I was just reading about how a current Israeli war minister’s son died in combat and it made me wonder that if Israeli’s politicians who make these decisions know their family will be affected by it personally and directly, does that lend towards the suggestion that it is more likely they are making genuinely ethically and morally correct decisions to engage in war stuff given their personal skin i the game?
It would seem totally different from American politicians like Cheney who create bullshit geopolitical conflicts knowing full well their progeny will never be touched by it…
Edit: I’m assuming they actually care/give a shit about their offspring and family, even if only just for appearences
In theory. In practice, I doubt it.
The Israeli parliament consists of 120 politicians. Their children would need:
- to not be Haredi, which are exempt from service
- to be between the ages of 18-21, which is when their mandatory service runs
- to serve in combat units
Chances are only a few of them answer this criteria (even less considering the extremist portion of this specific government which didn’t serve, and their children likely don’t serve either), and even they are likely not above pulling strings to get them out of danger. Except for that politician you talked about, apparently.
That is absolute bullshit about the Heredi. Its like, ok you can live in this unlrotected/untaxed area and be self-governing. Best of luck, let the Lord ur God fight off your/his enemies 🙄
They are gonna have to form their own army and I suspect they’re way to freaking soft and parasitic to be able to do so unilaterally or even on Easy mode
Edit: do they at least pay taxes or are they basically a completely mooching cancer on Israeli society that just fucks and prays and creates sewage they dont bear the cost of?
I’m not familiar enough with this to answer your question. But I know for sure that Bibi’s brother, Yoni, was a war hero. He died in the line of duty. So it isn’t like they are completely disconnected from war.
And I think a ministers kid was killed in Gaza today.
That’s what I was referencing. Not that I want to say Israel is blameless or the West Bank expansion shit isn’t straight up evil colonialism shit, but its harder to write them off if they’re putting their own children in harms way in the furtherance of what I would otherwise dismiss as plain geopolitical thieving.
Yeah, I mean just because they have something staked on the outcome doesn’t mean that the state of Israel isn’t an apartheid state. I don’t think any state is good, but separating citizens based on race or religion seems pretty fucking evil. And it is worse when you take an indigenous peoples land. As an American, I feel this deeply since we followed this same path dispossessing indigenous people while enslaving Africans. Not great… and I hope we start to rectify those evils sometime soon.
But jews lived next to non Jewish Arabs in Palestine for generations peacefully. And Jewish Arabs lived peacefully all over the Middle East. But the nekba changed those dynamics. Arab Jews are discriminated against in Israel and a lot have been ejected from their old Arab countries. The whole thing of boiling a person down to their ethnicity or religion just is not a great thing.
There needs to be a political settlement soon. Palestinians deserve better and Israelis deserve peace.
How do most Israelis feel about the West Bank or are they aware of it?
Is the West Bank the foundational issue/disagreement?
Jews are indigenous to Israel too (backed by genetics and history). Also why are you so sure all Palestinians are indigenous to Israel? Studies have shown that there is a very good possibility that there has also been a large migration of Arabs into Palestine from the surrounding regions, as a consequence of conditions rapidly improving there.
Israel doesn’t separate people based on race and religion, there are Muslim Arab judges, cops, doctors, programmers, etc. A few years ago a bunch of programmers from Gaza got permission to work in Israel due to shortages - these guys are literally Arab, Muslim and come from enemy territory.
Arab Jews are discriminated against in Israel? You mean Mizrahi Jews which are the largest Jewish group in Israel and have the exact same rights as other people in Israel?
Or did you mean Arab Israelis who have the pleasure of living in (relative) freedom, when compared to Arabs elsewhere in the middle east (and as I stated before, also aren’t discriminated against)?
Israelis deserve peace, and Palestinians definitely deserve better - but it is their responsibility as a people to make their situation better. Israeli leadership currently sucks but the Israeli population in general has gone above and beyond in filling the void the government left. The same can be done by the Palestinians if they really wanted to, but it seems many of them really just want us dead at all costs.
I’m not an expert, but my understanding is that military service is mandatory for all, with a few exceptions.
The ultra religious communities are exempt, which has become increasingly unpopular over time.
Also, the head of Israel’s domestic police force, Itmar Ben Givir was rejected for mandatory service in his teens because of his extremism.
Generally, though, leaders children serve.
I’m not Israeli - but I grew up in a disturbingly similar political environment, Apartheid-era South Africa. In theory, conscription applied to all white males of “military age” (ie, a kid that’s physically capable but still too dumb to resist the brainwashing). However, in reality, the children of the rich and powerful could buy their way out of it through various means (such as Phony Stark famously skipping South Africa right before his 18th birthday despite the fact that he wasn’t as allergic to white supremacism as he claimed to be), while working class whites couldn’t. I’m willing to bet that it pretty much works the same way in Israel.
