It's all a load of Cannonballs in here! This is the virtual Arsenal pub where you can chat about anything except football. Be warned though, like any pub, the content may not always be suitable for everyone.
Cus Geezer (whom I get along well with on other parts of the site) is a socialist, so no surprises from him either.
Don't see how being a 'socialist' would blinker one's view here exactly, do elaborate?
But anti-Zionism is anti Judaism, because take it from me, someone who knows more about Judaism than most on this site, that there are three main components to the Jewish faith.
G-D, Torah, and Israel.
Take any out of the equation, and it is no longer Judaism.
Don't see the relevance of religion here anyway, the original creators of modern Jewish Zionism were all secular.
Which correct me if I'm wrong, the effects of which led to Israel's creation due to Jews need to seek refuge from European Anti-Semitism.
Perhaps it's close mirroring of European style nationalism is the reason why, despite being a place created for Jews to seek safety, it is probably the least safest place in the world for a Jew to live, more than the European countries they left and that includes Germany.
Cus Geezer (whom I get along well with on other parts of the site) is a socialist, so no surprises from him either.
Don't see how being a 'socialist' would blinker one's view here exactly, do elaborate?
QUARTZ:
Because it gives you a standpoint from where to take your lead on arguments of world politics and religion. It means that you subscribe to a certain view of a world historical process and conditions. A standpoint that I do not share, though one which is intellectually rigorously prepared and studied.
Cus Geezer wrote:
QuartzGooner wrote: But anti-Zionism is anti Judaism, because take it from me, someone who knows more about Judaism than most on this site, that there are three main components to the Jewish faith.
G-D, Torah, and Israel.
Take any out of the equation, and it is no longer Judaism.
Don't see the relevance of religion here anyway, the original creators of modern Jewish Zionism were all secular.
Which correct me if I'm wrong, the effects of which led to Israel's creation due to Jews need to seek refuge from European Anti-Semitism.
Perhaps it's close mirroring of European style nationalism is the reason why, despite being a place created for Jews to seek safety, it is probably the least safest place in the world for a Jew to live, more than the European countries they left and that includes Germany.
QUARTZ:
Yes, a large part of the modern Zionist movement was a socialist impetus, as proved by the Kibbutz movement in Israel.
Not all of it by any means was atheist.
And not all of Zionism as a modern political force was socialist, there was a nationalist element to it too, as you point out.
But all that being as it may, none if it explains why the land of Israel was wanted by the Jews who made up 99.9% of the Zionist movement.
It also does not explain why Jews have been trying to get back to Israel for 2000 years, why there has been Jewish immigration/return to Israel from the 1530's onwards.
Not on a massive scale, but existent nonetheless.
What about the 17th centrury immigration of Jews in the wake of the false messiah Sabbatia Zevi? That was 100% religious, not in any way socialist...Marx and Engles has yet to be born, and I doubt whether those Jews who immigrated then were influenced by the Levellers.
Why the land of Israel?
Why a land, tiny, devoid of all but the tiniest amount of oil, and covered in malarial swamps.
Lacking industry or large amounts of agricultural land?
With a natural water shortage problem?
Because the land is totally intertwined with the essence of Judaism, so essential a part of our cultural, historical, liturgucal and spiritual identity.
So much that even some secular socialist members of the political Zionist movement chose Israel, and rejected other lands that were offered by Western governments, such as Mauritius and Madgascar and Uganda.
Because this is a topic very conductive of rather heated debates. People tend to believe one thing or another very strongly and refuse to be swayed. Hence any debate will descend into argument.
I'm glad it wasn't deleted though. I have read the entire thread with great interest since it was started.
Because this is a topic very conductive of rather heated debates. People tend to believe one thing or another very strongly and refuse to be swayed. Hence any debate will descend into argument.
I'm glad it wasn't deleted though. I have read the entire thread with great interest since it was started.
Because it gives you a standpoint from where to take your lead on arguments of world politics and religion. It means that you subscribe to a certain view of a world historical process and conditions. A standpoint that I do not share, though one which is intellectually rigorously prepared and studied.
Right, and I suppose that believing in Judaism doesn't blinker one's standpoint with regard to Israel then?
And not all of Zionism as a modern political force was socialist, there was a nationalist element to it too, as you point out.
But all that being as it may, none if it explains why the land of Israel was wanted by the Jews who made up 99.9% of the Zionist movement.
It also does not explain why Jews have been trying to get back to Israel for 2000 years, why there has been Jewish immigration/return to Israel from the 1530's onwards.
Not on a massive scale, but existent nonetheless.
What about the 17th centrury immigration of Jews in the wake of the false messiah Sabbatia Zevi? That was 100% religious, not in any way socialist...Marx and Engles has yet to be born, and I doubt whether those Jews who immigrated then were influenced by the Levellers.
Why the land of Israel?
Why a land, tiny, devoid of all but the tiniest amount of oil, and covered in malarial swamps.
Lacking industry or large amounts of agricultural land?
With a natural water shortage problem?
Because the land is totally intertwined with the essence of Judaism, so essential a part of our cultural, historical, liturgucal and spiritual identity.
So much that even some secular socialist members of the political Zionist movement chose Israel, and rejected other lands that were offered by Western governments, such as Mauritius and Madgascar and Uganda.
