In “Treacherous Stab”, Bahrain Normalises Tie With Israel

[The Alma Mater]

Anti-Zionism isn’t anti-Semitism.

While technically anti Zionist is not necessarily inherently anti-Semitic, given at this point that Israel does exist, most people there were born there, and we are really in a post-Zionist phase, it is difficult to justify opposing Israel’s existence at this point, unless you oppose the existence of states in their entirety.

There is a significant amount of Jews that opposes the current existence of Israel on religious grounds - mostly based around the idea that they are not allowed to live there before the Messiah has come. Are they anti-semetic ?

Of course, those people do not oppose the existence of Israel in the future - just now.

[Novus America]

While technically anti Zionist is not necessarily inherently anti-Semitic, given at this point that Israel does exist, most people there were born there, and we are really in a post-Zionist phase, it is difficult to justify opposing Israel’s existence at this point, unless you oppose the existence of states in their entirety.

There is a significant amount of Jews that opposes the current existence of Israel on religious grounds - mostly based around the idea that they are not allowed to live there before the Messiah has come. Are they anti-semetic ?

Of course, those people do not oppose the existence of Israel in the future - just now.

I mean, that is an odd case. It kind of is though. I mean there are black people who are racist against black people, Asians who are racist against Asians and so on.
Odd cases, but it is possible.

Because it is still based on the Jews deserving special punishment and stuff other groups do not allegedly deserve, even if it is advocating your own ethno-religious group get said special punishment. Again “x group deserves special punishment no other group gets” is kind of hostile to that group, by nature, even if you are part of that group.

But of course as you said they are actually Zionists, because they do support the establishment of a Jewish state in the Levant in the future. So they are probably anti-Semitic but also very much Zionist. There are anti-Semitic Zionists.

[Feline Goetland]

There is a significant amount of Jews that opposes the current existence of Israel on religious grounds - mostly based around the idea that they are not allowed to live there before the Messiah has come. Are they anti-semetic ?

Of course, those people do not oppose the existence of Israel in the future - just now.

I mean, that is an odd case. It kind of is though. I mean there are black people who are racist against black people, Asians who are racist against Asians and so on.
Odd cases, but it is possible.

Because it is still based on the Jews deserving special punishment and stuff other groups do not allegedly deserve, even if it is advocating your own ethno-religious group get said special punishment. Again “x group deserves special punishment no other group gets” is kind of hostile to that group, by nature, even if you are part of that group.

But of course as you said they are actually Zionists, because they do support the establishment of a Jewish state in the Levant in the future. So they are probably anti-Semitic but also very much Zionist. There are anti-Semitic Zionists.

Nah that’s actually not antisemitism. It is a religious dispute. They don’t disagree that Israel needs to exist. They just believe that it needs to happen after they get the Mashiach. No matter what that is it isn’t antisemitism in the same sense that groups such as Puritans weren’t anti-Christian for banning Christmas (for they consider it a pagan festival that has no place in Christianity).

[Vistulange]

I mean, that is an odd case. It kind of is though. I mean there are black people who are racist against black people, Asians who are racist against Asians and so on.
Odd cases, but it is possible.

Because it is still based on the Jews deserving special punishment and stuff other groups do not allegedly deserve, even if it is advocating your own ethno-religious group get said special punishment. Again “x group deserves special punishment no other group gets” is kind of hostile to that group, by nature, even if you are part of that group.

But of course as you said they are actually Zionists, because they do support the establishment of a Jewish state in the Levant in the future. So they are probably anti-Semitic but also very much Zionist. There are anti-Semitic Zionists.

Nah that’s actually not antisemitism. It is a religious dispute. They don’t disagree that Israel needs to exist. They just believe that it needs to happen after they get the Mashiach. No matter what that is it isn’t antisemitism in the same sense that groups such as Puritans weren’t anti-Christian for banning Christmas (for they consider it a pagan festival that has no place in Christianity).

