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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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How does Israel make Jews safe?

I've seen it suggested that having a Jewish state creates a refuge that isn't dependent on the goodwill of non-Jews. Yet the past several years have demonstrated that Israel isn't actually self sufficient and that it is, in fact, totally dependent on trade with Europe and aid from America for it's continued existence. Israeli Jews would hardly be any safer than American Jews in a scenario where their primary patron went anti-semitic.

Yet even in a world where America does unconditionally support Israel I can't help but think of anyone who takes Aliyah as a certified moron. Modern Israel is not a safe place for Jews, it's a place where thousands of Jews can be killed or maimed in a day and hundreds kidnapped. If you are kidnapped, the "Jewish State" will not pull all the stops to save your life but will instead attempt to murder you to prevent you from being used as a bargaining chip. If you survive that then your best hope is that public pressure will eventually force Israel to free some mass killing gigaterrorists in exchange for your life, since Israel has demonstrated that it is incapable of rescuing hostages by force after more than 2 years of intense combat against the weakest militia on it's border.

All this for the low, low price of North Korean taxes, mandatory conscription, reserve service, and getting arrested if you choose to vacation anywhere outside of the US

Even for non-Israeli Jews who don't care about Israel either way, the brutal yet failed campaign to destroy Hamas is a giant anti-semitism producing machine. If the ghost of Hitler possessed Netanyahu with the goal of empowering a new generation of anti-semites then he could hardly have done better. Before 10/7, the slightest hint of anti-semitism was instantly denounced. Today, when the giga-normie Nelk Boys interview Bibi the next day they're forced to go on an apology tour with all the big name internet anti-semites like Nick Fuentes and Sneako. The shift in the public perception of Israelis and Jews is so downright seismic and probably couldn't be replicated in a world without a "Jewish state" soaking up bad press.

Yeah, that's the bet all western jews are making. They think Israel is going to fall someday, and their political opinions are often a sublimation of that basic choice. Some take it one way, some take it the other, but it's just pre-survivor's guilt.

This is how the jewish people have survived thousands of years without a country.

Yeah, that's the bet all western jews are making. They think Israel is going to fall someday

While I am sure that there are some Jews who carefully select their country of residence based on minimizing the chances of being genocided, I am positive that for many, other factors (employments, economics, existing relationships) play a more crucial role.

My subjective mental model of the median US Jew is not "these fools in Israel will get themselves murdered again" but "having a state which is guaranteed to accept Jewish immigrants in a world where countries sometimes expel their Jewish citizens is a nice fallback solution, and we should support Israel for that reason even if we do not have a compelling reason to move there."

I know a Jewish family that has carefully acquired and maintained multiple passports across generations rather openly based on the lived experience of their parents (and grandparents, and great grandparents) during WWII. The cynics would say "rootless cosmopolitans" here (and maybe there is an element of that), but having heard their Holocaust stories second-hand, I see why they care so much.

WW2 affected more people than just jews.

This brings up feelings similar to when I see news stories from Ukraine of all their African migrants fleeing the country. A bunch of brown fighting age men who suddenly aren't Ukrainian like the others. All rhetoric of unity and shared humanity thrown out the window for a train ticket out of there. So they can, presumably, do the same song and diversity dance someplace else.

Are you suggesting German Jews should have proven their loyalty by fighting for the Reich? That wasn't really on the table for them.

They weren't migrants, they were German citizens, until they weren't, and they weren't given the option of proving how German they were.

No. How did you reach that? The point where jews could make inroads with Germans had long passed them by.

I'm suggesting that Russians, Lithuanians, Poles, Latvians and Ukrainians for example, don't carry 12 different passports in case of another war, despite being victims of WW2.

There are no "inroads" they could have made with people who hate Jews for being Jews. You are implying there was a rational reason for Germans to hate them and want them removed or exterminated.

I'm suggesting that Russians, Lithuanians, Poles, Latvians and Ukrainians for example, don't carry 12 different passports in case of another war, despite being victims of WW2.

That's because they have a country that isn't going to suddenly decide they don't belong there.

A convincing case has yet to be made that Jews are simultaneously unreasonably paranoid, disloyal, and also do not deserve to be considered fellow citizens and got what was coming to them.

You are implying the people in question were simply deranged and hated jews for being jews. Which is a sort of backhanded otherization rhetoric that would not fly in any other context. Most principally for being an obvious lie. But also for just being silly. Denying others a theory of mind to make your case just means you don't have a case.

That's because they have a country that isn't going to suddenly decide they don't belong there.

Historically, this is just not true. And more pertinent to the topic, sometimes it's not their own nation that's doing the deciding. Acting like the predicament many jews found themselves in during WW2 is any worse than that of many civilians in the aforementioned nations is invalid.

A convincing case has yet to be made that Jews are simultaneously unreasonably paranoid, disloyal, and also do not deserve to be considered fellow citizens and got what was coming to them.

You can't both be a citizen and also exempt from service to the nation if the concept of a national is supposed to hold any relevance. This rings especially loud after decades of diversity propaganda where everyone is touted as an equal national. If your alleged co-nationals are hoarding passports they certainly do have a different view on the nation and their membership. If you want to verbalize recognition for that fact using hyperbolic thought ending rhetoric... fine. But you are certainly not looking for rational discourse when doing so.

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