Yeah but the reasoning behind modern zionists idea for a homeland for the Jews grew out of a feeling that Europe was not safe for Jews to live in, also the general worldview that grew up from about the 1870s onwards that the world was generally divided up into ethnic 'nations' and each 'nation' as such had their right to a 'nation state'. Being the 'foreigner inside' each and every European Nation State put the Jews in a dangerous position with this growing feeling of rampant nationalism.
After all, why after centuries of persecution did the idea of making a state of Israel a reality, not just among Jews but among Gentiles also, suddenly spring up in the 20th Century. The international acquiescence to it's creation was more with regard to this secular idea than with anything written in the bible.
And also this is a map of what the bible promises to the Jews.
This is modern Israel formed by the UN agreement in 1947
There's a big difference.
Considering also that parts of the promised land are in what is now Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey, if this biblical interpretation is to be so stringently adhered to as a fundamental part of the Jewish faith, then maybe the neighbouring Arab nations might be justified in feeling a little unnerved.
Even more so when you take into account Israel's nuclear capabilities compared with the rest of the region. [/img]
You have not answered the question I posed, as to why in the late nineteenth century the Jews in the Zionist movement, and those not in the movement but with independent immigration, wanted to inhabit the small and largely desert land of Israel, as opposed to another land?
Israel has next to no oil, until the early 1950s had large parts of it covered in malarial swamps, and has a water shortage problem.
Why did the Jews not campaign for an enclave in one of the oil rich Arab states?
Why not carve a chunk out of the oil rich Iraqi desert....after all, that land was also under British control?
2)
You are correct in that the impetus for modern Zionism as a political movement was in part to avoid persecution.
Yet you have not taken into account the facts that I provided that Jewish immigration to the land of Israel is because it is our spiritual homeland from which we were exiled, mostly in AD 73 and in the later years of the second century?
You have not addressed as to why the Messianic fervour whipped up by the false Messiah the Sabbatai Zevi in the 17th century resulted in Jews selling up from all over Europe and immigrating to the land of Israel?
Or why in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, there was Kabbalist immigration to the land of Israel?
Those were entirely because of spiritual motivation.
Nothing to do with modern politics.
Our entire liturgy is heavily weighted with references to the land of Israel. Our liturgy is nearly all at least 1800 years old, some of it much older.
3)
The map you provide of the land promised to the Jews by G-D is not the modern state of Israel. The promise of those wider lands was actually made by G-D to Abraham, and was wider, for it included the lands between the Mediterranean Sea and the Euphrates river.
This promise was later in the Bible modified by G-D, to equate to the modern Israeli borders, including the West Bank and Gaza.
In Messianic times some land across the East Bank of the Jordan will also be included in the land of Israel.
Two clarifications on that Messianic expansion:
i) Until then we are EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN to enter those lands, it is only when the Messiah arrives we enter those lands. These lands are Ammon, Edom and Moab (Deuteronomy Chapter 19: Verse 8.).
ii) That will be a peaceful occurrence, not involving conquest or conflict, by the very definition of the messianic age, which will be peace for all peoples.
If you look at Israel's wars, you will see a stark FACT;
1948 - War of Independence
1956 - Suez Crisis
1967 - Six Day War
1973 - Yom Kippur War
were all caused by the Arab states trying to wipe Israel off the map by invading Israel and launching rocket strikes against Israel!
The very opposite of the territorial expansionism you accuse Israel of.
Far from an expansionist Israel, we had the Arab world repeatedly trying to obliterate Israel.
We then had 1982 Lebanon war, where the PLO were subjecting Israel to massive bombardment of civilian areas. Israel had to act.
2006 where Hezbollah kidnapped two Israel soldiers, then launched circa 40,000 rockets at Israeli civilian areas when Israel tried to recapture the soldiers.
2008, when eight years of Hamas and Islamic Jihad bombardment of Israeli civilian areas from Gaza could not longer tolerated.
Israel has acted how any government worth it's salt would, to protect it's citizens.
skipper wrote:1000 dead Palestinians - 13 dead israelis...river Euphrates here they come...
Just out of interest; are Jews allowed to kill on saturday?
We can kill on any day as long as it is in self defence, which the current military action is.
There are many more dead Palestinians than dead Israelis...but that was always going to be the case as Israel is using superior weaponry.
But that is not a sin.
So far half the Palestinoian deaths are confirmed as Hamas and Islamic Jihad military, the rest are believed to contain high number of Hamas and Islamic Jihad too but cannot be verified as many bodies remain under the rubble.
skipper wrote:1000 dead Palestinians - 13 dead israelis...river Euphrates here they come...
Just out of interest; are Jews allowed to kill on saturday?
We can kill on any day as long as it is in self defence, which the current military action is.
There are many more dead Palestinians than dead Israelis...but that was always going to be the case as Israel is using superior weaponry.
But that is not a sin.
So far half the Palestinoian deaths are confirmed as Hamas and Islamic Jihad military, the rest are believed to contain high number of Hamas and Islamic Jihad too but cannot be verified as many bodies remain under the rubble.
.
1 out of 2 aye? that's not bad going. Who "believes" the rest to contain a high number of Hamas? That's quite a good source, I wish i'd listened to him earlier woulda cleared up all misunderstandings. Nice Israel you done it again, may you all burn in hell
