Why is it wrong to criticize Israel?

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Yes, Israelis criticize their government's policy all the time. In fact, there has been a lot of that recently, which may have helped Hamas succeed with their attack, as it seemed Netanyahu was more concerned with defending his position in power than with ensuring his people's security.

As for anti-Zionism, first let me point out that I have known Jews who are anti-Zionist to varying degrees, nevertheless a lot of anti-Zionism has origins in antisemitism. And nowadays, I see people trending toward what looks to me like antisemitism due to influence from anti-Zionism. A vicious circle, Like, they're saying it's wrong to establish and defend a state based on religious identity as Zionists have done, but it's also somehow worse when the people doing that are Jewish. And I believe that attitude began in Europe. During WWII, people whose countries were invaded by Germany were grateful to the allies for having won the war, but you would seldom hear them express outrage over the Holocaust. Like they didn't actually agree with the aims of the Holocaust, but they might understand what motivated it. To them, Jews were never to be trusted and support for the founding of the Jewish State wasn't on their agenda. Palestine to them was and is the Holy Land, holy to Christians. They were raised to see the Crusades as a heroic chapter of the Middle Ages. They never anticipated or hoped for the restauration of Solomon's kingdom.

Given that the State of Israel has now existed for 75 years and was the ultimate consequence of Zionism, you can see why Jews who feel connected to Israel (most of them) see modern anti-Zionism as an existential threat. Basically you are talking about deporting roughly 5 million Jews to countries in which they are often hated. Even if you don't wish for that scenario, or think it exaggerated, you should be able to understand why a lot of people, at least in the US, don't automatically embrace anti-Zionism.

Over 50 million people were killed in WW2. I reject this idea that it was the duty of ‘the West’ to help ‘the Jews’ as if nobody else’s lives mattered, let alone the idea that ‘the West’ now has a duty to give Israel the green light to do whatever they want to the Palestinians.



What is your point? Just because the Nazis persecuted disabled people, we’re supposed to accept Israel’s persecution of the Palestinians?



Defending themselves with Western values? What does that even mean?

Are we supposed to excuse the way Israel massacres thousands of children, bombs hospitals, cuts off the water, food and electricity supply to a whole population, and leaves premature babies to die of thirst and starvation in incubators – all because of some guff about ‘Western values’?

The whole idea that Israel is defending itself is bogus since Israel is the occupying power.



Got that, everyone? Apparently, Palestinian society is ‘despicable’.

This idea about Hamas using children as human shields is just a propaganda lie that Israel has been telling for years to justify their murdering (and, frankly, deliberate targeting) of civilians. Since Israel clearly has no qualms about bombing hospitals and schools, the idea that Hamas fighters would think they are going to be safe hiding behind some kid’s buggy is ridiculous.

Here in Britain, there is still some embarrassment about British actions in Northern Ireland, but those actions were never a fraction as criminal as Israel’s actions against Palestine. The British often had no idea where the IRA terrorists were based, but the British never responded by carpet-bombing whole Catholic neighbourhoods, nor ethnically cleansing thousands of Catholics from their homes.



More deceptive propaganda. Here you’re pretending the conflict started on 7th October 2023, while ignoring the fact that the Palestinians have been living under Israeli occupation for over 50 years.

Most people probably don’t know that the people of Gaza tried peacefully protesting in 2018, by marching to the border and demanding an end to Israel’s blockade and asking to be allowed to return to their ancestral homeland. Israel responded by shooting at the protestors. Between the first protest in 2018 and Nov 2019, over 35,000 protestors were injured.



I don’t know what media you’ve been watching, but from what I can see, here in the UK (as in the US, as in most Western countries) the media has been covering for Israel to a disgusting degree. However, Israel’s actions these past few weeks have been so egregious that every so often nuggets of truth slip through, which probably looks like ‘pro-Palestine’ bias if you are a Zionist fanatic.



Yet more propaganda aimed at justifying the mass-murder of civilians.

Are the civilians of the US and the UK legitimate targets for state-sponsored mass murder on account of all the people their governments killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? The US and the UK are ‘democracies’ after all, whereas there hasn’t been an election in Gaza since 2006.



Don’t worry, there are some other people on this forum who come out with the same sort of pro-Israel propaganda as yourself. I’d be pretty embarrassed by Israel’s recent actions if I were them, but people on here are rarely prepared to be seen changing their minds.

I suppose I should be sympathetic, since there was a short period several years ago when I believed Israel’s lies. It just amazes me to see they’re still coming out with the same rubbish all these years later. I expect it won’t be too long before we’re reading posts on this forum about how “the Palestinians don’t really exist” and “the 1948 Nakba was really the Arabs’ fault”.

Israel earned that anger fair and square, no amount of blaming "the woke" will change that.

Indeed it is highly likely that many Palestinian "Arabs" are descended from the ancient Israelites, just like Jews. See Jews and Arabs Share Recent Ancestry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQJt8dw ... eraEnglish

Could you please provide a synopsis?