There are lots of reasons why the children of the rich and powerful could end up on the front lines in wars that are still mostly foisted onto the children of the poor - an abusive father might gaslight their children into it, or it may simply be a case that not participating in all the jingoism might have an effect on careers later on (which might be the case in Israel, considering that militarism is so entwined in politics over there that it would have seemed insane even in Apartheid-era South Africa). It could just be that Snot’s head has been filled with militarism and wouldn’t dream of not participating. But the rich do get a choice in whether their children will be “boots on the ground” or not.
And no… the Israeli political establishment is no more making “ethically and morally correct decisions” than Apartheid-era South Africa’s was - it is, after all, a white supremacist settler-colonialist state. The only way to make “ethically and morally correct decisions” is to not serve the Israeli war machine in any way whatsoever.
The rich and powerful can buy their way out of stuff anywhere…
I don’t understand why you wrote so much about Israel when you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. Calling middle eastern jews white supremacists is fucking insane, for example. I bet you wouldn’t even be able to distinguish between an average Israeli Jew and Arab.
Calling middle eastern jews white supremacists is fucking insane
Are you talking about the European Jewish people who dominate Israel’s political and economic establishments? Have you noticed that Netanyahu doesn’t look Ethiopian, perhaps?
No, Clyde… it’s perfectly obvious who it is that doesn’t know what it is they are talking about, and it’s the people doing apologetics for white supremacism. Ie, you.
Yeah sure, you, a South African, know more than me, an Israeli, about Israel…
It’s no surprise that European Jews dominate many parts of Israeli society when you consider the fact that most Jews who came to Israel before 1948 were European (the Jewish population rapidky expanded post-1948 as Jews were driven out of Arab countries), and rich European Jews with Zionist aspirations also invested a lot of money in Israel during this period.
I don’t support the state of Israel, but I hate this bullshit argument so much - where do you think the European Jews came from to Europe, and why?
They came from Israel (the region, not the state, which didn’t exist then) which they were expelled from, over generations, again and again, buy actual colonisers. And only wanted too return after centuries of pogroms that culminated in the holocaust, which was perpetrated by actual white supremacists.
Are racism, xenophobia, islamophobia and colourism all happening, and are influenced by white supremacy? Yes. Can Jews ever really be considered white supremacists? Not by any actual white supremacist, so no…
Is the state of Israel and the illegal settlements it supports now occupying some lands that aren’t theres and oppressing the Palestinians whos lands those are? Yes.
Should they give those lands back and let their rightful residents live on them in peace (and be willing to share the places that are culturally and historically to both)? Yes.
Is Israel an apartheid state that discriminates against its Arab citizens? Yes.
Do Palestinians deserve freedom? Yes.
Does any of this erase thousands of years of history and mean that Jews, from wherever the fuck they were expelled to in the diaspora don’t also have a rightful place on the land or are in any way comparable to actual colonisers who went to foreign lands they nor their ancestors had never set foot on and take them over? Absolutely fucking not.
More people really should actually study the history before making such ignorant claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel
Yet, when they (black Jews) arrived in Israel, these distinctive people faced appalling discrimination, racism and a lack of empathy for their hardships in Ethiopia and during their journey to Israel.
So did my parents (and many others) which emigrated from a soviet state after the fall of the soviet union. And they’re very white.
Israelis are just xenophobic, this isn’t white supremacy. There is a famous old Israeli skit about how every single group which arrived faced these issues. You guys are unknowingly spewing the same bullshit extreme right wing politicians are saying in Israel about Mizrahi Jews.
As a South African i couldn’t have said it better myself. Israelis and israeli apologists i notice get very offended when you compare israel to Apartheid South Africa, i mean the parallels are so clear to see.
No, I take offense to comparing Israel to Apartheid South Africa because it’s dumb. Not even saying it’s wrong, it’s just a dumb comparison.
Read again what the person you replied to said - it’s basically “I don’t have any information about Israel that’s relevant to the question, but I’ll just go ahead and assume Israel and Apartheid South Africa are the same thing and reply based on that. This will show Israel and Apartheid South Africa have a lot in common”.
Everybody is mandatory drafted in Israel except ultra orthodox jews and arabs. Being a politician’s family isn’t on that list. And also its very common. All politicians at some point either serve or served at the army, including their children. It just so happened that someone who died is also the son of the one who calls the shots about the war.
Mandatory service doesn’t mean they don’t get cushy jobs (if they want them) though.
Yair Netanyahu was never going anywhere near the front lines (he was in the Spokesperson’s Unit), and nor do many other children-of (not only politicians of course, but they do have a lot of influence), they get jobs at headquarters or some other nice safe place, the military bands/entertainment units are notoriously where many a nepo-baby has got their start…
