[elcritch]

Zionist settlement started in the 1870’s on legally purchased land. Most of that land was uninhabited. Tel Aviv was founded on literal sand dunes in 1908 and is Israel’s most populated area. Jaffa was the closest Arab city which is still predominately Arab. Northern Israel become majority Jewish without military force under the Ottomans and then British empires.

However even then there were regular pogroms and killing of Jews by the Arabs as there had been for centuries before.

The British Mandate also turned away ships full of Ashkenazi Jews Holocaust survivors as well.

Don’t forget the nearly 850,000 MENA Jews expelled from across every Arab country after Israel was created.

It’s not nearly as cut and dry as many believe.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Perhaps not, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who was vaguely favourable towards Israel before the invasion, and now, having watched what's been done in the name of "safety" with horror, considers the country a rogue far-right state run by corrupt criminals guilty of a very long list of crimes, just one of which was the creation of one of the most organised sex trafficking and sex abuse networks in recent history.

Quite the record.

But I don't see this as a specifically Jewish thing. There is clearly a cabal of extremely wealthy people who consider themselves above the law. The cabal includes factions of different ethnicities, and they seem to enjoy - and profit from - promoting nationalism and race hate and getting the peasants to wage war on each other.

We seem to be in one of the regular cycles where these crazies get out of control.

I'm sure it's all very entertaining. But no doubt modern PR and astroturfing techniques will make sure no one's opinion becomes so unfavourable that personal accountability becomes a real risk for these criminals.

Even so. It's really not a very satisfactory situation.

[simoom22]

Your version is plenty uncut and soggy as well. A significant amount of land buys involved evictions of peasants. There was plenty of violence in the arab revolts against British rule, when Jewish militia acted as British auxiliaries. Pogroms were very rare in pre-modern Arab lands, and usually related to factional politics, since jews often had significant political rights and power. The British suck. Most MENA Jews migrated voluntarily, and there's clear evidence that mossad had projects to heighten tensions in those countries, including even planning the bombing of synagogues.

[LorenPechtel]

And if a land buy evicts peasants that is illegal how?

You can sell your property, the lease goes along with it but the new owner has no obligation to renew the lease when it's up.

[timcobb]

> Most MENA Jews migrated voluntarily

This is silly... what mass migration happens "voluntarily" lol. MENA Jews weren't even Zionists until they force-became Zionists.

But yeah, good-faith debates should steer clear of the "legally purchased" bit, it's kind of absurd to ignore that buying land from absentee rich landlords and evicting the longstanding residents is not going to (rightfully, IMO) create a lot of animosity.