7 ms·

>Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character". What the fuck?

xdennis 5y ago
>>Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character". >What the fuck? Why all the outrage? Should France not maintain it's French character?
- simiones 5y ago
  No, and France does not have any laws whatsoever protecting its French character in this sense. The Jewish character of Israel does not refer to cultural character, but to ethno-relgious character. Israel very explicitly accepts democracy only insofar as it doesn't lead to Israel being led by people who are not ethnically and/or religiously Jewish. The only other countries on Earth today that have anything similar to this type of language and laws are Hungary and, to a lesser extent, Russia (which both offer passports to foreign nationals of hungarian/russian ethnicity, for example).
1337shadow 5y ago
This article fails to explain the reasons for which proponents believe that marriage with Palestinians would threaten security or Jewish character of the country, failing the supposed neutrality of the article or compromising the supposed quality of journalists in charge of investigating this.
- rjzzleep 5y ago
  Then please enlighten us, what's the rationale?
  - 1337shadow 5y ago
    Exactly my question.
  - namlem 5y ago
    There have been cases of Israeli citizens marrying terrorists to get them into the country. Though this law is an overreaction. It's one thing to do background checks and impose a waiting period on Palestinian spouses, but a total ban is ridiculous.
    - 1337shadow 5y ago
      Thanks, at least we have an idea what this law is an overreaction of, I think telling a bit about that would have made the reuters article on-par with the journalistic quality that I expect from my standards.
    - themaninthedark 5y ago
      "Israel’s parliament on Thursday passed a law denying naturalization to Palestinians from the occupied West Bank or Gaza married to Israeli citizens" Don't agree with the headline or the law. They aren't banning spouses, they are banning naturalization of them. I don't know what other visas are applicable for Israel, in Japan if you get married you can get a spouse visa(1,3,5 year) but you won't be able to get a permanent residency right away.
      - 1337shadow 5y ago
        Right ... So we here are opposing theories about this: 1) Journalists at Reuters suck, 2) It's standard clickbait to drive traffic in, or 3) Journalists at Reuters purposedly oriented their article. Whatever the explanation is for this debacle of an article, I don't like it.
    - codedokode 5y ago
      But one does not need citizenship to explode a bomb. How is the law going to help here?
- moltke 5y ago
  Plenty of people in other countries feel the same way about their native population, I don't see why Israel gets a pass.
  - 1337shadow 5y ago
    Exactly why I'm asking why proponents believe they do: it's not in the article. Sorry if this wasn't clear, I'm non native. I'm also asking why it's not in the article. I don't mind the downvotes, but I'd love an answer ;)
    - kergonath 5y ago
      I think it’s just about making their lives miserable so they go live somewhere else.
      - 1337shadow 5y ago
        That is a probability, but seems too simple, and is in complete contradiction with all the other stuff Israel has done so far make the life of arabic Israelians enjoyable there, such as hiring arab police officers, the entry of an Arab political party—the Islamist United Arab List, or Ra’am—into government for the first time has signaled that progress could be in the offing, having the same rights as Jewish Israelis...
        kergonath 5y ago
        From what I have seen with my Israeli friends (so caveat, sample size of 2 and one of them was quite a long time ago) there seem to be a serious case of collective cognitive dissonance. It’s not that they really want to hurt the Arabs (though some of them definitely do), it’s just that they don’t see this sort of things as bad. An example is the borders walls and checkpoints. Or bombing Gaza.
