#the most privileged religion in the West????????

[petite-elf]

uhh why is sex education suddenly a christian show? :(

#sex education #like what the hell is going on with the christianity stuff #like i know many other things are going on #but like what is it with Eric's 'purpose' and 'we are gay jesus' and 'my trans boyfriend is anti-religion and doesn't want to go tu church. #with me so i feel judged' stuff #like yeah #many queer people are religious etc but trying to make it all about CHRISTIANITY?? #the most privileged religion in the West???????? #fucking feeling like I'm watching God's not dead

[metamatar]

This is maybe a stupid question but do you think there's any ties between like orientalist trends in western countries that glorify dharmic religions and Hindutva? Like I've heard 'Hinduism is the oldest religion on Earth' and 'Hinduism/Buddhism are just so much more enlightened than savage Abrahamic religions' and 'how could there be war and oppression in India? Hindus don't believe in violence' from white liberals and it certainly seems *convenient* for Hindutva propaganda, at least.

Not stupid at all! Historically, orientalism precedes modern Hindutva. The notion of a unified Hinduism is actually constructed in the echo of oriental constructions of India, with Savarkar clearly modelling One Nation, One Race, One Language on westphalian nationhood. He will often draw on Max Mueller type of indology orientalists in his writing in constructing the Hindu claim to a golden past and thus an ethnostate.

In terms of modern connections you can see the use and abuse of orientalism in South Asian postcolonial studies depts in the west that end up peddling Hindutva ideology –

The geographer Sanjoy Chakravorty recently promised that, in his new book, he would “show how the social categories of religion and caste as they are perceived in modern-day India were developed during the British colonial rule…” The air of originality amused me. This notion has been in vogue in South Asian postcolonial studies for at least two decades. The highest expression of the genre, Nicholas Dirks’s Castes of Mind, was published in 2001. I take no issue with claiming originality for warmed-over ideas: following the neoliberal mantra of “publish or perish,” we academics do it all the time. But reading Chakravorty’s essay, I was shocked at the longevity of this particular idea, that caste as we know it is an artefact of British colonialism. For any historian of pre-colonial India, the idea is absurd. Therefore, its persistence has less to do with empirical merit, than with the peculiar dynamics of the global South Asian academy.

[...] No wonder that Hindutvadis in both countries are now quoting their works to claim that caste was never a Hindu phenomenon. As Dalits are lynched across India and upper-caste South Asian-Americans lobby to erase the history of their lower-caste compatriots from US textbooks, to traffic in this self-serving theory is unconscionable.

You can see writer sociologists beloved of western academia like Ashish Nandy argue for the "inherent difference of indian civilization makes secularism impossible" and posit that the caste ridden gandhian hinduism is the answer as though the congress wasn't full of hindutva-lites and that the capture of dalit radicalism by electoralism and grift is actually a form of redistribution. Sorry if thats not necessarily relevant I like to hate on him.

Then most importantly is the deployment of "Islamic Colonization" that Hindu India must be rescued from, which is merely cover for the rebrahmanization of the country. This periodization and perspective of Indian history is obviously riven up in British colonial orientalism, see Romila Thapar's work on precolonial India. Good piece on what the former means if you've not engaged with it, fundamentally it posits an eternal Hindu innocence.

#sorry for not posting new articles tbh but these have received airtime before on this blog bc theyre good! #asks #hindutva

[yuyu-finale]

why do you support anti-lgbt palestine

I really don’t know if this is a genuine question, but I keep getting this ask and I’m going to treat it as one in good faith in case you sincerely want to know.

First, to address the elephant in the room: GENOCIDE IS NEVER JUSTIFIED. Palestinians are people. People deserve to live and be free. People do not deserve to be KILLED en masse for ANY reason. They are a nation and a people, and no nation or people in the world deserves GENOCIDE.

Second, I need you to understand that you are coming from a heavily generalized standpoint that is tainted by islamophobia. The assumption that all Palestinians are all Muslims and therefore they are all homophobic is a result of years of islamophobic rhetoric from the West. There is no such thing as a state or people being totally anti-lgbtq. The laws and/or predominant religion/s of a place may not support lgbtq rights, and maybe the general view of lgbtq people is negative, but in any country/nation/state/people, there will ALWAYS be lgbtq people and lgbtq supporters.

The laws of many religious countries and their current or past colonies and territories are generally anti-lgbtq, but every religion will have followers who are lgbtq and lgbtq allies. This is how it is in most countries in the world.

Islam is our brother religion, but I cannot truly speak on the specifics of it. Still, i do know Islam is a peaceful religion. While it doesn’t allow certain things, it does not advocate for the hatred or disregard of any person. No religion does, in fact. Then why are some religious people anti-lgbtq? It is because some religious leaders twist the scriptures or take them out of context and spread hatred for their own agenda. But you must understand that the views on lgbtq people vary greatly within religions and countries, and even within communities and people, and so every religion will ALWAYS have lgbtq people and lgbtq allies.

And even in countries with lgbtq-inclusive policies, there is still discrimination. The homophobia and transphobia in some places in the US and western Europe is remarkably terrible, but people from these countries still consider their nations to not be anti-lgbtq. And for these countries, lgbtq inclusivity is a RECENT development; up until very recently, majority of their policies and sentiments were anti-lgbtq too.

Why? Because anti-lgbtq policies were put in place from outside (colonizers) or from the top (religious leaders or leaders with anti-lgbtq views) or are remnants of old laws that haven’t been updated. To fight for lgbtq rights first there must be a state of general stability, then we have to do it from within, from the bottom, and there must be change in the structure of many existing institutions.

It is difficult and it takes time. Not every country has the privilege of having time. Palestine has been fighting for its life since 1948. Many countries have barely been independent for a century. There are SO MANY reasons why anti-lgbtq policies persist in certain places. Even if an individual or group of people changes their mind, their leaders may not.

But the most important thing is that Palestine is the victim of an ongoing act of GENOCIDE. They are people, individuals with lives and dreams and views, and they are being killed by the thousands. They are people, fighting to live and be free, and I will always support them.

[germiyahu]

I would like to politely request that if you find yourself not understanding the point of my posts, don't engage with them. Don't embarrass yourself.

