It’s natural and inevitable that a minority will want to tear down the majority. So Jews when a minority want anti-majoritarianism, and when a majority want majoritarianism. They are not unique in this. The situation in Israel has its unique booster fuel, but one could find examples elsewhere in the world.
I don’t see any way out of this dilemma. Israel’s best interest would be to ignore groaning from western Jews, and western Jews best interest would be to stop being activists.
Israeli majoritarianism is excessive when it--as it did prior to October 7--included a huge push to repeal the Grandchild Clause of Israel Law of Return, though.
Israeli Arabs (inside pre-67 borders) have not "joined the other Palestinians in killing Jews". this is very imprecise.
1. there was an episode of violence in the most of a war in Gaza. a wave that fast ended, and nobody is even taking of it repeating. you never know, but there are no signs for a repeat.
2. all the recent violence are either from the West Bank, or from the occupied Palestinian parts of Jerusalem.
the recent violence wave starting about march 22 is wholly coming from occupied territories.
1. This twitter thread makes a good argument that the memory of the riots in Lud/Ramle, Akko, and elsewhere from last year set the tone of the elections for a lot of people and influenced the vote for Religious Zionism: https://twitter.com/HeTows/status/1588252984005255168 . Even if the raw numbers are small, I think it's clear the riots set back Arab relations within Israel by many years.
2. is simply not true, the attack in Beer Sheva in March was by a Bedouin from within the green line and the terrorists in Chadera were from Umm al-Fahm.
1. the 2021 riots definitely set back relations. they also influenced some voters.
but polling of 8 months ago didn't give the right their current win at all. Last elections have resulted in 50-50 in terms of popular vote, with the right winning on marginal threshold vote rate on the left.
2. there were three occasional Arab Israelis invoiced in terror since ever. but it was always minor. Bedouim inches in terror happened before.
I haven't noticed anything different recently.
unless one can show some non random data showing a meaningful shift, I am very very dubious that a meaningful change happened.
Thanks for the deeper dive on the data. It would be really nice to see a source with polls from the past 5 years at least and current attitudes. I agree that there's no solid proof for a big attitude change happening, either among Jewish Israelis towards Israeli Arabs or vice versa, but I don't think it can be ruled out.
Though personally, I think the best explanation for this election is simply the cyclical nature of politics and the way the Bennet government falling (which hadn't happened 8 months ago) was perceived as a failure of the left in general.
Left unargued for, in Gordis's otherwise thoughtful piece, is the premise that the collective survival of a tribe (any tribe, be it Jews or Palestinians or Kurds or anyone else) is in and of itself a morally important thing worth fighting for, and a fortiori, a thing worth violating the individual human rights of those not of that tribe in order to preserve.
I recognize that this premise is taken as axiomatic by the vast majority of humans of whatever tribe, that most folks will fight for "their kind" without a second thought. But to those of us who are, by nature or culture or both, rootless cosmopolitans, it is not a very sympathetic premise.
1. among many leftist there is always a prevailing view that the onus should be on one party only (on Israel, on European Western countries as far as immigration is concerned etc...). This tends to create increased polarization
2. I have been living in the Middle East for 16 years and many progresses have been made towards a more peaceful and tolerant environment. And i think they are very fast relative to history's pace. so there are sprouts of optimism
Gordis: Maybe there are others who desire neither an “humble” Israel or one desperate for international support but yes nice. These may be the same people who want those same things including survival in a dangerous world for their own countries. And what does socialism” got to do with it?)
And why should US policy move toward as “one state solution?” unless Israeli politicians cannot find a way not to rule over a lot of Palestinians who do not wish to be ruled over. Israel is just one more “flawed country surviving in a very troubled [world]”
[Israeli Arabs killing Jews because of BLM? Surely you don’t believe that.]
This is a very misleading view of Israeli domestic politics.
Generally speaking, the people in Israel, the political parties, and the country's military leaders (ie pretty much every senior person in any Israeli military/intelligence position) most focused on defense matters do not make up/support the right wing bloc.
The dividing issue in Israeli politics is not security, like at all...
The dividing issue in Israeli politics is about the role Judaism plays in the state and questions of pluralism and the rule of law.
