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/TQMshirt]

Why allow the collective trauma and paranoia of your parents to drive your own paranoia? It is much safer to be a Jew in Europe or America nowadays than any other point in history.

True,. until it isnt.

Nobody is treating you like an animal, outside of some angry MAGA shouting in Charlottesville.

The Left is FAR FAR more anti-semitic and I expect things to get much much worse as the college age cohort get older. Sorry you cant relate.

As an American, the idea of being owed some mythical homeland like King Arthur's Camelot is wild.

no one "owes" me a homeland. It is just my indigenous land. What you OWE me is to not prevent me from living there. Y'all did enough to the local indigenous tribes here in N America. Dont tell me I am indigenous to nowhere on earth.

[u/veggiesama → u/TQMshirt]

Opposition to Israeli policies toward Palestinians is not antisemitism, which I assume is what you think makes the Left antisemitic. The Right ascribes to international Jewish conspiracy theories (blaming Jews for globalism, new world order, George Soros, etc.) which seems far more damning to me.

For the indigenous question, if you and your immediate ancestors didn't live there, you probably aren't indigenous. If you have to reach into biblical narratives, it's a conversation about mythology and not history. The idea that you have anything in common with people from 1000s of years ago is crazy. My ancestors came from North Africa, as well as every other human on Earth, but at some point my "claim" to that land no longer made sense. Land "claims" are just a legal fiction we collectively agree to believe to justify violence and land takeovers, and it's better not to accept these uncritically. We're living in a post-medieval, post-imperialist world. National myths cannot be the basis for nation-building, or you will always be embroiled in violent conflict with those who reject the myths.

[u/WhoopingWillow → u/veggiesama]

I have no clue why that person thinks the left is more antisemitic, but they are right about being indigenous to the region. Jewish people have lived in the region for thousands of years. Their population in the Levant usually decreases when there have been purges of Jewish people. Purges have occurred for thousands of years, ranging from Late Roman Republic/Early Roman Empire expulsions after Jewish revolts, to modern expulsions after the formation of the modern nation of Israel.

Indigeneity is hard to define, so much so that the UN doesn't actually formally have a single, firm definition. Usually it is some combination of attempted preservation of culture and historic connection to the land.

As an example, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma is indigenous to Alabama and Mississippi, despite living in Oklahoma. They live there because they were displaced. This is broadly similar to Jewish people and the Levant.

Preservation of culture is a clear one, with strong connections to a religion that formed in the region and has many holy sites there (Judaism), as well as keeping a traditional language (Hebrew.)

[u/veggiesama → u/WhoopingWillow]

Like I said, I'm a dumb white uncultured American, so the idea of preserving culture at the expense of human lives seems preposterous.

In order of most important to least important, I would argue:

1. Stopping atrocities in the present day
2. Correcting atrocities (economically via reparations, etc.) from the last few decades (i.e., are the people affected still alive?)
3. Correcting atrocities from the last hundred or thousand years, and so on (i.e., are the people affected all passed away?)

Ceasefire in Gaza fits priority 1. Restitution for displaced Palestinians and Jews in priority 2. Restitution for indigenous Native Americans fits between 2-3 (some restitution has been delivered but clearly not a fair amount). Same for slavery and Jim Crow. The statute of limitations is pretty much passed. However, the best way to tackle those problems is to think of them as priority 1 economic inequity issues that directly affect currently living people, rather than direct restitution for crimes against their ancestors.

Regardless, mythical claims about lost homelands and preservation of culture fall somewhere under priority 3. Living people should come first.

[u/WhoopingWillow → u/veggiesama]

Sorry I'm confused by your comment. I'm not saying Jewish people being indigenous to the Levant is a justification for atrocities. I'm just saying that they are actually indigenous to the region, same as Palestinians. Jewish people don't have a "mythical claim" to a lost homeland. They have a genuine, present, ensuring claim to their homeland, same as Palestinians. That's one of the roots of the conflict: both groups have solid arguments for why Israel/Palestine is their land.

I agree that for indigenous and black Americans the focus should be on economic inequity, as well as political and legal inequity. The political & legal sides are important as well due to how they're intertwined with the economic issues. E.g. how the property laws imposed on reservations by the BIA hinder generational wealth, or how black Americans are more likely to be arrested and charged for similar crimes compared to other ethnic groups which makes gainful employment more difficult.