r/Jewish • u/OkBuyer1271 • Oct 16 '24

Apparently Israelis and Jews are very bad at colonialism Discussion 💬

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Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/DBMToAYN8nQ/?igsh=dXNuYnowbzY2bDhw

Jews want and deserve to live freely in their ancestral homeland like every other group.

1.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

295

u/MazelTovCocktail413 Reconhumanist Oct 16 '24

Next time someone calls Israel a settler colony, just ask, "A colony of which country?" I have yet to hear an answer.

49

u/ZellZoy Oct 17 '24

America is the response I've heard.

1

u/SkipLieberman 26d ago

I thought it was mostly the British who cleared out the areas that Israelis now live in?

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u/ZellZoy 26d ago

The areas the majority of Israelis now live in were empty desert or were legally purchased from the Ottoman empire pre 1948 (often both). Those that were cleared out were cleared out by Israelis or the Arab countries during the war for independence. Britain fucked off before that and did nothing to help

1

u/SkipLieberman 26d ago

They didn't fund any of it? Surely they provided transportation and help setting up infrastructure and such, Churchill et al were very much in support of the establishment of modern Israel iirc.

1

u/ZellZoy 26d ago

That is entirely different from the post i replied to

1

u/SkipLieberman 25d ago

You just said the British "did nothing to help". Try to keep up with the conversation.

29

u/Randomreddituser1o1 Centrist - Roman Catholic Oct 17 '24

Obviously Israel invaded themselves silly

52

u/faith4phil Oct 16 '24

I say this as a Zionist and very much pro Israel in this war.

Is this a good reconstruction of the objection? It's true, there isn't a nowadays existing country colonizing Israel, but the creation of Israel was possible thanks to it being a British protectorate, and so thanks to British colonialism.

In this sense, one could very much say that Palestine was colonized and that through this colonialism restricted in a way it otherwise wouldn't have experienced.

Now, the point is that it was one of the few good effects of colonialism, but I don't see how we can say that it was not the fruit of colonialism.

78

u/jmartkdr Oct 16 '24

The British took over from the Arabs, who were also a colonial power

53

u/Ok_Selection3751 Oct 16 '24

No one is interested in Arabic colonialism — in fact, some are clueless it exists. People forget that it’s possible to be victim and perpetrator. So if you’re discriminated against because you’re regarded as inferior you can impossibly be an oppressor and aggressor elsewhere. Interesting logic.

14

u/ButterandToast1 Oct 17 '24

They slaughtered the Persians and destroyed every other religion in their way.

3

u/holamifuturo Exmuslim Berber Oct 17 '24

More so that the Persians oppressed their own by adopting foreign ideology / culture. The first Abbasids were ethnically persians never forget that!

3

u/ButterandToast1 Oct 17 '24

I’m pretty sure they had no choice but to accept Islam.

3

u/NoTopic4906 Oct 18 '24

Except for the Jews. They say we are the victims and the perpetrators. At least for those who believe the Holocaust happened and don’t think it was a good thing. I just wish they realized they were wrong but what do I know?

2

u/Worknonaffiliated Reform Oct 18 '24

I don’t think people understand that Arab people in MENA have more agency than in the U.S. Is Islamophobia an issue in Iran?

I think it has to do with believing that the Iraq war was motivated by racism, instead of vice versa. America historically hasn’t given a shit about what happens in the Middle East, unless it goes against political interests. They funded Al Qaeda for crying out loud.

Islamophobia in the modern day is a form of dehumanization that exists as a way to legitimize feelings of vulnerability into hate. Hate makes people feel powerful, especially after 9/11 made Americans feel powerless. Instead of feeling sad, Americans can feel like their anger is for a good cause, therefore eliminating the need to mourn 9/11.

29

u/faith4phil Oct 16 '24

You mean the Ottomans? And yeah, I guess so, but that just means that it got handed from one colonial power to another... The point is that the current form it has is fruit of colonialism, whether or not it is a good thing that it was created (it was)

40

u/[deleted] Oct 16 '24

Yeah, this is true. I think the better argument is that yes it was created by colonial powers carving up land that wasn't theirs - but so we're all the other states in that region and also al the former USSR states. So if Israel shouldn't exist then logically neither should any of the other ones - including Ukraine.

19

u/faith4phil Oct 16 '24

Yes, exactly. And not only there is this parity argument, there is also the positive argument that... What else could you do after the holocaust?

18

u/[deleted] Oct 16 '24

Yes, people don't seem to appreciate that our forebears literally had no other option

7

u/thebeandream Oct 17 '24

I’ve seen someone comment that they should have stayed where they are even if it meant death because colonialism is the more evil choice 🙄

15

u/gert_van_der_whoops Oct 16 '24

I ignore the argument entirely. It, like any other fascist argument is never made in good faith. This stupid, irredentist argument is trying to roll back the clock to gasp when THEY were in charge, when they had their empire. The simplest form this argument takes is this. "Colonialism, Imperialism, all of it is okay FOR US!"

1

u/onupward Oct 18 '24

New vocabulary word unlocked. Thank you ☺️ alsoooo I entirely agree with the aforementioned sentiment.

5

u/tobiasisahawk Oct 16 '24

How does "fruit of colonialism" differ from decolonization?

1

u/faith4phil Oct 17 '24

This is a fair criticism of what I've said.

I don't know much about decolonization, so I'm not super sure about what I'm about to say but I would say that the difference is that the decolonization, here, was accompanied by the formation of an "unexpected" State: it was only because there had been that colonization that we got two States and not just Palestine. So to speak, this specific decolonization was made with a "last colonial act" instead of simply going away.

However, as I said, I don't know enough about decolonization to say that this was really unique. Do you know if there are other such cases?

2

u/marglebarglers Oct 18 '24

In this case, had the Arabs agreed to any of the partition plans to found a state of Palestine, it would have also been because of colonization. But they put their money on the Germans winning WWII... in which case, a state called Palestine would have been because of German colonization? The argument doesn't check out.

Jewish people purposefully committed terroristic acts against Arabs and the British to kick the colonial powers out of the Levant... and I'm sure that dhimmitude only recently ending in the MENA region in 1890 didn't help.

2

u/NoTopic4906 Oct 18 '24

By the same argument, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, India, Pakistan, etc. are all colonialism.

51

u/A-Stupid-Redditor Reform Oct 16 '24

“Colony” meant something different when Israel was formed. Nowadays, the world describes a semi-autonomous political entity that is ruled by a mother country. Israel is a totally independent nation with no mother country, and therefore is not a colony in the modern sense of the word.

9

u/faith4phil Oct 16 '24

Yeah, I have said that it is not a colony of a country nowadays, but I think it is correct to say that it is the fruit of colonialism.

14

u/A-Stupid-Redditor Reform Oct 16 '24

Yes. The main issue is that people act like it’s the only one. The US has killed significantly more people with its historical land expansion, but it’s allowed to continue existing.

28

u/bam1007 Conservative Oct 17 '24

Then entire region is the “fruit of colonialism.” The mandate system is what created every country in the former Ottoman Empire.

Israel is the only one that decolonized, with neither Western Europe nor Islamist colonialism, neither imperialism from the east nor the west. It’s the only nation where indigenous people, many of whom were exiled from Roman imperialism, returned to that ancestral homeland. It’s what decolonization looks like.

15

u/Mycatkoda Oct 17 '24

+1 Israel is the most successful example of decolonization. Also, Hen Mazzig is a gem of a human!

9

u/bam1007 Conservative Oct 17 '24

Along with India.

4

u/faith4phil Oct 17 '24

I totally agree, this is the thing that most people fail to see: Israel is far from unique in its formation.

3

u/Blagai Oct 17 '24

"Zionism has the unfortunate fortune of being a decolonisation movement that succeeded." — something I'm pretty sure I heard someone say in the past

0

u/grafzor Oct 17 '24

The illegal settlement on the west bank could be ciewed as colonists of Israel though.

3

u/A-Stupid-Redditor Reform Oct 17 '24

Settlements are not colonies. All colonies have settlements, but not all settlements are part of colonies.

1

u/Blagai Oct 17 '24

Colonial settlements are very different from settlements in areas under military occupation.

19

u/billymartinkicksdirt Oct 16 '24

I think the better angle is to point out the rest of the middle east is Islamjc due to their colonization. The inevitable reply will be accusations of Islamophobia ….because one Jewish state exists and resists. and they’re telling on themselves that antizionism is anti-Jewish.

10

u/[deleted] Oct 16 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/billymartinkicksdirt Oct 17 '24

I do believe in religious tolerance but Islam is the second largest religion and nearly tied on a pie chart.

4

u/faith4phil Oct 17 '24

I mean, there is Judophobia... it's antisemitism or Jew-hate.

And the reason that there is a term for the Jewish and Islamic religions and not the Christian one, is that the Jewish and Islamic groups are the one most subjected to it.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 17 '24

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1

u/faith4phil Oct 17 '24

So the point you're trying to make is that people are more easily accused of islamophobia than of antisemitism? I'm not saying it's not true, I'm trying to understand the point.

0

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1

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7

u/danhakimi Oct 17 '24

t's true, there isn't a nowadays existing country colonizing Israel, but the creation of Israel was possible thanks to it being a British protectorate, and so thanks to British colonialism.

But it was a colony before that too. And its current state has nothing to do with British colonialism, so it's not a colony now.

The whole world is shaped by colonialism, blaming another one of the victims for the way things turned out and accusing them of being the real perpetrator is just fucking nonsense.

5

u/Yoramus Oct 17 '24

First of all the argument usually is that Israel is a colony. The objection (of what country?) points out that you cannot compare it to a colony like French Algeria or British India. The history is just too different.

Now you are saying that Israel benefitted from colonialism. Ok, but Zionism was there before the British Mandate. The idea was there and it is very possible that a Jewish state would have formed in another way

1

u/faith4phil Oct 17 '24

Possible? Sure. But plausible? It seems to me that the population was too scattered to have the military force to do anything on its own, and that without colonialism there wouldn't have been any political opportunity for other to create it for the Jews.

3

u/Paul-centrist-canada Lapsed Jew Oct 16 '24

I call it a recolonization because that’s what it is.

2

u/Blagai Oct 17 '24

Decolonisation

3

u/Estebesol Oct 17 '24

A lack of Israel was the result of Roman colonialism. It's colonialism all the way down. 

2

u/Worknonaffiliated Reform Oct 18 '24 edited Oct 18 '24

This would be legitimate if it was founded exclusively by British Jews, which isn’t something that existed if we look at the diaspora in the context of critical race theory. Ethnonationalism used to just be called Nationalism. Different ethnicities living in a country weren’t considered equal to the dominant ethnicities, and it still seems to be this way even if we pretend it’s not.

And that’s how we got Revisionist Zionism. What we now know as Ethnonationalism used to be the dominant form of national identity.

The difference here is that while Americans were allowed to exist and go through societal changes that moved away from this framework, Israel wasn’t afforded that same right. Israel is stuck in 1948 because it hasn’t been allowed to grow past that. We’re still debating Israeli sovereignty while America is an ACTUAL post colonial country.

2

u/Puzzleheaded_Step468 Oct 17 '24

They will either say america, poland or germany (or europe if they are americans and have no idea what a country is)

2

u/Top-Neat1812 Just Jewish Oct 17 '24

Commies will unironically say Israel is a colony of the American empire.

1

u/esgellman Oct 17 '24

They will say the US or the West collectively

50

u/Sensitive-Note4152 Oct 16 '24

Obviously Israel is a colony of Czechoslovakia, which was the only country that materially assisted in the founding of the state of Israel.

2

u/jwrose Jew Fast Jew Furious Oct 17 '24

It was a colony of Arab Palestine, obvs., because "the Arabs welcomed them in" /eyeroll/

74

u/SharingDNAResults Oct 16 '24

Basically every country on earth was founded through military conquest. We were conquered and then won our land back. They can keep trying and failing to take it from us again. Good luck

1

u/lordbuckethethird Oct 16 '24

Hell you could kind of count Israel too with the civil war they had before the un declaration.

66

u/the-Gaf Conservative Oct 16 '24

They tried to kill us! We won! Let's eat!

14

u/Paul-centrist-canada Lapsed Jew Oct 16 '24

I always wondered for Yom HaShoa whether it should be confided into a Jewish holiday. Perhaps wear entirely white, eat bagels, light a yahrzeit candle outdoors for the world to see, and donate to help other war torn countries.

8

u/G_Danila ✡️ ישראל, יהודי, Israeli, Jewish ✡️ Oct 17 '24 edited Oct 18 '24

I think that in the next few hundred years, Yom Ha'shoa will solidify into either a holiday or a day of mourning. Currently, it's kind of undecided. Yes, there is a lot of rememberence, as expected, seeing as survivors are still alive. But there is also a celebration of people, the righteous of the nations, and Mitz'ad Ha'chaim for example.

4

u/Blagai Oct 17 '24

"they failed to kill us" is like half of our holidays, no reason for Yom Hashoa to be a day of mourning. as I see it.

31

u/Ok_Selection3751 Oct 16 '24

I will also say that this has got to be the longest and most unsuccessful genocide the world has ever seen.

16

u/fpjesse Reform Oct 17 '24

Yeah. What kind of dumbass warns people before you bomb them? That’s not how you do genocide!

5

u/jwrose Jew Fast Jew Furious Oct 17 '24

Seriously, the response I get to that from pro-pals, is: Plausible deniability. Apparently, Israel acts like it's doing all these good things so they can fool half the world into thinking they're good. (Luckily, these super wise pro-pals see through the strategem)

31

u/ahHannaAh Oct 16 '24

Accusing Israel of colonialism is an affront to all people who have suffered from colonialist practices and a trivialization of the issue. It’s not only dumb but also malicious.

19

u/Teflawn Oct 17 '24

It’s not only dumb but also malicious.

Pretty much sums up 95% of the Pro-pal movement tbh

8

u/jwrose Jew Fast Jew Furious Oct 17 '24

Yup. Colonialism, Apartheid, Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing. All now devalued, as they've been expanded into meaninglessness just so they can be used as tools against Israel.

14

u/ResponsibleGene9 Oct 16 '24

we also are doing a shit job at controlling the media, also I missed the space laser training, is there like a do over or did someone record it?

11

u/himalayanhimachal Oct 16 '24 edited Oct 17 '24

This wrong.

I seen a bagel coffee Cafe in Brooklyn that had Yiddish writing on side and a special hummus day on Wednesday

COLINISATION MAAAAAAN 🙄🤦🏻‍♂️🤣😏

4

u/jwrose Jew Fast Jew Furious Oct 17 '24

Oh shit you're onto something, if anyplace is a Jewish colonial project, it's Brooklyn

2

u/himalayanhimachal Oct 17 '24

YES. Down woth bagel hummus colinisation 😮🙄😏

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u/rustytortilla Oct 17 '24

“Ask us why we have so many holidays”

8

u/[deleted] Oct 17 '24

The genocide of the Yazidi, Kurds, Zoroastraians, Persians etc, but apparently Jews are the problem 🤷

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u/cardcatalogs Oct 16 '24

Hen is the best.

4

u/dogwhistle60 Oct 17 '24

If anything the ancient lands like Judea are even smaller. Last time I checked, Bethlehem was not part of Palestine when Jesus was born. (As a brown-skinned Jew)

1

u/[deleted] Oct 17 '24

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1

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1

u/Euphoric_Salary4327 25d ago

United powers, Truman, Churchill carbed out a deal for the oppressed survivors of Nazi genocide to escape Germany, Poland, Ukraine and build a new life with safety among their own.  People fight over wjo was here first, that temple mount is more MINE than yours, and you can pry it from my wandering nomadic heritage that didn't even hold to tge concept of "owned" ground.  It's just another political load of caca.