Jews who want to visit the Temple mount are not being provocative. They just want to visit the Temple mount. If it didn't annoy the Arabs, far more people would visit. That's the opposite of a provocation which means you do it because it annoys somebody. It's true that the Arabs view this as a provocation but it's not. The Temple Mount is an ancient Jewish holy site and people want to visit it because people like to visit ancient holy sites of their religion. Jews who visit the Temple mount for religious reasons don't desecrate the mosque and in fact they don't get near the mosque because they aren't allowed to according to Jewish law.
I especially like how Kling has explained the draw of the right. That makes sense, at least for voters near the "middle" politically. I also like his description of the left but I'm a bit less certain it is correct.
Or maybe what I wrote is a bit backwards and there isn't a draw to the right as much as a repulsion from the left. I'm not sure any of the specifics are the same in US politics but it seems something similar us happening in the US and I'd definitely say what has been happening in the US is repulsion away from the left rather than a draw towards ethnocracy or even the right more generally. How else to explain increasing black and Hispanic Republican votes?
It’s natural and inevitable that a minority will want to tear down the majority. So Jews when a minority want anti-majoritarianism, and when a majority want majoritarianism. They are not unique in this. The situation in Israel has its unique booster fuel, but one could find examples elsewhere in the world.
I don’t see any way out of this dilemma. Israel’s best interest would be to ignore groaning from western Jews, and western Jews best interest would be to stop being activists.
Israeli majoritarianism is excessive when it--as it did prior to October 7--included a huge push to repeal the Grandchild Clause of Israel Law of Return, though.
Israeli Arabs (inside pre-67 borders) have not "joined the other Palestinians in killing Jews". this is very imprecise.
1. there was an episode of violence in the most of a war in Gaza. a wave that fast ended, and nobody is even taking of it repeating. you never know, but there are no signs for a repeat.
2. all the recent violence are either from the West Bank, or from the occupied Palestinian parts of Jerusalem.
the recent violence wave starting about march 22 is wholly coming from occupied territories.
If you are correct, then I am significantly mistaken.
I surely know as I'm reading those news in Hebrew every day....
AMA
1. This twitter thread makes a good argument that the memory of the riots in Lud/Ramle, Akko, and elsewhere from last year set the tone of the elections for a lot of people and influenced the vote for Religious Zionism: https://twitter.com/HeTows/status/1588252984005255168 . Even if the raw numbers are small, I think it's clear the riots set back Arab relations within Israel by many years.
2. is simply not true, the attack in Beer Sheva in March was by a Bedouin from within the green line and the terrorists in Chadera were from Umm al-Fahm.
1. the 2021 riots definitely set back relations. they also influenced some voters.
but polling of 8 months ago didn't give the right their current win at all. Last elections have resulted in 50-50 in terms of popular vote, with the right winning on marginal threshold vote rate on the left.
2. there were three occasional Arab Israelis invoiced in terror since ever. but it was always minor. Bedouim inches in terror happened before.
I haven't noticed anything different recently.
unless one can show some non random data showing a meaningful shift, I am very very dubious that a meaningful change happened.
Thanks for the deeper dive on the data. It would be really nice to see a source with polls from the past 5 years at least and current attitudes. I agree that there's no solid proof for a big attitude change happening, either among Jewish Israelis towards Israeli Arabs or vice versa, but I don't think it can be ruled out.
Though personally, I think the best explanation for this election is simply the cyclical nature of politics and the way the Bennet government falling (which hadn't happened 8 months ago) was perceived as a failure of the left in general.
went down the rabbit hole and found a poll asking Israeli Arabs whether those terrorists trident them: ( march 2022)
87% no
8% to a degree (not sure wording)
5% significantly representing my views.
down in this Hebrew language article
https://www.inss.org.il/he/publication/isis-israel/
this wiki page chronicles the terror stories from the recent wave.
it does categorize with colours, and gives a colour for cases coming from within Israel. Might be interesting to try to count the numbers etc.
