Reply #67: Israel was established as a REFUGE for Jews - not as a religious theocracy [View All]

[LeftishBrit]

Many Israeli citizens are not Jewish. Many Jewish citizens are not religious. The criterion for automatic emigration under the 'Law of Return' is that you should have sufficient Jewish ancestry to have risked being persecuted as a Jew under the Nazis or similar groups. You don't have to be religiously Jewish, or ethnically Jewish according to most criteria. A Christian or atheist with one Jewish grandparent would be eligible.

'If America was not open to my ancestors, then they most likey would have stayed in their home origins, but famine and British oppression drove my Irish ancestors to America and Russian oppression and lack of economic opportunities drove my Lithuanian ancestors to America'

And what do you think makes Israel any different there?! Many at the time when 'Israel was not open' perished.

'my Irish and Lithuanian ancestors did not steal land from their new country.'

No, they didn't do so personally, but they arrived in a country that already owed much of its existence to a MASSIVE land theft from, and true genocide of, the indigenous people.

The point is that Israel - and America - DO exist. And whatever arguments there may be against their initial existence, they cannot cease to exist *now* without massive bloodshed.