US interventionism in Israel and End Times (Poll)

[Cow Poke]

Well I would have thought so, but people from Bush W to Fox's Judge Jeanine, to something like 25% of the US population according to some polls, seem to think otherwise.

I think there's a degree of ignorance as to the Israel of the Bible vs. the modern State of Israel.

[Sparko]

The current country of Israel is not the same nation of Israel of the bible. This is a a secular country. So no.

But I do find it interesting that you are so against this Jewish state, which was given back to the Jews after the atrocities done to them in WW2 by the Nazis, which you claim to hate so much.

[Starlight]

But I do find it interesting that you are so against this Jewish state

I wouldn't have thought I'm any more or less against it than an average neutral atheist who lives on the other side of the world from it and has no dog in the fight.

The people with the unusual views on Israel, are Americans. For whatever reason there seems to have been quite a lot of pro-Israeli propaganda within America, to the point where it seems like to the rest of the world that in America's eyes Israel can do no wrong, and the US will give them billions of dollars of aid and weapons year in and year out regardless of what war crimes the Israeli government commits, and America will always veto any UN resolutions critiquing Israel even if the entire rest of the world tries to enact them.

which was given back to the Jews

!!! Wow, you pack a lot in there.

The Jews had been gone for almost 2000 years. Other people had been living in the region since that time.

Imagine today, you and your family and city and people were severely persecuted. Would it be reasonable afterward to work out where your people lived 2000 years ago, and declare that you are now being "given back" that country, and that its current residents be tossed out of it to make way for you, to whom it is being "given back" to? That would be a complete joke. Similarly any talk of Palestine being "given back" to the Jews in the early 20th century was roll on the floor laughable stuff. You can't just displace an existing people (the Palestinians) and bulldoze them (literally) out of their houses, to replace their territory with a new country with a people group that migrated out of that area millennia ago but have never set foot there personally in centuries, and regard it as anything approaching reasonable or justifiable.

Historically, a better solution in the early 20th century (rather than plonk Israel on top of Palestine and surrounded by Arab nations who were Not Fans) would have been to partition off a US state and turn that into a Jewish state bordered by the much more friendly US & Canada.

Obviously in the present day you can't 'solve' the problem by removing the Israelis from Israel because two wrongs don't make a right and bulldozing a second set of people out of their homes and land of their birth doesn't undo the harms done to the first set you did that to. Obviously the area now needs to work toward a viable 2-state solution or 1-state solution that doesn't involve apartheid / Jim-Crow and recognizes both Israelis and Arabs as first class citizens (always difficult in a democracy split down racial lines because whatever group has a slight majority can achieve dominance of government).

But America's very definitely Not Helping the situation by vetoing everything all the other countries of the world try to do via the UN to help resolve the conflicts (the trouble is that the right-wing extremists in Israel want it ALL their way and they're currently getting it, so they don't want any neutral or reasonable resolution to the conflicts, and they have enough influence in the Netanyahu government for the tail to wag the dog, and there's enough big-money corruption in the US favorable to extremist Israeli interests (e.g. Sheldon Adelson) to twist the arm of US politicians), and fostering further conflict by doing things like moving its embassy.

Meanwhile Israel continues to daily bulldoze further Palestinian homes in areas the UN has explicitly told them they are not allowed to steal from the Palestinians who have lived there all their lives. Are you saying I should support that because the Holocaust happened 75 years ago? Tell me: At what point does "because the Holocaust" expire as a justification for Israel committing atrocities, war crimes, apartheid, and human rights violations in the present day? 80 years? 100 years? 500 years? 2000 years?

[KingsGambit]

Let's back up for a second. There seems to be a conflation of two different concepts here. Were people like George W. Bush actually trying to usher in the end times, or did they just believe that God wanted the Jewish people to be protected? We need to be very clear which one we're implying here.

[One Bad Pig]

Obviously the area now needs to work toward a viable 2-state solution or 1-state solution that doesn't involve apartheid / Jim-Crow and recognizes both Israelis and Arabs as first class citizens (always difficult in a democracy split down racial lines because whatever group has a slight majority can achieve dominance of government).