https://he.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%92%D7%95%D7%A2%D7%99_%D7%98%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A8_%D7%A0%D7%92%D7%93_%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9D_%D7%91%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%9C_%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A9%D7%98%D7%97%D7%99%D7%9D_%D7%91-2022
Hebrew Wikipedia has a category (possibly incomplete) of "Israeli Arabs terrorist cases)
10 cases included. 2 of which in 2022.
https://he.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%98%D7%92%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94:%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%92%D7%95%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%9D_%D7%A9%D7%91%D7%95%D7%A6%D7%A2%D7%95_%D7%A2%D7%9C_%D7%99%D7%93%D7%99_%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9D
Left unargued for, in Gordis's otherwise thoughtful piece, is the premise that the collective survival of a tribe (any tribe, be it Jews or Palestinians or Kurds or anyone else) is in and of itself a morally important thing worth fighting for, and a fortiori, a thing worth violating the individual human rights of those not of that tribe in order to preserve.
I recognize that this premise is taken as axiomatic by the vast majority of humans of whatever tribe, that most folks will fight for "their kind" without a second thought. But to those of us who are, by nature or culture or both, rootless cosmopolitans, it is not a very sympathetic premise.
1. among many leftist there is always a prevailing view that the onus should be on one party only (on Israel, on European Western countries as far as immigration is concerned etc...). This tends to create increased polarization
2. I have been living in the Middle East for 16 years and many progresses have been made towards a more peaceful and tolerant environment. And i think they are very fast relative to history's pace. so there are sprouts of optimism
The notion that only one party is to blame is a common response to many situations. See my discussion of the moral dyad. https://www.econlib.org/library/columns/y2021/klingtheoriesofmind.html
Gordis: Maybe there are others who desire neither an “humble” Israel or one desperate for international support but yes nice. These may be the same people who want those same things including survival in a dangerous world for their own countries. And what does socialism” got to do with it?)
And why should US policy move toward as “one state solution?” unless Israeli politicians cannot find a way not to rule over a lot of Palestinians who do not wish to be ruled over. Israel is just one more “flawed country surviving in a very troubled [world]”
[Israeli Arabs killing Jews because of BLM? Surely you don’t believe that.]
This is a very misleading view of Israeli domestic politics.
Generally speaking, the people in Israel, the political parties, and the country's military leaders (ie pretty much every senior person in any Israeli military/intelligence position) most focused on defense matters do not make up/support the right wing bloc.
The dividing issue in Israeli politics is not security, like at all...
The dividing issue in Israeli politics is about the role Judaism plays in the state and questions of pluralism and the rule of law.
Jews who want to visit the Temple mount are not being provocative. They just want to visit the Temple mount. If it didn't annoy the Arabs, far more people would visit. That's the opposite of a provocation which means you do it because it annoys somebody. It's true that the Arabs view this as a provocation but it's not. The Temple Mount is an ancient Jewish holy site and people want to visit it because people like to visit ancient holy sites of their religion. Jews who visit the Temple mount for religious reasons don't desecrate the mosque and in fact they don't get near the mosque because they aren't allowed to according to Jewish law.
Here are the roots of the problem with religious nationalism.
"Some of these religious nationalists seem determined to poke and provoke the Arab community."
"Some of these religious nationalists seem determined to poke and provoke the Jewish community."
"Some of these Shiite religious nationalists seem determined to poke and provoke the Sunni community."
"Some of these Sunni religious nationalists seem determined to poke and provoke the Shiite community."
It goes in every direction and won't stop until everyone agrees that it's mishegas.
I especially like how Kling has explained the draw of the right. That makes sense, at least for voters near the "middle" politically. I also like his description of the left but I'm a bit less certain it is correct.
Or maybe what I wrote is a bit backwards and there isn't a draw to the right as much as a repulsion from the left. I'm not sure any of the specifics are the same in US politics but it seems something similar us happening in the US and I'd definitely say what has been happening in the US is repulsion away from the left rather than a draw towards ethnocracy or even the right more generally. How else to explain increasing black and Hispanic Republican votes?
The American Left is inviting the Israelis into the abattoir.
“…like many leftist causes, a mindset that leads to trying to destroy (a) civiliation in order to save it.”
Events of the 19th and 20th centuries should have put paid to this assertion. The aim is not to save, rather to replace.