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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I've found the recent imbroglio with Congress v. the University Presidents pretty interesting due to the somewhat conflicting reactions I've had and just wanted to post some thoughts.
For those not aware, the Presidents of Penn, MIT, and Harvard recently appeared before at a Congressional committee on the subject of antisemitism on campus. Somewhat unexpectedly, the video of the hearing went somewhat viral, especially the questioning of Rep. Elise Stefanik, who repeatedly asked point-blank if calling for the genocide of Jews would be a violation of the campus code of conduct, to which all the Presidents gave evasive answers. The entire hearing is actually worth watching, at least on 2x speed.
Some of my thoughts:
Rep. Stefanik has a trial lawyer's skill for cross-examination. Her questioning was simultaneously obviously loaded and somewhat unfair but also dramatic and effective at making the respondent look bad. However, I wish she would have focused more on the obvious hypocrisy of claiming to only punish speech that effectively is unprotected by the First Amendment, pointing out some of the more obvious cases where they elevated things like misgendering or dog-whistling white supremacy to "abuse" and "harassment" while refusing to do the same for genocide advocacy. In fairness however, other representatives did ask questions along those lines, though not nearly as effectively.
The University presidents were either woefully unskilled or badly coached on how to handle hostile questions like this. They gave repetitive, legalistic non-answers and declined to offer any real explanation of their underlying position or how to reconcile it with other actions taken for apparently viewpoint-related reasons. Stefanik was obviously getting under their skin, and their default response to grin back while answering like Stefanik was a misbehaving child was absolutely the wrong tactic. The Penn President came across so poorly that she felt she had to post a bizarre follow-up video to almost-apologize for not appearing to take it seriously while at the same time implying without really saying that calling for genocide might be harassment.
Their performance was especially frustrating because they were taking a position that I basically support: that the University will not police opinions, even terribly offensive ones, but will police conduct and harassment. It's not that difficult a position to explain or defend on basic Millian principles, but they couldn't or wouldn't do it. Granted, Stefanik would probably have cut them off if they tried, but they didn't try. They didn't use their time during friendly questioning to do so, and they still haven't. I want to support them in an effort to actually stake out that position. But--
It's hard not to think that the reason they haven't is because they don't believe it. Actions speak louder than words, and there have been a number of cases of Universities, even these specific ones, taking action against people for harmful "conduct" or "harassment" when the conduct in question is actually just expounding an offensive opinion. "Safety concern" has also been a ready justification for acquiescing to heckler's vetoes against disfavored speakers. I simply don't believe that they believe their policy requires them to allow hateful speech against Jews. I think they are lying, and that makes me want to not support them.
The episode seems to have especially impacted what I'll call normie Jews, who are reliably blue-tribe but not radically woke. On the one hand, I think they have a legitimate grievance against the hypocrisy of how the code of conduct policies are interpreted for some opinions vs. arguable antisemitism. On the other hand, I think it's bad policy to not be able to make antisemitic arguments ever, even if maintaining civility. I don't actually believe that hate speech is violence, even antisemitism, and I don't support their movement to make antisemitism a per se violation. On the other, other hand, the cause of knocking down the prestige of the Ivies and exposing their rank hypocrisy might be worth allies of convenience. On the other, other, other hand, as a SWM I feel like the prisoner in the gallows in the "First time?" meme. You have a grievance at their hypocrisy, but I have a grievance at your hypocrisy. Most normie Jews have had no complaints at all about woke people saying similar or worse things about "white people." Some of those woke people were themselves Jews, and I suspect that if the universities capitulate, it will be by making Jews a special protected class, which would further from the outcome that I want. I've had a superposition of all these reactions going on.
I think one confounding factor is what kind of language counts as advocating genocide against Jews. Probably the most prominent example of this recently has been the phrase "from the river to the sea." Some people surely use it with a genocidal intent (there should be no Jews between the "river and the sea") while other use it as an expression of solidarity between the West Bank, Gaza, and non-Jews in Israel more generally. If I use the phrase am I advocating genocide against Jews in Israel? It probably depends on the context! I suspect the presidents here correctly deduced how their answers might be weaponized.
I think the whole discourse has been poisoned by Zionists who regard criticism of Israel as a state as criticism of Jews as a people, which is an absurd notion.
Let's be blunt. The overwhelming majority of criticism of Israel is antisemitism. Sure, in theory you can criticize Israeli policy while holding no ill will towards Jews, just as you can don a swastika without being a nazi. There's probably even a few people doing that! But it's not the bulk of what we're seeing.
I could understand someone being horrified by both Hamas' genocidal attack and Israel's forceful response. But that doesn't describe the people flying Palestinian flags and donning keffiyehs. That does not describe the people chanting "long live the intifada" or "victory to the freedom fighters" or "from the river to the sea" or "gas the Jews". They aren't upset that the war is happening, they are upset that Israel is winning.
These people fundamentally see Hamas' attack as legitimate and Israel's response as illegitimate, because they see Israel itself as illegitimate, and they see Israel as illegitimate because it's a Jewish country. It's as clear and simple as that.
No one protests the British creation of Jordan just a few years before Israel. Why not? Because Jordan is full of Arabs. The conflict is not about lines on a map, it is about Jews.
And let's be clear about what "Zionism" is. It's the belief that Israel should continue to exist. Anyone who describes themselves as "anti-Zionist" is demanding an end to the Jewish state, from which will inevitably follow an end to the Jewish population in the middle east. If you are not for Zionism, you are for genocide.
Strong disagree. Most of the criticism of Israel that comes from the right or from Muslims is antisemitism, but most of it from the American left (including progressive Jews) is about dislike of the "oppressor", characterizing Israel as a white, colonizing force. This makes for some very strange bedfellows where antisemitism is happily tolerated, but Norm Finkelstein doesn't hate Israel because he's an antisemite, he hates Israel because he's a commie.
I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say that most of the criticism of Israel that comes from the right is antisemitic, at least not in the United States. Some of it is antisemitic, sure, but plenty of it also comes from Pat Buchanan-style isolationists and from folks—especially, in my experience, younger folks—who find some of Israel’s actions and foreign influence questionable at best. The attitude of the latter group toward the current conflict can perhaps best be summed up as “I just hope both sides have fun,” which I’ve seen a number of times and which is distinctly not antisemitic.
Oh, fair. I suppose I was thinking more of the people that genuinely dislike Israel rather than those that are merely indifferent and tired of shoveling money overseas in general.
More options
Context Copy link
Maybe, but I'd say most of the latter are either misinformed (by anti-semites on the right or the left, who push the story of Evil Israel oppressing the poor innocent Palestinians who just want to get along) or poor at making distinctions between the flawed and the genocidal.
Or they’re tired of America being the world police; tired of America being asked to foot the bill for “America’s greatest ally,” even when that ally… hasn’t been all that great, actually; and tired of seeing all the double standards that apply anytime Israel comes up. For example, want to boycott apartheid South Africa? The US will happily join you in that. Want to boycott Israel? 37 states will do everything in their power to stop you. Or take safety: the pro-Israel crowd loves to talk about the hatred Palestinians feel toward Israel, and declare that it would be unreasonable to ask the Israelis to let those Palestinians become Israeli citizens and voters. But those same people don’t seem the least bit concerned when South African politicians enliven their mass rallies with the cheerful music of “Kill the Boer,” nor were they concerned in the 1980s, when PAC party members led “one settler, one bullet” chants among their supporters.
Pro-israel: moderate liberals and conservatives, evangelicals, jews
Anti-israel: hard left, woke, hard right, muslims
If you're looking for people endorsing 'kill the boer’, just go to one of your side's rallies, and turn your head slightly to the left.
This culture war skirmish is my favourite: finally, all the people I can’t stand are on the opposite side.
Hmm, this might be one reason I find this conflict so irritating. I’m suddenly finding myself with an uncomfortable group of allies.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Most of these people weren't politically active (if they were even born) when apartheid South Africa existed. And I reiterate oing the whole "a pox on both your houses" thing when one house is clearly more pox-deserving than the other is to support the cause of injustice. I do not believe for a minute the people you refer to are "tired of America being the world police"; those are the isolationists, and they're not the ones who "find some of Israel’s actions and foreign influence questionable at best".