A 2-state solution was implemented back in 1948: Jews would get from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, and Arabs would get all of TransJordan, a significantly larger area. It wasn't "viable" because the Arabs demanded all of both sides of the river. The Palestinians still demand all of both sides of the river - except for the West Bank leadership, which pretends otherwise (the last time the Palestinians were proffered 99% of what they said they wanted, the launched the Second Intifada in response; when elections were held in the Gaza Strip, Hamas won overwhelmingly, so the West Bank leadership simply doesn't bother holding them). There is no viable peace process, and there will not be until the Palestinians love their children more than they hate Israel.

[One Bad Pig]

Let's back up for a second. There seems to be a conflation of two different concepts here. Were people like George W. Bush actually trying to usher in the end times, or did they just believe that God wanted the Jewish people to be protected? We need to be very clear which one we're implying here.

Where would the fun in that be? The percentages are all in painting your ideological foes as luridly as possible.

[Starlight]

Let's back up for a second. There seems to be a conflation of two different concepts here. Were people like George W. Bush actually trying to usher in the end times, or did they just believe that God wanted the Jewish people to be protected? We need to be very clear which one we're implying here.

I agree there are significant differences between those two positions. I guess the best way to tell them apart is whether a person makes references to end times prophesies with regard to current middle eastern politics.

Judge Jeanine clearly did reference the end times in her recent Fox News spiel. Bush W was a lot less overt, but the French President at the time wrote in his later memoirs that Bush had privately given him a justification for the Iraq war involving "Gog and Magog", which had left the French President baffled so he had to get a scholar in to explain to him about the end times prophecies.

[KingsGambit]

Bush W was a lot less overt, but the French President at the time wrote in his later memoirs that Bush had privately given him a justification for the Iraq war involving "Gog and Magog", which had left the French President baffled so he had to get a scholar in to explain to him about the end times prophecies.

That is troubling, yes.

[Terraceth]

Judge Jeanine clearly did reference the end times in her recent Fox News spiel.

The thing is... despite people claiming she did, she really didn't, at least if we're referring to this article. The supposed end time mention comes in an offhand remark at the end:

"There will be no Ottoman empires or Shia nations that will destroy Jerusalem any longer. Donald Trump recognized history. He, like King Cyrus before him, fulfilled the biblical prophecy of the gods worshipped by Jews, Christians and, yes, Muslims, that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish state and that the Jewish people deserve a righteous, free and sovereign Israel."

The thing is, there's a mention of a prophecy (not sure which one?) but nothing mentioned about the end times. The point of the remark is just to draw a favorable comparison between Trump and Cyrus, not to make any prediction of the end of the world. I guess people just saw "biblical prophecy" and automatically conflated it with end times mania but there's nothing about that actually mentioned.

[One Bad Pig]

The thing is... despite people claiming she did, she really didn't, at least if we're referring to this article. The supposed end time mention comes in an offhand remark at the end:

"There will be no Ottoman empires or Shia nations that will destroy Jerusalem any longer. Donald Trump recognized history. He, like King Cyrus before him, fulfilled the biblical prophecy of the gods worshipped by Jews, Christians and, yes, Muslims, that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish state and that the Jewish people deserve a righteous, free and sovereign Israel."

The thing is, there's a mention of a prophecy (not sure which one?) but nothing mentioned about the end times. The point of the remark is just to draw a favorable comparison between Trump and Cyrus, not to make any prediction of the end of the world. I guess people just saw "biblical prophecy" and automatically conflated it with end times mania but there's nothing about that actually mentioned.

In some fairness, there are plenty who connect the restoration of Israel with End Times.

[NorrinRadd]

That is troubling, yes.

Yeah. Wow.

ETA: This is interesting.

Since we've long heard of the Bible studies carried on by various members of the Bush 43 WH, I suspect it understates some things, but the "Gog and Magog" allegations are just as dubious, I think.

