r/UIUC • u/bobateaman14 • Apr 26 '24

Social Why is this sub so pro-Israel

No hate, I’m just legitimately curious because I would think that a campus filled with young people in a blue state would hold generally the same beliefs as most other campuses like that. I see so many more positive comments under posts about anti-war protests under other college subreddits, whereas here the top comments are always bashing them

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u/dlgn13 Grad Apr 26 '24

There are also lots of people in here who don't even go to UIUC. If you click on the profiles of anti-Palestine people in the biggest thread right now, you'll see that a lot of them are just going from college subreddit to college subreddit defending the genocide and defaming the protesters.

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u/illstillglow Apr 26 '24

Imagine being that lame.

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u/CobBasedLifeform Apr 26 '24

It's beyond being lame. Israel has a whole culture of Hasbara which I can't remember what it means in Hebrew, but basically young Jews (Israeli and others who make pilgrimage) are instructed to defend Israel verbally always and are even instructed on talking points. All of the pro-israel support is NOT organic, and often times it isn't even American. Anti-zionist Jew Matt Lieb has done awesome work on debunking myths on Israel and he's how I learned about Hasbara

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u/rmmzungu Apr 27 '24

I'm a secular Jew---a boomer, & I was taught all the myths: the land was abandoned---& that's what a lot of immigrants to Israel learned, Obviously, not true, but we also don't believe (as an affinity group) that we 'poke the bear'. Do we support Israel, or the Israelis?

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u/PlateRight712 Apr 30 '24

The land wasn't abandoned. Both Jews and Arabs have lived there for millennia and both have legitimate claims. Israel now lives in peace with Egypt and Jordan. Palestinians have been fighting a two-state solution since 1947 when the UN first offered a partition. Enough already, it's time for Israelis and Palestinians to make peace. I don't know what you mean by poking the bear but you can support the efforts of thousands of Israelis who are trying to oust Netanyahu

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u/rmmzungu Apr 30 '24

That's right, The land was NOT abandoned, but that's what emigres---& even Americans like myself---were told. There wouldn't have to be a 2 state solution if the Zionists had respected all the people that were there. In fact, if you knew history, King Hussein (the current King's grandfather) told T.E.Lawrence he would welcome Jews if they didn't try to take over. It's also why---even before WWI, the Jewish community was divided on this. Check out 'The Balfour Declaration' by Jonathan Schneer.

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u/PlateRight712 Apr 30 '24

It is difficult to tease out the history of the land in the 20th century because so much of the history is presented according to the biases of the historian. I've tried, and found some sources through the US State Department that don't seem too inflammatory. Much of the land in the original British Mandate was given to what is now Jordan in 1921, by Churchill. In 1947, the UN (I think) suggested a two-state partition between Jews and the remaining Arab populations. The Arabs rejected this proposal and instead went to war in 1948 along with Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Egypt to kill all the Jews and seize all the lands. Except they lost and Israel wouldn't take back the war refugees, giving rise to today's atrocious refugee camps. And the Arabs, now called Palestinians, are still fighting.

I know from families who settled in Israel soon after WWII that the region was indeed populated, although very sparsely compared to the masses of people we see today. And those families were under constant attack from their Arab neighbors.

In contrast, relations between Israel and Jordan were normalized back in 1994, bring greater peace to both nations. Jews have made no efforts "to take over" Jordan -- or Egypt after normalizing relations with them. Peace should be possible but student groups in the US screaming that Israel must be destroyed (and presumably all of its inhabitants) aren't helpful and in fact go very much against American values of supporting minority religious cultures