It started sympathetic due to the holocaust.

“Shared values” which includes religion.

Strategic interests align.

Domestic political considerations. Mentioned were the Christian Fundamentalist voting bloc, defense contracts in key congressional districts.

Any mention of Jonathan Pollard?

I guess I'll have to start the video at least to see how long it is.

It isn't morally worse when Jews do it than when anyone else does it, but Israel is more in the worldwide public eye, simply because Israel/Palestine happens to be a "Holy Land" for more than half the world's population. Thus it gets both more fervent denunciation and more fervent support, from many more people, than it would otherwise.

Had any of the Western colonial powers decided to exile all their Jews to some other, more obscure place in the world, like maybe some south Pacific island, and had said island then eventually become a Jewish state, then it would not have gotten nearly so much worldwide attention, pro or con, no matter how brutally the indigenous people were slaughtered or displaced. (And this would likely still be true even if the island were later deemed to be strategically valuable, e.g. rich in oil or minerals.)


Hmmm, were the Crusades really viewed "as a heroic chapter of the Middle Ages"? Seems to me that, ever since the 1700's or so, the typical Western view of the Crusades has been mixed, neither entirely "heroic" nor entirely negative. See the Wikipedia article on Historiography of the Crusades.

It should also be noted that Zionism wasn't originally a Jewish idea. Influential evangelical Christians, in both the U.S.A. and the U.K., were advocating Zionism long before Herzl came along. Until the World War II era or so, most Jews opposed Zionism, out of fear that it would be used primarily as an excuse to exile Jews from Western countries.


No, that is far from the main reason why "a lot of people, at least in the US, don't automatically embrace anti-Zionism." It seems to me that the main reason why the U.S. is so pro-Zionist is the organizational strength of the pro-Zionist movement here in the U.S.A.

The pro-Zionist movement is backed not just by Jews but also by the much larger number of Zionist evangelical Christians, who are the actual originators of Zionism, and whose primary motive is not any concern whatsoever about the well-being of Jews as people. On the contrary, if all or most Jews end up living in Israel, as urged by both Christian and Jewish religious Zionists, then they'll be sitting ducks for whatever happens during the prophesied battle of Armageddon, if said battle ever comes to pass.

Many ordinary Americans, other than Jews and evangelical Christians, passively accept Zionism based on the more secularly-justified propaganda put out by the organized Zionist movement, e.g. the "shared values" and "democracy" arguments. But it doesn't seem likely to me that very many, if any, of the more passionately pro-Israel people are motivated primarily by these arguments.

Be that as it may, "deporting roughly 5 million Jews to countries in which they are often hated" is obviously not the best solution to the Israel/Palestine problem. IMO the only good longterm solution, albeit not a popular one at the moment, is a single bi-national state of some kind.

This video provides some important historical context.

One of the reasons why the U.S. is allied with Israel has to do with the history of the Cold War. Because the U.S.A. happened to be the first country to recognize Israel as a nation-state, nearby Arab countries became allied with the Soviet Union, thereby deepening the U.S.A.'s alliance with Israel.

One disagreement I have with the video: I think it places too much emphasis on "shared values" and "democracy," as alleged reasons for U.S. support for Israel. In reality, "shared values" and "democracy" really have not, in themselves, had very much influence on U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. government has had a long history of supporting tyrannical monarchies/dictatorships (when they happened to be geopolitically useful) and overthrowing democracies that happened to be too left-leaning for the U.S. establishment's tastes.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 03 Dec 2023, 7:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What, specifically, do you see as the key relevant strategic interests?

That's an excellent point. Britain somehow managed to resolve the "troubles" in Northern Ireland, at least for the most part, without carpet-bombing Catholic neighborhoods, and without trying to deport all the Catholics to Ireland proper.

Perhaps you could start a separate thread about how the British eventually managed to make peace in Northern Ireland, and what lessons Israel could perhaps learn from this if it were willing? Of course, Israel vs. the Palestinians is a different situation, but perhaps there might be some worthwhile lessons nonetheless.


Thanks for bringing these attempted peaceful protests to our attention. I just now looked this up: 2018–2019 Gaza border protests, Wikipedia. Perhaps I'll post more info about this in a separate thread.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 03 Dec 2023, 8:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The video which I was trying to summarize mentioned the Soviet Union. Today it would be Iran and Russia.

I don't think it's wrong to criticize Israel, but it can be a very slippery slope since criticism of Israel is often anti-Semitic in nature, and sometimes downright distorts facts (such as perpetuating the stereotype of all Jews being white, even though Israel has plenty of Jews of color).

Because of the Holocaust and things that the Nazis did to the Jews. I stand with Israel myself.

Even when Israel does horrible things like this?


Israel Spokesman Stuns CNN’s Wolf Blitzer With Brutal Admission