[raxxorraxor]

Even before the existence of Israel there was an active arabic nationalism and Jews were discriminated against.

Israel is not a colonial power. The British split the land between Muslims and Jews.

The only problem is that some pushing for Arab nationalism couldn't stomach the existence of Israel or Jews in general. The land Israel was founded wasn't prosperous at all, on the contrary. Many years of cultivation made it the place it is today. I don't know what partition you reference as unfair here.

And that is true to today. If you look at the education of kids, you know who really has genocidal ambitions in this region and it isn't Israel.

> this supposedly entirely unprovoked and one-sided "attack"

Israel has the right to fight until the hostages are released.

The real "catastrophe" is the leadership of Palestinians, its teacher keeping the hatred against Jews alive. These are the perpetrators of the current conflict. Israels part is that itself has a problem with rising extremism. In this case it is a reaction to decades of conflict and hatred. That is no excuse but the same is doubly true for those that want to expel the Jews again and take their people hostage.

[runarberg]

> The land Israel was founded wasn't prosperous at all, on the contrary. Many years of cultivation made it the place it is today.

This belief demonstrates either a fundamental ignorance or a deep disrespect for this land and the people who have lived there for thousands of years. There was—and still is—a major olive industry. It is not a coincident that Israeli settler terrorist target and destroy olive plantations from Palestinians on the West Bank. Cities like Lyd and Gaza had a major tourist industry before 1948.

The land Israel was founded on wasn’t prosperous for the only reason that the people that had it and knew how to use it were kicked out of there, and replaced with people who didn’t (yet) know how to use it.

[dunekid]

Gaza has been an an important port in the east mediterranean. As you would expect any shoreline in the mediterranean to have trade and cultural vibrancy. https://youtu.be/QUCeQt8zg5o?feature=shared

[racional]

More to the point -- the land was plenty "prosperous" to the people who lived there. Whatever uses for that land that outsiders deem to be prosperous (for them) are completely irrelevant.

[racional]

Looks like we disagree axiomatically about certain things.

But life is short, so I'll just respond to one particular item for now:

The only problem is that some pushing for Arab nationalism couldn't stomach the existence of Israel or Jews in general.

No, the "only problem" was a bunch of armed foreigners attempting to carve an ethnostate out of their ancestral territory. They could have been Greek, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Persian -- it wouldn't have mattered a bit. It was the usurpation of their land, their resources and their rights that took issue with, and rightly so.

So no, it wasn't "because antisemitism".

[raxxorraxor]

We do indeed disagree on premises. Arab nationalism was first founded in the 19th century and directed against Turks. Later it had other ambitions of course. And yes, the idea was the foundation of an ethnostate. Pretty much was you accuse Israel of being, while it simply is not true.

[runarberg]

This narrative is ahistorical. The nationalism movements of the 19th century were all over the world, and against most empires, not just the Ottomans. So the new found Arab nationalism was new, just like Serbian or Greek nationalism was new, we also had a new found Irish nationalism and even Icelandic nationalism in the 19th century. Even zionism started as a 19th century ideology.

Nor was the nationalism movements of the 19th century necessary a call for an ethnostate. It was first and foremost a call against empires and for own governments over own nation states. When there were calls for ethno-demographic policies to maintain a supremacy of one ethnicity over others, those were aside policies which differed among proponents of nationalism. These policies were equally—if not more—prominent among empires, than nation states. Even among zionists, only a portion of the original 19th century zionists actually wanted to displace Palestinians (or other indigenous populations of wherever they would establish the jewish state) upon migration. That is only a portion of zionists wanted an ethnostate.

So no, nationalists of the 19th century—arabs, europeans, and others—did not necessarily want an ethnostate.

EDIT: That all said, it is a bit odd to excuse a very real and existing ethnostate, by citing a theoretical ethnostate which never actually existed and at best had very limited support among the public and rulers at the time.

[raxxorraxor]

It is neither a narrative nor ahistorical in contrast to your claims. A 10 minute walk through Israel would significantly deny your suggestion about it being an ethnostate.

That isn't some misinformation on your part, it is just a malicious lie.

[dunekid]

Please do not throw the accusations of malintent when the truth presents otherwise, by not just a 10 minute walk.

Here is an excerpt from the Judicial examination of the nature of Israeli state by it's own judges.

>At their center stands the right of every Jew to immigrate to the State of Israel, where the Jews will constitute a majority; Hebrew is the official and principal language of the State.

The state forces the nature of State, and it's principal language, on what was predominantly an Arab place, with settlers Speaking Yiddish, German, Polish and Russian. Moreover it gives a right to unchecked immigration to one ethnicity.

And it moves it's own population to occupied areas in West Bank, with freedom to carry and use assault weapons, and to Golan heights, etc in violation of humanitarian and legal aspects.

[raxxorraxor]

What has that to do with anything? I stay with that accusation as long as there are accusation of Israel being an ethnostate at least. With so many languages an ethnostate is seems even more unlikely, but that is another matter.

Fact is Israel is the country most friendly to any minority in the wider region and the adaptation or ignorance of facts here is quite telling.

[racional]

A 10 minute walk through Israel ...

"But the dominant group in Israel has internal diversity; therefore it can't be the dominant group" -- is that the counterargument, here?

[raxxorraxor]

No, that would be contradiction. Do you try to imply that a country having a "dominant group" is something that would form an ethnostate?

Perhaps I lazily assumed the parent would refer to ethnicity when throwing the accusation of an ethnostate around? Which ethnicity would that refer to in your opinion? It should be possible to answer that question if the accusation is in any way substantial.

Some ethnicities (and religions for that matter) might have serious problems in the wider region. Many do flee to Israel for safety in that case. That is the reality here and I would say that this fact is pretty hard to dispute without pointing fingers at less fortunate circumstances that maybe lead to less tolerance than there is in Israel.