled labor capabilities.

    While I believe that returning the land would be unjust at this time, I also believe that the never-ending war between Israelis and their neighbors can be stopped in only 2 ways, one of which is not acceptable in the modern world and which would bring eternal shame on Israel if they would ever succeed to realize it.

    The second option is for Israel to do the same that Israel has demanded and has obtained from states like Germany. This means that Israel should admit that they have occupied the land by force and they should repair this by paying a just compensation to the remaining descendants of the former inhabitants, exactly like Israel has received from countries responsible for the oppression against Jews during WWII.

    • siltcakes  1 day ago

      You need to take into account that Zionists are aging out of the population. The younger generations in the West absolutely support military action against Israel. If it was taken by force, it can be returned by force. I would definitely support US military action against Israel to defeat Zionism.

      1 reply →

  • mjevans  2 days ago

    At some point, all land has been taken either by direct force, or by the threat of force.

    All land, everywhere. It is NOT a natural right that anyone owns any land, nor that any countries exist. That is something everyone's ancestors fought each other for and created as a system of human society.

    Of course that's written in the past tense. Facing reality rather than the fantasy presented in history books and documentaries; not only did our ancestors do that, it hasn't stopped. The bloodshed still happens today in so many places. Those we might hear about in the news, and others forgotten even in the news because it is considered normal and thus ignored.

    We are not yet a species of plenty. Scarcity still exists, at the very least in the real form of land where people want to be.

    • JumpCrisscross  2 days ago

      > At some point, all land has been taken either by direct force, or by the threat of force

      You're broadly correct. But there is land that was settled within the historical record.

      The Levant, obviously, is not that. It was settled prior to the historical record. It is the coast closest to our cradle of civilisation. Every human with ancestry outside Africa has some sort of claim to lineage to that land.

      1 reply →

    • defrost  2 days ago

      Seems overstated and contrived to use 'all land'.

        Antarctica is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent.

  Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean [ and ] is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe, and has an area of 14,200,000 km2 (5,500,000 sq mi).

      ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica

      There was no one to "take it from" and when it was divided up by "Great powers" that was more by competition (race to open routes) and some notion of good sport:

        Antarctica was claimed by several states since the 16th century, culminating in a territorial competition in the first half of the 20th century when its interior was explored and the first Antarctic camps and bases were set up.

      ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Antarctica

      Then there are the more remote parts of Australia, nominally "taken" by the English (despite not being reached for some time) and later returned (post Mabo) to the descendants of what seems likely to be first settlers some tens of thousands of years past (the multiple waves of settlement arguments and other aspects of the History Wars in the Black Armband / Quadrant circles are looking thin in these days of genetic markers).

      But that one's a complex can of worms that takes some time to unpack.

  • xdennis  2 days ago

    No land was stolen. All land was purchased before the war. All land taken after wars was taken after wars started by the Arabs.

    That's always been the case with nations who lost wars. Germany lost the war and lost land because of it. Should Germany take back land that was "brutally taken from them"?

    Or should they maybe just accept that they shouldn't have started the war? The Germans certainly have accepted that.