Re:Gaza ceasefire deal reached between Israel, Hamas; truce ...
by reissbaker on Thursday January 16, 2025 @08:57PM
(#42733249)
Again, you're wrong. Many Palestinians stayed peacefully in Israel, and form 20% of Israeli society and e.g. vote, serve in government, etc — in fact, the pre-Bibi administration less than five years ago was a three-way coalition between a left-wing Jewish party, a secular right-wing Jewish party, and a Palestinian party: the idea that there are enough Mizrahi Jews remaining anywhere in the Middle East other than Israel that could accomplish the same thing is a fantasy. You are referring to the Palestinian refugees who live in the West Bank and Gaza, which isn't part of Israel (and until 1967 were ruled by Egypt and Jordan, and since the 90s have been self-governed). While there were violent expulsions they were less universal than those of Mizrahi Jews who were effectively entirely depopulated from the Middle East, and many Palestinians similarly left voluntarily as they believed the invading Arab armies would swiftly crush the Jewish state, and wanted to avoid being caught up in the war.
That doesn't mean the violent expulsions of the Palestinians were right, or that they didn't happen. They happened and were bad, and should be condemned. But you are wrong that the Mizrahi expulsions were less widespread or severe, or that the situation is uncomplicated. And they very obviously aren't about race, which was my original point! Mizrahi Jews and Palestinian Muslims are the same "race" by any meaningful definition, and are not genetically distinct. They are just different religions.
And not to be pedantic but you started off claiming the Mizrahi expulsions didn't happen and were "largely voluntary," and are now claiming you're "right" because some Mizrahi Jews left voluntarily: you aren't right, and denying their forced ethnic cleansing only strengthens Mizrahi resolve not to trust anyone like you — the Mizrahi, after all, are the base of the Israeli right wing for exactly these reasons (Itamar Ben-Gvir, for example, is Mizrahi; and 60% of the Mizrahi vote on average goes to the right-wing parties — the Ashenazi Jews are the opposite, and nearly 65% vote for the left-wing bloc, but the Ashenazi Jews are a minority [1]). You also invented out of whole cloth that Arab countries have paid "reparations" to Mizrahi Jews — although Israel has sought them as recently as 2019, to my knowledge no reparations have ever been paid, and certainly not on any scale like you implied.
That doesn't mean the violent expulsions of the Palestinians were right, or that they didn't happen. They happened and were bad, and should be condemned. But you are wrong that the Mizrahi expulsions were less widespread or severe, or that the situation is uncomplicated. And they very obviously aren't about race, which was my original point! Mizrahi Jews and Palestinian Muslims are the same "race" by any meaningful definition, and are not genetically distinct. They are just different religions.
And not to be pedantic but you started off claiming the Mizrahi expulsions didn't happen and were "largely voluntary," and are now claiming you're "right" because some Mizrahi Jews left voluntarily: you aren't right, and denying their forced ethnic cleansing only strengthens Mizrahi resolve not to trust anyone like you — the Mizrahi, after all, are the base of the Israeli right wing for exactly these reasons (Itamar Ben-Gvir, for example, is Mizrahi; and 60% of the Mizrahi vote on average goes to the right-wing parties — the Ashenazi Jews are the opposite, and nearly 65% vote for the left-wing bloc, but the Ashenazi Jews are a minority [1]). You also invented out of whole cloth that Arab countries have paid "reparations" to Mizrahi Jews — although Israel has sought them as recently as 2019, to my knowledge no reparations have ever been paid, and certainly not on any scale like you implied.
1: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/282545/1/cesifo1_wp1...