They're very anti-Zionist, though. The fact that they believe Israel should only exist after the Messiah has returned is semantics: for all intents and purposes, these people largely believe that Israel should simply not exist right now, with all that such a world entails. Some groups within the Jewish anti-Zionist camp also advocate that Jews should not even mass-immigrate to Israel, whether a state has been constituted there or not. It would be laughable to think of these people as anti-Semitic, because they tend to be staunchly connected to their Jewish faith and way of life, but they are certainly anti-Zionists without a doubt, unless one engages in semantics.

And, well, despite the effort to portray this argument as a fight between "good and evil", i.e. "Zionism" and "anti-Zionism", and efforts to portray the latter as equal to "anti-Semitism", there's a larger elephant in the room: Non-Zionist Jews. Agudat Yisrael, a constituent party of the UTJ bloc, is probably the best example of such a group. They're not necessarily against the existence of the state of Israel, but they view it, well, as any other country. They did not and do not participate in the activities of a Zionist state beyond channeling funds to their communities, and their participation in governments allows this to happen.

Then, of course, there were the communists back when Israel was established, with Maki basically being anti-Zionist because it was, well, communist. There's no place for ethnic nationalism in a communist doctrine, really. Maki isn't really a thing nowadays, so not as important.

Basically, there are Jews who are actually anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic, and without any semantics being needed to jump through intellectual hoops. Zionism, as an ideology, was expressly founded on the notion that God wasn't around, God wasn't going to help the Jews, and that the Jews needed to take their fates into their own hands, quite literally, as opposed to waiting on God and the Messiah. Labour Zionism included some conquest of labour and a return to agriculture, as well as the formation of a new Jewish identity distinct from the diaspora Jew, but its core remains the same. Religious Zionism represents only a segment of religious Jews.

[Feline Goetland]

Nah that’s actually not antisemitism. It is a religious dispute. They don’t disagree that Israel needs to exist. They just believe that it needs to happen after they get the Mashiach. No matter what that is it isn’t antisemitism in the same sense that groups such as Puritans weren’t anti-Christian for banning Christmas (for they consider it a pagan festival that has no place in Christianity).

They're very anti-Zionist, though. The fact that they believe Israel should only exist after the Messiah has returned is semantics: for all intents and purposes, these people largely believe that Israel should simply not exist right now, with all that such a world entails. Some groups within the Jewish anti-Zionist camp also advocate that Jews should not even mass-immigrate to Israel, whether a state has been constituted there or not. It would be laughable to think of these people as anti-Semitic, because they tend to be staunchly connected to their Jewish faith and way of life, but they are certainly anti-Zionists without a doubt, unless one engages in semantics.

And, well, despite the effort to portray this argument as a fight between "good and evil", i.e. "Zionism" and "anti-Zionism", and efforts to portray the latter as equal to "anti-Semitism", there's a larger elephant in the room: Non-Zionist Jews. Agudat Yisrael, a constituent party of the UTJ bloc, is probably the best example of such a group. They're not necessarily against the existence of the state of Israel, but they view it, well, as any other country. They did not and do not participate in the activities of a Zionist state beyond channeling funds to their communities, and their participation in governments allows this to happen.

Then, of course, there were the communists back when Israel was established, with Maki basically being anti-Zionist because it was, well, communist. There's no place for ethnic nationalism in a communist doctrine, really. Maki isn't really a thing nowadays, so not as important.

Basically, there are Jews who are actually anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic, and without any semantics being needed to jump through intellectual hoops. Zionism, as an ideology, was expressly founded on the notion that God wasn't around, God wasn't going to help the Jews, and that the Jews needed to take their fates into their own hands, quite literally, as opposed to waiting on God and the Messiah. Labour Zionism included some conquest of labour and a return to agriculture, as well as the formation of a new Jewish identity distinct from the diaspora Jew, but its core remains the same. Religious Zionism represents only a segment of religious Jews.

I agree.

[Thermodolia]

And you are aware that Hamas uses civilians as shields right? They aren’t innocent in this any more than Israel

Again, not a Hamas supporter, but I don’t think Palestinian village=secret Hamas outpost.

But Gaza is a Hamas holdout. And it’s not even secret

[La Xinga]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/15/palesti ... g-two.html

The showdown begins.

