Not governed by religious law? 9000 Israelis get married in neighbouring countries each year because their relationship wouldn't satisfy the Orthodox rabbis who run the show. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_Israel

Are ethnic minorities extended the "right of return" in Israel? Last I checked this was not the case.

What do you mean? Can a Senegalese become a citizen of the USA (or of almost any country on Earth) without a lengthy naturalization? If not, is the USA discriminatory.

Of course the right of return is just for Jews. Every country gets to set its own rules for citizenship. But Israeli citizens enjoy a reasonable democracy, with advanced civil rights, and respect human rights of others, too. Of course not at 100% but way better then all of their neighbors

The United States doesn't grant you privileges for being a Christian or being white. The United States doesn't label itself as a "white country."

Israel grants privileges for being Jewish and denies citizenship if you are from Palestine.

Think of judaism as ethnicity. You can be an atheist jew and be granted Israeli citizenship. Israel is the historic homeland of the jewish culture/people.

I'd liken it to something like Country X giving special immigration privileges if you have ancestry from country X.

They don't deny citizenship if you're palestinian, granted it's as difficult if you were trying to get citizenship coming from any other country

I have a solid conception of judaism, I've lived in places with thriving jewish communities my entire life, and am sephardic-descended myself.

> it's as difficult if you were trying to get citizenship coming from any other country

Nope, it's more so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_and_Entry_into_Isr...

In general, I am opposed to ethnostates and granting nationality based on what bloodline you come from. I think it is ironic that there is a right of "return" for Jewish people, but no such right of return for people who were displaced during the Nakba.

(For context, I'm a Jewish Israeli)

I'll be honest - I'm also opposed to "ethnostates" in general, and would much prefer the world moved beyond looking at each other based on ethnicity.

But given the fact that Israel was kind of explicitly created because the world hasn't moved past looking at ethnicity, I'm not sure what my solution is. I'm an Israeli Jew - I know that if Israel wouldn't exist, my life would be far more dangerous. And that's not a hypothetical - a huge chunk of my family were murdered for no other reason than being Jewish. The only guarantee I have that this won't happen again is that there is a strong Jewish state.

Do I like that the world is like this? No! Not at all. But that's the way the world is. And considering that most other groups do have effectively their own countries, I don't see a reason that Jews shouldn't also have their own country.

(This is all talking about the concept of an "ethnostate" in specific, not getting into the question of whether Israel being founded in the location it is was wrong in the first place - the arguments above would work just as well if Israel had been founded anywhere else.)

Yes, if they convert to Judaism. Seems reasonable, Judaism doesn't ban any ethnic minorities.

Sorry, what was this about "not being governed by religious law"?

> full rights for women, minorities, and LGBTQ

So not full rights for religious minorities. Moreover, conversion is quite difficult and the process is made much easier if you have a parent who is Jewish (which generally forms an ethnic group). Only recently were non-Orthodox conversions recognized for this purpose: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/01/world/middleeast/israel-j...

Also, if you are from Palestine or Iran, you are excluded from citizenship via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_and_Entry_into_Isr...

ie. specifically on the basis of your ethnicity &/or national origin.

I find it hard to take seriously claims of equal & full rights for minorities when those rights require converting to a different religion or being of a different ethnicity in order to apply to you.

It's important for people to understand that Judaism is a minority religion that has been historically persecuted. There is nothing wrong with working to preserve the tradition and culture, and if it ends in a small amount of ethnic homogeneity then it has to be accepted as necessary, especially since "Jewish" is both a religion and an ethnicity, so in the current historical context failing to preserve Judaism means failing to preserve Jews.

Empowering BIPOC isn't about expecting all the same things. It's about giving BIPOC the resources they need for their ethnic and cultural self-determination.

How does denying citizenship to minorities help preserve Jewish culture? I'm glad you've backed away from the "equal rights for all rhetoric" though.

It's too bad Afrikaners didn't try harder to "preserve the traditional and culture" of minority rule in South Africa as well.

Historical persecution doesn't justify enthnostates in my mind, I didn't realize this was a controversial opinion.

e: Since you've now edited your comment to include the statement about "BIPOC", Jewishness is orthogonal to "BIPOC" and most Jewish people are white.

I say that as someone of Sephardic descent.

> There is nothing wrong with working to preserve the tradition and culture, and if it ends in a small amount of ethnic homogeneity then it has to be accepted as necessary

"a small amount of ethnic homogeneity" seems like a deliberate minimization.

Israel is an apartheid state that has been persecuting based on ethnicity and religion for decades.

That's actually not as clear as you might think.

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/10/15/...

What do you think would happen if the US and all of Europe completely pulled out of the Middle East? Would Israel stay the size it is now? If not, can you really say it's "purely defensive"?

I am not sure what you are implying. Can you elaborate? Are you saying Israel would go attack its neighbors and seize land? From Egypt? Jordan? Lebanon? If so, that's an absurd proposition with absolutely no geopolitical data points to back it.

I don't think it's too absurd to imply that a country would expand into weaker neighboring countries if it could. One example where the US has intervened is Egypt -- without the US the Sinai Peninsula would surely be part of Israel right now. So yes I'd say it would seize land from Egypt, as it already has.

If the US and Europe pulled out of the Middle East it would be too chaotic to predict anything. It depends on the presence of other superpowers (Russia, China) and the pecking order that would be established between the regional powers (Turkey, Israel, Iran, Egypt + the Sunni world).

Also, "pulling out" is too simplistic. There are not only troops on the ground, but also military bases, joint exercises, weapon sales, commercial ties, industrial ties, scientific collaborations, cultural influences, and so on and so forth. Short of disappearing from the globe the US cannot just 'pull out'