Or, to put it more clearly, you're not fooling anyone.
Oh, I’m not trying to fool anyone. Unlike our Secure correspondent, I have no problems with Jews. No, my beef is with Israel. I believe they have a parasitic relationship with the United States, I dislike the influence they have over our politicians, and I despise the blatant hypocrisy of their most ardent defenders. All that said, I don’t like the Palestinians much either. I think I might have said this before, but as I see it, the Israelis are a bunch of bastards, and the Palestinians are an even bigger bunch of bastards (with the usual caveat that there are some fine people on both sides).
With regard to the most recent conflict, my chief concern is that the United States stays out of it. Not a penny of aid to Israel, no munitions, no bribing the Egyptians to play nice, and no accepting any Palestinian refugees. I hate that we are getting involved, that our congress is passing bills equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, that the universities are getting dragged on the carpet for allowing anti-Israel protests (which I’m not going to deny included some antisemitic speech), when no one cared that they allowed anti-white speech, or at least certainly didn’t care to the same extent.
More broadly, I find it ridiculous and unamerican that 3/4th of our state legislatures have passed laws to protect Israeli financial interests. I hate the fact that so many conservatives (my own crowd) unthinkingly consider Israel our greatest ally, just because their congressmen and Fox News told them they were. I briefly had this argument with my father recently; he thinks Israel should bomb Gaza and the West Bank (!) to the ground, so that not a single building is left standing. If any Palestinians survive, fine. If they don’t, that’s fine too. He furthermore believes that we should fund this insane genocide, because “Israel is our greatest ally. Just look at how they were there for us after 9/11.” When I asked why Britain, Germany, or Australia—countries that actually sent troops to help us, unlike Israel, didn’t deserve the title of “greatest ally” instead, he retreated to saying “they provided us with intelligence.” When I pointed out that their intelligence included the lies about WMDs in Iraq, he lost interest in continuing the discussion. “We just need to help them any way we can.” Here’s the thing, he’s not so mind-killed on any subject but Israel, and he’s far from alone in that regard!
Meanwhile, my political opponents are even worse. Colonialism is evil, except for Israel. Stealing land is evil, except for settlements in the West Bank. Apartheid is evil, unless the victims are Palestinian (and yes, I know Israel has some Arab Israeli citizens, and even allows them the vote. They notably forbade them the vote initially, and only enfranchised them once it became clear that the Jewish Israelis had and would keep their ethnic majority). I at least give some credit to the pro-Palestinian left for being consistent, even if I think the Palestinians are mostly worse than the Israelis.
Cycling back around to the start of this comment, all of this wouldn’t bother me if it remained academic. If America would just keep its money and it’s materiel off the table, I wouldn’t care what people thought about the conflict. But that just doesn’t seem in the cards—and what’s more, most people think that’s great. When I opposed our support of the Arab Spring, I found plenty of sympathizers. When I said we shouldn’t get involved in Syria, lots of people agreed. Even when I said that Europe can defend Ukraine if it wants to, but we should not, people were willing to hear me out. For some reason (media influence, sympathy for the Holocaust, whatever), all but the most ardent isolationists (and far-right and far-left) think we should give Israel whatever it wants. I just can’t fathom where this undying, unthinking loyalty to Israel comes from, nor why people care so much more about it than they do about the many more pressing problems we face here in this country.
More options
Context Copy link
Naw. I'm under no obligation to pick a guy who killed twenty and raped three over a guy who killed thirty and raped six. Whatever they do to each other, I have no interest in.
I am an isolationist who finds some of Israel's actions and foreign influence questionable at best.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The confounder is and always will be that they already hate Whiteness, or white supremacy or settler colonialism whatever term is being used today.
Israel just happens to be the most recent country (with the largest number of people making a counter-claim) that could fit in the mold of "white settlers". If Rhodesia or apartheid South Africa still existed they might get the same reaction
No one cares about Jordan for the same reason nobody cares about South Africa now, regardless of how things are going over there.
The other thing is that the left-wing coalition is diverse. There are a lot of Arabs/Muslims who appropriate the language of anti-colonialism because it's the language of the dominant power but are really just angry they lost to Jews - they don't care about "imperialism" since they glorify the conquests of the Sahaba, they just absolutely hate Jews as Jews. Hence the videos of misbehavior on London streets. Whether or not progressive white college students agree or are simply useful idiots who truly believe they're fighting apartheid and the "victim" they're supporting really want a real multiethnic one-state solution...is a harder one.
But, even granting that, I don't know if it lets them off the hook. A decade ago the progressive line was "intention isn't magic" and now we have the Kendian view that anything that sustains disparities is racist regardless of reason or intention. There seems to be a double standard and absolute hysteria around Israel regardless
If your first instinct is to support the mass rape of Jews and to create ludicrous standards (Kyle Kulinski recently argued what's going on in the ME right now is worse than anything we've seen since the Nazis which is...) you are damned by the very standard you would use for your enemies.
More options
Context Copy link
Should we only call Israel the Jewish state when painting them as a victim? I never hear the news write articles like this: “In 2014 alone, the Jewish nation killed more than one thousand Gazans in their bombing campaign against Gaza, 65% of which were civilians — nearly the same number of civilians killed in the Hamas incursion.” Would this be an acceptable way to write about Israel when they are being accused of misdeeds? “Questions arise as to whether the only officially Jewish country has bombed a hospital”. “The only country that is officially Jewish and run by Jews has been sanctioned by the UN more than any other country”. [edited spelling]
More options
Context Copy link
They also stole a hell of a lot of land from Palestinians and demolished their houses. I recall one American woman being run over by an Israeli bulldozer trying to prevent such an incident. There is also the matter of the internationally agreed borders and Israeli settlement beyond them. It's as clear and simple as Israeli actions - actions have consequences.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I like it when activism has consequences. Makes the game for the next players higher stakes and spicier.
More options
Context Copy link
I had never heard of this woman. Whether her cause was righteous and just or not, standing in front of a literal bulldozer is just an incredibly stupid thing to do. I'm not actually inclined to even grant that she was particularly brave, it seems more likely that she had simply learned the lesson in American activism that standing in front of heavy equipment will prevent it from operating.
Western activism.
People think that tank man was trying to stop the tanks from running over protestors. He wasn't; the tanks were going home at that point.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yes, that's the motte.
It's also, when probed, what is denied by many (most?) self-identified "anti-Zionists." Obviously, there are other anti-Zionist positions, e.g. Israel should not expand beyond its current borders or Israel should offer citizenship to Palestinians (perhaps just those in the West Bank and Gaza, perhaps those beyond as well who can prove ancestry). Those are bailies for anti-Zionists, though in my experience many of the more knowledgeable ones (typically Arabs) are quite frank that they just don't want Israel to exist.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
No, not at all. It's because it's a colonizer country created by Western imperialists. These same protestors have the same attitude towards any colonial or post-colonial system. I guess you did notice that earlier, it's just that it didn't bother you maybe, as the target of their protests were white gentiles, not Jews, I don't know.
More options
Context Copy link
What you're seeing is driven largely by what is most outrageous to see, and thus most likely to be shared and appear on your feeds and in the news. The people saying "damn this sucks, I don't even know what a good solution looks like but murdering innocent civilians in their homes for offenses committed by their countrymen doesn't seem like a good solution" are not having their opinions amplified to the whole world.
Maybe I just have an unusually levelheaded community, but most of the takes I've heard from people I actually know in real life look more like "damn this sucks, I hope it doesn't get too much worse" than for cheering for the deaths of Israeli or Palestinian civilians.
They're not running Penn, MIT, or Harvard either.
Are the presidents of MIT, Harvard, and Penn calling for genocide, or are they instead refusing to act against the people who are?
Refusing to censor an idea isn't the same thing as supporting it. I would prefer if university presidents moved towards a policy of just not censoring bad ideas, but failing that I don’t think "let's pressure them to censor bad ideas from both sides" is likely to actually produce better outcomes.
By Progressives' own standards (applied fairly), it absolutely is; I see no reason not to apply that bad-faith standard in kind when it's inconvenient for them.
More options
Context Copy link
I'm pretty sure that in the context of Palestinians killing Israelis, they haven't said "damn this sucks, I don't even know what a good solution looks like but murdering innocent civilians in their homes for offenses committed by their countrymen doesn't seem like a good solution". Which is what you just referred to.
Have they said anything at all in terms of object-level opinion about Israel and Palestine, as opposed to meta-level statements about the policies? Genuinely curious, maybe they have given object-level statements and I just haven't run across them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
That is extremely convenient. I find those arguments unconvincing when we talked about race issues and I find them unconvincing here. And even if rooted in antisemitism you still have to prove them wrong.
But also it seems that Israel believes that it should not only exist but also expand. Facts on the ground in the west bank support this. So by your technique of argumentation - supporting Zionism means supporting expansion up to the Jordan border (and possibly beyond) which means genocide of Palestine people. So if you are for Zionism you are for genocide.
Edit: fixes a typo
Not sure that you meant to say this...
More options
Context Copy link
I'm all for a peace deal that establishes clear borders between the two sides. But for now it's meaningless to complain about Jews settling on Palestinian land because Palestine regards all of Israel as Palestinian land. It's absurd to insist that Israel abides by some deal that the other side refuses to accept, or that they must treat Ariel as different to Tel Aviv when the Palestinians maintain that both places are theirs.
Palestinians do, but there is no Palestinian government, so attributing intentions to a Palestinian state seems wrong. Of course, this adds to your point about the meaninglessness of "Jews settling on Palestinian land." There is land where people who identify as "Palestinians" live, but there is and has never been a "Palestine" (in the contemporary sense) to have land as Palestine. It's only marginally less misleading than talking of Utah as "Mormon land."
Hamas is literally the government of Gaza.
Exactly. Hamas is the government of Gaza, Fatah of the West Bank. There is no "Palestinian government" or functioning "Palestinian state," any more than there was a "German government" with civilian authority for the Allies to negotiate with in 1945 after Hitler and Goebbels killed themselves.
(There was the Flensburg government, but like Hamas, it lacked general authority over the territory it claimed.)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Such a great run up and you biffed it on the closer. I can believe both that nobody is entitled to their own country requiring the displacement of others and also that nobody should be genocided.
Also why are the Palestinians any different? Are anti-Palestinians not demanding an end to the Palestinian state and therefore the Palestinian population? Or is anyone not happy with the current state of affairs for genocide?
More options
Context Copy link
Let me be clear. I am happy to condemn both the atrocity Hamas committed on Oct 7th and the atrocities Israel has committed in response. I have no particular issue with people of Jewish ethnicity nor practitioners of Judaism as a religion. I am opposed to the existence of ethnostates everywhere and all the time. Insofar as the existence of Israel is predicated on the supremacy of Jewish individuals over non-Jewish individuals I am opposed to its continued existence in that form. I think ethnostates are illegitimate everywhere and always.
Does the always also extend into the past?
I don't know why it wouldn't.
So the ethnically homogenous Greeks who looked down upon barbarians should've just let the ethnically heterogenous Persian empire that willingly assimilated them conquer them?
Ceasing being an ethnostate need not entail letting some other non-ethnostate conquer you.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It’s not a dejure ethnostate, there are millions of Arab citizens.
There were millions of black South Africans, Rhodesians and Americans during their apartheid governments.
The entire point of apartheid was that there weren’t any black South Africans, they were deported to bantustans which were granted independence under BVS puppet governments, blacks present in South Africa proper were there on work permits or as illegal immigrants.
Now of course the bantustans weren’t real countries even if South Africa pretended they were, but there are millions of Arab citizens of Israel and not Gaza or the West Bank in the same way there weren’t millions of black citizens of South Africa and not Bophuthatswana.
More options
Context Copy link
Which rights do Arab citizens lack?
More options
Context Copy link
Arab Israeli citizens have a right to vote, work, and move around freely.
Gaza and the West Bank are "apartheid" in the same sense in which Germans couldn't freely choose to work, move around, or vote in the US, UK, France, or USSR (but then again, neither could Soviet citizens...) after WWII. The German state had ceased to exist. The Palestinian state has never begun to exist. Palestine is occupied (in a very hands-off) way by Israel because there is no government of Palestine.