      - pthread_t 5y ago
        You're not wrong. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-right-wing-party-wants-to-pay-palestinians-to-leave-israel-1.5449087 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-right-wing-party...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- basisword 5y ago
  If you start dating and marrying “the enemy” suddenly they’re not the enemy anymore. You start to understand them and treat them as an equal. As more mixing happens, opinion will start to shift and the state will start to see some resistance to the disturbing and inhuman way they treat Palestinians. The state doesn’t want to have to start treating Palestinian’s like equals. This law may not make marriage between the two groups illegal but it makes it unworkable.
  - 1337shadow 5y ago
    Interesting conspiracy theory, but the actual rationale has been shared in another comment: it's an overreaction to a number of events involving marrying terrorists to get them in the country. About "the enemy", one side is constantly attacking the other, but you might be surprised to know which is which - or, you believe you have justifications. Anyway, my conspiracy theory is that this article purposely omits contextualisation so to drive the opinion to believe that's it's a free act of pure hate, which makes it fall into the "propaganda" category rather than the "journalism" category. And I'm not even supporting this stupid bill, but I've had more than enough of this kind of jorunlasmism which purpose is apparently to tell us how to think... IMHO this jurnolims is not a solution: it's a problem. Again, not discussing the silly law, discussing about the article in itself.
    - pthread_t 5y ago
      The actual rationale was outright given by the politicians who enacted this law: it allows Israel's favored demographic to maintain a majority. It's in the article.
      - 1337shadow 5y ago
        I'm sorry, I'm non native, I've read the article again and didn't find that, can I ask you to quote that please?
        vageli 5y ago
causi 5y ago
Israel has always been the ethno-state white nationalists dream of, just centered on the wrong race.
- Phenomenit 5y ago
  Oh the irony...
  - toyg 5y ago
    I think it's actually perfection: it enshrines the conceptual absurdity of it. It's also incredibly sad, of course, from the perspective of judging the political maturity of the human race in the third millennium CE.
- dqpb 5y ago
  According to this article[1], it’s not so rosy: “another real problem remains unresolved in Israel: The visceral hatred and contempt that many “Ashkenazi” or European-origin Israelis have for “Mizrahi” Jews, and the way that the media exacerbates racial stereotypes by repeating them without self-critique.” 1. https://www.algemeiner.com/2015/04/15/israel-must-banish-its-ashkenazi-mizrahi-stereotypes/ https://www.algemeiner.com/2015/04/15/israel-must-banish-its...
simiones 5y ago
That language is an explicit part of Israel - the Declaration of Independence enshrines the idea that Israel is, first and foremost, a Jewish state. In more recent times, the nature of the state is often referred to as "Jewish and democratic". It is also enshrined in the basic laws of Israel (Israel doesn't have a constitution). This entire concept has a dedicated article on Wikipedia [0]. It's a pretty fun read for those that believe Arab(or those of other non-Jewish ehtnicities, though they are far fewer) citizens of Israel are fundamentally equal to Jewish citizens of Israel. Basically, Israel is all for equality, but with some limits - essentially, it would not be acceptable for people who are not Jewish to have an outsize power in Israel, though they are free to participate as minority parties. This is, in my opinion, the main reason why Israel has never attempted to annex the Palestinian territories. The Arab majority (or near majority today) that would form in the population would seriously challenge the idea of a Jewish and democratic state - they would be forced to stop recognizing Arabs' right to vote and/or hold office. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_and_democratic_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_and_democratic_state
