site banner
PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   23670 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 24, 2026

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The Civic Identity of my Outgroup.

Recently, Melanie Phillips, a jewish zionist conservative journalist and British media personality, wrote a post on X that raised some eyebrows:

This is very muddled. British identity is civic and not ethnic. It is totally different from Jewish identity, which is ethnic, religious and cutural. Judaism is the unique fusion of a people, a faith and a land. That's why the Jewish people, as a people, is entitled to live in its ancestral homeland.

This is different again from Israeli identlty. Arabs, Druze and others are also Israeli citizens with equal civic and religious rights. But (unless they convert to Judaism) they can't be Jews with their unique claim to self-determination in the land and their unique political right to a state of their own.

Because of the unique and multi-faceted nature of Judaism, there's no crossover with British identity. But as I have written for decades, the British are not only entitled to but should promote and defend their historic nation, identity and its culture. There's no conflict between those two positions, and the suggestion that Jews want to deny to the British the self-determination that the Jews have fulfilled in the State of Israel is false and disgraceful.

As can be seen in the link, she was replying to small time Scottish comedian and media personality Leo Kearse, who is also a self avowed zionist, but a 'zionist' for British people as well. Who tried to make equivocations between British and jewish identity which Melanie rejects.

There's a lot to unpack here. The Principal disagreement rest on the idea that the British should defend their civic identity, but, for some reason, not their ethnic one. American Dissident Right wing personality Dave Greene got to the heart of the matter:

This is a remarkable document as it captures, in perfect platonic form, the mode that ruins all Jewish-Gentile discourse.

  1. By linguistic construction, British people DO NOT have an ethnic, religious, cultural identity, just a “civic” one
  2. Also by linguistic construction, Jewish people DO have an ethnic, religious, cultural identity in addition to their civic one
  3. Both British and Jewish people have EQUAL right to defend their ethnic and cultural heritage, but since the former, by definition, has NO ethnic identity they don’t really have anything to defend.
  4. So obviously, by linguistic construction, we treat Jews and British people the same. Therefore any assertion of a double standard is “Anti-Semitism”!

What is obvious now to everyone is that “civic” identity based on a relationship to a liberal multicultural post-civil-rights nation state is meaningless. These types of “civic” identities are so broad they basically include the entire world, and in practice they just amount mewling easily-faked HR platitudes that no one actually believes.

Only ethnic/cultural/religious identity matters because it’s the only identity specific enough to wield power. But here Melanie Phillips, along with many other Zionist counter parties, build the double standard into the language itself.

“The decreed definition of ‘British/English’ demands that the identity not be ethnic!”

But who decreed that the British / English not have a valid ethnic identity? Was it history? Obviously not. Was it God? Maybe Melanie believes this, but I doubt anyone else thinks the Lord on High has intervened to justify her people’s special pleading.

But ,ultimately, it’s clear what’s going on. The reason why we are using this loaded language with an implicit double standard built into it, is because people like Melanie’s push it. They word-cast a double standard into the received definitions so it looks like British dispossession is just the will of the language / God.

And look, I know not all the Z people are like this, but guys, you gotta give me something else beyond an iteration of this little linguistic hat trick. We can see it a mile away, and it insults our intelligence.

Even if taken as a simple matter of fact, Melanie Phillips is obviously just wrong, as British nationalist and media personality Connor Tomlinson pointed out:

"the suggestion that Jews want to deny to the British the self-determination that the Jews have fulfilled in the State of Israel is false and disgraceful."

Melanie, you opened by denying the ethnic roots of British identity, and said Jewish identity was unique in it's ties to ethnicity, religion, and territory.

The English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish, prior to recent unwanted waves of migration, had ethnic continuity of over 90 per cent dating back to 927 AD. The Anglo Saxons converted to Christianity by 686 AD. The first Archbishop of Canterbury banned cousin marriage in 597 AD. Our historic faith has shaped our genetic inheritance.

We have some of the clearest genetic distinctions, and ties to faith and territory in the world. We're an Island, for God's sake. So if your definition applies for Jewish people, it applies for British people too.

And just as the Jewish people get to define their identity, British people get to define our identity.

So what is going on here? Why did she write what she did? It's not a matter of political fairness, like Dave Greene posited. Since this is obviously not fair. Nor is it a matter of factual categorical accuracy, like Connor Tomlinson noted.

The immediate answer is that Melanie Phillips is expressing her views earnestly as a jewish supremacist. She genuinely can not feel the emotional pull in her heart towards other identity groups as to when it comes to the jews. It does not emotionally intuit for her. She's simply honest in verbalizing her emotional state when faced with the concept of venerating a groups sanctity and integrity when that group is jewish and when a group is not jewish. To her they are simply not the same.

To that extent there's not much to take issue with. Zionism to Melanie is not nationalism. Zionism represents nationalism for one nation only. Within the zionist worldview there are no other valid nations than the jewish one. Every other identity is lesser or simply not a thing. That's genuinely what those like Melanie feel. That's why the holocaust is the most important and not the tens of millions of Russians who died, or why Israel has a special status before any other nation on earth, or why the jewish people are the most distinct despite being a hodgepodge of ethnicities more genetically diverse than the entirety of Europe. These are all verbal qualifiers empty of meaning or content outside of the emotions felt by those who express them.