Because I certainly don't want to have to point out the irony of a person reacting to my (long winded) wry post about how uninformed uninterested Americans project and misinterpret the motivations, on a societal level, of Israelis and Palestinians... in a way that completely confirms that. You don't understand Zionism, point blank. You have not done your research, you do not understand why Jews for their entire history have yearned to return to Eretz Yisrael, and so you lie about that history, or you uncritically regurgitate other people's lies that you've heard about it.

You don't expect better of Muslims either, and there's a reason I only mentioned how people like you interpret this conflict to be about Jews vs Muslims, so do not pretend you care about the maybe 10% of Palestinians who are Christians. I note that the antizionist crowd routinely erases Bedouins, Druze, Samaritans, Circassians, Christian and Muslim Arabs who choose an Israeli identity over a Palestinian one. Not a single antizionist can mention the actual diversity of Israeli society without acting like their teeth are being pulled. So spare me.

My post was a (long winded and wry) assessment of what I have seen and what I think the general slacktivist Left conceive of Israel and Palestine. That it's a conflict between enlightened secular Christian-Lite white people who should know better, who should be over things like wanting a return to Zion... and what you see as noble savage barbaric Muslims who at least live a good honest non capitalist life, and we as the West owe them whatever they want because the War on Terror was horrific, yes.

But in the process you 1) erase the Jewish heritage and connection to their indigenous homeland, and replaces every single motivation for Zionism as racist imperialist bloodthirsty greed. Have fun gaslighting all of us as to how that's not blood libel. And you 2) excuse suicide bombing, targeting civilians, stabbing and driving over random people, mass shootings, war rape, hostage taking, torture, making fun little games out of torture... you'll excuse everything Hamas and their allied groups do in the name of "resistance," not just because you dehumanize Jews, but because I believe you really don't think Muslims are capable of being better than that. And because yeah, they're attacking Jews, who you view as privileged and annoying and the root of all problems in the world, so that's another reason not to expect better of them.

It ignores that there are tens of millions of Muslims who care about democracy, human rights, coexistence, peace... a lot of them are Palestinians. But you don't listen to them, you don't let them take the lead in their own liberation movement. You cheer on fascists because that's what a Muslim is in your head. Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, now the Houthis: masked insurgents who have no regard for the sanctity of human life, no regard for their own people, sadistic manchildren who are only interested in enriching themselves and causing pain in the world, thinly scaffolded with the most cruel interpretations of a religion that a billion people follow. The only difference between you and your conservative racist parents is that you think the terrorists are the good guys now.

But thanks for stopping by :)

#antisemitism #leftist antisemitism #israel #palestine #another long winded post for the archives

[eretzyisrael]

The October 7 attack and its aftermath have finally brought the disparate elements of this struggle against Jews to the surface, its participants surging into the streets and onto social media—suggesting that Hamas knew something important about the world that many of us didn’t see, or didn’t want to. 

When I was a reporter for an international news agency at the time of the Hamas takeover in Gaza in 2007,  I discovered that it was impolitic to mention what Hamas clearly announced in its founding charter from 1988: Namely, that “our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious,” and the Jews were “behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions, and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests.” 

This didn’t sound like “Free Palestine.” But as a rule, on the rare occasions that Western news organizations felt compelled to mention the document, they left those parts out. 

The historical examples from the charter suggest that in the war against Judaism, the ideologues of Hamas understand themselves to be operating in a broad coalition and carrying on a long tradition. This is true. “Islam and National Socialism are close to each other in the struggle against Judaism,” Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem and one of the fathers of the Palestinian national movement, said in 1944. This was in a speech to members of an SS division he helped raise, made up of Bosnian Muslims. “Nearly a third of the Qur’an deals with the Jews. It has demanded that all Muslims watch the Jews and fight them wherever they find them,” he said, an idea that would reappear four decades later in the Hamas charter. When the mufti testified before a British commission of inquiry in 1936, he quoted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Tsarist forgery describing a global Jewish conspiracy, which is also the source for parts of the Hamas charter and remains popular across the Middle East. (I once found the book for sale at a good shop near the American University of Beirut.) The Hamas army, known as the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, is named for one of the mufti’s most famous proteges.

The movement became savvy enough to water down its charter a few years ago, but its leaders have remained honest about their intent. “You have Jews everywhere,” one former Hamas minister, Fathi Hammad, shouted to a crowd in 2019, “and we must attack every Jew on the globe by way of slaughter and killing, with God’s will.” 

In the liberal West, no sane person would own up to believing The Protocols. (At least not yet; things are moving fast.) But an Italian can hold a prominent U.N. job, for example, after saying she believes a “Jewish lobby” controls America, and you can hold a tenured position at the best universities in the West if you believe that the only country on earth that must be eliminated is the Jewish one. 

My experience in the Western press corps was that sympathy for Hamas was not just real but often more substantial than sympathy for Jews. In Europe and North America, as we’ve now seen on the streets and on campuses, many on the progressive left have arrived at an ideology positing that one of the world’s most pressing problems is the State of Israel—a country that has come to be seen as the embodiment of the evils of the racist, capitalist West, if not as the world’s only “apartheid” state, that being a modern synonym for evil. 

Jews could no longer officially be hated because of their ethnicity or religion, but can legitimately be hated as supporters of “apartheid” and as the embodiment of “privilege.” The pretense that this is a critique of Israel’s military tactics, or sincere desire for a two-state solution, has now largely been dropped. 

#hamas #wisdom #gaza #jews #antisemitism #hamas charter

[givemearmstopraywith]

i was wondering, since you'd been an atheist for a hot minute, have you lost any friends because of your later belief in god (or your studies, etc.)?

i'm struggling with this, because there's people in my life that i like, that i would even consider friends, but some of them have this deep hate for church and religions in general. (many of them are from poland and i feel like if you're from poland, you either support the church for the most part or you totally distance yourself from it, and i'm not on either side in this case).

and for me, i'm judgemental of the church too, especially the catholic church (i'm catholic), i'm a feminist, not racist, not homophobic, not transphobic. liberal. but i do attend mass and it does feel important to me. whenever this comes up however, i feel like i need to explain myself. that's why i try not to bring up the topic of religion and faith at all.

and i understand where they are coming from and why they would choose to turn away from the church completely, but it's not like i haven't spent hours and hours and hours thinking about what my beliefs are. like this is so big for me and i wish i could be more open about it, but i feel so misunderstood every time.

my only solution would be to find better friends :/ maybe you had a similar experience?