This is one of the problems with a "Two State Solution," which I favour. How do you have a two state solution with only one functioning state? You can say "Israel could take a more hands-off approach" so that a Palestinian state can emerge, but that's a lot to ask of Israel, given that Palestine is full of militants trying to kill as many Jews as possible.
The Allies allowed Germany to emerge from WW2 and even supported the development of German state institutions, but only AFTER Germans had stopped trying to kill the Allies.
So the best road to a Two State Solution, AFAIK, is Palestinian militants surrendering armed conflict and recognising Israel, on the condition of Israel at least permitting (even perhaps aiding) the emergence of a Palestinian state. I would also be fine with Jordan and/or Egypt taking over the West Bank/Gaza, under conditions of full recognition of Israel.
They don't want it, at least not as long as the Palestinians are there.
Yes, it's not currently an option, but it's an example of a hypothetical solution that is not a standard Two State Solution.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Why? I grew up in one. Still living in one - it is quite nice.
I take it you belonged to the "correct" race of whatever ethnostate this was.
More options
Context Copy link
While I agree with you that growing up in an ethnically homogenous community/state is nice and that the existence of such states is in theory legitimate, I recognize that this is not the current international consensus, and I applaud @Gillitrut for being consistent in his convictions. What annoys me more than anything is the blatant hypocrisy surrounding Israel: colonialism bad, apartheid bad, Lebensraum bad, blood and soil nationalism bad—but Israel good? If Rhodesia and the old South Africa government deserved to be sanctioned out of existence, Israel absolutely deserves it too. If the U.S. hadn’t done its best to destroy the former two countries’ governments, I would support Israel today. However, as things stand, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, so “hey, hey, ho, ho, Israel has got to go.”
Was basically an occupying regime, Rhodesia didn't have a longstanding White community. It would probably be better in the long run for everyone if it had remained under White minority rule, but it was literally a bunch of foreigners showing up and running the place, then declaring themselves independent when they had a falling out with the mother country.
More complicated, including that the US was not actually trying all that hard to destroy the apartheid government when the decision to end apartheid was taken- apartheid ended due to internal politics caused by the demographic situation(as it turns out you cannot have 13% of the population oppressing the other 87% when the 87% get antsy)- and that apartheid sometimes justified itself as an ethnostate, but realistically it didn't want to be ethnically homogenous, it wanted large quantities of local black labor to exploit for the benefit of the White minority.
So no, neither of those are very directly comparable to Israel.
I won’t argue about Rhodesia, as I’m not that familiar with its history. I do, however, see similarities between its colonial start and that of Israel. They’re not identical, obviously, but I think at least somewhat similar.
I see more similarities with South Africa—especially with their Bantustans, which share a number of characteristics with the current Palestinian territories. And while you are correct that the US didn’t always try very hard to destroy their government (I spoke way too strongly earlier; mea culpa), they did refuse to sell them arms starting in the 1960s. In fact, after the 1977 international embargo, it seems that just about the only country that was willing to sell them weapons was Israel, which I’ll admit I find moderately significant. That fact on its own seems like weak evidence that Israel saw South Africa as a sympathetic country in some respects.
Either way, look at the United States’ different approaches. We refused to sell arms to South Africa, and we imposed on-again/off-again sanctions until their government fell. With Israel, we are happy to prop them up, sell them weapons, bribe their enemies to get along with them, and use our Navy to cow their enemies when that doesn’t work. If the United States had supported the South African government to the same extent that we support Israel’s, would it have collapsed? I’m inclined to say no. Alternatively, if we stopped supporting the Israeli government (not even sanctioned it; just stopped giving it free stuff!), would it collapse? Maybe, maybe not. It’s certainly more likely than it is as things stand now. (To be clear, I don’t actually want Israel to collapse; I just don’t want to use our treasure to stop it from happening. I say let them stand on their own two feet and what happens, happens.)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This is tricky.
On the one hand, if Israel was in (say) previously-Canadian land I doubt Muslims or leftists would have a problem with it.
On the other hand I agree that most people who hate Israel probably hate Jews too (either due to poor decoupling or "friend of my enemy is my enemy" thinking).
On the other other hand, they probably wouldn't hate Jews if Israel was in Canada.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link