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Americans are more prone to this kind of thing because they're already used to overriding settler-colonial propaganda influencing their mindset; Zionist propaga

Americans are more prone to this kind of thing because they're already used to overriding settler-colonial propaganda influencing their mindset; Zionist propaganda is just another flavor.

slipframe 5y ago
Lots of countries have similar sorts of histories I think; while I'm sure what you say is part of the equation, I think it doesn't fully explain why Americans are much more likely to support Israel than people in other countries (for instance, Australia.) I think another piece of this puzzle is the popularity of Evangelical Christianity in America, particularly Christian Zionism and the belief that the state of Israel is a necessary precondition for the return of their Messiah. That's the sort of rhetoric I was raised with anyway.
- Bayart 5y ago
  It's rooted in British Israelism [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Israelism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Israelism
  - joecool1029 5y ago
    That's an absolutely wild read. I've never heard of this before today, thanks.
xupybd 5y ago
It is hard to say Israel has less right to the land it took over than say New Zealand. The main difference is how long ago the settling happened.
- 2939223 5y ago
  Except Pakeha aren't carpet-bombing Maori in droves.
- DoctorNick 5y ago
  Yes, that's correct.
- crooked-v 5y ago
  New Zealand is a bad example to use, given that it's one of the few cases where settlement was based on a non-coerced treaty intended to actively integrate the native people as equal citizens with the settlers. While the NZ government later spent about a hundred years ignoring the treaty and treating the Maori badly, the treaty itself, the process that led to it, and the actions of the settler leaders at the time of its signing had a legitimacy that most other cases of colonization and settlement (including that of Israel) have generally lacked.
  - refurb 5y ago
    Israel has a lack of legitimacy? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Pla...
- let_me_ask_this 5y ago
  In that case Israel should follow New Zealand's example and allow all Palestinians to become citizens, with full rights, stop being an ethnostate for Jews, stop with the racism and start behaving like the progressive country they pretend to be.
  - 2939223 5y ago
    Such behaviour conflicts with a core tenet of Judaism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_as_the_chosen_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_as_the_chosen_people
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      No it doesn't. > In Judaism, "chosenness" is the belief that the Jews, via descent from the ancient Israelites, are the chosen people, i.e. selected to be in a covenant with God. > This view, however, does not always preclude a belief that God has a relationship with other peoples—rather, Judaism held that God had entered into a covenant with all humankind, and that Jews and non-Jews alike have a relationship with God. Biblical references as well as rabbinic literature support this view: Moses refers to the "God of the spirits of all flesh",[4] and the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) also identifies prophets outside the community of Israel. Based on these statements, some rabbis theorized that, in the words of Nethanel ibn Fayyumi, a Yemenite Jewish theologian of the 12th century, "God permitted to every people something he forbade to others...[and] God sends a prophet to every people according to their own language."(Levine, 1907/1966) > The Mishnah continues, and states that anyone who kills or saves a single human, not Jewish, life, has done the same (save or kill) to an entire world. The Tosefta, an important supplement to the Mishnah,[5] also states: "Righteous people of all nations have a share in the world to come" (Sanhedrin 105a). Which part of this is about racial supremacy?
      - 2939223 5y ago
        Chosenness by definition is divisive. From antiquity to the present, the idea of being divinely chosen has had powerful and often pernicious effects. If only one group has been divinely chosen then others have not been, and that justifies subjugating them and taking their land. Such rationalization has been used repeatedly, in the most virulent forms of anti-Semitism, in the enslavement and even extermination of aboriginal peoples, and in the confiscation of land by force from those not chosen—be they Canaanites, Jews, Muslims, Africans, Native Americans, Palestinians, and too many others.