What's less clear is why that is the case. Why does zionism not represent itself as the pan-nationalist identitarian movements in Europe? You have these right wing politicians and media personalities falling over themselves to praise zionism and Israel, but when the time comes for the zionist to scratch back, they don't. And it's genuinely bizarre. Because the insult here is far graver than what any mealy mouthed opposition to 'the left' can make up for.

The implication behind every oppositional argument to 'the left' from a point of view that's not explicitly nationalistic in the same way that right wing jews are zionistic, is that you don't have a right to exist. An implicit recognition of the fact that they don't believe that your identity, your family and your nation is valid. This is doubly highlighted by media personalities who stand on identitarian business for Israel, but make platonic arguments for everyone else. Ben Shapiro's famous 'I don't care about the browning of America' continues to echo throughout time.

The buck has to stop here. It's not possible to maintain anything else. Zionism is not just nationalism for the jews. It's not even Nazism for the jews. It's beyond that. In fact it would be safe to say that there is hardly a difference between how a zionist views non-jewish nations and how a radical open borders leftist views non-jewish nations. These aren't nations to them at all. To conceptualize of them in such a way just isn't valid. They are simply economic zones to be managed. Creedal nations. Ideas to be played with.

With all that said, ostensibly nationalistic people like Leo Kearse who think zionists are a natural ally are simply wrong.

With all that said, ostensibly nationalistic people like Leo Kearse who think zionists are a natural ally are simply wrong.

Well, I would go even further and say that for the true nationalist, there can't be any allies, because allies who would never help you when it is against their own interest are not allies at all but just entities that your interests temporarily happen to align with. An ally has to help you even when it goes against their own interest, which, if they are nationalist, is the interest of their nation. Once you enter that slippery slope, though, you will probably not stop sliding until you end up in global liberalism all over again: if the principle of being a good ally can override the interest of the nation, who is to say there aren't other principles that they could consider?

Instances of nationalists claiming to have an ally are either expedient lies, or enemy-of-my-enemy delusions. With Zionists, it is probably the former on the Zionist side, and the latter on the gentile side, as gentile nationalists had their minds broken by fighting against Muslims and human rights proponents and Israel is the most celebrated scourge of those groups globally.

Allies are entities that your interests temporarily happen to align with, that's what it means. Hence the various state leaders reinforcing the idea that allies are not permanent.

civic and not ethnic

That identity must work this way, at least in majority-white nations, is a core belief of modern progressives. This view is independent of Zionism. It's held by many anti-Zionists, and is, in fact, a major element of the progressive case against the state of Israel.

Almost certainly, Phillips is not a Zionist who is motivated to delegitimize British ethnic identity because of her Zionism, but rather a Zionist who is also a progressive or who is trying to appeal to progressives, and so must start from the default progressive position on ethnonationalism and then explain why Jews should be an exception.

And progressivism is, of course, culturally and politically dominant in Britain today. The forthright position you might wish a Zionist to take, that both the British and the Jews have a right to their own ethnically-delineated nations, would get Phillips bucketed as 'far right,' and depending on details might provoke a visit from the police.

Almost certainly, Phillips is not a Zionist who is motivated to delegitimize British ethnic identity because of her Zionism, but rather a Zionist who is also a progressive or who is trying to appeal to progressives, and so must start from the default progressive position on ethnonationalism and then explain why Jews should be an exception.

Melanie Phillips was a progressive in her early career, but has been publicly taking the standard right-populist positions on education, crime, Muslim immigration, Pride parades and vaccines causing autism since before right-populism was fashionable. She has not been a progressive in any way, shape or form for decades. Her motivation for opposing British ethno-nationalism is that she (correctly) thinks that it doesn't have a place in British public life a Jew whose primary loyalty is very visibly to Israel and not the UK. And she knows she might need such a place, because she can see the risk that Israeli society will develop in a way which makes Jerusalem an unhappy place for an outspoken woman who self-identifies as Modern Orthodox Jewish but isn't exactly frum (and whose husband is even less frum).

So why, if Phillips were a progressive, would her progressivism preclude an ethnic British identity but not her zionism? Sounds like it precludes both pretty clearly. Not that Phillips is necessarily a progressive or that she cares what they think. But if she cared for their opinion the contradiction remains.

To that point, Phillips has been about as consistent a zionist neoconservative as one can be. She is in no danger of visits from police in her home in Jerusalem where she spends the majority of her time. But even then, no one is asking her to express views that go beyond the law in the UK.

In any case, the pattern is rather consistent. She is willing to fight for zionism for jews but not for Brits. We can mull over why, but that's who she is. A jewish zionist who holds a concrete view of her own jewish ethnic identity whilst denigrating the ethnic identity of others.

I suppose I am with @Crowstep. Phillips just has a difference conception of what it means to be British than people like Tomlinson. It seems like she's hardly alone in this. According to the British Social Attitudes survey:

Over the last ten years, there has been a decline in the proportion who regard birth or ancestry as important for being ‘truly British’.

The proportion who think that to be ‘truly British’ it is important for someone to have been born in Britain has fallen from 74% in 2013 to 55% now.

Similarly, the proportion who believe it is important for someone to have British ancestry has dropped from 51% to 39%.