i lost or became distant from a number of friends when i began to explore my relationship to faith more earnestly- it put a lot of strain on my relationship with my partner at the time, and we eventually broke up for reasons that included but were not exclusive to religion. that was almost a decade ago and i've grown a lot: my friends now do i know what they're in for with me, and i'm lucky in how they encourage and support me and give me space to be in dialogue with them. one of my closest friends is an atheist, and we have great conversations about theism.

but i also know, and this is part of growing in my faith, that religion- especially christianity- is the source of a lot of pain for people. a lot of trauma, including for myself, and i try to remember that. if my faith is built on love, then i am here only to love people. sometimes loving them means setting my faith, as big and immersive as it is, aside so that i can better model what it is to them. it can be an opportunity to help them heal in the sense that without talking to them or immersing them in my own journey, i can show them through my actions what faith should be, mindful that their experiences are with systems that are repressive, painful, violent, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, or abusive. some of my closest friends are people who have negative or no opinions about God and faith. part of what makes those relationships possible is that i recognize that i am privileged to have a healthy relationship to faith, that i have one at all, or that i was able to overcome my own religious trauma to a place of healing, where i could redevelop my assumptions from the ground up. that is a privilege and one that not everyone has the ability to take advantage of. to be religious is to be privileged, especially where christianity is the majority, since religion is practiced by the majority and often contributes negatively to systems of oppression (and this is partly why i have difficulty formally joining the church- my ability to take on religious privilege, as a christian in the christian west, only goes so far).

i do not believe in evangelism, but i do believe in lived faith, and weirdly in this way i have watched numerous people around me who previously had no interest in religion end up converting or reverting, or develop more unconventional relationship to something they'd lost through abuse or mistrust- sometimes they've directly attributed that to their relationship with me, and sometimes its more passive, maybe it has nothing to do with me at all. but i like to think that i was able to be something for them. when we talk about self-emptying in faith, when we talk about making room for God in ourselves and our lives, i think this is often what it means. people do not owe us understanding for our relationship with God. but if we are close to God, if we love him, we owe him our emptiness so that we can reflect his light to others, in the way that they can understand, that has nothing to do with ourselves. and if we lose people in that process, it isn't us they're rejecting, and it isn't God either. they're just not meant to encounter the light through us. and it is har to lose people like that, but it also makes space for people who will see the light of God reflected in us and recognize that it makes sense to them.

i hope this makes sense and helps you in your path: ultimately yes, faith is contentious, and not without reason. but i always try to be respectful of people's misgivings about faith, i don't bring it where it's not wanted, and i trust that God will bring me to places where it is wanted and more importantly, needed. such is faith.

#replies

[lhazaar]

hey. i'm turning my chair around and sitting in it backwards now because i want to speak specifically to people with ocd. this is a targeted post and is not meant to apply to the userbase of this website at large or to serve as a policy decision.

hi. do you know what scrupulosity means? it is a strong, intense, often painful concern about morality or religion. it's very common for religious people with ocd, actually—the fear that you've sinned, that you will sin, that your thoughts themselves are sinful. you're afraid of being an evil person. every thought and feeling you have is scrutinized to exhaustion in case it's proof that you're evil. this also happens for non-religious people with ocd, it's just that ours will look different; it's often a preoccupation with social justice issues. you care a lot about being a good person, right! most people do. you want to be a good person, you want to be kind to others and to dismantle oppressive systems where you can. i'm making some assumptions here, but they're based on my specific audience base.

so, there's this thing that happens online, especially on tumblr and twitter—not because bluh bluh platforms bad, but because of the ways in which information is propagated on here. people used to tag for these posts sporadically but don't do so as much anymore. you know posts that exhort you, the reader, specifically, to take action? they tell you not to look away, not to bury your head in the sand. they tell you to give and to agitate and to donate time, money, resources.

those posts used to make me intensely, deeply anxious. i don't mean mild agitation, i mean life-ruining, day-occupying panic that seizes your entire body, and thoughts that don't leave your brain. guilt that paralzyes you because you, personally, cannot go kill the politicians responsible. you don't have enough money to do more than donate a few dollars, and sometimes you don't even have that. but because of where you live, because of the fact that you have internet access and you're literate enough to read these posts, you know that you have a level of privilege that most people never will. you're aware of that privilege because you're reasonably in-tune with social justice movements and you've probably spent some time dissecting your own privilege to examine your biases. (that's not a bad thing; i'm not here to condemn that. stay with me, if you can.)

there's a thing that can happen if you've lived with ocd like this for a long time where you become kind of incapable of telling what's addressed to you personally and what isn't. everything feels like a personal exhortation. you have trouble saying no, or knowing when you're overextended, because other people have it worse. how dare you enjoy relative comfort when people are being bombed or drowning in a climate change -induced flood or being crushed to death in a crowd panic. how dare you not be aware of it at all times, always, constantly. how dare you look away. don't look away.

i want to tell you about something i went through, if that's okay. a lot of people who follow me will already know this, but i haven't talked about this aspect of it very much publicly. in 2020, while visiting my partner in southern oregon, we had to evacuate from wildfires twice in under 24 hours. that was a really, really bad fire season, caused and perpetuated by a combination of global climate change and colonialization practices that destroyed traditional indigenous fire management strategies across the west coast of north america. fires stretched from bc to california. we wound up fleeing south, and then had to flee back north again, hemmed in on three sides. i flew back home to bc shortly afterwards, and i have this vivid, awful memory of seeing my home mountain range, the cascades, choked out with smoke from the window of an airplane. the woman in front of me sobbed the entire time until we touched down.

i remember thinking at that time that it was insane the entire world wasn't stopping. what i was experiencing was apocalyptic in scale—the fire we ran from the first time was part of a complex that chewed up entire towns. it wasn't the first fire season, nor the worst for the continent, nor the world. but all i could think in the moment was why aren't we doing anything, this is going to be all of us in a decade, why are people looking away.

if i had gone online and posted that, it would not have been morally wrong of me. there's no ascribing morality to a reaction like that. i mean, if i'd gone to someone who suffered in the years prior in australia or california and told them that ours was So Much Worse, that would have made me an asshole, but i didn't do that. i made some upset facebook posts targeted at the trump voters in my family, but i had no way to express at the time the sort of clawing panic of WHY AREN'T PEOPLE DOING ANYTHING??