- smsm42 5y ago
  There's a little difference though... There wasn't an English state in New Zealand since about 10th century BCE.
  - xupybd 5y ago
    If we say you can claim land your people held in the 10th century the globe is in trouble.
    - smsm42 5y ago
      "in" and "since" is somewhat different. Do Chinese have a claim on China? Do Japanese have a claim on Japan? Are Spaniards OK to live in Spain? Are Jews ok to live in Judea? Looks like for all of these questions the answer is "duh, yes for sure" - except for the last one. I wonder...
      - xupybd 5y ago
        The Romans destroyed the Jewish state and renamed the area. I don't celebrate that but I'm sure that there has not been a Jewish state since the 10th century. That is the difference.
rayiner 5y ago
That’s a hilarious assertion. One of the things we found puzzling when we moved here was why Americans spent so much time in school studying all the bad things the country did. Totally bizarre to us, coming from Asia.
- istjohn 5y ago
  Why wouldn't we want to learn from our mistakes? Ignoring past mistakes is a recipe to repeat them. German students are taught about the Holocaust for the same reason.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    I’m making a different point. The idea that Americans whitewash their history is absurd compared how kids are educated in nearly the whole rest of the world.
- tptacek 5y ago
  Which bad things should we stop studying in school?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- refurb 5y ago
  I don’t have any issues with teaching about American history and things that were done that were wrong (in hindsight or at the time). But what you might be referring to is this bizarre self-flagellation that has grown in popularity which focuses exclusively on the errors and ignores any of the good things about America. My personal opinion is it’s because the people doing it want to remake America - throw away the old and create a “more just” society (obviously following their politics). If you can use this self-criticism to destroy the foundation of America (through association) you can get rid of those pesky ideals preventing you from transforming society. Things like individual freedom, personal responsibility, inalienable rights, judging the individuals by their own actions and not the sins of their ancestors, etc.
LarryEt 5y ago
Do you not realize how dumb this makes you sound?
- dang 5y ago
  Hacker News is for a different sort of discussion than this, as the site guidelines make clear: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You can't break them like this, regardless of how dumb something sounds or you feel it sounds. We ban accounts that do that, and since you've already done this at least once elsewhere (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27642465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27642465) I've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned on HN, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
jdjdbxbfn 5y ago
Jews and christians were there before Islam even existed and Arabs invade. Talking about propaganda, indeed the craziest of the world is Pallywood because it's so blunt, using takkia like this will give good points to go to heaven faster. I'm from Algeria so I could go on all day long and even complain about the Arabs of FLN who stripped my grand parents from their lands. But instead, I'd rather complain about how silly a lot of people are, eating pallywood propaganda without a single doubt, I mean, it's not like this article was showing the posts in question at all, the mere partial description they made of it are tailored to correspond the propaganda, really is there someone to believe that using the word "resist" online is enough to get an Israeli arrest? > I will not succumb to the “peaceful solution,” Yeah, maybe they were arrested for incitation because of the part that was before the "resist" line pointed by this article. So that's some nice takkia right there, all this to get some good points, and y'all fall for it like school kids, that's so cute!

Americans are more prone to this kind of thing because they're already used to overriding settler-colonial propaganda influencing their mindset; Zionist propaganda is just another flavor.

slipframe 5y ago

Lots of countries have similar sorts of histories I think; while I'm sure what you say is part of the equation, I think it doesn't fully explain why Americans are much more likely to support Israel than people in other countries (for instance, Australia.) I think another piece of this puzzle is the popularity of Evangelical Christianity in America, particularly Christian Zionism and the belief that the state of Israel is a necessary precondition for the return of their Messiah. That's the sort of rhetoric I was raised with anyway.

Bayart 5y ago
It's rooted in British Israelism [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Israelism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Israelism
- joecool1029 5y ago
  That's an absolutely wild read. I've never heard of this before today, thanks.

xupybd 5y ago

It is hard to say Israel has less right to the land it took over than say New Zealand. The main difference is how long ago the settling happened.

2939223 5y ago
Except Pakeha aren't carpet-bombing Maori in droves.
DoctorNick 5y ago
Yes, that's correct.
crooked-v 5y ago
New Zealand is a bad example to use, given that it's one of the few cases where settlement was based on a non-coerced treaty intended to actively integrate the native people as equal citizens with the settlers. While the NZ government later spent about a hundred years ignoring the treaty and treating the Maori badly, the treaty itself, the process that led to it, and the actions of the settler leaders at the time of its signing had a legitimacy that most other cases of colonization and settlement (including that of Israel) have generally lacked.
- refurb 5y ago
  Israel has a lack of legitimacy? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Pla...
let_me_ask_this 5y ago
In that case Israel should follow New Zealand's example and allow all Palestinians to become citizens, with full rights, stop being an ethnostate for Jews, stop with the racism and start behaving like the progressive country they pretend to be.
- 2939223 5y ago
  Such behaviour conflicts with a core tenet of Judaism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_as_the_chosen_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_as_the_chosen_people
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    No it doesn't. > In Judaism, "chosenness" is the belief that the Jews, via descent from the ancient Israelites, are the chosen people, i.e. selected to be in a covenant with God. > This view, however, does not always preclude a belief that God has a relationship with other peoples—rather, Judaism held that God had entered into a covenant with all humankind, and that Jews and non-Jews alike have a relationship with God. Biblical references as well as rabbinic literature support this view: Moses refers to the "God of the spirits of all flesh",[4] and the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) also identifies prophets outside the community of Israel. Based on these statements, some rabbis theorized that, in the words of Nethanel ibn Fayyumi, a Yemenite Jewish theologian of the 12th century, "God permitted to every people something he forbade to others...[and] God sends a prophet to every people according to their own language."(Levine, 1907/1966) > The Mishnah continues, and states that anyone who kills or saves a single human, not Jewish, life, has done the same (save or kill) to an entire world. The Tosefta, an important supplement to the Mishnah,[5] also states: "Righteous people of all nations have a share in the world to come" (Sanhedrin 105a). Which part of this is about racial supremacy?
    - 2939223 5y ago
      Chosenness by definition is divisive. From antiquity to the present, the idea of being divinely chosen has had powerful and often pernicious effects. If only one group has been divinely chosen then others have not been, and that justifies subjugating them and taking their land. Such rationalization has been used repeatedly, in the most virulent forms of anti-Semitism, in the enslavement and even extermination of aboriginal peoples, and in the confiscation of land by force from those not chosen—be they Canaanites, Jews, Muslims, Africans, Native Americans, Palestinians, and too many others.
smsm42 5y ago
There's a little difference though... There wasn't an English state in New Zealand since about 10th century BCE.
- xupybd 5y ago
  If we say you can claim land your people held in the 10th century the globe is in trouble.
  - smsm42 5y ago
    "in" and "since" is somewhat different. Do Chinese have a claim on China? Do Japanese have a claim on Japan? Are Spaniards OK to live in Spain? Are Jews ok to live in Judea? Looks like for all of these questions the answer is "duh, yes for sure" - except for the last one. I wonder...
    - xupybd 5y ago
      The Romans destroyed the Jewish state and renamed the area. I don't celebrate that but I'm sure that there has not been a Jewish state since the 10th century. That is the difference.

rayiner 5y ago

That’s a hilarious assertion. One of the things we found puzzling when we moved here was why Americans spent so much time in school studying all the bad things the country did. Totally bizarre to us, coming from Asia.

istjohn 5y ago
Why wouldn't we want to learn from our mistakes? Ignoring past mistakes is a recipe to repeat them. German students are taught about the Holocaust for the same reason.
- rayiner 5y ago
  I’m making a different point. The idea that Americans whitewash their history is absurd compared how kids are educated in nearly the whole rest of the world.
tptacek 5y ago
Which bad things should we stop studying in school?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
refurb 5y ago
I don’t have any issues with teaching about American history and things that were done that were wrong (in hindsight or at the time). But what you might be referring to is this bizarre self-flagellation that has grown in popularity which focuses exclusively on the errors and ignores any of the good things about America. My personal opinion is it’s because the people doing it want to remake America - throw away the old and create a “more just” society (obviously following their politics). If you can use this self-criticism to destroy the foundation of America (through association) you can get rid of those pesky ideals preventing you from transforming society. Things like individual freedom, personal responsibility, inalienable rights, judging the individuals by their own actions and not the sins of their ancestors, etc.

LarryEt 5y ago

Do you not realize how dumb this makes you sound?

dang 5y ago
Hacker News is for a different sort of discussion than this, as the site guidelines make clear: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You can't break them like this, regardless of how dumb something sounds or you feel it sounds. We ban accounts that do that, and since you've already done this at least once elsewhere (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27642465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27642465) I've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned on HN, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

jdjdbxbfn 5y ago

Jews and christians were there before Islam even existed and Arabs invade. Talking about propaganda, indeed the craziest of the world is Pallywood because it's so blunt, using takkia like this will give good points to go to heaven faster. I'm from Algeria so I could go on all day long and even complain about the Arabs of FLN who stripped my grand parents from their lands. But instead, I'd rather complain about how silly a lot of people are, eating pallywood propaganda without a single doubt, I mean, it's not like this article was showing the posts in question at all, the mere partial description they made of it are tailored to correspond the propaganda, really is there someone to believe that using the word "resist" online is enough to get an Israeli arrest? > I will not succumb to the “peaceful solution,” Yeah, maybe they were arrested for incitation because of the part that was before the "resist" line pointed by this article. So that's some nice takkia right there, all this to get some good points, and y'all fall for it like school kids, that's so cute!