I was raised reform Jewish and am half Jewish by family history. I have ancestors who were victims of the pogroms in the Russian pale of settlement – specifically, all four of my great-grandparents on my father’s side, along with their parents (my great-great-grandparents). When they were children their families fled and eventually resettled in the USA.
There is another place that they could have gone instead: Palestine. At that time it was still part of the Ottoman Empire, and some of the displaced Jews of that time did elect to go to Palestine. As it happens, my ancestors chose the US, but they could have gone to Palestine if they’d wanted to.
The fashionable posture on the left to take towards Israeli Jews recently has basically been a combination of glibness and vitriolic hatred, often reaching the point of wishing death upon them (examples: 1 2). I don’t know… I just can’t really feel good about stuff like that. The fact that my family ended up in the US and not Palestine is really just a quirk of fate. I don’t think that my ancestors were, like, morally better people for choosing the US over Ottoman-era Palestine. (And given the recent uptick in “Turtle Island” discourse, it seems like a fair number of leftists believe my ancestors shouldn’t have been allowed to resettle in the US either.)
I think that Zionism (with the possible exception of cultural Zionism) has generally been a noxious idea throughout its history. I don’t think the state of Israel should continue to exist as it is currently constituted, and I think the near-ubiquitous racism among Israelis is shameful. But I also don't think that every Jewish person who moved to Palestine in the last 150 years was a bad person for doing that, and I’m not prepared to circle-jerk over the deaths of people that I have a fair amount in common with historically.
Am I missing something? Have I been hoodwinked by Zionist propaganda?
Revenge causes no change in material conditions and does nothing to help the oppressed in a meaningful way. It serves only as a means for the person enacting revenge to feel as if they helped, without actually helping.
I understand, the Nuremberg Trials were going too far. Those Nazis should have been rehabilitated or mercifully allowed to enjoy a retirement after murdering millions of people. /s
Hexbear needs a tagging feature like RES has so I can tag libs and know not to even bother reading your comments in the future because your brains are full of mush.
Removed by mod
Ok and??? This is a weird argument to try to pick with me. I don't care about fake laws, I care about what's right and what's wrong. It is wrong that genociders should walk free, it is right that they be punished. Who does the punishing doesn't matter, and the way they're punished matters only in so much as it is severe. If there's something that seems confusing about what I'm saying you can try to extrapolate or read between the lines and privately hazard some guesses, I think my position is obvious but since I live in Amerikkka and free speech is banned here those are private thoughts.
Edit: Oh you're the OP of this weird cringe lib post and now I'm looking at your other post and comment history full of concern-trolling. What are you even doing on this site? You're either a lib or a fed, either way you should be banned. GTFO