[Sparko]

I wouldn't have thought I'm any more or less against it than an average neutral atheist who lives on the other side of the world from it and has no dog in the fight.

The people with the unusual views on Israel, are Americans. For whatever reason there seems to have been quite a lot of pro-Israeli propaganda within America, to the point where it seems like to the rest of the world that in America's eyes Israel can do no wrong, and the US will give them billions of dollars of aid and weapons year in and year out regardless of what war crimes the Israeli government commits, and America will always veto any UN resolutions critiquing Israel even if the entire rest of the world tries to enact them.

!!! Wow, you pack a lot in there.

The Jews had been gone for almost 2000 years. Other people had been living in the region since that time.

Imagine today, you and your family and city and people were severely persecuted. Would it be reasonable afterward to work out where your people lived 2000 years ago, and declare that you are now being "given back" that country, and that its current residents be tossed out of it to make way for you, to whom it is being "given back" to? That would be a complete joke. Similarly any talk of Palestine being "given back" to the Jews in the early 20th century was roll on the floor laughable stuff. You can't just displace an existing people (the Palestinians) and bulldoze them (literally) out of their houses, to replace their territory with a new country with a people group that migrated out of that area millennia ago but have never set foot there personally in centuries, and regard it as anything approaching reasonable or justifiable.

Historically, a better solution in the early 20th century (rather than plonk Israel on top of Palestine and surrounded by Arab nations who were Not Fans) would have been to partition off a US state and turn that into a Jewish state bordered by the much more friendly US & Canada.

Obviously in the present day you can't 'solve' the problem by removing the Israelis from Israel because two wrongs don't make a right and bulldozing a second set of people out of their homes and land of their birth doesn't undo the harms done to the first set you did that to. Obviously the area now needs to work toward a viable 2-state solution or 1-state solution that doesn't involve apartheid / Jim-Crow and recognizes both Israelis and Arabs as first class citizens (always difficult in a democracy split down racial lines because whatever group has a slight majority can achieve dominance of government).

But America's very definitely Not Helping the situation by vetoing everything all the other countries of the world try to do via the UN to help resolve the conflicts (the trouble is that the right-wing extremists in Israel want it ALL their way and they're currently getting it, so they don't want any neutral or reasonable resolution to the conflicts, and they have enough influence in the Netanyahu government for the tail to wag the dog, and there's enough big-money corruption in the US favorable to extremist Israeli interests (e.g. Sheldon Adelson) to twist the arm of US politicians), and fostering further conflict by doing things like moving its embassy.

Meanwhile Israel continues to daily bulldoze further Palestinian homes in areas the UN has explicitly told them they are not allowed to steal from the Palestinians who have lived there all their lives. Are you saying I should support that because the Holocaust happened 75 years ago? Tell me: At what point does "because the Holocaust" expire as a justification for Israel committing atrocities, war crimes, apartheid, and human rights violations in the present day? 80 years? 100 years? 500 years? 2000 years?

wow you really don't seem to know the history of Israel, do you?

[Cow Poke]

wow you really don't seem to know the history of Israel, do you?

He got "the History of Israel" from one of those coloring books they give to little Muslim children.

[KingsGambit]

I knew Reagan was fascinated by the Gog and Magog thing. (Probably unwise on his part; it would have been advisable for him to repent of his little astrology habit before wanting the end to come.)

[Starlight]

wow you really don't seem to know the history of Israel, do you?

I note you fail to state even a single thing that was wrong in my analysis (other than it not agreeing with your own misunderstanding of the situation).

We covered Israel/Palestine in History classes at my high school. More recently I've listened to a lot of ex-Muslim and ex-Jewish US commentators on the subject. I feel I am well-versed on the history.


P.S. Here's a 12 minute video from today (best watched at 1.5x speed) of one of my favorite commentators Sam Seder (US Jewish atheist, MSNBC commentator) talking about the recent slaughter at the border plus the historical background of Palestinian settlement in the area: