Israel to World: "Suck It."

I don't know a single Jewish person under 40 who is a Zionist, and I have many Jewish friends.

I know Jewish people under 40 who are zionists. I’m relayed to them.

Related.

I know lots of Jewish people under 40 who are Zionists but few who support Likud. The political center of gravity is Rabin and his murder is seen as a triumph for the right and a catastrophe for Zionism.

my experience as a jew under 40: "zionism" of a sort has been drilled into my head since i started hebrew school in second grade. i belonged to a very liberal reform synagogue, and even in that curriculum we were taught, well, this: "israel is the jewish homeland and is the main safeguard to preventing another holocaust, yet there are those who wish to destroy israel (and therefore the jewish people) to this day." it's hard to shake that, and i think even many secular, non-practicing jews share that view of israel, whether they've absorbed it through high holiday services, or birthright, or their own family trips to israel.

i do think that this particular crisis is causing some in my community to think a bit more critically about the role of israel in judaism, and about the state's treatment of the palestinian people. however, once the reports of rising anti-semitic incidents started coming through the media, that took over the conversation, with people who hadn't otherwise commented on the i-p conflict posting about how anti-semitism is never acceptable, etc, and lots and lots of blue squares to express solidarity.

the thing that bothers me: obviously anti-semitism is always despicable, but it's clear that some people are conflating anti-israeli government statements with anti-semitism and i get the feeling that even some who do understand the distinction are still using the threat of anti-semitism as a wall between themselves and unpleasant thoughts about what israel is doing in gaza and the west bank.

forgive the ramble.

*some people in the third paragraph, meaning "some jewish friends, acquaintances, and social media follows"

good post

I know lots of Jewish people under 40 who are Zionists but few who support Likud. The political center of gravity is Rabin and his murder is seen as a triumph for the right and a catastrophe for Zionism.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, June 1, 2021 2:20 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, that's my experience as well. I would also say that for people over 40, it certainly leans more towards peace/Rabin/disliking Likud, the generational gap is shrinking.

unfortunately in Israel the political center of gravity has moved far in the other direction

yup agree with eephus and VHS. I'm pretty connected to more deeply/traditionally Jewish contexts and institutions, and have various friends on social media who see Israel condemned for their actions and still go back to the tried-and-true (in Zionist circles), "what do you want them to do?! Hamas is firing rockets at them!" But even the people saying that stuff are basically all ant-Netanyahu and promote a more "center-left" Zionist agenda.

I have a good number of friends in Israel too and we are basically politically simpatico, which makes it hard to square how the country has tilted so far to the right.

~anti-Netanyahu

In my limited experience, in France they are much more conservative and pro-likud, but that's just what I saw and heard around me in my visits there. In general, my jewish circles are very ashkenazi and north american, and I have always wondered if sephardim/mizrahim in Israel are more conservative, maybe someone here could answer.

Yeah good point I am in the Ashkenaz bubble as well

thanks for all these answers, everyone.

The Jewish community in the UK now overwhelmingly votes Tory, in fact it's politically the most right wing 'community' in the UK. It's been like that for a while but it really began to swing right when Ed Miliband (who was Jewish) signalled a change in Labour's policy towards Israel and just went through the roof with Corbyn.

history of the mizrahi vote:

It was from the political outsiders, the right wing of Israeli politics — Likud and its precursor Herut — that expressions of respect for the Mizrahi contribution to building the country came.

By 1977, the Mizrahi population was large enough to help bring Likud to power for the first time.

During the 1981 elections, then prime minister Menachem Begin exploited the resentment that the Mizrahim in the development towns felt toward the nearby kibbutzim with their vast reserves of land by invoking the “millionaire (Ashkenazi) kibbutzniks with their swimming pools.”

Today, many of the kibbutzim are broke and the development towns have swimming pools.

But old symbols remain potent long after reality has changed.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/why-the-left-keeps-failing-in-the-pro-likud-periphery-home-to-25-of-israelis/

Thanks!

imo it's insidious that Israel has no absentee voting for citizens living abroad, so any Israelis who leave in disgust no longer have any electoral power

israel's left left israel

The Jewish community in the UK now overwhelmingly votes Tory, in fact it's politically the most right wing 'community' in the UK. It's been like that for a while but it really began to swing right when Ed Miliband (who was Jewish) signalled a change in Labour's policy towards Israel and just went through the roof with Corbyn.

― Are Animated Dads Getting Hotter? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 1 June 2021 19:31 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i have some notion that it started earlier, like thatcher earlier?

According to this article, Miliband was the first time in UK electoral history that the majority of British Jews voted Conservative.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/is-there-a-jewish-vote-in-the-british-elections-402054

Maureen Lipman was very vocal against Ed at the time and quit the party, she quit Equity last week as well. Some people will never be happy with anything other than unmitigated approval for everything the state of Israel does.

Some people will manufacture any excuse for ending up as Tories.

see also : Ian Austin and Lord Walney. Strong voices against antisemitism in the UK who both got peerages and didn't have fuck all to say when the UK PM invited an actual neo-nazi to 10 Downing st.

maybe "inviting" is a bit strong, but he laid out the red carpet and helped legitimise a genuine fascist leader.

not a lot of actual data in that article

There isn't but I'm sure there's stats somewhere.

In the poll that Jpost article cited, 51% of respondents said they voted for Cameron in 2010.

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/huge-majority-of-british-jews-will-vote-tory-jc-poll-reveals-1.66001

might be hard to find truly reliable numbers of course

apparently thatcher consistently won the jewish vote in her constituency too

No great achievement for a Tory in that consituency.

there are genuine antisemitic tropes that seemingly go without criticism from right-wing UK Jewish publications, that originate from the right-wing of the UK Labour party as well as from the tories. Like when Nandy said antisemitism is "a form of racism that punches upwards instead of downwards"

o_O

that was mild, there was lots of 'anticapitalism is antisemitism because jews are all bankers' discourse from the right that was apparently totally fine and normal (one labour mp said almost exactly that as i recall)

the hidden irony in this is that the dominant Christian cultures of Europe long considered banking to be usury, but the aristocracy badly wanted to borrow money, so they purposely reserved the sinful business of banking for jews.

just a few more hours until Lapid's mandate runs out...

Israel to Netanyahu: "Suck It."

It's only taken them 12 years.

Congratulations to you @yairlapid and to the heads of the parties on your agreement to form a government. We expect the Knesset will convene as soon as possible to ratify the government, as required.

— Reuven Rivlin (@PresidentRuvi) June 2, 2021

Arab parties (well, the ones that can stomach Bennett) part of the governing coalition for the first time.

I will be honest, I took Netanyahu's stoking of hostilities to be first and foremost his icily cynical way of heading off the possibility of a governing coalition without him, and I thought it would work.

Who knows, maybe it still will. They still have to hold it together long enough for a vote, after all.

Now let's hope a restrained Bennet is indeed that, restrained, and that it's a better option than Netanyahu.

I think it will be better for Israeli citizens...doubt it will make any difference in the wellbeing of Arab residents of Gaza and the West Bank

Arab parties (well, the ones that can stomach Bennett) part of the governing coalition for the first time.

oops

Arab parties (well, the ones that can stomach Bennett) part of the governing coalition for the first time.

not really the first time, old Labour used to have support from Arab parties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_satellite_lists

Definitely the first time a religious Muslim Shura council gave the OK to an Israeli governing coalition, however

This interview is very interesting, Naftali Bennett is just a massive tool:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/bennett-im-more-right-wing-than-bibi-but-i-dont-use-the-tools-of-hate/

Not only does he categorically rule out a Palestinian state but he's also a startup bro

NFTs for Palestine.

lol don't give them any ideas

I read this in the paper edition (there have been other, better NYT Op-Eds than this - and worse) but I thought it was striking that this self-consciously statesman-like essay closes with a paragraph that could easily be endorsed by both Hamas and the Israeli hard right:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/opinion/israel-palestinians-two-state-solution.html

An agreement will be possible when pragmatic leaders on both sides understand that the price of not having an agreement for their people is far higher than the price of compromise.

i.e. No Justice, No Peace

This was better - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/opinion/israel-palestinian-citizens-racism-discrimination.html