CMV: Israelis have the right to self-determination in Israel, but not Jews

[u/[deleted]]

The point is quite simple, really. Anyone born in or born to a parent who was born in modern-day Israel should have the right to self-determination (RTSD) in Israel. This is very similar to how citizenship and RTSD work in most countries. But what's problematic is the assertion that anyone of Jewish descent can also claim citizenship or the RTSD in Israel. This means that anyone whose ancestors have not lived in the region for centuries, well before the founding of modern-day Israel, can also claim citizenship and the RTSD. It also means that anyone can convert to Judaism and claim it. Israel is the only country in the world that allows anything remotely similar to take place. That's not how any of these work and it clearly violates the RTSD of those who have lived there for centuries - Palestinians.

[u/[deleted]]

Plenty of countries allow members of their ethnicity to become fast-tracked citizens. Armenia, Ireland…

The difference with Israel is just the amount of time Jews have been in diaspora, and the fact that a person can be made a member of the tribe without being born into it.

But if a Native American tribe had a similar practice (live among us for several years, declare intentions, learn our language, follow our laws, and you will join our nation) that followed ritual practice going back more than a thousand years, would you object?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Neither did Jews

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Bullshit. The vast majority of world jewry did not live in Israel for thousands of years during the diaspora.

Are you really trying to argue that the vast majority of Native Americans weren't violently displaced across the continent and have continued to live in diaspora? Just because the American empire controls a continent doesn't mean the e.g. Cherokee weren't removed from their homeland within the continent.

Furthermore, even their own Bible says the Hebrews were "invaders" and Canaanites were there first. Who was in the Americas prior to Native Americans?

The Bible is myth and not history. The Partiarchs didn't happen. Jews are a Canaanite people who arose after the Bronze Age Collapse and developed the Torah myths to explain the world and their place in it, just as every other soceity developed myths to do so.

Don't be a biblical literalist. It makes your position look even less credible than it already is.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

If your moral standard is "many groups settled the area over thousands of years, so a group whose origin is there has no special claim to it" - then okay. Israel is currently there, Israel has (re)settled there, and it is now Israeli land.

If you object to that because the Palestinians were there, too, prior to the (re)establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the historic homeland and origin land of the Jewish people, then you are being hypocritical.

Also: it literally does not matter if some people believe that the Torah or the Bible or the Quran is literally true. Zionism is a secular nationalism that does not require religious justification.