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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3657 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 26, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Why don't Palestinians just convert to Judaism? Most of their ancestors used to be Jews and it would gain them the right to return to Israel, where they could live much better lives. If the answer is that they are devout Muslims and Christians, then do we need to save them from their own irrationality by either somehow getting them to convert anyway or by forcing Israel to give in to their demands so that they don't suffer the consequences of their bad choices?

If this happened at a mass scale, would Israel not allow it? I suppose they would doubt their sincerity and make it more difficult to just convert so that you can move to Israel.

Is this just hard to coordinate on a mass scale? Invidual Palestinians may not want to convert and immigrate and leave their communities. But that still leaves open the question of how bad things must really be if they don't do it anyway. Israel may be an ethno-state, but I think it's the only country in the world that anyone can immigrate to if they're sufficiently motivated to convert to a belief system.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-requests-for-conversion-rejected-outright-official-says/

Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz, director of the Israeli government’s Conversion Authority, spoke about his organization’s handling of requests by Palestinians to convert on Tuesday during a discussion on conversions at the State Control Committee of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, the news site nrg reported.

“The threshold requirements” to be considered by the special cases panel, he said, “are that applicants be sincere and that they are not foreign workers; infiltrators; Palestinian or illegally in the country.”

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