I consider myself a friend of Israel. I go there often (atheist here, so don’t get the wrong idea; we have a major office there).
But this is why I always say that both Hamas and Israel are getting exactly what they want out of this relationship. Not ALL Palestinians or Israelis, but enough to maintain the status quo.
There was an Israeli Hebron occupation soldier seen with a Chabad symbol attached to his uniform. Is that considered Zionist or just a not-necessarily-Zionist Chasidic cult logo?
Man, it’s hilarious that you’re still defending friend of a friend knowledge that the IDF trains their soldiers specifically to dehumanize Palestinians, to someone who personally experienced the training.
It’s time to put away the red nose and oversized shoes.
Somewhat confusingly for outsiders, many of the latter group call themselves “Conservative.”
Chabad has a complicated relationship with Zionism.
Most Hasidim (the “black hat” Jews) are explicitly opposed to Zionism because they don’t like the (relatively) secular and democratic nature of the State of Israel; they want a Jewish theocracy. Also, many feel that it is sinful to use secular methods of political and military organization; when God wants us to have a State, He’ll miraculously give us one, so there’s no need to waste time in Zionist organizing when we could be studying the Talmud. Generally, those Hasidim refuse to serve in the IDF, and in some cases even to vote in Israeli elections.
On the other hand, they do mostly feel that it is a matter of great religious importance that Jews should live in the Land of Israel, and define that Land as including many areas not currently part of the State. So they enthusiastically encourage Jews to move to Israel, and particularly to settle in disputed areas of the West Bank (and, formerly, Gaza) in order to establish a Jewish presence in those areas.
From the Palestinian point of view, their position is basically indistingushable from extremist ethnic-cleansing Zionism, even though they don’t identify as Zionist. (A much smaller group known as the Neturei Karta are anti-Zionist in the normal sense of the term and want to hand political and military control of the whole area to the Palestinians, enabling the Jews to concentrate more fully on prayer).
Chabad, however, has more of a diversity of opinion on the subject. It’s certainly not a Zionist movement, but it’s not shocking to see a Chabad member serving in the IDF, where it would be unheard of for, say, a member of the Satmar sect to do so. Largely this is because Chabad is very active in proselytizing to secular Jews, so unlike other Hasidic groups, it has lots of people in its ranks who didn’t grow up in an ultra-Orthodox cocoon.
One of the tragedies here is that it only takes a minority of a population to maintain a cycle of terrorism, murder, and war.
Well, this is the most depressing thing I’ve seen in a while.
[A New Poll Paints A Dark Picture of Israeli Society.]
According to a new poll, 82% of Israeli Jews support expelling all Palestinians from Gaza, including 47% who support killing all Palestinians in Gaza. Furthermore, 54% support expelling all Arab citizens from Israel.
I want to believe it’s not actually that bad, but as far as I can tell the pollster seems legit. If this is anywhere close to true, Israeli society seems completely irredeemable.
(The link above is to a story that is well written but just a Substack; here, if the link works, is a Haaretz article covering the same material.)
I saw this study earlier. I find it very strange that they’re trumpeting the results without publishing the full paper that this poll was a part of (which would include their methodology, something I’d consider pretty important to determining how valid the results are…)
Also, even with the extremely fragmentary methodology information he gave us, he didn’t say that 47% of respondents said Israel should kill everyone; he said 47% of respondents agreed that the IDF should behave like the ancient Israelitez did in Jericho. I can guarantee you that there’s no way that 47% of Israelis knows the story, I’ll tell you that much.
I’ve explained why I disagree about the pollster’s reliability. That said, I’m a bit disturbed by this statement.
72% of Palestinians and 85% of West Bank residents said that they supported Hamas’ actions on Oct 7:
If someone said that makes Palestinian society “irredeemable”, I think we’d all call them racists.
Well, they say the recapped the story of Jericho before asking the question. I agree the lack of publication is odd and a big red flag as far as reliability.
Sure, to what level of detail? What exactly did he say, and was it clear that the part he was asking about the IDF emulating was the “kill them all” part and not, say, the “March around for seven days before blowing a horn so the walls fall down”?
That’s the sort of thing you’d include when you release your methodology.
Then we are in agreement.
And we wonder why they voted for Hamas (20 years ago)…
Which is not to say that Hamas isn’t guilty of terrorism and terrible leadership. True on both accounts, but people in Gaza presumably felt that at least they weren’t US- and Israeli-backed stooges.
C;mon, you can try harder than this - the article cites the specific question asked:
“when conquering an enemy city, the Israel Defense Forces should act as the Israelites did in Jericho under Joshua’s command – killing all its inhabitants.” (my bolding)
I agree the poll is just one poll and its methodology is not rigorous (only 1000 respondents. Only conducted in Hebrew. Doesn’t jibe with other recent polling.) but don’t pretend like the 47% that did answer Yes to that question didn’t know exactly what they were saying with their answer.
This appears to be the actual poll, but I’m not about to attempt a computer translation.
Holy confirmation bias, Bab-Man.
You’re nitpicking phrasing that puts Israeli people in a bad light, while you’re " a bit disturbed" by another poll, which plays into your belief that Palestinians want to exterminate Jews.
n.b. Maybe Palestinians want to exterminate Jews and the poll is accurate. The point is that you doubt one poll, while - seemingly - accepting another.
…what?
I’m not doubting one poll while accepting another. You seem to have completely missed my point.
I’m saying that it’s pretty fucked up up to say ‘look at this poll, the society that produces people who answer polls like that is irredeemable’, and that none of us would have any problem identifying that it’s fucked up to say that if that phrase was targeted at Palestinians.
Something fucky is going on with that poll. The question from the article appears on there, but it’s in two different fonts and partially cut off? Like, it seems as if at some point the first few words were erased and other text was put in, but in a different font. And separately from that, the last few words on the final line of the question are cropped out by the box the question is in.
And it’s not phrased at all like in the article above - first there’s one question that says “In the Book of Joshua it is told that when the Israelites conquered Jericho they killed all the citizens. Do you believe this is a justified act?”.
And then in a separate question it asks:
[ODD EDITED TEXT]Do you support or oppose[/ODD EDITED TEXT] the assertion that the IDF, when conquering an enemy city, needs to operate in a similar way to the manner in which the Israelites operated under the leadership of Joshua, that is to say to kill every [REST OF SENTENCE IS CUT OFF]
I find the phrasing awkward in the original Hebrew, I don’t think that’s because of the translation.
If that’s the question that was presented to people, in this cut off format, I would think many of them would be quite confused.
It’s also quite… Interesting? That the strange formatting issues are limited to this one question.
Also, I just find this one funny - they have a question that is labeled, “question to check attentiveness - anyone who doesn’t answer 3 is filtered out”. This is in red text and I assume was added after the fact (so it’s possible that the weird edits to the Jericho question were also done after the fact?).
And then the question is:
In order to make sure that you are reading the questions attentively, please select the option “Answer 3”:
Answer One
Answer Three
Wrong Answer
Another Answer
But… When they tell you to select the option “Answer 3”… Do they mean you should select the third answer and ignore the fact that that it says “Wrong Answer”? Or does the option “Answer 3” actually mean “Answer Three”? I could honestly see it go either way. I don’t think this is a good question for “making sure you’re paying attention” at all.
ETA: On further examination, it looks like both parts of the weird Jericho question have a different font to all other questions; and then the first part is different from the second half. Odd.
Well, I am certainly glad to hear that this is inconsistent with other polling.
And I agree that “irredeemable” was a poor choice of words on my part.
I didn’t find that Substack writer very credible, I browsed a few articles and the bulk of his work seems geared towards pushing Russian propaganda.
How am I doubling down? I just related a story I heard at a lecture. I had no reason to believe the monk was lying at the time. It makes sense because other nationalities train their soldiers to have no sympathy for the enemy, because they don’t want to lose the wars they’re fighting. If Israel’s army is indeed more altruistic than that, it sure doesn’t reflect in the headlines.
I will concede that the monk’s story could have been made up. Maybe he identified with displaced Palestinians because of the way Buddhist monks were exiled from Nepal. Like I said, the lecture was primarily about meditation, and he otherwise didn’t make any political-based statements that I can recall.
I also don’t appreciate being called a liar. If I was going to make up a story denouncing Zionism, I wouldn’t have picked such a fluff setting.
I thought the article was well written and comprehensive, so I chose to link to it despite it being from a Substack. But other media outlets including Haaretz, which I also linked to, have reported substantially the same story. The claims made by the pollsters may be inaccurate, but I see no reason to question the accuracy of the reporting about the claims.
