the early zionists had a similar attitude towards arabs as netanyahu and co do today. but for them it was more from a jewish power colonialist angle rather than the victimhood angle that netanyahu is obsessed with
this just isn't true, jews didn't have it any worse than non jews in european history, they just like to dwell on their historical instances of suffering. One could argue that jews had it better than the native peoples around them because their population swelled at a higher rate over the duration of their stay, and historically, population growth tracked resource availability.
interesting, because a common excuse given for israel's continued occupation of Westbank, Golan heights, and Gaza strip is that without those territories israel would be under threat of destruction by her arab neighbors. which is it?
It's almost like good armies understand the concept of buffer zones and bringing the fight to the enemy. Maybe if Arabs weren't such poor fighters they'd understand. You made my point for me.
do you think that israel would be under threat of destruction if they ended the occupation of those territories? if so, how did israel gain those territories in the first place? if not, why does israel use that as an excuse for the continued occupation?
if you are american, cleaning your house involves going head to head with the zionist lobby which works for israel's interests. so i'm afraid the matter of israel can't be avoided here.
> Isn't it precisely the anti-zionist sentiment you eschew that resulted in the Oct 7 attacks by Hammas
Bringing this up in 2026 when it's abundantly clear there's zero chance the IDF had no idea about the planning of Oct 7, and didn't just let it happen, means there's no point having a conversation. When it's so well known that Israel is the one who have propped up Hamas.
> In an interview with Politico in 2023, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that "In the last 15 years, Israel did everything to downgrade the Palestinian Authority and to boost Hamas." He continued saying "Gaza was on the brink of collapse because they had no resources, they had no money, and the PA refused to give Hamas any money. Bibi saved them. Bibi made a deal with Qatar and they started to move millions and millions of dollars to Gaza."
> “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” - Benjamin Netanyahu
> Gershon Hacohen, former commander of the 7th Armored Brigade and an associate of Benjamin Netanyahu, said in 2019 in an interview: “Netanyahu’s strategy is to prevent the option of two states, so he is turning Hamas into his closest partner. Openly Hamas is an enemy. Covertly, it’s an ally.”
I don't think so. at best, it proves that the current israeli government supported hamas to isolate them from palestinians in gaza. it doesn't support a claim that the oct 7 attacks were perpetrated by israel's own government (which is insane, since it took thousands of random arabs to actually carry out the attack). If your position is israel shouldn't exist, then it is you who is supporting Bibi's view that he needs to isolate palestinians and keep them in check (or worse) so that your wish of israel's non-existence won't come true.
The zionist goal is already acheived as i understand it, there is no need to fund zionism. israel doesn't need "funding" to sustain itself either, it's so prosperous on its own, even here on YC you'll see many startups based in Israel.
zionism isn't synonymous with gaza or west bank expansionism, or any act of violence. I keep seeing these types of arguments and i can't help but ponder if you're just repeating some disinformation campaign to prop-up and legitimize the anti-semitic reasoning used by the very same people fighting wars to supposedly prevent it (with some degree of legitimacy).
If you said zionism to enable the concept of a jewish state is reasonable, and even it wasn't historically, it is impractical to fight against it, and that israel has the right to exist. But the recent wars and harm against civilians is abhorrent, then you would be criticizing them in a way that actually makes sense, and can be used to actually do something to stop them. but your (and others') agenda only helps one side, and it is neither palestinians, their plight for justice, nor the side of peace.
The hypothetical “right to exist” is typically juxtaposed against its adversaries’ rights/efforts/privilege to wipe them off the face of the earth.
If a nation-state, or ethnoreligious group, has rights, then efforts to destroy it would not gain popular support.
Do ethnoreligious groups have a right to survival without suffering genocide? Does the international community, or Security Council, have a duty to prevent genocide, or the extinction of any particular nation-state?
You confuse nation state and people in this question. Yes the international community has an obligation to prevent genocide, and the destruction of a nation state if that coincides with the destruction of its people, but these things are not necessarily the same. The Security Council has no obligation to prevent a peaceful union of two states that would make one or both of them cease to exist. Nation states do not have rights, people have rights.
> Yes the international community has an obligation to prevent genocide, and the destruction of a nation state if that coincides with the destruction of its people
No, it does not. That's not how sovereignty works. nation states' obligations are only towards their own nation. Even honoring of treaties is expected only in so far as it is in the best interest of their nation to do so. There is no grand human coalition that has an obligation to intervene on behalf of the innocent being harmed by wars and genocide. it's a nice idea, but consent of the governed and all. Those people would have to first get their government to consent to participating under organizations like the ICJ.
In the sense that humans as a species exist, and nation states exist on the same planet, I suppose there is. But sovereign nationhood means a nation isn't subject to any higher earthly organization. Each nation does whatever it wants more or less. A community implies participation in a shared social structure. Even the UN is at best a diplomatic organization, not an organization that is an extension of its member states. Typically, when you hear about the "international community" that means the US and certain western European nations using that diplomatic cover to justify something. It isn't Paraguay and south Sudan chipping in their troops to take some action, or funding some effort.
In simpler terms, for any supposed international community to be valid, similar to governments, it needs the threat of violence to enforce its will. That means you have to volunteer yourself or your children to enforce that community's will. The rest is just details, I'm sure you'd want to have a say in exactly what the agreement is over the specifics of the "international community's" will would be, and therein lies the obstacle.
In the 90's there was some post-soviet political capital and overall good will credited to the US and its allies as a result of a new era of hope and prosperity and all that soft power stuff. That's why bombing Serbia and things like war crimes for milosevich and his pals was a thing. It was NATO, not the international community then. same as Afghanistan. There has never been any actual "international community" that did anything but pass resolutions at the UN. There has never been even so much as a truly international peace keeping force deployed anywhere by the UN.
It all just comes down to whether this supposed community has the right to do anything over other non-participating nations' sovereign real while maintaining any semblance of legitimacy. interference is interference, whether the US is kidnapping a dictator, or bombing one, or assassinating another, it can be done, but not with any legitimacy, and it is usually the US that's the arm that swings the sword.
"not only can these people not enforce it, the politicians they support think like them, and get in the way of actual meaningful peace. you're telling Israel they can't exist, while at the same time telling them to stop committing atrocities in the name of self-preservation, how does that make sense. It's like their entire view is "Israelis should sit quietly and die" or something. Even if you ask them where Israelis should go, they won't tell you. I think in their mind the Israeli's can move to brooklyn or something, it's insane."
not only can these people not enforce it, the politicians they support think like them, and get in the way of actual meaningful peace. you're telling Israel they can't exist, while at the same time telling them to stop committing atrocities in the name of self-preservation, how does that make sense. It's like their entire view is "Israelis should sit quietly and die" or something. Even if you ask them where Israelis should go, they won't tell you. I think in their mind the Israeli's can move to brooklyn or something, it's insane.
Hacker News is an American website. Hacker News allows political discussion. Israel is very relevant to American politics, many would argue too much so, but in any case, why shouldn't it be discussed here?
Less than 28 days ago you were commenting multiple times on Iran, Islamists and geopolitics involving war. Why are you suddenly so jumpy? I don't get it. Why is it suddenly unacceptable to talk about quadruple tappings on medical workers by Israel?
I flagged those stories too, stalker. They result in uninteresting flamebait like your comment. Hacker News used to be better than this. It's turning into reddit.
Ironically, many of my comments were flagged and removed where I suggested the post was inappropriate. No tolerance for any dissenting views or discussion, unfortunately.
You posted real discussions and opinions, the fact that you flagged them doesn't change the fact that you took some sort of value to the tune of spending effort posting replies beforehand. What I'm struggling to understand is why the call to shut down discussion on this topic when Israel is quite blatantly committing war crimes. Don't pretend you don't see it.
Read their submission history. They talk about "radical extremist Islamist regime in Iran" all the time. Seems rather odd to be this cagey when people are getting sick and tired of Israel's constant war crimes.
Part of the problem is the conflation of Zionism with genocidal government. There is no room for nuiance. A Zionist can want Israelites to live in peace where they currently are and not harm others, and certainly not commit horrible atrocities against other people.
Yet, even this kind of Zionist is under their own genocidal threat, "from the river to the sea", and instead of their being a sensible perspective of "maybe let's not kill a bunch of any people's" we are left with the never ending debate or whose worse.
Are there any polls (or any educated guesses) gauging what proportion of people who identify as Zionists want equal status with all Palestinians (particularly democratic rights) within the bounds of what was once Mandatory Palestine?
* A Zionist can want Israelites to live in peace where they currently are* = they want to live in peace in a land they took by murdering its inhabitant. You can have Jews living in Palestine though but it's not Zionism.
From the beginning, the founders of the Zionist movement were completely on board with the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians from their lands to establish the Israeli state.
Imagine having access to information about thousands of years of human history, with all its big migrations, the ebbs and flows of civilizations, religions and empires, and still actually thinking one people in particular have some natural claim to a stretch of land.
What if instead we respected state sovereignty and international law for the betterment of all instead of continually stirring up shit to benefit of a few powerful figures?
United States citizens are not indigenous to the region. Native Americans are, and the continuation of the indinginous peoples culture. People who have taken over the area and now call themselves "American" are just laying claim by making up a new identity.
Friend of mine was invited to a wedding of Jewish friends, and commented to them how impressed she was that they'd invited all their Arab friends along to the wedding as well (she was being sincere, not sarcastic). The conversation got rather chilly after that...
If that's true, then great! Then we can do mass ancestry tests to establish the subpopulation that is indigenous to the region of historic Palestine. Let's do it.
It’s extremely regulated, especially conducting research into the ancestry of Israelis. Which makes you question the legitimacy of the research coming out of Israel about this topic, Not to mention that respected Israeli researchers who colored outside of the party line were reprimanded or called self-hating Jews.
What does that even mean? Just because they converted (or were forced) to another religion?
Even the Hebrew recognizes there were plenty of other people living in territory of what is now modern Israel and that the Hebrews violently subjugated quite a few of them.
> the continuation of Canaanite culture
Well culturally they became mostly European, Arab etc. depending on where they lived.
This isn’t accurate. The majority of Jews in Israel are Mizrahi. The vast majority of them left the Muslim-majority countries during the Arab–Israeli conflict, in what is known as the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries.
It is not even remotely the case that scholars accept that the expulsion of Jewish people from MENA was orchestrated by the new state of Israel.
What's especially aggravating about this trope is how useless it is in a discussion about today. It's not true, but if it were, what would that matter? You're still talking about Moroccans, Tunisians, Yemenis, and Iraqis who are not temporarily-embarrassed Europeans with a free pass to move back to where they came from.
A grandparent comment made the claim that most Israelis are from "Europe, Russia, pretty much anywhere but the middle east". That claim is luridly false. Why mitigate such a clownish argument? Acknowledge it's wrong and move on; don't build it into your own argument.
There are no Islamic countries. All Muslim-majority countries remain power structures intended to maintain the power of the powerful and use Islam as part of their means to do so. To call them otherwise or label them Islamic is fruitless.
We do the same for Israel. They claim Judiasm but we know they do not represent it. The same for all so-called Islamic countries.
When an “Islamic country” starts getting several billions of dollars in aid from the US and begins “quadruple tapping” civilians, then I suppose there will be some outrage.
In the meantime, this outrage appears to be more based in the criminal conduct of a genocidal state than any religious amenity
Several Muslim-majority countries have received billions in U.S. aid for decades, not just recently. The clearest examples are Egypt, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and, in humanitarian years, Syria and Yemen.
Hell, Pakistan got more than $19 billion in U.S. aid from 2002–2010, plus a $7.5 billion non-military package over five years, and Afghanistan got more than $109 billion total through USAID.
Egypt gets about $2 billion a year on average since 1979, mostly military aid.
How do you think Islam spread? Peacefully? Look at history. And look at Islamic texts that preach the subjugation and killing of anyone who isn’t Islamic. It’s much more of a supremacist culture than any other.
islam wasn't the only religion to have an empire. and islam spread through voluntary conversion, for hundreds of years the subjects of the islamic empires remained majority the pre conquest religion. also no muslim empire ever conquered indonesia and malaysia, yet they are two muslim majority countries today.
> hundreds of years the subjects of the islamic empires remained majority the pre conquest religion
Even if this was true, which I dispute, Islam imposes all sorts of methods to oppress other religions. Like special taxes for those who aren’t Muslims.
> no muslim empire ever conquered indonesia and malaysia, yet they are two muslim majority countries today
And now these countries have inhumane systems like sharia courts.
You can dispute but you're still wrong. The majority of people under Islamic rule historically were non-Muslims but were afforded far greater rights than other societies, such as freedom or worship, protection, the right to their own laws, and the right to Islam's laws as well if they wanted.
And yes, they were taxed. Muslims paid zakat, non-Muslims paid jizyah. We can't make non-Muslims pay a religious tax, so they paid a different one. You make that sound like it's a bad thing.
Also, what you said about Malaysia and Indonesia is bizarrely bad and incorrect. It's not worth replying to you, you just spew lies like a Zionist. Oh wait...
Jizyah wasn’t at the same rate as zakat and its rate wasn’t uniform. It was often used to humiliate, reminding non Muslims of their subordinate status under Islamic law
Are you seriously trying to revise taxation of other religions into an “alternative” when it clearly was meant to discriminate and oppress them? The Quran literally says the jizya is about fighting those who don’t believe in “god”, to subdue them.
You are spreading revisionist misinformation, but it’s also so obvious and easy to disprove with a quick search. Why even try to spin it this way?
“Fight against those who do not believe in Allāh or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allāh and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth [i.e., Islām] from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.“
Notice the four characteristics mentioned here (all of them must be satisfied):
- do not believe in Allāh or in the Last Day
- do not consider unlawful what Allāh and His Messenger have made unlawful
- do not adopt the religion of truth (doesn't necessarily mean Islam, since true Christianity and Judaism believe in one God)
- from those who were given the Scripture. That includes Muslims themselves by the way, since they were given a scripture. Elsewhere in the Quran when it refers to Christians and Jews it says "People of the scripture". In other areas it mentions "Those who were given the scripture", which includes Muslims.
What it essentially says: if you do not follow the law of the land, whether you are a Christian, Jew, or a Muslim, there are consequences. Every nation has laws, and if you break those laws you will be prosecuted. In this case it says those will have to pay a "fine".
I don't know Arabic, but I read the English differently. I see "fight against those who X, and those who B, and those who C" as different groups, all of whom one is supposed to fight against.
I find it quite hard to read this passage like you do and see this as evidence of equality of treatment between Muslims and non-Muslims. Even the translator interprets 'religion of truth' to mean Islam.
Plus I think in general you're ignoring the pretty hostile tone of this passage. The jizyah is explicitly intended to be a humiliation ("humbling"). I was skeptical, but I think this passages is strong evidence that the jizyah was intended to "discriminate and oppress" non-Muslims.
As apologetics what he's saying is complete nonsense. The jizyah has been interpreted by every islamic society as a tax on non muslims, not a fine for those who break the law. You could argue that the passage doesn't actually say that the purpose of jizyah is to humiliate people (humbling is different) or that islamic societies in practice didn't (typically) use it as a means of ridicule, but saying that actually it was just a fine is utter make believe.
The mainstream academic consensus is that Jews generally fared better under Islamic rule than in medieval Christian Europe. Scholars also agree that jizya was paid in lieu of zakat (which Muslims paid) and military service.
Of course, this raises the question: if Jews fared better under Muslim rule than under Christianity, why would they leave their alleged homeland and go to Europe, only to want to go back a thousand years later?
Does it raise that question? Or is it rather a hopelessly ambiguous and undecidable question that's really more of a racialist rhetorical argument? The state of Israel was not formed based on a calculation of whether the Ottomans were better sovereigns to serve under than the French, German, or Russians.
I hope I'm communicating well where I'm coming from, which is not that you're wrong (or right) but rather how unproductive this particular species of reasoning is in modern geopolitical discussions.
Yep, and this is the obvious dishonesty of the people who single out Israel. It’s one country with a Jewish culture, where non-Jewish people also prosper in large numbers. But there are MANY officially Islamic nations where there is a state religion, where laws and religion are mixed together, and where violence/oppression of minorities is normalized and welcomed. Not a single pro-Gaza or anti-Israel activist will acknowledge this. It’s dishonest. Israel is much more egalitarian and frankly, civilized.
> Not a single pro-Gaza or anti-Israel activist will acknowledge this
Go easy on the Kool-Aid.
It's the opposite; those things are not talked about because they are universally acknowledged by anyone except the groups themselves as bad.
The problem with Israel is that you have a huge number of people who are not even Israeli gleefully supporting a genocide, either overtly or by doing everything in their power to silence anyone calling it out. This is a stark contrast: the only people actively supporting the oppression of minorities in Syria or Saudi Arabia are those carrying it out. There are no large groups of powerful people solely comprised of Americans in the US or Germans in Germany who do their best to silence criticism of Saudi Arabia. I'm sure you'll be able to find a few PR firms that Saudi paid, or a few people with business interests there who did such things, but it's completely incomparable to the Zionist lobby and the active carrying out of its interests.
What’s dishonest is your racist defense of a murderous and genocidal country that cynically uses Judaism
as a shield for war crimes. You should really think deeply about how you’re conflating the Zionist state with the Jewish people… not sure a lot of them are in board with your project. There is no world in which a Jewish-supremacist state is righteous.
As for equal rights, it is to laugh. Israel is an apartheid state. Ask any expert in the subject.
Let’s talk about the racist death-penalty-for-Palestinians law that just passed to Ben Gvir drinking champagne and to celebratory prayers in the Knesset. Or what about the fact that gay people cannot legally marry? Or that protesting the genocide gets you brutally arrested. Not to mention the ghetto that Israel has turned Gaza into. (shame on the Zionists!) What about no right of return to the people who lived on the land that Israel stole and continues to steal? (let me guess: all in self defense!) It goes on and on.
Why did this repose by someone else get flagged dead? It's factual and provides additional context. Deng why do allow these posts but then allow such one sided 'discussion'?
"The penalty imposed by the Palestinian authority for selling their property to a Jew is the death sentence. Conversely, the Palestinians or Jews or Christians inside Israel don’t face any such restrictions."
Your comment is an example of that dishonesty, since you’re ignoring all the Islamic supremacist states while stating your opinion that Israel is supremacist. Something like 20% of Israel’s population are Muslims, and they’re prospering there, so you can’t call it supremacist. On the other hand, officially Islamic nations are explicitly supremacist. They have state religions and laws against blasphemy and rampant systemic discrimination.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Israeli group B’Tselem have published reports characterizing Israel’s legal framework (especially considering the occupied territories) as apartheid or involving systemic discrimination. I’m not sure what more can be said.
The Amnesty International observer in Gaza reported students who were working together on projects with Israeli students and hoped that were be treated with extreme prejudice. Totally an unbiased organization on the subject.
Actions, not words. Otherwise we'd be believing that a certain political party in the 40s Germany was simply all about work setting you free.
Zionists have showed what they are about through their actions ever since establishing their ethnosupremacist state. And they showed that genocide is not a red line to them over the past 2 and a half years. What they say they are about on paper is no longer relevant.
> Part of the problem is the conflation of Zionism with genocidal government. There is no room for nuiance
This blame falls squarely on Israelis and Jewish people as a whole for conflating Zionism, Israel and Jewishness as a single thing, and branding anyone who dared to be critical of Zionism as antisemitic. Now they try to distance themselves and rightly so, but it is their fault that the victim agenda backfired terribly.
I have expressed my solidarity to non-Zionist Jewish people in a previous comment, but still all I hear is victimization at how the world at large treats them rather than real anger and disgust at what the State of Israel is doing in their name. Where are the angry non-Zionist protests? Where are the people renouncing their dual citizenships? The reaction is still very subdued for a genocide in massive scale, and at times it is hard for us gentiles to feel sorry for their apathy.
Edit: Sorry, I can't reply to your comment below, for some reason.
This part,
> Did you know that Jews lived among Muslims for over a thousand years in peace?
is revisionist because it paints second-class status for Jews as "peace". This is ridiculous, a fiction akin to "separate but equal" without even the pretense of equality.
Additionally,
> The violence started happening when the Zionists wanted the land for themselves, exclusive of the indigenous population (1948 nakba).
Is ahistorical. There have been small but continuous Jewish settlements in the region since antiquity, Jews are indigenous. Further, Zionist immigration started earlier than 1948, as early as the late 1800s, and finally, Arabs fled Israel to avoid the incoming invasion from Arab Muslim nations who, for bigoted reasons, could not tolerate a Jewish state.
> is revisionist because it paints second-class status for Jews as "peace". This is ridiculous, a fiction akin to "separate but equal" without even the pretense of equality.
Let's agree for a moment that there was intense bigotry and prejudice, as I'm very sure there was some amount. As we can also agree, there is human tribalism alive and well to this day between people of minimal or great differences.
Separate but equal is not enslavement or extermination. Dhimmi was the basis for peace, not equality, and I haven't found a compelling alternative narrative.
> > The violence started happening when the Zionists wanted the land for themselves, exclusive of the indigenous population (1948 nakba).
> Is ahistorical.
While I can appreciate what you're trying to say here, the post you are responding to was describing a situation within the context of the Zionist state movement of the mid 1900s. The fact that there have always been Jewish settlements throughout the historical Levant (and beyond) is incidental. Neither of these points are without merit. I'm not sure arguing past each other about who deserves what is constructive.
(Looks like I can reply now)
I feel I've pretty clearly answered your question of "what 'revisionist' means in that context". Dhimmitude is absolutely not a basis for peace. If it helps, think of Zionism as a civil rights movement, but more aligned with Malcom X than MLK.
I don't believe it's incidental that there have always been Jewish settlements, it's exactly the point: Muslims were fine with Jewish settlements so long as the Jews were subservient to a ruling Muslim power, but Jewish self-determination was intolerable.
I do agree that arguing about who deserves what is not constructive. 1948 was 78 years ago, there are ~10 million Israelis, and the country has nukes. The historical perspective is not very helpful here.
I think you’re ignoring the historical context. Jews were being systematically targeted all over Europe, and at the height of the Islamic empire they held ministerial positions in the royal court.
Btw, as a native Arabic speaker, I find it extremely interesting how you’re using ‘dhimma’ to mean servitude, when it literally means those who were given an oath to be protected.
> I think you’re ignoring the historical context. Jews were being systematically targeted all over Europe, and at the height of the Islamic empire they held ministerial positions in the royal court.
I don't understand what point you're trying to make. Individual Jews held prestigious positions in Europe as well. So what?
> Btw, as a native Arabic speaker, I find it extremely interesting how you’re using ‘dhimma’ to mean servitude, when it literally means those who were given an oath to be protected.
Yes, the literal and practical meanings differ. And of course, relying on others for protection leaves you at their mercy and locks you into a position of submission towards your "protector". Avoiding that reliance is perhaps the primary purpose of Israel.
in creating, perpetuating, and expanding israel, the zionist jews betrayed the ones who had protected them for so long, hosting them on lands that for the most part never even belonged to the jewish people to begin with. israel is the only colony turned state in history to have been created by a people who were previously stateless, this fact alone should raise suspicions about the true history and legitimacy of that state.
who gave the jews a state? people think it was britain but britain agreed to the balfour declaration, an agreement made between zionist bankers and the british state which involved upholding the rights of the indigenous arab population and which did not involve the creation of a jewish state. how do you think jews got their state regardless? did britain change their mind and decide to give jews more than they agreed to give them?
why should the arabs have accepted the partition? what was the rationale behind the partition, who made the decision and what right did they have to make such a decision, what was the justification for a zionist state to begin with?
the arabs made war after the zionists started the nakba, if zionists weren't so aggressive the arab states likely wouldn't have sent any soldiers to fight, just taken economic and diplomatic measures.
in historical jewish states, how did they treat the people they conquered? not to mention, most jews in the muslim world lived well outside of their homeland in palestine, and that's not because the muslims pushed them out, they were there before the muslims conquered, and many times they helped the muslims conquer because they would rather have lived under muslim rule than christian rule.
It’s not clear what "revisionist" means in this context, especially when pointing to Dhimmi.
I’ve never heard of it before today. I’m aware that Jews and Muslims live in Iran today. There is historical evidence, including written accounts, that some arrangement (Dhimmi?) existed over 1,200 years ago—whether social, legal, cultural, or, most likely, a combination. Under this system, the religions coexisted without the overtones of genocide within their communities.
Which has been enlightening. Thank you for highlighting the tenuous situation in Iran, which is not favorable toward Jews. This does shed light on the affair and seems credible to me.
they were merchants and artisans part of an international diaspora spanning thousands of miles, it was really an economic role that they chose to assume. they weren't victims of a racist occupation like arabs in the west bank today.
some would say that they were kicked out of their homeland so it wasn't really a choice but there's actually no evidence that this ever happened. for one thing, jews have always lived in judea and there's no record of them being expelled from anywhere there except the city of jerusalem in the 2nd century by the romans after they tried another revolt. there was a huge jewish diaspora before that revolt and even before the 1st century revolt. the jewish diaspora was likely primarily a result of economic migration and subsequent success of jewish communities in certain economic roles as a diasporic community spanning many different lands.
The only choice they had which would have allowed them assume any other role was conversion to Islam.
> no evidence that this ever happened
There is obviously evidence and there several major Jewish or Samaritan revolts until the Romans lost Palestine in the 600s with the last revolt being quite brutal.
Of course the scale of expulsions, forced conversions and massacres is not really known but the region was almost certainly majority Christian by the time the Muslims got there
> there was a huge jewish diaspora before that revolt and even before the 1st century revolt
There is no strong evidence of that either (depending on how one defines “huge” of course)
Islam allowed jews to own land, just like how it allowed christians to own land.
if there were several jewish revolts until the 600s that is evidence that they did not result in significant expulsions. the fact that the region became majority christian is not evidence of a major expulsion of jews and subsequent replacement by christians, likely they mostly converted just like how most christians would end up converting to islam. In any case it wasn't muslims who expelled them so they can't take it out on the indigenous muslims of the west bank.
there are records of jewish presence across the medditerranean region and the near east for centuries prior to the first roman jewish war
i am arguing against the idea that the romans kicked out all or most of the jews from palestine. I am not suggesting that no jews were ever expelled or sent away as slaves. I think the historical record is clear that the jewish diaspora would have existed even if not a single jew were ever forcefully removed from palestine. I also don't understand how it is relevant to the israel palestine conflict, palestinians aren't romans, they're the native inhabitants of the land, whatever really happened to jews in palestine 1500+ years ago is hardly relevant to any political disputes ongoing today. The fact of the matter is that palestinians can trace their ancestry to the land as far back as they can trace their ancestry, meanwhile most israeli jews arrived in palestine within the past 100 years, and before that their line was living elsewhere as far back as they could trace. There are palestinians that were kicked out in the nakba that are still alive today and hold the keys to their homes that they were dispossessed of. Did the zionists have that kind of verifiable and particular claim to the land when they came over?
All of it? Islam literally calls for violence and oppression of anyone who isn’t a Muslim. It’s literally in the Quran. Islam spread to many of the regions it is now in through invasion and genocidal violence. For example, they colonized India before Europeans did. They have completely erased the previous cultures and ethnic groups of the North African countries. Etc.
This is categorically false. The Quran explicitly says "There is no compulsion in religion". It teaches Muslims to say "You have your religion, and I have my religion". It tells Muslims to fight only those who fight them and "do not exceed the limits". In fact, it says God does not forbid Muslims from dealing "kindly and fairly" with non-Muslims who have not fought or expelled them.
what does it tell you that the jews who were accomodated from the start by muslims in lands stretching from maghreb to transoxiana are now fighting muslims like muslims were their enemy since day 1? the jews who the muslims took in after the christians kicked out are now pushing for christian armies to fight their wars for them in muslim lands? i would say christians are the most innocent, christianity is the real religion of peace, although christians themselves are a mixed bag, muslims are par for the course, it is a religion of conquest, but it tends to conquer fair and square as is normal throughout history, while jews are the least innocent, parasitizing and betraying the nations.
For the record, when it comes to modern-day Muslims and Jews, both of their respective religions are bottom-scrapers when it comes to religious tolerance and plurality, both internally and externally. It is in their engineering itself that all other gods are bad. This is in stark contrast with polytheistic and indigenous religions, both ancient and current, that welcome other gods or spirits, and are centered more toward following an overlapping set of moral principles.
In the Quran it says "You have your way, and I have my Way" (or roughly "You have your religion, and I have my religion"). It also says "There shall be no compulsion in the religion". Islam doesn't want to force itself upon those who do not believe in the One God. It just calls people to believe if they choose to do so.
Wouldn't it be nice if that were actually true!? Maybe it was true once upon a time, but is it still true? People routinely get killed in Islamic countries for not adhering to Islam. Terrorists seek out "unbelievers" and execute them. Even among those adhering to it, they keep killing each other for having differences in the nature of their beliefs.
Acting in a way (by a minority, some of which are in power) that is clearly against the teachings of the religion doesn't mean it's false. It's the other way around: it makes their actions a sin. If you take a wider look you'll see that the majority are trying to adhere to the true teachings, which when implemented on a large scale you get what is known as the Golden age of Islam: a period of over 1000 years of prosperity, compassion, and advances in almost every aspect of life, some of which is still benefiting all humanity until today.
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