the answer to that, which you probably know, is: what would they have done? we were sheltered by friends we evacuated with, but what power did a mutual in new york or wales or singapore have to affect a wildfire in oregon?

so, come back to the present day with me again, if you will. i said above that posts worded like this used to make me really, really anxious. in the span of time after the fire, i developed ptsd, and my ocd ruined my life. i took an extra year to graduate after i'd finished all my coursework because i could not send in the forms required. i was too busy spending 10-16 hours a day rearranging furniture in my room, or lying in bed, full-body tense, until it felt like my teeth would crack from the pressure. i'm medicated now. i'm grateful for it. i have more tolerance for these posts because i've been there. i know the op isn't doing anything wrong, because they're not wrong. why isn't the world stopping to look at a natural disaster, or a genocide? the world should not be like this.

you are not the world. you are someone with a brain that will torture you to death given the chance. you know how learning to reckon with your privileges, whatever they may be, requires you to not try and escape them? you need to be able to hold in your head that yes, you benefit from something that isn't fair; yes, other people should have that benefit, and that they don't is unjust. but you need to, for example, not try and weasel your way out of being white because you're uncomfortable with the guilt that it produces. you need to not go online and say well not ALL americans because you can't sit with the idea of being complicit in american imperialism. if you have ocd, you need to apply that to your own brain, too. you need to apply it to every post that you see. you need to know that people are not speaking directly to you, they are crying out in pain and fear. they are not doing anything wrong. they are scared and hurting.

they do not benefit from you taking on all the guilt of that fear and pain. i am not saying this to absolve you of the guilt. i am saying that you need to be able to exist with that level of guilt without allowing it to paralyze and destroy you. if you can't do that right now, i'm not here to cast judgement on you. blacklist phrases. i had "wildfire" blacklisted for a long time. i'm sure i missed aid posts because of it. the alternative was me being nonfunctional. for a long time, i had donation posts blacklisted across the board, because the way my ocd worked meant that i was neurologically incapable of knowing where my own limits were, and i would give money i did not have. if you need to do that, this is me giving you permission. doing this does not make you evil. it does not make you morally bankrupt. it makes you someone whose brain is trying to fucking kill them, and the world needs you to not let that happen.

this is not a post about how you're exempt from caring about the world if you're mentally ill, it's about how you cannot apply that care to anything useful if you're having massive panic spirals every other day about the guilt that you feel. your guilt should not rule your life. if it does, i say this kindly, but you very likely need medication. i'm sorry if you don't have access to that right now. you cannot think your way out of ocd. you cannot think your way into stopping neural activity. you cannot guilt your way into being a good person; you have to be able to exist with the guilt and not let it rule you in order to do that. nobody benefits from your brain trying to martyr you in the name of solving the world's suffering.

you need to be able to function, free of crushing and paralyzing guilt, before you can help anyone. you are not an effective ally like this just because your brain tells you that it's necessary.

#bark bark #ocd tag #actually ocd #also i want to say this now: if you do not experience ocd i do not want your 'well actually' takes on this. #again. this is not a site-wide thing i think everyone should do #do not mistake this for me saying that it's ~okay~ to be wilfully ignorant about genocide or climate disaster #i am speaking to a very specific clinical population whose brains do not work in a way that people outside of that population understand #the guilt you experience with ocd is not the same guilt that everyone has just turned up #it warps your entire personality. it warps your sense of right and wrong #you will deal with it for your entire life unfortunately #(even medicated i still absolutely have Intense White Guilt episodes lol #i just try not to make them my loved ones' problem #because part of handling pathological guilt has to be responsibility without overresponsibility)

[leorizanzel]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 🤍

Thank you so much for including me!! My favorite fics I've written (these will all be DinLuke):

No Glory in the West (83.6k words, Rated T, Graphic Depictions of Violence)

This was my first long fic in fandom and I loved writing every single word of it! At the time, I didn't see any other Western-themed work in the fandom and wanted to be the change I saw in the world. I really can't exaggerate on this, but writing this story changed my life. Since writing it, it's kinda taken a life of its own and inspired various other authors and artists to keep writing about those damn lovestruck cowboys. Anytime I've had the chance to affect someone's life, whether it's the folks that tell me they downloaded my story to read on a flight or the person that told me their fiance was sick of hearing them talk about The Cowboy Story, it tickles the hell out of me. It's an honor and a privilege to be a part of y'all's lives in some way, even if I help you annoy your significant other.

The Once and Future King (Ongoing; 88.8k words, Rated T, Graphic Depictions of Violence)

She's ongoing (and I take a long time churning out these chapters), but I love this story! I'm honestly never not thinking about TOAFK, never not jotting down lines and scenes and researching Arthuriana and courtly love and and and and. Not only is this a chance to write the Mand'alor Din storyline that I want to see, replete with the kind of romance that personally drives me crazy and the eldritch freaky space beings that I need, it's also a chance to explore the dynamics of power and politics in relation to religion and myth. I hope, if you're one of the ten people that read this story, these questions also keep you up at night.

Mornings of Gold, Valentine Evenings (25.3k words, Rated T)

This story was such a joy to write! Written for the unique crossover of the thirsty ice sports enjoyers and the Star Wars people. Most of whom are Canadian, apparently. This is another story that seems to affect people in the most interesting ways - I had a lovely commenter tell me they thought about my story while talking about the urban effects of hosting an Olympics while in a college class. I laughed so hard thinking about using an AO3 story in a bibliography page that I probably scared my cat.

AO3 user leorizanzel: writing Star Wars men kissing tenderly while also exploring the ramifications of hosting major international events in cities that were not built for such a purpose. Non-attributively, of course. Please do not actually put me in your works cited page; I don't know if I can handle the pressure of being used as a Source.

Bright is the Moon, High in Starlight (17k words, Rated T, Graphic Depictions of Violence)

I loved writing this piece so much - Regency-era werewolves and cravats and tea and foggy moors in the light of the full moon?? Transatlantic romances? Facing a monster out of sheer love, finding the humanity in the monstrous, and self-sacrifice because it's the right and noble thing to do??

Idk, she's everything to me.

East of the Sun, West of the Moon (3.2k words, Rated G)

A short piece written for DinLuke Positivity Week that was yet another excuse to write a courtly love, knight-and-king story full of daring deeds and ritual and the kind of romance that I prefer reading - once again, being the kind of change I want to see in the world.