- nix23 5y ago
  Yeah see, sh*t like that happens when you make a country only based on/for a religion.
  - toyg 5y ago
    Judaism is not just a religion; because of how they define membership of such religion, it's intrinsecally inseparable from a tribalistic element. Whether that ends up in outright racism, depends on who you ask.
    - zozbot234 5y ago
      Hindu religion is quite similar. In fact Judaism explicitly allows for conversion (which, to be sure, is a difficult process) whereas Hinduism only acknowledges "purification" of "ethnically/ancestrally Hindu" people who were introduced to other religions.
leovailati 5y ago
What the fuck indeed. I can't help but think of the Nuremberg laws in Germany. More specifically the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor" [1]. Sure, it's not _that bad_ (e.g., the Israeli law is not banning marriages per se) but has a similar sentiment. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws#Law_for_the_Protection_of_German_Blood_and_German_Honour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws#Law_for_the_Pro...
tablespoon 5y ago
>> Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character". > What the fuck? Israel was founded as a state for the Jewish people, so they could have some political self-determination, which given their history, doesn't seem like a such bad thing. It would entirely subvert that if it became a state controlled by other kinds of people, like all other states in the world. Let's say Muslim Arabs become the majority in Israel, wouldn't it then become the kind of place that the ancestors of the Jewish Israelis fled from (for good reason)? There are also literally dozens of other Muslim Arab states, so the transmogrification of Israel into another would be a net-negative for diversity. IMHO the comparisons of Israel to apartheid break down because the motivations are different. IIRC, the South African whites wanted to maintain dominance over a big subject population, the Jewish Israelis just want a state for themselves.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > Let's say Muslim Arabs become the majority in Israel, wouldn't it then become the kind of place that the ancestors of the Jewish Israelis fled from (for good reason)? The Jews didn't exactly jump from Judea as opposed to getting pushed: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish–Roman_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish–Roman_wars * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_Palaestina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_Palaestina Certainly there was a diaspora before that, but the (Second) Temple was still a large focus, but that ended as well: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(70_CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(70_CE) Certainly there were always Jews (and Christians, and later Muslims) in that geographic area, but to say that Jews particularly 'deserve' exclusive governing of that area may be stretching it given the two thousand years of history since they last had 'exclusivity' to it. > IMHO the comparisons of Israel to apartheid break down because the motivations are different. IIRC, the South African whites wanted to maintain dominance over a big subject population, the Jewish Israelis just want a state for themselves. A reasonable desire. The Poles also wanted a state for themselves for a while, and finally got one (after a messy twentieth century), but would it be okay for them to say "no blacks or Arabs" in their naturalization/citizenship laws? (Versus the perhaps 'simpler' idea of "must be fluent in Polish and be familiar with Polish culture/history".) Palestinians also want a state of their own, but Israel is (according to some) squatting on their land: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine Don't both have a right (?) to exist? Why does Israel deny to others what it wants for itself?

>>Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character". >What the fuck? Why all the outrage? Should France not maintain it's French character?

simiones 5y ago
No, and France does not have any laws whatsoever protecting its French character in this sense. The Jewish character of Israel does not refer to cultural character, but to ethno-relgious character. Israel very explicitly accepts democracy only insofar as it doesn't lead to Israel being led by people who are not ethnically and/or religiously Jewish. The only other countries on Earth today that have anything similar to this type of language and laws are Hungary and, to a lesser extent, Russia (which both offer passports to foreign nationals of hungarian/russian ethnicity, for example).

1337shadow 5y ago

This article fails to explain the reasons for which proponents believe that marriage with Palestinians would threaten security or Jewish character of the country, failing the supposed neutrality of the article or compromising the supposed quality of journalists in charge of investigating this.

rjzzleep 5y ago
Then please enlighten us, what's the rationale?
- 1337shadow 5y ago
  Exactly my question.
- namlem 5y ago
  There have been cases of Israeli citizens marrying terrorists to get them into the country. Though this law is an overreaction. It's one thing to do background checks and impose a waiting period on Palestinian spouses, but a total ban is ridiculous.
  - 1337shadow 5y ago
    Thanks, at least we have an idea what this law is an overreaction of, I think telling a bit about that would have made the reuters article on-par with the journalistic quality that I expect from my standards.
  - themaninthedark 5y ago
    "Israel’s parliament on Thursday passed a law denying naturalization to Palestinians from the occupied West Bank or Gaza married to Israeli citizens" Don't agree with the headline or the law. They aren't banning spouses, they are banning naturalization of them. I don't know what other visas are applicable for Israel, in Japan if you get married you can get a spouse visa(1,3,5 year) but you won't be able to get a permanent residency right away.
    - 1337shadow 5y ago
      Right ... So we here are opposing theories about this: 1) Journalists at Reuters suck, 2) It's standard clickbait to drive traffic in, or 3) Journalists at Reuters purposedly oriented their article. Whatever the explanation is for this debacle of an article, I don't like it.
  - codedokode 5y ago
    But one does not need citizenship to explode a bomb. How is the law going to help here?
moltke 5y ago
Plenty of people in other countries feel the same way about their native population, I don't see why Israel gets a pass.
- 1337shadow 5y ago
  Exactly why I'm asking why proponents believe they do: it's not in the article. Sorry if this wasn't clear, I'm non native. I'm also asking why it's not in the article. I don't mind the downvotes, but I'd love an answer ;)
  - kergonath 5y ago
    I think it’s just about making their lives miserable so they go live somewhere else.
    - 1337shadow 5y ago
      That is a probability, but seems too simple, and is in complete contradiction with all the other stuff Israel has done so far make the life of arabic Israelians enjoyable there, such as hiring arab police officers, the entry of an Arab political party—the Islamist United Arab List, or Ra’am—into government for the first time has signaled that progress could be in the offing, having the same rights as Jewish Israelis...
      - kergonath 5y ago
        From what I have seen with my Israeli friends (so caveat, sample size of 2 and one of them was quite a long time ago) there seem to be a serious case of collective cognitive dissonance. It’s not that they really want to hurt the Arabs (though some of them definitely do), it’s just that they don’t see this sort of things as bad. An example is the borders walls and checkpoints. Or bombing Gaza.
    - pthread_t 5y ago
      You're not wrong. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-right-wing-party-wants-to-pay-palestinians-to-leave-israel-1.5449087 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-right-wing-party...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
basisword 5y ago
If you start dating and marrying “the enemy” suddenly they’re not the enemy anymore. You start to understand them and treat them as an equal. As more mixing happens, opinion will start to shift and the state will start to see some resistance to the disturbing and inhuman way they treat Palestinians. The state doesn’t want to have to start treating Palestinian’s like equals. This law may not make marriage between the two groups illegal but it makes it unworkable.
- 1337shadow 5y ago
  Interesting conspiracy theory, but the actual rationale has been shared in another comment: it's an overreaction to a number of events involving marrying terrorists to get them in the country. About "the enemy", one side is constantly attacking the other, but you might be surprised to know which is which - or, you believe you have justifications. Anyway, my conspiracy theory is that this article purposely omits contextualisation so to drive the opinion to believe that's it's a free act of pure hate, which makes it fall into the "propaganda" category rather than the "journalism" category. And I'm not even supporting this stupid bill, but I've had more than enough of this kind of jorunlasmism which purpose is apparently to tell us how to think... IMHO this jurnolims is not a solution: it's a problem. Again, not discussing the silly law, discussing about the article in itself.
  - pthread_t 5y ago
    The actual rationale was outright given by the politicians who enacted this law: it allows Israel's favored demographic to maintain a majority. It's in the article.
    - 1337shadow 5y ago
      I'm sorry, I'm non native, I've read the article again and didn't find that, can I ask you to quote that please?
      - vageli 5y ago

causi 5y ago

Israel has always been the ethno-state white nationalists dream of, just centered on the wrong race.

Phenomenit 5y ago
Oh the irony...
- toyg 5y ago
  I think it's actually perfection: it enshrines the conceptual absurdity of it. It's also incredibly sad, of course, from the perspective of judging the political maturity of the human race in the third millennium CE.
dqpb 5y ago
According to this article[1], it’s not so rosy: “another real problem remains unresolved in Israel: The visceral hatred and contempt that many “Ashkenazi” or European-origin Israelis have for “Mizrahi” Jews, and the way that the media exacerbates racial stereotypes by repeating them without self-critique.” 1. https://www.algemeiner.com/2015/04/15/israel-must-banish-its-ashkenazi-mizrahi-stereotypes/ https://www.algemeiner.com/2015/04/15/israel-must-banish-its...

simiones 5y ago

That language is an explicit part of Israel - the Declaration of Independence enshrines the idea that Israel is, first and foremost, a Jewish state. In more recent times, the nature of the state is often referred to as "Jewish and democratic". It is also enshrined in the basic laws of Israel (Israel doesn't have a constitution). This entire concept has a dedicated article on Wikipedia [0]. It's a pretty fun read for those that believe Arab(or those of other non-Jewish ehtnicities, though they are far fewer) citizens of Israel are fundamentally equal to Jewish citizens of Israel. Basically, Israel is all for equality, but with some limits - essentially, it would not be acceptable for people who are not Jewish to have an outsize power in Israel, though they are free to participate as minority parties. This is, in my opinion, the main reason why Israel has never attempted to annex the Palestinian territories. The Arab majority (or near majority today) that would form in the population would seriously challenge the idea of a Jewish and democratic state - they would be forced to stop recognizing Arabs' right to vote and/or hold office. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_and_democratic_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_and_democratic_state

nix23 5y ago
Yeah see, sh*t like that happens when you make a country only based on/for a religion.
- toyg 5y ago
  Judaism is not just a religion; because of how they define membership of such religion, it's intrinsecally inseparable from a tribalistic element. Whether that ends up in outright racism, depends on who you ask.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    Hindu religion is quite similar. In fact Judaism explicitly allows for conversion (which, to be sure, is a difficult process) whereas Hinduism only acknowledges "purification" of "ethnically/ancestrally Hindu" people who were introduced to other religions.

leovailati 5y ago

What the fuck indeed. I can't help but think of the Nuremberg laws in Germany. More specifically the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor" [1]. Sure, it's not _that bad_ (e.g., the Israeli law is not banning marriages per se) but has a similar sentiment. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws#Law_for_the_Protection_of_German_Blood_and_German_Honour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws#Law_for_the_Pro...

tablespoon 5y ago

>> Proponents say the law helps ensure Israel's security and maintains its "Jewish character". > What the fuck? Israel was founded as a state for the Jewish people, so they could have some political self-determination, which given their history, doesn't seem like a such bad thing. It would entirely subvert that if it became a state controlled by other kinds of people, like all other states in the world. Let's say Muslim Arabs become the majority in Israel, wouldn't it then become the kind of place that the ancestors of the Jewish Israelis fled from (for good reason)? There are also literally dozens of other Muslim Arab states, so the transmogrification of Israel into another would be a net-negative for diversity. IMHO the comparisons of Israel to apartheid break down because the motivations are different. IIRC, the South African whites wanted to maintain dominance over a big subject population, the Jewish Israelis just want a state for themselves.

throw0101a 5y ago
> Let's say Muslim Arabs become the majority in Israel, wouldn't it then become the kind of place that the ancestors of the Jewish Israelis fled from (for good reason)? The Jews didn't exactly jump from Judea as opposed to getting pushed: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish–Roman_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish–Roman_wars * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_Palaestina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_Palaestina Certainly there was a diaspora before that, but the (Second) Temple was still a large focus, but that ended as well: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(70_CE) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(70_CE) Certainly there were always Jews (and Christians, and later Muslims) in that geographic area, but to say that Jews particularly 'deserve' exclusive governing of that area may be stretching it given the two thousand years of history since they last had 'exclusivity' to it. > IMHO the comparisons of Israel to apartheid break down because the motivations are different. IIRC, the South African whites wanted to maintain dominance over a big subject population, the Jewish Israelis just want a state for themselves. A reasonable desire. The Poles also wanted a state for themselves for a while, and finally got one (after a messy twentieth century), but would it be okay for them to say "no blacks or Arabs" in their naturalization/citizenship laws? (Versus the perhaps 'simpler' idea of "must be fluent in Polish and be familiar with Polish culture/history".) Palestinians also want a state of their own, but Israel is (according to some) squatting on their land: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine Don't both have a right (?) to exist? Why does Israel deny to others what it wants for itself?