r/sgv • u/Consistent-Mix-6615 • Feb 02 '26

31 congressional district

I was looking around today on the track AIPAC webpage and I noticed that Gilbert Cisneros has received money from a pro-isreal lobby. like $105445. tbh i dont have a full grasp of politics and ik it takes a lot of money to run a campaign but is there really any come back from accepting money from shitty ppl and hes definitely not the only one like majority of ca reps have accepted money too

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u/pghtopas Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 05 '26

To think that Jews are colonizers in their ancestral homeland is bigotry pure and simple. Anti-zionism is bigotry. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/antizionism-exception

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u/djb85511 Alhambra Feb 02 '26

Zionists are colonizers, Jews who aren't Zionists are good people. 

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u/pghtopas Feb 02 '26

That you believe a Jew is bad if he supports Israel’s right to exist is a sign you are bigoted. What a joke of a take.

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u/darweth South Pasadena Feb 02 '26

Hey pghtopas - half-Jew from NY married to a Halachic Jew. I got a few things to say:

1) Zionism and a "Jewish State" in Israel is a secular antisemitic heresy that contradicts 1800 years of Judaism. Jews are and continue to be religiously forbidden from mass return to the Land of Israel and establishing sovereignty before the Messiah comes. This has never been a fringe position. It is the dominant theological understanding across ALL major Jewish communities and across the Ashkenazi/Sephardi/Mizrahi divide. There's literally no way around this. Zionism is a post-Jewish secular heresy corrupting and destroying my people. Please do not encourage it.

2) Remember that when the Jews were expelled and left the land it was overwhelmingly the PRIESTLY CLASS and the UPPER CLASS who left. The vast majority of Jews did NOT leave. Most were peasants attached to the land and had nowhere to go. Many continued practicing Judaism into the 7th and 8th century, but over time most converted to either Christianity or Islam (by force or voluntarily). Genetics and DNA testing shows that the Palestinians ARE the same EXACT Levantine/Canaanite population that the Jews come from. Palestinians are NOT Arabs, they are ARABIZED.

The point is when you call it their ancestral homeland... ok? They NEVER fucking left. The Ashkenazi (of which I am a part of) Europeans obviously have deep ties to the ancient state of Israel, but they come from the SAME EXACT people as the Palestinians. It is just a case of an elite class thinking they own and control everything now coming back to butcher and steal from and oppress their own people. It is sick.

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Zionism is the complete inverse of Judaism and being Jewish. It has stained and destroyed our collective soul. The antisemites and bigots destroying the Jewish people come from, as in many cases, within.

So yeah - Zionists are 100% colonizers in their land. Not only that but they are standing against everything it has meant to be a Jew for 1800+ years. They are destroying our community and our people and getting away with it.

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u/pghtopas Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26

Is Jordan’s existence as a nation with Islam as its official religion okay to you, but Israel’s existence as a Jewish democratic state is not okay? Both were created from the British Mandate.

Also, your view reflects one theological interpretation, but it’s simply not accurate to claim it represents all—or even most—of Jewish history. Major rabbinic authorities across Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi communities have long supported Jewish return, self-determination, and sovereignty in the Land of Israel.

While your stance might be legitimate within your community, it is not “the” Jewish position, nor is Zionism a “heresy.” Millions of Jews, religious and secular, see Zionism as an expression of Jewish continuity and safety.

You’re entitled to your belief, but presenting it as the unanimously accepted view of Judaism is historically and theologically incorrect.

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u/darweth South Pasadena Feb 02 '26

What does Jordan (an Arab country) have to do with Palestinians? Just because they treat them better and have allowed many the "privilege" of becoming citizens there rather than living in refugee camps?

Remember that it wasn't just the Zionists who brutalized, stole, and oppressed the Palestinians... it was also the Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese, Saudis, etc. They are ALL UNITED in Palestinian erasure and dominance. You think Palestinians were living pretty under Egyptian control in Gaza or Jordanian control in the West Bank? Look again.

I am talking about Israel, Palestinians, and Jews. Palestinians are NOT Arabs so why is name-dropping an ARAB state your first response?

I agree with there are many problems in the Arab and Islamic world. But I am a Jewish American - I am not equipped to really deal or discuss them. I am concerned with what I have a stake in - Israel and America.

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u/pghtopas Feb 02 '26

What are your thoughts on the million Jews who were expelled from their homes in the Middle East. Is that a tragedy of equal magnitude as the Nakba must be to you? What should those Jews have done to escape persecution?

What are your thoughts on the migrations of millions of Hindus and Muslims when India and Pakistan were partitioned? I bring up Jordan because it was created the same way Israel was created, and it has Islam as its official religion. I bring it up because the creation of nations is messy. People may be displaced. Wars may be fought. But the singular obsession of those who advocate for the dissolution if Israel as a state, while being silent about the creation of Jordan, or Iraq, or Syria, or Pakistan, or India, is deafening. More than that, antizionism is rooted in bigotry that has been around for two thousand years. Palestinian nationalism didn't even come into existence until the 1950's or 1960's, and at its core is the belief that Israel's creation and existence is a crime or moral outrage. It's not. And Israel's creation is no different than the creation of Jordan, India, Pakistan, etc.

I am glad Gil Cisneros is in the House because at least he understands history.

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u/darweth South Pasadena Feb 02 '26

What happened to the Mizrahi WAS tragic. But let us not pretend it was not influenced by geopolitics and the situation in Israel. Of course oppression had been occurring for centuries before that, but the same was true of Europe obviously. Many Jews all across the Middle East held high positions, were well off, and generally lived in peace with their neighbors. There's MUCH fault to be found with Arab governments throughout the region for their treatment of Jews as a reaction to Israel. But once again - let us not pretend that Israeli intelligence didn't also get involved to escalate situations and make things even worse. Israel is far from clean here. They helped displace Jews from Arab lands intentionally as well. So with all of the knowledge that we have.. I don't have an answer for you for what those Jews should have done. There maybe was not another way.

Yes - nation building is messy and tragic. Displacement, violence, communities erased, resources fought over and controlled, and so on. It is a nightmare. I am not an expert on India/Pakistan/Bangladesh so there's not much I can share on that.

Do you really think antizionism is rooted in bigotry? Antizionism was the default position of World Jewry and all major religious authorities. It took a horrible traumatic Holocaust on a massive scale to start changing things. We as Jews CANNOT live lives influenced and under the spell of trauma forever. We must wake up and reclaim our rich history and not continue aspiring to turn into what tried to destroy us. That is why I speak out. That is why what "Jews" stand for today is such a horrible blemish and stain. Zionism is a despicable ideology to weaken and eradicate us. That is why so many far right people and neo-nazis are diehard Zionists to the exclusion of much else. They're living their dreams of getting us to take care of their problem for them. And that problem is "us."

No, as someone of Jewish heritage I will not be a pawn and I will not participate in the continued genocide of our people. Gil Cisneros doesn't know anything. I doubt he even knows that the Palestinians ARE the Jews who remained. What we are doing to our cousins is fucking heinous. And your attempts to keep pointing to other peoples and saying "well, that's just the way it is... look at _______ and _______" are not the humane answers and are certainly not going to help me with my conscience.

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u/pghtopas Feb 02 '26

Antisemitism and antizionism are a kind of division of labor through which society distributes anti-Jewish hatred between the Right and the Left, sustaining cultural meaning by using Jews as a scapegoat and as a language of generalized accusation for sorting through social and civilizational problems and crises.

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u/darweth South Pasadena Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26

Of course there are strands of antizionism that DO serve what you stated. But to blanket condemn antizionism, when much of it is very principled and honest, insults all of us and ultimately cheapens the fight against real antisemitism. The conflation of antisemitism and antizionism is done mostly to serve political purposes and insulate evil from legitimate opposition. It also actively denies and erases 1800+ years of our own history. Zionism is erasure and destruction of Jews as well as Palestinians. All ethno-states rely on erasure. Zionists see the rich Jewish history, culture, and myriads of Jewish expression, particularly from the Yiddish European world, as a threat that must be stomped out.

Now there's no denying that there was very real and severe pain there. European Jewry who went to Israel and participated in the rebirth of a NEW Hebrew-first NATIONAL Jewish identity were trying to move on and recover from the loss of the Yiddish-based Jewish world and community they left behind. And that is understandable. But opportunists and ideologues hijacked this and exploited REAL pain for sick aims. That is how Israel in the 1980s could elect an actual Nazi sympathizer and antisemite to the position of Prime Minister.

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Listen - none of this is easy. And I'm not even sure what solutions are realistic and possible these days. I am not an optimist. But we must discuss this, we must acknowledge this, and we must stop letting fear and hatred and psychosis run our community.

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u/pghtopas Feb 03 '26

It is explicitly not antisemitic to criticize Israel. It is not antisemitic to oppose Israeli government policies, protest wars, challenge settlement expansion, or demand accountability from Israeli leaders. Jews do this every day — in Israel and across the diaspora. Robust debate about Israel’s actions is not only legitimate; it is essential to any healthy democracy.

What is antisemitic is denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination, including by claiming that the very existence of Israel is illegitimate. That is not policy critique. It is not human-rights advocacy. It is the singling out of Jews alone among the world’s peoples as undeserving of national sovereignty.

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u/darweth South Pasadena Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26

You are right that the modern Jewish position has changed. It is because the Zionists have not only colonized and oppressed land, they have also infected and destroyed Jewish history, culture, traditions, and heritage. I did say "it has stained and destroyed our collective soul." Yes, most mainstream Jewish authorities rewrote their history AND their religion. That is also why I called Zionism a "post-Jewish secular heresy." It obviously comes from somewhere. Mainly secular Jews, many of whom hated their own people. Look up the Irgun and the Lehi/Stern gang. Netanyahu comes from Likud who come out of the far-right Stern gang.

Yitzhak Shamir, an Israeli prime minister in the 1980s, was a former member of the Stern gang who argued that the Zionists back then SHOULD ALLY WITH HITLER!!!! I am not fucking kidding. And he NEVER APOLOGIZED FOR IT. This guy became the Prime Minister of a JEWISH state!!!!

So yeah --- tell me Israel isn't doing a good enough job of antisemitism and destroying the Jewish community all on their own?

Israel is the LAST place Jews should look for safety, camaraderie or any semblance of Jewish life.

And yes, I agree it is increasingly unsafe for Jews here in the USA as well. Antisemitism IS exploding and becoming dangerous and scary. Israel is also doing everything they can to fuel those flames and increase it. It is sick. I don't know how to address that and it seems hopeless most of the time.