[Novus America]

I mean, that is an odd case. It kind of is though. I mean there are black people who are racist against black people, Asians who are racist against Asians and so on.
Odd cases, but it is possible.

Because it is still based on the Jews deserving special punishment and stuff other groups do not allegedly deserve, even if it is advocating your own ethno-religious group get said special punishment. Again “x group deserves special punishment no other group gets” is kind of hostile to that group, by nature, even if you are part of that group.

But of course as you said they are actually Zionists, because they do support the establishment of a Jewish state in the Levant in the future. So they are probably anti-Semitic but also very much Zionist. There are anti-Semitic Zionists.

Nah that’s actually not antisemitism. It is a religious dispute. They don’t disagree that Israel needs to exist. They just believe that it needs to happen after they get the Mashiach. No matter what that is it isn’t antisemitism in the same sense that groups such as Puritans weren’t anti-Christian for banning Christmas (for they consider it a pagan festival that has no place in Christianity).

Eh, that is where it becomes complicated, but still it kind of is, if you think your group should be especially punished for religious reasons. You are still picking a certain ethno-religious group for collective punishment. Even if it is your own.

Of course for those who which Israel is just another state, not the real Biblical Israel they are not. That is fine, because it is strictly religious, with no impact on the people there. Saying there is no reason to move there is fine too.

Because they do not want to make the people currently there suffer.

But if you want to undo the state, that becomes more problematic. Again it would be quite different if it was still say 1939.
Then you could make a very different argument.
Then you could simply say “we should not be undoing existing states against the will of the people or ethnic cleansing people, just we should not create a new one at that location”.
Fine, easy to argue. Not anti-Semitic. But things changed since then.

Again the issue is that almost half the world’s Jews live in Israel, most those that live there are born there, have nowhere else to go. That is their home.

If one says they should be removed from the area by force, that becomes quite hard to justify. Although less bad, if you say they should be allowed to live there, but lose the right to self determination that is easier to justify although it still creates issues, if you think another group deserves self determination in their place, or if place under what would be de facto a hostile regime that would deny them equal rights.
Therein lies the problem.

That this is no longer a hypothetical about what should be done in the future, but deciding the fate of some 7 million people, again by many estimates about half an entire ethnic religious group.

That is the problem. Zionism was about establishing the State of Israel, it is done, at least in the secular concept of Zionism (religious Zionism is not the same thing necessarily, saying it should not be a religious state, or is not a religious state, or that the religious state does not yet exist, is again not requiring the suffering or collective punishment of people already there).

When calling for a dissolution of an existing state, against the will of the people, at great cost to the people there, and only that state, not other similarly constituted states, to create a ethno state for a different group, that is quite difficult to separate from hatred of, or at the very least discrimination against, the group that makes up the majority of the population of that state.

Which is the problem with adopting the anti-Zionist label today.
Again it is not inherently anti-Semitic, and there are ways to try to work around it, or exceptions.

But singling out one group of people for ethnic cleansing, is pretty damn hostile to that group. Which is what the whole “they should be moved somewhere else” thing is. For those that want the region ethnically cleansed against the will of the people, pretty anti-Semitic. I do not see how we can dispute that.

[Novus America]

They have lived their longer than 400 years. They came from Israel not Central/Eastern Europe like you are claiming, stop your BS.

And Egyptians? They belong in Egypt, not Israel.

Bud:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=htt ... AdAAAAABAe

Borders change. Until relatively recently the people of Sinai and Gaza made no real distinction between their respective regions, seeing them as essentially the same.

As for the argument most Jews don’t have European ancestry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... J2pDAKUrMS
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... AH5vsi4rcC


Remember, I’m Muslim: I’m not saying they never lived there. Many Palestinians have Jewish ancestry, or at least Jewish relatives. I’m just saying they have no right to claim it’s their land after a couple hundred years ruling there.

Great, again if it was say 1939 you would have a legitimate argument.
But actually the majority of people in Israel were born in Israel (and actually a majority of Israelis are if at least partial Mizrahi and Sephardi descent.