Thank you so much for giving me the chance to talk about my work! I feel awful for not being as productive as I used to, but I'm still around - ever present, ever lurking.

#dinluke #lukedin #skydalorian #rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated etc. I am still very much alive #grad school is killing meeeeeeee

[peligrosapop]

The Israeli one again.

I mean if people say that we don’t need to live in here so where are we supposed to go? I mean, my grandparents came from Europe but can I go to Romania and kick a person out from his house only because before the holocaust that was my great grandfather house? And what about Jewish people that their grandparents are from Iraq, Iran, Algeria? Where are they supposed to go? And honestly if people want us to go and live somewhere else they show that in a really funny way.. I mean I wouldn’t feel safe living in places where people are screaming about killing jews or painting on Jewish people’s homes. Honestly, where are we supposed to go?

Hi there. Hope you are well and safe. I have yet to answer your other anon but this one I can answer quickly. About where would Jews go if Palestine existed as they in did prior to 1948: You could stay in Palestine and live in a real multi cultural, multi faith society with secular weddings where people who aren’t Jewish aren’t treated like shit and black jews aren’t treated like shit (Ethiopian jews). Or do you believe that the Palestinian state will be as equally as racist and cruel as the Israeli? Bc it kinda sounds like that ? Also, kinda admitting, that indeed your state actions is something you wouldn’t want replicated for yourselves. Maybe you are indeed against the Israeli government but can’t really see outside of the Zionist mentality of “anywhere but here is unsafe”. That’s not true. But yes Anti-Jew bigotry exist, and it should NOT, being the religion or ethnicity, it is not acceptable. Jews, as all people of all religions and non religions should feel safe no matter, as well as people from all ethnicities. Zionists are a different thing, bc I find Zionism to be a supremacist and colonial ideology, they are like the KkK to me, and I hold them to the same accord. Even center-left Zionist have some Jewish Supremacists views, incompatible with left ideologies.

It’s so curious that you say “Where are we supposed to go?”. Well, I’m sure the Palestinians in 1948 and on have asked the same. I’m sure people living refugees camps in Gaza are asking the same, actually, they rather die than leave. For me it’s incredible that you don’t see the irony of saying “am I supposed to kick someone out of their home in Romania? because that’s exactly what Israel has been doing for 75 years. Settlers in the West Bank have done that same thing this week, burning houses and olive tree crops. Colonialism 101.

Yes, there has been anti-semitism in some places this last few weeks but the majority of demos have been about the liberation of Palestinian people, not about bigotry against Jewish people, they are indeed a displaced and oppressed people going through genocide as we type this message,and it is your government and the Zionist ideology that have put them there. Btw most Palestinians have the same ancestors as Jews, they just converted into Islam at some point, there have been DNA studies, so, you are all killing your own tribe. Really sad and this makes me really angry that you are like “oh where can I go” when you have the privilege of getting the fuck out when Gazans cant even cross the border or sail a boat without getting murdered.

Stay in Israel, make your country better, accepting, just, and if it goes back into being Palestine or if there is a two state solution work towards ever lasting peace, Jewish rights and anti bigotry and discrimination. Kill the propaganda in your head. I know I did in my teens (US / Imperialist/Colonial prop) best thing that happened to me.

This is Palestine 1896. Never forget.

#palestine #israel #gaza genocide

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

https://www-bbc-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-66981924.amp?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQGsAEggAID#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16963221914273&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com

If I saw this on another site I would have thought it was satirical, but I don't think BBC News does Satire!

By: BBC News

Published: Oct 3, 2023

A degree in magic being offered in 2024 will be one of the first in the UK, the University of Exeter has said.

The "innovative" MA in Magic and Occult Science has been created following a "recent surge in interest in magic", the course leader said.

It would offering an opportunity to study the history and impact of witchcraft and magic around the world on society and science, bosses said.

The one-year programme starts in September 2024.

Academics with expertise in history, literature, philosophy, archaeology, sociology, psychology, drama, and religion will show the role of magic on the West and the East.

The university said it was one of the only postgraduate courses of its kind in the UK to combine the study of the history of magic with such a wide range of other subjects.

'Place of magic'

Prof Emily Selove, course leader, said: "A recent surge in interest in magic and the occult inside and outside of academia lies at the heart of the most urgent questions of our society.

"Decolonisation, the exploration of alternative epistemologies, feminism and anti-racism are at the core of this programme."

The course will be offered in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies.

Prof Selove said: "This MA will allow people to re-examine the assumption that the West is the place of rationalism and science, while the rest of the world is a place of magic and superstition."

The university said the course could prepare students for careers in teaching, counselling, mentoring, heritage and museum work, work in libraries, tourism, arts organisations or the publishing industry, among other areas of work.

A choice of modules includes dragons in western literature and art, the legend of King Arthur, palaeography, Islamic thought, archaeological theory and practice and the depiction of women in the Middle Ages.

==

I mean, it could have been quite good, the history of magic; the effect on human imagination and storytelling; magic in literature and art; magic as metaphor for what we don't know, a stand-in for science; the evolution of societal perceptions of magic through the growth of the scientific method; the role of magic and revelation in early epistemological (truth claims) processes... this could have been a fascinating course.

Then they had to ruin it by stuffing it full of intersectional Gender Studies horseshit and making it ideologically corrupt and completely academically worthless. Except to piss off daddy, who's paying the bill.

This is the exact kind of luxury course that only bored, privileged, upper-middle class people with no real problems or ambition would take. If you take it, you have nothing better to do, and no ambition to better your future prospects. It's low-effort, academically shallow, fosters undeserved moral elitism, but still takes in tuition fees, so it's unsurprising that it exists.

You'd be getting loan forgiveness for it over my dead body, though.

#ask #Degree in Magic #Exeter University #gender studies #intersectionality #intersectional feminism #intersectional religion #religion is a mental illness

[gemsofgreece]

What it was for Ancient Greeks to live during the Roman empire? I know they didn't resist the empire but were they in good terms since the Roman empire was influenced a lot by the ancient Greek philosophy, mythology and architecture or they had difficulties as well?

Things were mostly good, or pretty good by standards of subjects in an ancient empire.

