| Ah yes - All 1 million Jews in Arab lands were so happy they just packed up and ran to Israel once they got the chance. Look, I have relatives and many friends that escaped those countries because they were being persecuted and in some cases we’re under the threat of death. You trying to change history because it doesn't fit your narrative doesn't change what actually happened. The reality is Yemenite Jews have faced legal persecution and violence for many years. Read up about the pogroms like the Adyen Riots of 1947 where nearly 100 Yemenite Jews were murdered. Did some Yemenites came before Israel existed? Absolutely, as did Jews from all over the world.
After all it is the most religiously significant place in Jewish religion - it is only natural that some would come and choose to make a life here.
That does not change the fact that Jewish communities across the middle east faced (and still face) significant persecution. I can give you countless examples of pogroms the Jews in the middle east faced before the state of Israel even existed, the Farhud pogrom in Iraq in 1941, the massacre of Jews in Constantine in 1934, the Hebron and Safed Massacres of 1929 in which 2000 year old Jewish communities were wiped out and there are many many many more. There were also and in some cases still are unjust laws, real apartheid laws, that exist persecuting against Jews and Christians. In Iraq you had laws that denied Jews the right to a bank account, or to work in many professions, including government positions, you had laws in Algeria that denied the Jews citizenship and laws in Libya that effectively denied Jews citizenship. And again - this is only the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the type of persecution Jews faced and still face today across the Middle East. As far as you calling Israel an Apartheid state, plenty of Israeli Arabs would disagree with you. I have provided some links to a few of them[1][2][3]. The majority of Israeli Arabs are proud to be Israeli [4] and of Israel’s achievements.
Does Israel have some racism? For sure - so does the US, the UK, France etc.. - that does not make it an apartheid state. Arab Israelis make up 20% of the states population and they have the same right as anyone else in the country and that is best demonstrated by the fact that the third largest political party is in fact an Israeli Arab party. As for the Palestinians in the Westbank and Gaza - I truly hope to see them form a successful state beside Israel where they can enjoy those same democratic rights (the rights Mahmoud Abbas has denied them since 2006 when he last allowed an election). We were extremely close to achieving this in the past and I hope we achieve it in the future. Now you never actually even tried to counter my argument about the persecution and real apartheid like laws christians face in the rest of the Middle East. Are you denying that 100s of Copts christians have been murdered in Egypt in the past 10 years? or the laws in Saudi Arabia that deny Christians the right to practice in public? Or that you can be put to death in Iran for converting from Islam to Christianity or the fact that Turkey just turned two historic Byzetine churches into mosques? Now regardless of the above argument - and since you raised the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (I did not - I spoke about the persecution of minorities in the Middle East and how it has effected the demographic balance).
The only way we will get to a solution to this conflict is when we all start acknowledging each others suffering and start talking about the other sides suffering as well. I as an Israeli am willing to do that and I also will continue to fight any racism I see here in Israel (both by how I vote and by how I act). But this conversation has to be based on facts, those facts do not ignore the other sides suffering. It's a complicated conflict and there is no easy solution, but hopefully, through dialogue we can celebrate small baby steps in the right direction. However, I will not stand by when you or any other try to deny the suffering of any side and the persecution of minorities (doesn't matter if they are Jewish, Muslim, Christian[5], Bahai, Druze etc..) in the Middle East. [1] - Yoseph Haddad - https://www.facebook.com/YosHaddad [2] - Israeli Ambassador George Deek - https://twitter.com/GeorgeDeek [3] - Mohammad Kabiya - https://twitter.com/mohammadkabiya as just some of the examples. [4] - https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/both-jews-and-arabs-say-... [5] UN watch on the decline of Christians in Iraq and Syria - https://youtu.be/kbJ2su1rwAs |