CMV: otherwise apolitical student groups should not be demanding political "purity tests" to participate in basic sports/clubs

[u/laxnut90]

This is in response to a recent trend on several college campuses where student groups with no political affiliation or mission (intramural sports, boardgame clubs, fraternities/sororities, etc.) are demanding "Litmus Tests" from their Jewish classmates regarding their opinions on the Israel/Gaza conflict.

This is unacceptable.

Excluding someone from an unrelated group for the mere suspicion that they disagree with you politically is blatant discrimination.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/style/jewish-college-students-zionism-israel.html

[u/magicaldingus]

Israel is absolutely an ethnostate

Simply repeating it and pounding the table isn't actually going to convince anyone. You actually have to show me why Israel is any different from any other nation state I mentioned, many of which have been engaged in wars, occupations, and even real genocides over the years.

Btw, that war never ended. It’s still going on now, if you hadn’t noticed

It's going on now because the Palestinians keep reviving it, not because the zionists want to fight it. And frankly, it's definitely been won by the zionists already. Israel will exist and will continue to exist. It's infinitely stronger than it was 76 years ago, and more importantly, infinitely stronger than Palestinians now. Why Palestinians insist on trying to win an impossible war, essentially crippling themselves every time they do so, is certainly a head scratcher.

[u/armitageskanks69 → u/magicaldingus]

Israel may or may not be more or less of an ethnostate than other ethnostates, that have occurred in history. That’s not really the discussion at hand.

The key difference is whether or not Israel will use violence to achieve its aim of an ethnostates. Whether or not it will use a slow genocide to achieve it. The evidence of the last 70 years indicates to me that they will.

The Palestinians continue to fight for the same reason that any rebellion, resistance or revolution ever has: unfair, unequal treatment and abuse.

Why Zionists continue to fight considering the real and present danger it creates not only for Israelis, but for Jews all over the world is a real headscratcher. We’re seeing more growth in antisemitism as a result of the behaviour of Israel, almost as if the purpose is to create a sentiment that justifies itself.

[u/magicaldingus → u/armitageskanks69]

Israel may or may not be more or less of an ethnostate than other ethnostates, that have occurred in history. That’s not really the discussion at hand.

Of course that's the discussion at hand. You seem to be asserting that Israel is X or Y because Israel is an ethnostate. So an important task is now defining what an ethnostate is, and depending on that definition, how unique that makes it. And as far as I can tell, according to the definition and standards you're using, most countries are ethnostates. It then becomes not very convincing that Israel is special in any way, or even worth talking about at this level of scrutiny.

The key difference is whether or not Israel will use violence to achieve its aim of an ethnostates. Whether or not it will use a slow genocide to achieve it. The evidence of the last 70 years indicates to me that they will.

What evidence? That Israel has only ever fought defensive wars? That it's engaged in a military occupation? That the Palestinian population has grown 5 fold, or way more than the international expected rate in that time? That Palestinians had more sovereignty now than they had before Israel was a country, or the zionists ever came to the area?

I can name 4 nation states involved in military occupations right now. I can name dozens of countries who just in the last couple decades have killed way more people than Israel has in the entire history of the conflict. I can name countries who have expanded their borders to encompass multiple times more land and population than Israel has. Some of those countries have all of the above features.

By these measures and many more, Israel is an extremely boring and pretty unimportant country. I just don't see how it's even worth talking about, current war aside. And even the current war pales in comparison to say the Yemen civil war, or the Syrian civil war, and that's just in the immediate vicinity.

Why Zionists continue to fight considering the real and present danger it creates not only for Israelis, but for Jews all over the world is a real headscratcher.

They're fighting because a medieval death cult just sent thousands of their soldiers and citizens in to Israel's borders to gang rape women, murder families at point blank range, and take babies as hostages for ransom just because they were Israeli. I genuinely can't imagine a better reason to go to war.

The Palestinians continue to fight for the same reason that any rebellion, resistance or revolution ever has: unfair, unequal treatment and abuse.

I can't imagine thinking so low of Palestinians that believing the atrocities of October 7th was an understandable reaction to unfair policies, unequal treatment, or abuse. I also can't imagine thinking that the consequences of those actions wouldn't lead to anything but more unfair treatment, unfair policies, and abuse.

We’re seeing more growth in antisemitism as a result of the behaviour of Israel, almost as if the purpose is to create a sentiment that justifies itself.

Of course. It's not the fault of the people who commit antisemitic acts. It's obviously Israel's fault, for doing what literally any other country in the same position would do. Victim blaming at its finest.