They got off on the wrong foot of course as the process of incorporating the Greek city-states and kingdoms was bloody and destructive. Greece especially (its modern-day borders) was entirely destroyed during the Roman conquest. Hundreds of thousands of Greeks became slaves and led to Rome / the west. The first years were also very restless and Greek city states did try to revolt against the Roman Empire. The revolts were suppressed violently. After that though, the Roman Emperors started huge projects of rebuilding the Greek cities and of repairing everything that could get repaired. Some Greek city states also managed to have some sort of autonomy. This helped Greeks return to their prosperity within 100 years or so.

After the conquests, Romans were generally good to most of their subjects, when the latter did not try to rebel against them. So their natural tolerance accompanied with the massive admiration they had for Greek culture made Greeks probably the most privileged of all subjects. Greeks were free to prosper, pursue their artistic and scientific interests, continue with their “hegemony” in sea faring and withhold their cultural and lingual power over the other subjects of the eastern part of the empire.

Not every Roman was a fan of the Greeks as people though, as funnily enough, some considered them “backwards”, untrustworthy and degenerates with a fantastic heritage they were not worthy of. So, as you see, it’s not even a new thing. Westerners have been considering us degenerates unworthy of our heritage for 2000 years! Who can beat this level of national / historical consistency, huh? 😂 A few Romans also thought other Romans were a tad too excessive with their obsession with Greeks 😂

Romans and Greeks were generally friendly to each other, although they both took care to show their differentiations from the other through language, customs etc But overall, yeah, the relations were good, at least better than the Romans had with other people and then again Romans did try to be at the good side of most people anyway. Romans were particularly cruel to Greeks who converted to Christianity earlier and Romans initially prosecuted them (and all Christians) relentlessly and very violently. This was a religions conflict, it wasn’t founded on the ethnic differences, however it did cause serious strains. On the other hand there was also Pax Romana, a peaceful period of almost 200 years, which tragically remains the longest mostly peaceful period in Greek history.

During the last years of the (whole) Roman Empire, the Greek East had grown very prosperous while the Latin West had become very weak with nonstop raids from Germanic tribes. This made Romans feel contempt and spite against the Greeks, while the Greeks had started showing scorn and indifference towards Rome and the Romans, gradually orbiting around Constantinople more and more. This is a speculation of mine but this must have been the time they started appropriating the Roman name as they saw themselves as more worthy inheritors of the Roman legacy and empire than the Romans themselves! Apparently, Greeks went through a long “Western appropriator syndrome” phase on that aspect. And then of course after all that we had the split of the empire and the Byzantine empire and all that, which - given this data - was likely the reasonable thing for Emperor Constantine to do.

#greece #ancient greece #Roman Greece #Roman empire #history #greek history #anon #ask

[magnetothemagnificent]

What are your thoughts on white Jews who refuse to identify themselves as white? Obviously Nazis will never treat us like white people as we aren't the same race in their eyes. But I've seen a lot of white Jews in other contexts, begging and pleading people to not call them white, not say they have white privilege etc. because they're ethnically Jewish and therefore don't identify as white.

If you ask me I think this is a bullshit way for white Jews to try and avoid taking responsibility for their white privilege. Being Jewish does not erase my whiteness just as being Jewish does not erase a black Jew's blackness, or an Asian Jew's Asianness, and it doesn't override any other Jew of colour's ethnicity. For me to say I'm not white because I'm ethnically Jewish feels like a racist sham. White people can be Jewish. Jewish people can be white. Whiteness or lack thereof isn't something you get to choose for yourself.

Being Jewish gives me a dual ethnicity. I am Jewish and white. To say I'm not white seems unfair to Jews of color who don't get the opportunity to shrug off racism in the same way some white Jews try to shrug off their whiteness. To me it just screams that the person doesn't want to admit they're white because they don't want to acknowledge that they're more shielded from racism and racialized antisemitism than many others. Or maybe they think being white makes them less Jewish. Thoughts?

You've seen many Jews chime in, including myself, and say that even though they pass as white *sometimes*, they're victims of racialized antisemitism too. Race and ethnicity isn't so simple, and what's considered white is also different from country to country. It's not so simple. If you want to identify as white, that's your prerogative. But for many Jews, they are deeply uncomfortable with identifying as such because they know it's conditional and they know it's weaponized. Also it's interesting that you mention Asian Jews because what do you mean by Asian? On a genetic level, most Jews are West Asian, we are from the Levant. Or do you mean Indian Jews? Or perhaps Kaifeng Jews? Afghani Jews? Russian Jews? None of these groups of Jews "look" alike. What do you mean by "Asian"? Do you mean in the way race science claims there's only four "colors", and everyone else is a racial mutt? (Which by the way, is how Jews have historically been classified- racial mutts of "Oriental", "African", and "White"). Is that the system you want to abide by?

And if you claim that Jews not identifying as white is "shrugging off claims of racism", are you saying that only white people are racist? Really? Are you saying East Asian people can't be antiblack and colourist? Are you saying Black people can't be sinophobic? Are you serious?? Is that what you're implying??

Racism isn't a binary of "only white people are racist" and "all PoC are incapable of being racist towards other racial groups or ever towards themselves". Jews can be non-white and still take accountability for intracommunity racism, just like other racial groups can still take accountability for their own racism. It's not "shrugging off claims of racism", it's refusing to abide by a racist system of classification.

Ever since "race" became a topic of discussion, Jews haven't been considered white. Jews and Roma were murdered during the Holocaust because they weren't white. If it was about religion, then Jews who had converted to Christianity would have been spared. But they weren't. It's only recently that some Jews have been able to access some white privilege, but even then, it's entirely conditional on them behaving. And in Leftist circles, our conditional whiteness is used as an excuse for them to ignore the racialized antisemitism we face. Because yeah, they still have the same narrow ideas about race as Hitler did, just with a fresh coat of paint.

So go ahead, be the "good Jew" all you want to be, anon, try to police the language your Jewish brethren use (because for some reason the way other people identify bothers you). But I warn you....your good graces are conditional, and when the people you try to please turn on you, the Jewish community, even the ones you think are identifying themselves wrong, are the only ones left who will defend you.

#sighhh #intracommunity issues #goyim don't touch #racism #antisemitism #jewish identity #racialized antisemitism

[perpetualspiritualconfusion]

@princessofthemosthigh

You made a public blog. It's not private. You made it public, so anyone can see and comment. You're not special enough to be immune to commentary and criticism. I can comment on anything and on anyone I want. And so can you! Freedom of speech is wonderful, isn't it?

Maybe we could have had a normal conversation, but you decided that you're too good to have criticism on your posts about how "oppressed" you are (likely in a country dominated by Christian religion and culture) and blocked any comments and reblogs.

You might call yourself God's princess, but unfortunately, I'm God's argumentative b*tch, and They gave me a little too much attitude, so if I see something that is morally reprehensible, such as being homophobic, transphobic, or using Christian privilege to argue that you're oppressed and people only mock Christians, I'm going to say something about it.

Appropriating language from marginalized communities by creating a (not real) problem of "Christianphobia" is, frankly, disgusting and I'm going to call it out. Christians in the West are some of the most privileged and catered to group of people out there. Unless you live in the Middle East, North Korea, or somewhere else that has actual legislation against Christianity, you're not being oppressed. If anything you're being spoiled. And I'm going to call it out. Being Christian does not exclude you from criticism, which there is a lot to criticize about our faith.

Do not ever be presumptuous about my spiritual life. My confusion has nothing to do with you, and it's between me and God where and what my confusion is. For all you know, my confusion could be if I count as Catholic or Protestant, because I have a little bit of both. Do not presume to know my conversations with God and what I'm confused about.

"God bless you" and "praying for your delusion" is such as sick perversion of what prayer is supposed to be. I'm from the South. I know what backhanded compliments look and the subterfuge of "bless your heart." When you don't mean it, it's disgusting. It's not compassionate or caring, and definitely not Christ-like. The only delusion I had was thinking you could take criticism.

I believe that homophobia in Christianity stems less from what is written in the bible and more to do with the homophobic and patriarchal culture of pre-Christian Rome. Scriptures that discuss or elude to homosexuality were written at a time when ancient peoples were anxious about family lines and distribution of property through families. We no longer live in that kind of culture and should not be treating the LGBTQ+ community, of which I am a part of, with the indignity, lack of compassion, and hate that Christians often give us. I'm Christian, I'm gay, and I'm certain that God is okay with that. To call it a "delusion", is so disrespectful and the opposite of what Jesus would want. #sorry not sorry.

I say humble yourself because you call yourself oppressed when you are not. If you knew me, you would probably figure out that I am God's little jester. I am fool. I get angry. I'm argumentative and long-winded. I talk back to God like a petulant child. I wouldn't say I'm "humbled," but I would say that I frequently and sincerely think about that I am less than worthy to have God's love and compassion. I am not a good example of Christian behavior. I swear, I drink, I start arguments. But at least I know who I am. I'm not nearly as presumptuous or spoiled enough to think that I'm oppressed because of my religion. That's why I said to humble yourself because you're acting like the government banned the Christian bible or rounding up Christians to put in camps. So, once more with feeling, humble yourself. You're not oppressed. You just want to be catered to.

"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow.

For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; for he that shall lose his life, for my sake, shall save it.

For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, and cast away himself?

For he that shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him the Son of man shall be ashamed when he shall come in his majesty, and that of his Father, and of the holy angels." Luke 9:23-26

"And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words; going forth out of the house or city shake off the dust from your feet." Matthew 10:14

I will no longer respond to you after this.

[pragnificent]

There are a lot of egregious examples of privileged and/or abusive people weaponizing social justice language for harm, but the newest ( and one of the most annoying) is this melodramatic, bad faith reaction to the term "cultural Christian.

"I cannot believe all these Jews are using the term ~cultural Christian~ to OPPRESS me personally! My lived experience is being denied! Don't you dare lump me in with my abusers! I'm going to say a slur!"

It's the biggest privileged baby fit in response to the completely innocuous need to have terminology to discusses how Christianity, as the dominant religion in most of the West, impacts the personal and secular realms throughout our society.

[marie-is-seein-stars]

Chinese Culture and Tradition

Centuries-old traditions still play an extremely important role in Chinese culture. Many of these traditions are rooted in Eastern philosophy and religion.

One of the most influential philosophies in Chinese history is Confucianism. Developed through the teachings of Confucius, this philosophy expresses confidence in an orderly and ethical society. To maintain that order, Confucianism stresses respect for government and family elders.

Click on the link below to access the Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia™ article "Confucianism."Confucianism

Another major Chinese religion is Buddhism. It is based on the teachings of Gautama Buddha. As a young man, Gautama renounced his position of privilege in a royal family and became a humble monk in search of ultimate truth. His experiences led him to draw conclusions about the causes of suffering and the path to freedom from that suffering.

A third major Chinese religion is Daoism, also known as Taoism. The term Tao refers to the "way" or the "path." Tao also refers to the source and force behind all existence.

Historical Background

China has been ruled by a communist regime since 1949. However, over the past several decades, political changes have resulted in capitalist reforms and a booming industrial economy. To understand the factors driving today’s growth, it is important to understand a bit about China’s past.

Qing (Ch'ing) Dynasty

Over a span of almost 4,000 years, China was host to nearly 20 dynasties. The last dynasty was the Qing (Ch'ing) Dynasty, which ruled from 1644 to 1911. It was under the Qing Dynasty that China began to slowly open its doors to trade with the West.

Great Britain in particular was interested in trading with China. During the 1800s, the Qing Dynasty allowed the exchange of Chinese pottery for imported English furs. However, Great Britain and other Western powers were soon frustrated by the strict regulations imposed by the Qing rulers over European trade.

Click on the link below to access the Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia™ article "Qing (Ch'ing) (Dynasty)."Qing (Ch'ing)(Dynasty)

The farming of tea is still a massive economic industry in China. (Photo by Ke Wang, Shutterstock.com)

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." -- Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian Archbishop

© Copyright by Virtual Sage, LLC.All rights reserved.

#chinese culture and tradition #chinese tradition #chinese culture #guatama buddha #buddhism #tumblr milestone

[argyrocratie]

Are Zionism and liberalism compatible? The short answer to this question, at least as Zionism is practiced today, is “no.”

Zionism, as enacted by the state of Israel and currently understood by the vast majority of Israelis, is based on ethnonational principles. According to this view, Jews living in Israel must receive more privileges and be entitled to more rights than non-Jews living in the state.

(...)

Clearly, there is an inherent tension in Israel between the nation’s stated aspiration to grant equal rights to the entire “demos” and the actual policy of preserving privileges for the Jewish “ethnos.”

This tension becomes all the more obvious when one considers all the land presently under the Israeli government’s control. In East Jerusalem and the West Bank (as well as the Gaza Strip), Palestinian residents are not formally considered part of the “demos”: they do not have Israeli citizenship and therefore cannot vote in Israeli national elections. The Jewish settlers who live in the Occupied Territories, in contrast, enjoy the benefit of “carrying” their citizenship rights with them, despite the fact that neither East Jerusalem nor the West Bank are within Israel’s internationally recognized borders. There are two separate legal systems in the occupied West Bank: one for Palestinians and one for Israelis. In the West Bank city of Hebron, these different legal systems exist within the same city.

(...)

The vast majority of the Israeli left and center left has supported the two-state solution, calling for the creation of an independent Palestinian nation-state in (parts of) the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These leftists and liberals believe that the separation of Israel/Palestine into two territorial nation-states is necessary to preserve the Jewish majority in Israel.

In most formulations, this so-called “solution” remains premised on the idea that in their state, Jewish citizens should continue to enjoy political privileges not enjoyed by Palestinians. Put another way, when the majority of Israelis discuss a two-state solution, they remain wedded to an ethnonational logic. It is important to stress, though, that this does not have to be the case: the notion of two states for two peoples doesn’t necessarily mean that a majority-Jewish Israeli state must be ethnonationalist. One could easily imagine a liberal democratic version of Israel in which all citizens, regardless of ethnicity or religion, enjoy all the same rights, privileges, and access. Nevertheless, the truth is that the expansion of Jewish settlements into the West Bank makes the two-state solution all but impossible.

The general disillusionment with the possibility of solving the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians through territorial division has generated several creative ideas. One of these initiatives, proposed by the Jewish-Palestinian civil organization A Land For All, promotes the creation of a Israeli-Palestinian confederation. According to the group’s proposal, while a border would divide Israeli and Palestinian states, it would remain open such that both Jewish and non-Jewish populations could easily traverse it. In addition, A Land for All argues that Israel and Palestine should share several institutions, including a security force.

A more radical suggestion is proposed by the One Democratic State Campaign. This movement wishes to establish a constitutional democracy for both Jews and Palestinians on the entire territory between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River. All citizens in this proposed state would enjoy equal individual rights, while the constitution would protect the collective rights of both nationalities. According to this proposal, the new state would help Palestinian refugees and their descendants return to Israel/Palestine. Moreover, the “Law of Return” would be annulled and all immigrants, whether Jewish or not, would be subject to equal procedures of obtaining citizenship.

If such a state were created, it would not mean the end of Zionism — at least, it would not mean the end of a Zionism reimagined in the non-ethnonational, non-exclusivist sense that some of its most influential theorists at one point proposed. While they would have to abandon their privileged status, the 7.1 million Jews living in Israel/Palestine would still enjoy individual and collective rights within a democratic state.

Of course, imagining a different world is easy, and only a first step. In order to make these or other plans materialize, they must receive popular support, first among the Israeli left and eventually across other sectors of Israeli society.

Considering the current state of affairs, it seems that the possibility of Israeli Jews adopting any of these programs is unlikely. Nevertheless, one doesn’t have to look too far into the past to appreciate that the present moment, defined by religious Zionist dominance, also once seemed inconceivable to most Israelis. Put another way, religious Zionist dominance was not inevitable, but was the result of religious Zionists successfully promoting key parts of their political agenda to a largely secular Jewish population.

(...)

The settlement movement’s fortunes changed when Menachem Begin, a supporter of the settlers and leader of the secular, right-wing Likud Party, became Israel’s sixth prime minister in 1977. Begin formed a coalition with the religious Zionist party Mafdal, which ended the latter’s traditional alliance with Israel’s Labor Party. This alliance brought religious Zionist settlers into the governing coalition, granting them the influence they needed to further their goals.

There are many reasons why settlers were invited into the government. Perhaps the most important was the fact that the October 1973 Arab-Israeli (Yom Kippur) War, which caught Israel by surprise, traumatized Israeli society. During the war, Israel suffered more than 2,600 casualties and had to rely on substantial US assistance to defeat Egypt and Syria, its primary belligerents. After the war, an Israeli protest movement began demanding that the Labor Party take responsibility for its failures. It was in this atmosphere of trauma and confusion that the Gush Emunim settlement movement emerged with a clear message and political program that, for the first time, started to attract significant attention.

But carrying a clear message was not enough. Religious Zionist settlers were able to successfully promote their politically controversial program because they presented themselves as the ideal Zionists. Their utopian rhetoric, young adventurous aesthetic, and especially their commitment to settling land reminded Israelis of the spirit of the much-vaunted Zionist pioneers of the early twentieth century, who cultivated the image of idealistic risk-takers settling in a hostile but rightfully Jewish rural environment. Many right-wing Israelis, adrift after the 1973 trauma, embraced the Gush Emunim movement, willingly turning a blind eye to the fact that the settlers were in fact presenting a novel religious-messianic interpretation of Zionism that stood in stark contrast to the secular Zionism that had dominated Israeli politics since the 1948 founding.

Over time, the religious Zionist settlers successfully transformed both the material realities of Israel/Palestine and public opinion about settlement. Today, the majority of Israeli Jews support the settlement project in the West Bank, if not all manifestations of religious settler ideology.

Nothing demonstrates the settlers’ success better than the numbers. In 1977, the year Begin brought them into the government, there were around five thousand settlers living in thirty-eight settlements, most of them relatively close to Israel’s 1967 borders. By 1987, those numbers had risen to over sixty thousand settlers living in 134 settlements in both the West Bank and Gaza. Today, even though there are no longer Israeli settlements in Gaza or the northern Sinai, there are over 450,000 Jewish settlers living today in over 220 settlements and outposts all across the West Bank, not including the more than two hundred thousand living in Israeli-annexed neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.

Most importantly, the settlements are no longer an exclusively religious Zionist project; religious Zionists now constitute only about one-third of the settler population. The majority of settlers, in fact, are either secular Jews or non-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Israelis who were motivated by low housing prices (frequently subsidized by the state) and the promise of improvements in “quality of life.” Put another way, the Israeli government presently incentivizes settlement as a means to address internal economic problems."

...

#israel #zionism #hayim katsman #long post