In contrast, 86% say it is important that someone respects British political institutions and laws.

It appears that quite a lot of British people agree with Phillips that being British is more rooted in adapting to British institutions and laws than having a particular ancestry. To the extent the British people are the authors of what it means to be British they seem to be moving more towards a Phillips definition than a Tomlinson one.

It's certainly obvious she does have a different conception. The point relates more to how she can have such a difference in conception when the cases are functionally identical outside of the obvious fact that one is her ingroup.

To your point, there are plenty of people who view Israel as an invalid state that should be destroyed. I don't think she much cares to bend herself to the court of public opinion on that one. In fact she sees herself fit to actively fight against it and say that those who think that way are wrong.

It doesn't make any sense to assume she is making these decisions on a case by case basis and just coincidentally supported a concrete case for ethnic identity when it happened to be hers.

It's kind of ridiculous to even float that as a possibility when the factual nature of the matter is so obvious. Every ethnically British person in the world could believe that being British was civic and yet they would still be ethnically British whilst an Indian would not be. And if they though otherwise they would be factually wrong. Just like it's not a matter of opinion whether someone is white or black. The history is there.

I mean, even the most hardcore British/English nationalist would likely dispute that being born in Britain is necessary to define Britishness; otherwise we would exclude such eminently and obviously British figures as Rudyard Kipling (born in Bombay, India) and Richard Dawkins (born in Nairobi, Kenya).

I am fairly certain those listed could trace their ancestors to the battle of Agincourt.

But if you want definition of britishness (and europeaness). If you have no blood connection to that soil from before 1960s you cannot be British/European is fine definition.

I doubt this survey carefully filtered out those who are not ethnically British. So '5% of native British change their minds about Britishness, the 15% of society that is now immigrants say 'I iz BRITISH nigga, fuck yo racist ass, think you own this island'. Not exactly persuasive.

The survey doesn't have a break out for "ethnically British", whatever that means. But it does break the survey down by people who do/don't consider themselves British and by White/Other Ethnicity. In both cases the numbers are pretty close to the population numbers. Among Whites, 59% think it is important to have been born in Britain (vs the population 55%) and 41% think it is important to have British Ancestry (vs the population 39%). Among those who identify as British the numbers are 59% (the same) and 40% (1 percentage point lower) respectively.

"ethnically British", whatever that means

You realize can't puzzle out what that might mean? This is your honest best effort (lack of) understanding?

As a descriptive comment about how British people use language, we don't consider "British" to be an ethnicity. Self-identifying as "British" is a marker for civic nationalism, and self-identifying as "English" is a marker for ethno-nationalism. Everyone agrees that "English", "Scottish", "Welsh" and "Irish" are ethnicities and nations, but it isn't clear how they relate to Britishness. Scottish ethno-nationalism is (again, descriptively) explicitly anti-English and is increasingly linked to a left-aligned secessionist movement, Welsh ethno-nationalism is implicitly anti-English because it is tied to preserving a non-English language, and Irish ethno-nationalism is basically anti-Britishness boiled down to tar.

Reform don't run candidates in Northern Ireland, and do badly in Scotland. Welsh Reform do very well indeed, but they do so by being the only party in Wales to uncomplicatedly oppose Welsh language policy, not by running the same messages they do in England. "Monoglot English speakers shouldn't be second-class citizens in parts of the UK" is the kind of position which blurs the distinction between ethnic and civic nationalism.

I suspect "I meant that British identity (specifically as opposed to English, Scottish or Welsh identity) is civic" is the motte Phillips was planning to retreat to if her comments got her into enough trouble.

It means ethnically British. You know, the people who lived in Britain for a thousand years. Who are more like each other than they are like anything else. Those guys. Importantly, it does not mean the 6 million EU citizens who applied for citizenship post-Brexit and the breakup of free movement, who are already getting on to 10% on their own.

In any case, thanks for breaking down the numbers.

I don't have a single Antisemitic bone in my body, and I generally avoid discussions that are entirely premised on Jews being up to no good and serving in-group interests at the expense of the outgroup. Too much heat, not enough light.

But I do in fact 'notice' this tendency among some Jews to waffle between the Religious, Ethnic, and National identities to whichever is advantageous for their immediate argument. Plus the tendency of some Jews to also flag as "white" when that might help too. I suppose you could define an ideological group too, but I couldn't do so here.

As far as I know they're the only cognizable group on the planet that can claim all three at once. Maybe some Native Americans can pull something similar. In the U.S. this means they can invoke the 1st amendment right to freedom of religion where needed, the Civil Rights Act defenses against discrimination by race... AND in their back pocket they can cite the good of their country and preservation thereof as a justification for certain actions or beliefs that aren't otherwise protected. ("Israel has a right to defend itself!"™)

The "Big Trouble in Little Palestine" affair (damn it seems like ages ago, but when it was happening it felt like it would never end) kind of brought this to a head for me. Lot of Jews claiming abject fear for their lives (rightfully, I add, there was a spate of attacks/murders) and claiming this creates a nigh-plenary justification to crack down on anti-Zionist activities in any Western Country as well, since Jews (ethnicity) are targets regardless of their national identity. And yeah, some of that anti-Zionist activity was actually dangerous and it was good to crack down on it... but not because it was targeted at Jews.

And then using the identifiable danger to the ethnicity to also push for specific special protections for Jews (religion) on top of it.

So I say hang on a second. Their country was attacked, that's for sure. And I validate their right to respond, even if I question the means by which they do so. But now they're suggesting that their ethnic and religious identity is the actual target of attack, then pushing that as grounds to take actions in countries that were otherwise uninvolved in the conflict.

I feel like they're asking for special treatment on the basis of their race and religion, but justifying it by ties to the nation that was attacked, without openly fleshing out the leap in logic... because again its a distinction that is advantageous to keep ambiguous. There are anti-Zionist Jews, non-practicing Jews, and even ethnic Jews who convert to different religions and end up disclaiming their heritage. Are those groups threatened?

Anyhow. Clearly there is a religion labelled Judaism that has many observant practitioners. Clearly there is an ethnic group, identifiable in genealogical records, known as "Jews" that have a long and storied history. And more recently, clearly there is a 'Jewish state' that has defined boundaries (I realize that by uttering that I'm invoking a frenzied controversy). The 'people' encompassed by each is basically four concentric, mostly-overlapping circles, with Jewish religion being the largest, then ethnic Jews, then Israeli nationalists (including the 'informal' ones who consider it their homeland and birthright even if lacking citizenship) then formal Israeli citizens.

But when talking about Jewish identity, the distinction between these is often elided and muddies the issue. Thus its fairly convenient to invoke an attack against Israel, which technically represents a minority of actual practicing/ethnic Jews as an attack on Jews everywhere, without truly clarifying whether the attack is motivated by anger/opposition to the Israeli state, or racial hatred against ethnic Jews, or, call it 'religious rivalry.'

So to bring this home, I don't mind if you want to claim Jewish identity is 'special' and that you're justifying some action or belief on that basis. Just please state which facet of that identity you're actually invoking, rather than leaving me to guess. And once we've established which it is, don't vociferously object to others invoking that facet of their identity too. If Britain has a national/civic identity, they can invoke that if "Britain" is attacked. We have some overlap between the British 'state' and the ethnicities that historically populated the isles and surrounding areas, and I can trace that genealogically! So an attack on native Britons is an attack on 50% of my identity too (as per Ancestry.com), and I should be able to feel a certain way about that. And British Christians, likewise should be able to claim that an attack against Christendom is an attack on their identity too.

(I'm realizing now this seems analogous to my issues with women claiming, simultaneously, the right to be considered fully empowered individuals, but also an oppressed group in need of special legal protection, and where convenient as helpless little girls who cannot be held accountable for their actions.)

So I say hang on a second. Their country was attacked, that's for sure. And I validate their right to respond, even if I question the means by which they do so. But now they're suggesting that their ethnic and religious identity is the actual target of attack, then pushing that as grounds to take actions in countries that were otherwise uninvolved in the conflict.

I mean, all those things can be true? Their country was attacked largely because of ethnic/religious identity, and many of the attacks "on zionists" are due to ethnic/religious identity. If there were multiple Jewish-majority nations, perhaps it would be easier to distinguish, but that's not the case.

Sure.

Which one(s), specifically, are the Israelis claiming that Hamas was motivated by, and how does that compare to the stated motivation of Hamas themselves?

My understanding is that the occupation of the West Bank and oppression of Gaza is the most explicit and universal casus belli on the Palestinian side of the conflict. This seems to me far removed from the religious practices of Jews being at odds with those of Islam.

I really do read most of the conflict in that zone as motivated directly by the desire to control the specific territory, rather than a deep-seated racial animus (although that's certainly been building among the inhabitants of the region) or an inherent need to slay the nonbelievers. I see the additional religion and race elements as intentional motivators to keep up the fight over the territory, since you want your fighters to believe its an existential conflict. I'm not so sure this conflict would persist if Israel were to cede the contested zones entirely.

I mean help me out here, even in the Muslim Ottoman Empire days the Jews were not targets for elimination on racial or religious grounds!

This is a direct quote:

most scholars conclude that Arab anti-Semitism in the modern world arose in the nineteenth century, against the backdrop of conflicting Jewish and Arab nationalism, and was imported into the Arab world primarily by nationalistically minded Christian Arabs (and only subsequently was it "Islamized").

Presumably any religious supremacy elements to the feud are even more recent than that???

Like literally the Jews wanted a homeland badly enough to start fighting off the other nations in their newly formed country's vicinity and lord bless them, they won, repeatedly. THAT is a sufficient explanation for why they created so many enemies in a short period of time, and historically speaking, competing claims on 'valued' territory is maybe the single biggest cause of war we know of?

I see the additional religion and race elements as intentional motivators to keep up the fight over the territory, since you want your fighters to believe its an existential conflict. I'm not so sure this conflict would persist if Israel were to cede the contested zones entirely.

The contested zones that the hardline Palestinians want them to concede is all of Israel Palestine from the river to the sea. Surely the Jews of Israel earn themselves no favor from the Palestinians with their flagrant abuses in the west bank but approximately no one in the region actually wants a two state solution.

I really do read most of the conflict in that zone as motivated directly by the desire to control the specific territory, rather than a deep-seated racial animus (although that's certainly been building among the inhabitants of the region) or an inherent need to slay the nonbelievers.

It's kind of both.

Palestinians believe Israelis have no right to be there and the land is theirs. So yes, it is a desire to control the territory, and it's not as if they would spare the Muslim or Christian Israelis should they somehow gain the ability to sweep them into the sea.

But Muslims in general, well before the Zionists first arrived in the Holy Land, have always had a negative attitude towards Jews (yes, the Quran says they are "People of the Book" but the Quran also has lots of passages about how nicely you're supposed to treat your wives, and, well) and Islam is a militant religion that does not accept the presence of non-believers except in a barely-tolerated, clearly subordinate position.

Which one(s), specifically, are the Israelis claiming that Hamas was motivated by, and how does that compare to the stated motivation of Hamas themselves?

I'm not a representative of Israel, but I am pretty sure Israel would claim that it's Jew hatred.

This is apparently from the original Hamas charter:

Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

Of course, anyone can say anything about their motivations, and people (obviously) have a strong tendency to engage in whitewashing when describing their motivations. It's pretty likely that if you asked Hamas leadership today about their motivations, they would insist it's just about "fighting Zionism."

But consider that (1) Egypt occupied Gaza for many years; and (2) Egypt blockaded Gaza for many years up to and including the present day. What did the Palestinian Arabs do to resist this "occupation"? Practically nothing. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, back in the day the PLO issued a statement to the effect that it was not contesting Egyptian control of Gaza or Jordanian control of J+S.

I mean help me out here, even in the Muslim Ottoman Empire days the Jews were not targets for elimination on racial or religious grounds!

The phrase "targets for elimination" seems oddly worded to me. As if the person who wrote that phrase is trying to create a misleading impression. Do you believe that there was significant religious persecution of Jews in the Ottoman Empire?

Like literally the Jews wanted a homeland badly enough to start fighting off the other nations in their newly formed country's vicinity and lord bless them, they won, repeatedly. THAT is a sufficient explanation for why they created so many enemies in a short period of time,

Can we agree that there were significant attacks against the Jews in the area before 1948? Can we agree that numerous Arab countries formally declared war on Israel before being defeated in the 1948 war? It seems to me that if you include this context, it appears that the Arabs created themselves as enemies before being defeated in the 1948 war.

I'm not a representative of Israel, but I am pretty sure Israel would claim that it's Jew hatred.

Ahhhh but you're doing the thing.

Is it hatred of Israeli Jews specifically? Or Jews as an ethnic group? Or hatred for Judaism itself and its practitioners?

"Jew Hatred" is under-specified as a motive due to the ambiguity!

I see strong evidence for the first, and much less for the third.

Do you believe that there was significant religious persecution of Jews in the Ottoman Empire?

"Significant" to where there are notable instances of persecution in the historical record?

Absolutely.

Significant to where Jews were ever at even a theoretical risk of being wiped out? Nah. I think Germany takes the cake there.

Not to say that full on genocide is the only bad thing that can happen to a people, I'm just pointing out how much lower down the aggression meter things were for a long time, which you would not expect if Islam and Judaism were mortal enemies the entire time. The Hatfields and McCoys had a deeper blood feud going on than Arabs and Jews did during that period.

Its literally centuries of general co-existence under Ottoman rule, (so not co-equal existence) with spates of violence, then a turning point somewhere in the 19th century. And around 1890 Zionism actually emerges as a cohesive movement, which, at the time, was religiously motivated but as far as I can find has not defined Islam or the Arab world as enemies.

Can we agree that numerous Arab countries formally declared war on Israel before being defeated in the 1948 war? It seems to me that if you include this context, it appears that the Arabs created themselves as enemies before being defeated in the 1948 war.

I think we can. I'm just going off the point that this seems like a turf war more than a religious war at its core.

Not precluding that it would become a religious war, but the animosity was not centered on their competing religious beliefs. Indeed, as I understand Islam the Jews are recognized as a historically significant and distinct group, and Islam's theological precursor, so the Arab nations had to do a lot of rejiggering to make them a valid religious target and enemy (indeed getting into the theories about Israelis not being the original Jewish people).

So anyhow, I am accepting that Jewish ethnic and religious identity are entangled with the Jewish state. But I am not accepting the facial assertion that an an act of war/aggression on Israel implies hatred for all ethnic Jews or even a form of religious rivalry.

I have not seen the articulated chain of logic from "Israeli Civilians were viciously kidnapped/tortured/murdered" to "(ethnic) Jews everywhere are in danger" to "therefore every allied government must enact policies to protect (all) Jews in their territories."

Or more bluntly, if (religious/ethnic) Jews are citizens of the United States, residing in the U.S., I already agree it is the U.S. government's job to protect them... because they're citizens. I do not have to accept that their co-ethnics getting murdered in Israel is grounds for policy change in the U.S.

But (religious/ethnic) Jews in the U.S. will hammer their ethnic connection to Israelis AND their religious connection to American Christians to channel the assertion that an attack on Israel is a direct attack on American Jews too and necessitates American action to protect all Jews as a class.

I am not certain those credits transfer.

But IF those credits do transfer... as mentioned, I think I can likewise take growing levels of unrest and violence against native Britons, with whom I share ethnic and religious heritage, as a personal threat to my life and interests and demand similar special protection?

"Yes, I am an American Citizen who has never been to Europe, but I see British people, in Britain, brutally victimized due to apparent racial and religious hatred. I am racially and religiously entwined with those people, therefore I, too, am in danger."

On the face of it I don't follow that logic. Swap it out:

"Yes I am an American Citizen who has never been to Israel, but I see Jewish people, in Israel, brutally victimized due to apparent racial and religious hatred. I am racially and religiously entwined with those people therefore I, too, am in danger."

And I still don't follow the logic.

I can sense now that someone will try and say "But Jews ARE really in a different situation!" and hokay, please explain why without exploiting that ambiguity between Judaism, Ethnic Jewish heritage, and Isreali citizenship.

Is it hatred of Israeli Jews specifically? Or Jews as an ethnic group? Or hatred for Judaism itself and its practitioners?

Let me clarify: I am talking about hatred of Jews in general. For example, suppose Hamas had the opportunity to blow up an arbitrary synagogue in New Jersey or an arbitrary Jewish community center in Argentina. I am pretty confident that Hamas would take that opportunity. (Note that Iran and Hezbollah really did blow up a Jewish community center in Argentina.)

Is it hatred of Israeli Jews specifically? Or Jews as an ethnic group? Or hatred for Judaism itself and its practitioners?

I see strong evidence for the first, and much less for the third.

Well do you agree that over the years, anti-Israel terrorists have targeted non-Israeli Jews?

Not to say that full on genocide is the only bad thing that can happen to a people, I'm just pointing out how much lower down the aggression meter things were for a long time, which you would not expect if Islam and Judaism were mortal enemies the entire time.

A casual search reveals the following attacks on Jews in the Muslim and/or Arab world

1033 Fez Massacre

1066 Granada Massacre

1290 Bagdhad Massacre

1785 Tripoli Pogrom;

1805 Massacre of Algiers

1815 - Massacre of Algiers

1864 - Marakesh massacre

All of this took place long before the modern Zionist movement.

I'm just going off the point that this seems like a turf war more than a religious war at its core.

Well here's the question:

If it's about "turf," why is it that the Palestinian Arabs didn't make a fuss about Egypt and Jordan's occupation of Gaza and J & S between 1947 and 1967? Why did they focus their energies on the lands occupied by the Jews?

But I am not accepting the facial assertion that an an act of war/aggression on Israel implies hatred for all ethnic Jews or even a form of religious rivalry.

It doesn't imply it in the same sense that correlation does not imply causation. But in a lot of contexts, correlation is strong evidence of causation. The most extreme example is white supremacists who care only about white people, unless it happens to be Palestinian Arabs at issue.

When it comes to Israel, the circumstantial evidence is pretty strong that -- generally speaking -- anti-Israel sentiment is informed heavily by Jew hatred.

But (religious/ethnic) Jews in the U.S. will hammer their ethnic connection to Israelis AND their religious connection to American Christians to channel the assertion that an attack on Israel is a direct attack on American Jews too and necessitates American action to protect all Jews as a class

Can you give me a couple specific examples of this to help me understand your point?

Not precluding that it would become a religious war, but the animosity was not centered on their competing religious beliefs. Indeed, as I understand Islam the Jews are recognized as a historically significant and distinct group, and Islam's theological precursor, so the Arab nations had to do a lot of rejiggering to make them a valid religious target and enemy (indeed getting into the theories about Israelis not being the original Jewish people).

As with Christianity, it can be complicated.

Narrated Abu Huraira:

Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."

So what is going on here?

A more charitable take is that she is describing Britishness as it has been promoted by the British political class for decades (some of them might even believe it). Melanie Phillips didn't invent the 'Britishness is queueing and Paddington and chicken tikka masala' model of national identity, she's just describing it.

And she's right that British ethno-religious-national identity genuinely is different from Jewish identity. Judaism is an ethno-religion, Anglicanism, as a branch of Christianity, is universalist (as evidenced by the fact that we sent missionaries to our colonies when we had them). And when the only people in Britain who still believe in Christianity are pensioners and Africans, then it doesn't work very well as a pillar of our national identity.

Melanie Phillips didn't invent the 'Britishness is queueing and Paddington and chicken tikka masala' model of national identity, she's just describing it.

She's not describing it. She's not saying "this is what a bunch of people believe about Britishness", she's saying "this is what Britishness is".

Why not both? It's the position Britons have allowed to dominate in their name so it is what Britishness is.

The Israelis have absolutely taken a different tack, but if they had acceded to a one-state reality surely it would also become tendentious to start claiming the state and nation in the name of their ethnic group? That's the given reason for why Israelis will never accept it.

It's the position Britons have allowed to dominate in their name so it is what Britishness is.

The reason we are having this conversation is that the statement is controversial among Britons, so I don't see how they allowed it to dominate.

Amongst some online. Does that change a) the cultural forces pushing this that the British public have not yet been checked or b) the policies that are justified in the name of this view and increasingly make this view the only viable model?

I don't even disagree that Britons are resistant to the elite view on some issues - immigration - but how resistant are they to this one? And how much energy have they expended to defeat it?

If that's the way she meant it, then it's basically taunting people. I don't see how it's more charitable than the OP.

For an empire, to be ‘ethnically’ part of the main ethnicity is eventually meaningless- there was not such thing as an ethnic Roman in 400 AD, either. Sic semper imperium.

That doesn’t make it cosmic justice or revenge for colonialism or whatever bullshit. It is simply the way things are; thé ethnic component of Britishness or Americanness is gone. You want to maintain ethnic purity then you don’t get to be the empire, you have to live under it.

You just shouldn't give citizenship to whoever. That simple. The supply of third world peasants vastly outstrips the demand for labor - so there is no need to make them citizens, unlike the romans. Dubai offers vastly worse deal than UK to the people from the subcontinent, and the quality of the workers they get doesn't seem to be that different.

The Roman face still exists today. You can literally compare marble busts from back then to Tony Soprano, an Argentinian, or an Italian and see the same face.

So yes the Roman Empire existed without Rome being not Roman. The British Empire existed without London being British. You can manage colonies under your law that are a part of your empire without you yourself not being you.

Now do the Arabs and their empires.

The rejection of the ethnic component of Britishness coincided with the collapse of the British Empire. Likewise you note the loss of ethnic Roman identity circa 400 AD Rome, at the twilight of their own empire. America is TBD but the rejection of the ethnic component of Americanism has led to disastrous consequences within a single generation.

All of those empires grew and thrived under the auspice of a distinct ethnic identity and sense of destiny, and then they wilted when it was lost.

"Ethnic purity" is a false dichotomy. Ethnic purity is impossible for empires but maintaining a sense of imperial ethnic identity is not impossible and is a core feature of building and maintaining empires. For everything you could say about Israel, they do not maintain ethnic purity as dailydogma showed below. Yet they maintain a collective ethnic identity and could not survive without that identity.

Likewise you note the loss of ethnic Roman identity circa 400 AD Rome, at the twilight of their own empire.

Rome rejected its ethnic component well before that. They granted citizenship to non-Roman Latins in 300s BC. Complete citizenship to non Latin Italians in the 80s BC. Julius Caesar was adding foreigners from outside Italy to the senate. Roman Society became civic focused well before the decline of their empire.

America is TBD but the rejection of the ethnic component of Americanism has led to disastrous consequences within a single generation.

I still maintain from the start the US was civic nationalist. For most of its history it believed certain peoples could not be good citizens, but it was never explicitly an ethnos. Ethnic Americanism was an intellectual and often popular trend that has always existed, but never achieved institutional dominance.

Were America to retvrn to the past, it would be to argue certain groups are incapable of exercising the duties of citizenship. That’s an argument within the right wing Overton window of today, even if the racial essentialist parts of the arguments are not.

Ethnic purity is impossible for empires but maintaining a sense of imperial ethnic identity is not impossible and is a core feature of building and maintaining empires.

I would replace this with Civic rather than ethnic. The British identity is civic vs the ethnic English, Scottish, etc. identities. The French identity is famously civic as well, both in the Ancien Regime and post Revolution definitions. China and Russia are empires where the people serve the state rather than vise-versa.

None of that is to say importing Mirpuris or Somalis is a good idea. Prudence regarding immigration is a related, but separate topic as to who can reasonably contribute to the body politic.

America is TBD but the rejection of the ethnic component of Americanism has led to disastrous consequences within a single generation.

Did I miss some catastrophes coming from massive Catholic/non-WASP immigration in my readings?

I feel like this argument has been done a lot and basically has name in internet lore - “What about the Italians”.

And of course then you basically just jump into HBD arguments plus harder forced assimilation.

For Rome the HBD arguments seem harder in retrospect. No one thinks the Germans weren’t capable of being more than barbarians today.

It's funny since the opposite is true. Jews have a cultural identity, but no true ethnic identity. There are Kaifeng Jews, Ashkenazis which are essentially a half-European Mischling race, Yemenite Jews are are basically racially Arab ... and there are even Black Israelites. None of these people have evidence they descended from the original Biblical tribes. So it is quite racist that Israel doesn't simply allow anyone who claims to be a Jew have citizenship. Anyone can be a Jew! There's even at least 3 major doctrines, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform. In Reform you just have to be a decent human being! Meanwhile there's obviously people who belong to a British ethnicity (English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish) and then there's immigrants (mainly blacks, Indians, and other Europeans).

Meanwhile there's obviously people who belong to a British ethnicity (English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish) and then there's immigrants (mainly blacks, Indians, and other Europeans).

Would you classify the Angles and Saxons as British identities, or immigrant?

There's even at least 3 major doctrines, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform. In Reform you just have to be a decent human being!

You can tell what branch of Judaism someone belongs to by how they pronounce the Hebrew word for Lord (Adonai):

Orthodox - Ah - Doe - Nye

Conservative - Eye - Duh - No

Reform - Eye - Dee - Nye

Conservative - Eye - Duh - No

Ah, similar to the Goyim pronunciation, which is "I dunno"

Meanwhile there's obviously people who belong to a British ethnicity (English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish)

Excuse me?

The genetic distance between Irish and Western English is minimal, and the distance between Irish and English as a whole is not much more (thrown off by more Viking and French ancestry in Eastern England). The Irish are more like the English than they are like any other European nation, and are considerably more like each other than, say, the Spanish and the Portuguese who aren't even on separate islands.

Population Ireland England France Germany Poland
Ireland — 0.48 1.32 1.67 2.65
England 0.48 — 0.63 0.62 1.74
France 1.32 0.63 — 0.91 2.29
Germany 1.67 0.62 0.91 — 1.27
Poland 2.65 1.74 2.29 1.27 —

Table shows FST (genetic distance) x 1000.

Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3641388

Something like a quarter of England’s residents were of Irish descent before immigration picked up, no? These people seem to be counted as ‘ethnic Britons’- maybe the term has no meaning except not wanting to see brown people.

Come on, this is silly. There are two islands that make up ‘Great Britain’. Until very recently almost everyone on those islands were descended from the peoples of those islands, the newest of whom came here one thousand years ago. That is ‘British’.

These peoples are not French. They are not German (insert obligatory joke about the Royal Family, which proves people do notice them not being British even if it’s mostly pointed out in good fun). They are not Spanish. Nor Indian, African, or Asian. They are British.

the newest of whom came here one thousand years ago

Close, but we're still 40 years shy.

There are two islands that make up 'Great Britain'.

No, Great Britain is one island. The British Isles encompass both Great Britain and Ireland.

If we are nitpicking, "Great Britain" is both the toponym for the main island of the British Isles, and also the legal name for the mostly-obsolete political entity that includes both the main island and the minor islands (like the Isle of Wight and the Hebrides) associated with it. (Apart from an old joke about Berwick being at war with Russia, Great Britain in the political sense = England + Wales + Scotland)

Fair.

Unionists in Belfast?

Most of them are of Scottish descent.

Although their self-identity is more complicated than that, and they now consider themselves to be de facto indigenous to Ulster in the same way that non-woke white Americans consider themselves de facto indigenous to the United States or Boers consider themselves de facto indigenous to South Africa.

And European nationalists should take note of Jewish success in that regard. Where would Israel and Zionism be if it were not a pan-Jewish identarian movement? Imagine if every Jewish subgroup tried to cluster into its own nation with its own language. It wouldn't work, Ashkenazi Nationalism alone could not have built Israel. Its power is derived from being a pan-Jewish movement.

Likewise the European foil to Zionism is not {British Nationalism, Irish Nationalism, French Nationalism, German Nationalism} it's pan-European Nationalism.

Likewise the European foil to Zionism is not {British Nationalism, Irish Nationalism, French Nationalism, German Nationalism} it's pan-European Nationalism.

Does this mean you are pro-EU, or at least support the concept of the EU even if you dislike the current iteration?

Yes definitely, pro-NATO as well. Those are the institutions that would be foundational to a movement like that. Of course the current iteration is far away but the institutional authority is already 75% of the way there.

The EU institutions are more based than western European governments, because of the eastern European influence. The EU has its own uniformed border force (Frontex) who largely have closed the eastern land border to illegal immigration and would have stopped the boats if they weren't being sabotaged by fake search-and-rescue NGOs protected by the French/Spanish/Italian governments.

If the people and governments of the EU wanted to pursue an anti-immigration agenda, they could do so through the existing institutions with no reform needed. And "If the peoples and sovereigns of Christian Europe want to keep the Turk out, we need to do so together or we will end up letting him in separately" is 1000-year old cached conventional wisdom for a reason.

I feel comfortable saying the Ashkenazis could successful make their own small state without help from the other Jewish groups. They would struggle with fertility now. And politically it would have been harder to sell to the west that Israel was just Ashkenazi, but I 100% feel comfortable if they could get the UN etc to agree to Israel that Israel would be fine with only Ashkenazi.

I don't doubt Ashkenazis could run their own small state. But imagine if Israel were divided between an Ashkenazi nation that spoke its own language and a Mizrahi nation that spoke a different language. Different governments, languages, militaries, culture. That would be much weaker than the pan-Jewish nation and movement. The Arabs would prefer them to be divided, wouldn't they?

Isn’t there a 15-20 IQ point difference between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi? Mizrahi are basically just canon fodder for the army. Everything that makes Israel special is the Ashkenazi.

"basically just" is doing a lot of work there. Integrating the Mizrahi into the economy and military is very important to Israel. Their military would be cut in half without the Mizrahi. Israeli GDP wouldn't fall by quite that much due to income inequality but it would constitute the loss of a huge source of labor.

A counterfactual world in which an Ashkenazi from the Ashkenazi Nation can't even hold a verbal conversation with a Mizrahi from the Mizrahi Nation because they speak different languages and have different economies and governments is a world in which they are both easier pickings for their enemies.

If they modestly increased fertility then losing half their soldiers wouldn’t be an issue.

They would also have to deal with having their territorial integrity threatened by a much weaker ally. In the way the dysfunction in Greece percolates to all of Europe. They would need to navigate foreign affairs and security in a far less efficient and political secure manner. An incompetent ally is much more difficult than direct governorship and management.

What if there's economic hardship, political upheaval, or security threats to the Mizrahi Nation? That affects the Ashkenazi Nation but there's only so much they can do as a foreign government even being close allies. I don't see a world where Israel has its influence and status as a set of petty Jewish nationalisms divided along ethnic lines with different languages and governments.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats