passover

[exploited]

Right around 40% of the population in Israel considers themselves secular. They vote Labor. The rest is Orthodox and Traditional Jews. Traditional Jews form the backbone of Likud, and have around 40% of the population. Orthodox Jews form the basis of the National Religious Party, and they are 20% of the population, but their vote is split between Likud and the NRP. Both Traditionalists and Lukid believe in historical Israel... Which happens to include Palestine.

If it was White Westerners, Israel would have been crushed ages ago, so that point is kind of moot.

[Philly]

[exploited]

Oh, absolutely agree that Judaism has inspired less violence as a whole. At least violence by Jews.

However, your timeline is wrong. The Zionist vision of Israel was first really accepted in 1919, and was around for far longer than the Holocaust. It was in the 17th Century that Jews started really considering a return, as a matter of fact.

This was endorsed by the British, through the British Mandate of Palestine, for mostly anti-semitic reasons. Better to give the Jews a homeland than have them in your country. But after the Holocaust, the reasons for supporting Israel changed to secular reasons.

Like I said, the religious origins of Zionism are extremely well-known, and secular Zionists have been clashing with religious Zionists for well over a century. I think most Jews accept Zionism for both reasons, practical and religious, which is why they fight so hard to preserve the demographics of Israel.

[Philly]

I know Zionism predates the Holocaust, but it picked up enough steam to actually get the Israeli state after WW2. No coincidence.

[exploited]

[Philly]

[exploited]

Well... It's just that you're wrong. The Jewish population of Palestine was 450,000 by 1940. 250,000 between 1929 and 1939 alone, with 115,000 more between 1939-1945. Hell, Germany transferred 50,000 German Jews there shortly after the Nazi's came to power.

It is true that the Holocaust drastically increased support for a Jewish state, but categorically false to claim it caused such a thing to exist. This was settled in 1919… and the religious motivations of Zionism are indisputable.

[Philly]

Ok so I'm a lying dickhead. This is actually an interesting enough Israel conversation because it isn't Israel vs. Palestine.

Nobody is debating that religiously motivated Zionism exist or that it predates the modern state of Israel. However, Jews were about 15% of the population there back in the early 30's. They were past 30% of the population by 1947. Today Jews make up well over 50% of the Israeli population. I'll give you that the 84 Thousand Jews who were there in 1922 were largely there because of religion. As for the 6.3 Million who are there today, it's mostly because of their Israeli national identity, something closely tied to being of Jewish heritage, but not necessarily in a religious way.

To make an analogy, America's early colonies were settled by Christian zealots who came here largely for religious purposes (they were being persecuted in Europe and wanted to go to this new place where they could practice their zany Puritanism). Then years later there was a giant influx of European Christians who migrated to the United States of America. Now this is silly because we all know the giant influx or Christians - Germans and Irish and Italian - came to America from Europe in the hope of economic opportunity and a chance at building a better life. But if we didn't know any better, we'd use your logic and assume that one of the big reasons Christian Europeans were flocking to America in the late 1800s and early 1900s was so they could practice Christianity there.

What you showed me is (Early attempts at Zionism were motivated Jewish religious beliefs) and (Later on many more Jews moved to the same place where those religiously motivated Zionists had made their earlier attempts) therefore (The Jewish population in Israel is largely there for religious reasons).

[exploited]

I really have no idea what you are talking about. I have already agreed like six times that nationalism is the biggest motivation. No idea what this lying dickhead stuff is about at all. But you have simply decided to neglect the huge and obvious divisions in Israel society, where 60% of Israelites identify with political and religious groups that promote the idea of historical Israel... Otherwise known as the Promised Land, which includes the Palestinian territories. And this is now, let alone sixty years ago.

The concept of aliyah, for instance, is included in all of the daily Jewish rituals, and is in fact the basis of Israel's right to return laws. The concept of the promised land is a central tenant of Zionism. The religious nature of support for Israel isn't the biggest factor, but you are drastically underestimating it.

Not only that, but I have already shown that the concept of the Jewish state had religious origins, that it existed long before WWII, that it was planned and accepted by the British and the League of Nations in the early 20s, that immigration was massive long before the Holocaust, etc.

[Philly]

So you really think that religion plays a major role today in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Granted, their politics are weird because they do have a far right religious minority party that caucuses with the ruling party, but the real conflict here isn't about religion. It's about a western style liberal democracy wanting a bunch of 3rd world brown middle eastern people to get the hell out. Complicated by the fact that a bunch of other countries full of brown middle eastern people, some 3rd word and some not, are on every side of them and don't like the white westerners too much. Right now, Israel is concerned with demographics. Non-Jewish Arabs are growing faster in the population than Jews are. Over here in the US, that concerns the fundies because of some silly rapture prophecy which requires that Israel be full of Jews or something. In Israel, it concerns Jews because they have a democracy and the demographics are trending toward people with very different values than them having a majority eventually.

I don't care if 60% of Jews in Israel identify themselves as believing that Israel is their promise land. While in the middle of a conflict for land in Israel. People claim God is any war, just as soon as they've chosen a side, that is. That doesn't mean every war is religiously motivated. You still haven't shown evidence that it significantly fuels Israel's conflicts with the Palestinians. In the American Civil war every deep fried cracker in the South probably proclaimed that God wanted the Confederacy to be free from the North, but they really just hated black people and thought there was some fine print in the Constitution about them being able to opt out of the US at any time.