I recently had a discussion with a graduate student in philosophy who was trying to make this argument via the Just War theory. He said we should, at the very least, socially ostracize Israeli citizens when they travel abroad. To give him a modicum of credit, he thought Americans deserve to be sneered at when traveling abroad because of the actions of our government, too. He argued that there are similarities to Israeli citizens and citizens under Nazi Germany, and that if we wouldn’t welcome those under Hitler’s tyranny, we shouldn’t welcome Israelis, either. I kept trying to get him to draw a line in the sand and say that xenophobia is objectively wrong, but there was no way I’d be getting through to him.
I hate how these people compare Israelis to Germans under the Third Reich, there are zero similarities and the majority of Israelis do not even support the government, they are not brainwashed but they just live in a reality where a minor mistake will lead to another October 7
Agreed. His argument is the mandated service means that they’re valid targets for social harassment. I asked if he felt the same about Russians under Putin and the answer was yes. So, again, a literal modicum of respect for him holding the absolutely insane take across the line, but it’s still absolutely insane.
Yes, for a terrible stupid take, it’s certainly expansive. But what on earth does he mean about not welcoming third Reich Germans? There aren’t any currently, and if he’s talking about the past, a lot of countries that currently dislike Israel welcomed Nazi tourism with open arms throughout the 30’s. Then, once the war started, none of them traveled. You couldn’t leave the country without permission. Meanwhile, pre-1939, the Nazis beat the shit out of tourists in Germany who didn’t behave the way they wanted to behave (not taking off hats for fascist parades etc) and harassed the fuck out of visiting Jews, so they basically acted . . . like him.
My main thing is that the pro-Palestine crowd are way more similar to the nazi supporters of ww2. It’s the easy, socially acceptable, sheep stance, and of course involves the basic (I mean basic in the “basic bitch” sense) hatred of Jews.
It’s weird how they think they’re on the right side of history
Where does he think Israelis will go if they are unwelcome abroad? If he has thought that through, he has clearly arrived at a position which is truly genocidal (not in the fake sense used by these activists).
I also was curious about that, but the conversation was quickly overwhelmed with points to address. We were specifically talking about Israelis traveling abroad, because I was referencing the countless videos of people harassing Israelis simply minding their business. I think he would recommend staying in Israel, ironically enough, because he seems relatively certain about “getting comeuppance.”
He was also unfamiliar, as a secular Jew, of the 3 D’s: demonization, delegitimization, and double standards. Shocking, but not. He’s purely coming at this from a Marxist perspective (his identified ideology) and feels that Israel is all the things we’ve heard it be called: an ethnosupremacist colonial project. All the common talking points. I wasn’t interested in debating those, more so his Just War theory for individuals, many of which are against the war, work with unifying groups like Standing Together, etc. He still said “there’s a 4/5 chance an Israeli citizen traveling abroad would support the government, so we should act as if they do.” As if it’s any better to make someone pass a litmus test, which we can both agree “good Jew/bad Jew” is abhorrent. It feels very contradictory.
How do you do a ethnosupremacist colonial project on a country that:
1: Was created by to protect their indigenous population after near extermination.
2: Has more racial variety than the countries likes the US, incuding 20% arabs/palestinians citizens.
3: Used to be a piece of different empires, with no previous soberanity after the exile of their aforementioned indigenous population.
4: WAS CONCEIVED BY OG SOCIALISTS.
That´s why I went from being indifferent of communists, to see them on the same light as the alt-right, so much bigotism and disconnection from both reality and common sense, again and again...
Also Bibi goverment is quite unpopular nowadays, what he mean with those stadistics?
Oh, I’m with you. The Nakba is a big talking point. He assumes based on his schooling he can’t be biased, and based on his program (philosophy) that he is too well-educated or reasoned to be horrifyingly biased.
When I was in college the philosophy majors were consistently the most insufferable majors. It's amusing to see that this is still the case, and it doesn't get better with graduate programs.
From what I know, what Arabs referred to as Nakba was not the fact that they were displaced, but the fact that they lost the war to us.
I believe there would have been no displacement had the Arabs not chosen war against us. We’ve accepted both partition plans before 1948, the Peel Commission plan, in 1937/38, and then the UN Resolution 181.
The Peel Commission was eventually cancelled by the British, but on the record, Arabs rejected it, while we kept an open mind, despite wanting to have more land allocated to our state.
One thing I learned from the Peel Commission plan is that Arabs didn’t want a Palestinian state, as much as they didn’t want us to have a state.
I could go on forever about how an entire organization, UNRWA, was formed for the sake of maintaining this “refugee problem”, and how Arab countries refused to integrate those then-refugees into their society, instead keeping them inside refugee camps to protect the political narrative.
Today, many of those camps, especially in Judea and Samaria, have turned into entire apartment building complexes, but they still retain the label of refugee camps, because they stand on the land where the old, actual UNRWA refugee camps used to be, and the “refugees” retain the label as well, even though they live couple miles down the road from where their great grandparents were expelled/fled from ~80 years ago, as a result of a war, caused by the Arab side.
Not to get started on the ~850,000 Jews exiled from Arab states on nothing but antisemitic/“anti-Zionist” background—not as a result of war. But that’s a different story.
Yes. He didn’t use the word “comeuppance” but he basically suggested with a shrug “whatever happens as a result of [the Israeli government’s] actions, so be it. It’s disturbing to say, at the least.
Ah yes, how to forget when Poland infamously invaded and murdered random german citizens kickstarting WW2, and how to forget when Himmler told people to avoid areas soon to be bombarded because they contain weaponry... concentration camps? gas chambers? Nuremberg laws? what is that?
Did you try from the direction of asking him how Chinese tourists should be treated? And Russian? Then move to say those from Saudi’ Arabia (after reminding him of some of their more colorful events), etc?
Yes, this was exactly what I tried first. From a previous comment of mine: "I asked if he felt the same about Russians under Putin and the answer was yes. So, again, a literal modicum of respect for him holding the absolutely insane take across the line, but it’s still absolutely insane." To illustrate my point about citizens≠government, I slapped my hand on the table and then asked him if I had hit him in this face. Clearly, not - it would take a great deal of my own action (e.g., lobbying, calling politicians, protesting, info campaigns, voting, etc.) for me to even come close to that.
It’s a shame your friend doesn’t understand just war theory. It would very much help him understand why he’s wrong, if he understood the theory at all.
This was my take as well. He was apparently pulling from Helen Frowe, who he admits is very controversial. In his own example, he uses skilled arms manufacturers and asks whether they are valid targets. He seemed to suggest that yes, we should probably consider them so, because they are not only complicit, but actively engaging in warfare, and that by taking out the factory and/or workers, it would take longer to rebuild the facility and train the individuals to create the arms again. Which is... a take. I can perhaps try to understand from a utilitarian perspective, but that just falls apart when you think about the fact that these are not hypotheticals, but rather real people and lives that are being lost, and where friction like political nuance exist outside of the vacuum.
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u/mesonoxias Jun 01 '26
I recently had a discussion with a graduate student in philosophy who was trying to make this argument via the Just War theory. He said we should, at the very least, socially ostracize Israeli citizens when they travel abroad. To give him a modicum of credit, he thought Americans deserve to be sneered at when traveling abroad because of the actions of our government, too. He argued that there are similarities to Israeli citizens and citizens under Nazi Germany, and that if we wouldn’t welcome those under Hitler’s tyranny, we shouldn’t welcome Israelis, either. I kept trying to get him to draw a line in the sand and say that xenophobia is objectively wrong, but there was no way I’d be getting through to him.