naraburns nihil supernum
7mo ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #3
This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
I’m having trouble finding too much information on the demographic history with high enough granularity to interpret. I don’t have expertise here, to say the least, and it’s very possible my views would move toward yours if I were informed in more detail. Regarding the first Aliyah, the Bilu do seem to have had Zionist ideology in the modern and (to me) objectionable sense David Engel’s book Zionism describes them as refugees, but neither that book nor the Wikipedia articles goes into much detail on composition. Currently trying to read some very poorly-edited books on the history of Hamas (as in, clearly written by non-native speakers and Routledge didn’t feel the need to provide good editors I guess) - will need to find something good on the relevant demographic history next.
Internal movement of Yemeni Jews, assuming it was legal under the Ottoman framework, doesn’t particularly bother me, even if it happened to have bad effects later (not claiming that it did). Supposing that the Yemeni movements did have net negative effects - I would compare that to the forces that led to ethnic town-country differences in Eastern Europe that ultimately led to so much violence, where the process is less worthy of blame because the bad outcome wasn’t reasonably foreseeable at the time.
The Second Aliyah seems to have been in response to the Russian Revolution. It seems most of the refugees went elsewhere as you said. To the extent that in-migration at this stage was guided or motivated by Zionism, I think that’s blameworthy (not in each individual case) for the same reason that I’d disapprove of the Russian Mennonites engaging in Mennonite-homeland-ism at the same time for the same reasons.
The third and onward occurred after the Balfour declaration - at that point I blame the British and those Zionists who had laid the groundwork for the declaration. To my understanding, this early stage of British rule is what created the conditions that underlie the current situation (e.g., Engels claims, IIRC, that the Yishuv didn’t realistically foresee a Jewish-majority anything until the 30’s).
With regard to the South America analogy, if I’m following correctly the difference is that an indigenous diaspora is now organizing and financing the enclave-formation rather than it being refugee-driven? I think that’s morally worse overall (because I’m less forgiving of wrongdoing not done out of desperation), with more of the wrongdoing shifted from the refugees to their backers.
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Notes -
I’m having trouble finding too much information on the demographic history with high enough granularity to interpret. I don’t have expertise here, to say the least, and it’s very possible my views would move toward yours if I were informed in more detail. Regarding the first Aliyah, the Bilu do seem to have had Zionist ideology in the modern and (to me) objectionable sense David Engel’s book Zionism describes them as refugees, but neither that book nor the Wikipedia articles goes into much detail on composition. Currently trying to read some very poorly-edited books on the history of Hamas (as in, clearly written by non-native speakers and Routledge didn’t feel the need to provide good editors I guess) - will need to find something good on the relevant demographic history next.
Internal movement of Yemeni Jews, assuming it was legal under the Ottoman framework, doesn’t particularly bother me, even if it happened to have bad effects later (not claiming that it did). Supposing that the Yemeni movements did have net negative effects - I would compare that to the forces that led to ethnic town-country differences in Eastern Europe that ultimately led to so much violence, where the process is less worthy of blame because the bad outcome wasn’t reasonably foreseeable at the time.
The Second Aliyah seems to have been in response to the Russian Revolution. It seems most of the refugees went elsewhere as you said. To the extent that in-migration at this stage was guided or motivated by Zionism, I think that’s blameworthy (not in each individual case) for the same reason that I’d disapprove of the Russian Mennonites engaging in Mennonite-homeland-ism at the same time for the same reasons.
The third and onward occurred after the Balfour declaration - at that point I blame the British and those Zionists who had laid the groundwork for the declaration. To my understanding, this early stage of British rule is what created the conditions that underlie the current situation (e.g., Engels claims, IIRC, that the Yishuv didn’t realistically foresee a Jewish-majority anything until the 30’s).
With regard to the South America analogy, if I’m following correctly the difference is that an indigenous diaspora is now organizing and financing the enclave-formation rather than it being refugee-driven? I think that’s morally worse overall (because I’m less forgiving of wrongdoing not done out of desperation), with more of the wrongdoing shifted from the refugees to their backers.
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