Indeed borders change, but you are wanting to go back to borders that changed.

The simple fact is that Jews live their now, were born there, have a right to be there. We do Arabs. The only question is how both can have their right to exist and exercise self determination and protect their rights. Which will de facto require the continuation of two separate entities within the region. A one state solution that would be a secular republic not for one or the other, but for Jews and Arabs equally is cute in theory, but in reality is just Lebanon 2.0, this time with more violence and dysfunction.

The majority of people there do not want that, so there is no reasonable way to force it on them. It is fine to advocate for it happening some time in the future, but we have to acknowledge it is not realistic any time soon.

As such, on the specific topic, it still makes sense to recognize the reality of the present, even if advocating for a better future, which is what the UAE and Bahrain are doing.

[VlaRiSsiA]

Bud:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=htt ... AdAAAAABAe

Borders change. Until relatively recently the people of Sinai and Gaza made no real distinction between their respective regions, seeing them as essentially the same.

As for the argument most Jews don’t have European ancestry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... J2pDAKUrMS
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... AH5vsi4rcC


Remember, I’m Muslim: I’m not saying they never lived there. Many Palestinians have Jewish ancestry, or at least Jewish relatives. I’m just saying they have no right to claim it’s their land after a couple hundred years ruling there.

Great, again if it was say 1939 you would have a legitimate argument.
But actually the majority of people in Israel were born in Israel (and actually a majority of Israelis are if at least partial Mizrahi and Sephardi descent.

Indeed borders change, but you are wanting to go back to borders that changed.

The simple fact is that Jews live their now, were born there, have a right to be there. We do Arabs. The only question is how both can have their right to exist and exercise self determination and protect their rights. Which will de facto require the continuation of two separate entities within the region. A one state solution that would be a secular republic not for one or the other, but for Jews and Arabs equally is cute in theory, but in reality is just Lebanon 2.0, this time with more violence and dysfunction.

The majority of people there do not want that, so there is no reasonable way to force it on them. It is fine to advocate for it happening some time in the future, but we have to acknowledge it is not realistic any time soon.

As such, on the specific topic, it still makes sense to recognize the reality of the present, even if advocating for a better future, which is what the UAE and Bahrain are doing.

I personally believe that Jews and Arabs should coexist peacefully in a country where everyone is actually regarded equal(and without apartheid), but when we have xenophobic chauvinists like Netanyahu and radicals like Hamas taking this conflict to their advantage, tragedies happen. Both the IDF and Hamas have little regard for civilians on either side but the IDF has been far more successful in killing Palestinians than vice versa. Several thousand is a lot more than a few dozen

[Vistulange]

Bud:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=htt ... AdAAAAABAe

Borders change. Until relatively recently the people of Sinai and Gaza made no real distinction between their respective regions, seeing them as essentially the same.

As for the argument most Jews don’t have European ancestry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... J2pDAKUrMS
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... AH5vsi4rcC


Remember, I’m Muslim: I’m not saying they never lived there. Many Palestinians have Jewish ancestry, or at least Jewish relatives. I’m just saying they have no right to claim it’s their land after a couple hundred years ruling there.

Great, again if it was say 1939 you would have a legitimate argument.
But actually the majority of people in Israel were born in Israel (and actually a majority of Israelis are if at least partial Mizrahi and Sephardi descent.

Indeed borders change, but you are wanting to go back to borders that changed.

The simple fact is that Jews live their now, were born there, have a right to be there. We do Arabs. The only question is how both can have their right to exist and exercise self determination and protect their rights. Which will de facto require the continuation of two separate entities within the region. A one state solution that would be a secular republic not for one or the other, but for Jews and Arabs equally is cute in theory, but in reality is just Lebanon 2.0, this time with more violence and dysfunction.

The majority of people there do not want that, so there is no reasonable way to force it on them. It is fine to advocate for it happening some time in the future, but we have to acknowledge it is not realistic any time soon.

As such, on the specific topic, it still makes sense to recognize the reality of the present, even if advocating for a better future, which is what the UAE and Bahrain are doing.

It's almost as if sabras do not exist, and all Israeli Jews are colonialists.

I largely agree with you in that two separate states are needed, unless Israel is willing to take in and accept—not necessarily as citizens, but as permanent residents of some sort, at the very least—the entire population. Or, unless they're willing to engage in actual ethnic cleansing on a wider scale. Of course, the alternative is to just annex the West Bank and Gaza, and keep treating the people already in legal limbo like dirt, but that's basically returning to the 1950's and 1960's, and I'm not quite sure if Israel would even want that. I generally don't buy the arguments that people do things solely out of the kindness of their hearts, and I'm also fairly sure Levi Eshkol didn't lift military administration over Israeli Arabs just because he would feel good about it.

So, that really only leaves an independent and functioning state of Palestine as a realistic option, unless somehow, magically, the decades of animosity and hostility between the two groups disappears. I'd like to reiterate "functioning": establishing a half-baked bantustan as a window dressing isn't going to satisfy anybody. Therein lies the problem, the problem that nobody has a solution for. It's exceedingly difficult to separate the land—just look at how negotiations regarding the Temple Mount went, back in the 1990's if I recall correctly, but I'm probably mistaken—and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

[Novus America]

Bahrain is scared of Iran because it’s a tiny country that while having Sunni leadership, is Shiā majority, so the people often have a pro-Iran anti-Israel stance. It hopes that the deal with win it more favor with Saudi.

The UAE is also scared of Iran, but are hoping this will get the US to sell them a certain type of missile. Of course the Emirati and Bahraini people don’t like these decisions but we don’t have to talk about that!

Airplane actually, not missile but sure. This makes practical sense for both the government of Bahrain and the UAE.
Glad you acknowledge that.

True the fact that neither government is democratic does raise questions about what the people want, (although in the UAE and Bahrain Arab Muslims are actually only some 20% of the population BTW), the majority of people on the UAE and Bahrain South East Asians who probably have far more pressing concerns than the ghost of Pan Arabism.

Actually most people in the UAE and Bahrain are not Arabs.

[Insaanistan]

Bahrain is scared of Iran because it’s a tiny country that while having Sunni leadership, is Shiā majority, so the people often have a pro-Iran anti-Israel stance. It hopes that the deal with win it more favor with Saudi.

The UAE is also scared of Iran, but are hoping this will get the US to sell them a certain type of missile. Of course the Emirati and Bahraini people don’t like these decisions but we don’t have to talk about that!

Airplane actually, not missile but sure. This makes practical sense for both the government of Bahrain and the UAE.
Glad you acknowledge that.

True the fact that neither government is democratic does raise questions about what the people want, (although in the UAE and Bahrain Arab Muslims are actually only some 20% of the population BTW), the majority of people on the UAE and Bahrain South East Asians who probably have far more pressing concerns than the ghost of Pan Arabism.

Actually most people in the UAE and Bahrain are not Arabs.

Well, Bahrain is majority Arab but significantly South Asian. The UAE is majority South Asian and Filipino, then Emiratis, then Bahrainis. Both are majority Muslim still, and the Muslim population of all nationalities almost unanimously hate Israel and want their country of residency and home country to have nothing to do with them.

Also, thank you for the correction. I had thought it was a missile, though the plane has military implications nonetheless.

[Northern Davincia]

We remember. We also remember that non-Muslims were not afforded the same rights as Muslims in countries you apologize for.

What countries do I apologize for? I don’t think I’ve ever done that.

The Ottoman Empire comes to mind.

[Insaanistan]

What countries do I apologize for? I don’t think I’ve ever done that.

The Ottoman Empire comes to mind.

I didn’t know you meant that. Ottomans are known for generally treating minorities well. When they tried to abolish the Janissaries one time, the Janissaries and their families revolted. I don’t like the system, but there’s a reason many historians have trouble call it slavery. Yes, they were tragically kidnapped or forced into service and forcibly converted to Islam. However, they were paid handsomely. They could marry into noble families and have children. They had power and were respected. A significant amount of non-Muslim parents actually liked the system and wanted their children in it, though most simply accepted or hated it (and rightly so!).

[Insaanistan]

Again, not a Hamas supporter, but I don’t think Palestinian village=secret Hamas outpost.

But Gaza is a Hamas holdout. And it’s not even secret

So every village deserves to be mercilessly bombed?

[Insaanistan]

After several rockets fired from Gaza were fired into Israel (no group has claimed responsibility) and injured two, Israel has begun relentlessly bombarding Gaza, causing massive property damage. No casualties have yet been reported.

[Novus America]

Airplane actually, not missile but sure. This makes practical sense for both the government of Bahrain and the UAE.
Glad you acknowledge that.

True the fact that neither government is democratic does raise questions about what the people want, (although in the UAE and Bahrain Arab Muslims are actually only some 20% of the population BTW), the majority of people on the UAE and Bahrain South East Asians who probably have far more pressing concerns than the ghost of Pan Arabism.

Actually most people in the UAE and Bahrain are not Arabs.

Well, Bahrain is majority Arab but significantly South Asian. The UAE is majority South Asian and Filipino, then Emiratis, then Bahrainis. Both are majority Muslim still, and the Muslim population of all nationalities almost unanimously hate Israel and want their country of residency and home country to have nothing to do with them.

Also, thank you for the correction. I had thought it was a missile, though the plane has military implications nonetheless.

By some sources Bahrain has more Asians than the UAE (as a percentage of the population), some less but still.
Sure they might be majority Muslim, but I doubt most care much about ME geopolitics. Sure they might have no love for Israel, but they are not going to be nearly as invested in the issue either.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Bahrain

Actually when you visit either country, neither seems really Arab with the exception of the horrible heat.
You can go around without interacting with any local Arabs, who rarely work in public facing jobs.

Sure the UAE wants the F-35, which it has to make peace with Israel to get, (because Israel is a member of the F-35 program, which is multinational, although mostly US controlled).
That definitely played a major role.

The thing is neither has any real reason to be loyal to the Palestinian government, which has a foreign policy very contrary to theirs.

So sure, it is a matter of practical logical concerns overriding some fake Pan Arab or Pan Islamic propaganda.
Both Pan Arab and Pan Islam are not nothing more than empty sayings in reality, the cold hard truth is they have more important concerns and Arab and Muslim countries are often staunchly opposed in foreign policy.

Which I cannot blame them for. Getting the F-35 and opposing their geopolitical opponents in Tehran and Ankara are more important to them then the Israel Palestinians thing, and can you blame them?

I mean what is more logical, siding with a a government hostile to their foreign policy (the Palestinian one) or the one sharing the same common opponents (Israel also opposing Iran, Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood)?

[Vistulange]

there’s a reason many historians have trouble call it slavery.

This is partially because the Turkish word used to describe them, "kul", does not accurately translate to "slave". Colloquially, you could say slave, but it doesn't describe it accurately.

Yes, they were tragically kidnapped or forced into service and forcibly converted to Islam.

Tragic today, nothing particularly out of the ordinary back in the day.

However, they were paid handsomely. They could marry into noble families and have children.

Whatever do you mean by "noble" families? Mehmet II went to great pains to make sure that there were no noble families outside of the House of Osman. He was successful at it. The whole system of the Janissary Corps and the Enderun existed to ensure that there would be no noble families.

But, this topic really has no pertinence to the topic at hand whatsoever. I'll stop the derail.

[Novus America]

The Ottoman Empire comes to mind.

I didn’t know you meant that. Ottomans are known for generally treating minorities well. When they tried to abolish the Janissaries one time, the Janissaries and their families revolted. I don’t like the system, but there’s a reason many historians have trouble call it slavery. Yes, they were tragically kidnapped or forced into service and forcibly converted to Islam. However, they were paid handsomely. They could marry into noble families and have children. They had power and were respected. A significant amount of non-Muslim parents actually liked the system and wanted their children in it, though most simply accepted or hated it (and rightly so!).

It was not just the Janissaries (who did become a political elite).
There were many slaves and forced laborers who were NOT Janissaries.

I mean they forcibly kidnapped and sometimes even castrated children of minorities.

“treating minorities well” (I mean apart from the whole Armenian and Greek genocides later on) is only RELATIVE to the other countries of the 1600s to 1700s. I mean sure Jews in the Ottoman Empire were better off then in many other countries (where their religion was outright banned) but they were still second class citizens, treated very poorly by modern standards. Sure the Ottomans did not have the witch burnings and wars of religion like say France and Germany, but still it was not a good situation relative to Enlightenment concepts of equality before the law, which simply did not exist amongst the Ottomans.

[Insaanistan]

Well, Bahrain is majority Arab but significantly South Asian. The UAE is majority South Asian and Filipino, then Emiratis, then Bahrainis. Both are majority Muslim still, and the Muslim population of all nationalities almost unanimously hate Israel and want their country of residency and home country to have nothing to do with them.

Also, thank you for the correction. I had thought it was a missile, though the plane has military implications nonetheless.

By some sources Bahrain has more Asians than the UAE (as a percentage of the population), some less but still.
Sure they might be majority Muslim, but I doubt most care much about ME geopolitics. Sure they might have no love for Israel, but they are not going to be nearly as invested in the issue either.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Bahrain

Actually when you visit either country, neither seems really Arab with the exception of the horrible heat.
You can go around without interacting with any local Arabs, who rarely work in public facing jobs.

Sure the UAE wants the F-35, which it has to make peace with Israel to get, (because Israel is a member of the F-35 program, which is multinational, although mostly US controlled).
That definitely played a major role.

The thing is neither has any real reason to be loyal to the Palestinian government, which has a foreign policy very contrary to theirs.

So sure, it is a matter of practical logical concerns overriding some fake Pan Arab or Pan Islamic propaganda.
Both Pan Arab and Pan Islam are not nothing more than empty sayings in reality, the cold hard truth is they have more important concerns and Arab and Muslim countries are often staunchly opposed in foreign policy.

Which I cannot blame them for. Getting the F-35 and opposing their geopolitical opponents in Tehran and Ankara are more important to them then the Israel Palestinians thing, and can you blame them?

I mean what is more logical, siding with a a government hostile to their foreign policy (the Palestinian one) or the one sharing the same common opponents (Israel also opposing Iran, Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood)?

I have some cousins who live in the Emirates, it’s true, as Maz Jobrani put it (I’m paraphrasing):
“The dude at the airport who greeted me was Pakistani. The guy who drove me to the airport was Egyptian. The lady who showed me my room was Filipino. At one point I was like “Where are the Qataris?!” And then everyone was like, “It’s too hot for them, they don’t come out till night.” I got into the taxi and it’s an Indian dude, and I’m like, “Can you take me to this hotel?” And he said “No problem, sir.” Five minutes pass and we’re not moving, and I’m like “Why aren’t we moving?” and he said “One problem, sir. I don’t know where that hotel is!” And I’m like, “How do you not know where it is?! You’re a taxi driver!” And he said, “I only got here yesterday. Please tell me where it is.” I said, “I’m not Qatari, I don’t know where it is!” And he said, “Then it will be an adventure for both of us!”

[Novus America]

By some sources Bahrain has more Asians than the UAE (as a percentage of the population), some less but still.
Sure they might be majority Muslim, but I doubt most care much about ME geopolitics. Sure they might have no love for Israel, but they are not going to be nearly as invested in the issue either.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Bahrain

Actually when you visit either country, neither seems really Arab with the exception of the horrible heat.
You can go around without interacting with any local Arabs, who rarely work in public facing jobs.

Sure the UAE wants the F-35, which it has to make peace with Israel to get, (because Israel is a member of the F-35 program, which is multinational, although mostly US controlled).
That definitely played a major role.

The thing is neither has any real reason to be loyal to the Palestinian government, which has a foreign policy very contrary to theirs.

So sure, it is a matter of practical logical concerns overriding some fake Pan Arab or Pan Islamic propaganda.
Both Pan Arab and Pan Islam are not nothing more than empty sayings in reality, the cold hard truth is they have more important concerns and Arab and Muslim countries are often staunchly opposed in foreign policy.

Which I cannot blame them for. Getting the F-35 and opposing their geopolitical opponents in Tehran and Ankara are more important to them then the Israel Palestinians thing, and can you blame them?

I mean what is more logical, siding with a a government hostile to their foreign policy (the Palestinian one) or the one sharing the same common opponents (Israel also opposing Iran, Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood)?

I have some cousins who live in the Emirates, it’s true, as Maz Jobrani put it (I’m paraphrasing):
“The dude at the airport who greeted me was Pakistani. The guy who drove me to the airport was Egyptian. The lady who showed me my room was Filipino. At one point I was like “Where are the Qataris?!” And then everyone was like, “It’s too hot for them, they don’t come out till night.” I got into the taxi and it’s an Indian dude, and I’m like, “Can you take me to this hotel?” And he said “No problem, sir.” Five minutes pass and we’re not moving, and I’m like “Why aren’t we moving?” and he said “One problem, sir. I don’t know where that hotel is!” And I’m like, “How do you not know where it is?! You’re a taxi driver!” And he said, “I only got here yesterday. Please tell me where it is.” I said, “I’m not Qatari, I don’t know where it is!” And he said, “Then it will be an adventure for both of us!”

That was my experience when I deployed to the UAE and Bahrain as well.
Both have very odd demographic situations with a caste like system. Nearly every waitress was Filipino, with Indians and Africans stuck doing the nasty stuff like pumping sewage off the ship. Gulf Arabs are an isolated elite in both countries (who often look down on Arabs not from the Gulf, like Egyptians).

Of course only a smalL elite from the Gulf Arab elite actually makes the foreign policy decisions, in which the majority have no real say. That is a fair point to make, that neither consult the majority when making such decisions (but neither country has had much real protests because of this, probably from a combination of fear and apathy).

[Novus America]

Great, again if it was say 1939 you would have a legitimate argument.
But actually the majority of people in Israel were born in Israel (and actually a majority of Israelis are if at least partial Mizrahi and Sephardi descent.

Indeed borders change, but you are wanting to go back to borders that changed.

The simple fact is that Jews live their now, were born there, have a right to be there. We do Arabs. The only question is how both can have their right to exist and exercise self determination and protect their rights. Which will de facto require the continuation of two separate entities within the region. A one state solution that would be a secular republic not for one or the other, but for Jews and Arabs equally is cute in theory, but in reality is just Lebanon 2.0, this time with more violence and dysfunction.

The majority of people there do not want that, so there is no reasonable way to force it on them. It is fine to advocate for it happening some time in the future, but we have to acknowledge it is not realistic any time soon.

As such, on the specific topic, it still makes sense to recognize the reality of the present, even if advocating for a better future, which is what the UAE and Bahrain are doing.

It's almost as if sabras do not exist, and all Israeli Jews are colonialists.

I largely agree with you in that two separate states are needed, unless Israel is willing to take in and accept—not necessarily as citizens, but as permanent residents of some sort, at the very least—the entire population. Or, unless they're willing to engage in actual ethnic cleansing on a wider scale. Of course, the alternative is to just annex the West Bank and Gaza, and keep treating the people already in legal limbo like dirt, but that's basically returning to the 1950's and 1960's, and I'm not quite sure if Israel would even want that. I generally don't buy the arguments that people do things solely out of the kindness of their hearts, and I'm also fairly sure Levi Eshkol didn't lift military administration over Israeli Arabs just because he would feel good about it.

So, that really only leaves an independent and functioning state of Palestine as a realistic option, unless somehow, magically, the decades of animosity and hostility between the two groups disappears. I'd like to reiterate "functioning": establishing a half-baked bantustan as a window dressing isn't going to satisfy anybody. Therein lies the problem, the problem that nobody has a solution for. It's exceedingly difficult to separate the land—just look at how negotiations regarding the Temple Mount went, back in the 1990's if I recall correctly, but I'm probably mistaken—and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Oh I agree. Israel cannot annex both the West Bank and Gaza without getting an Arab majority (it could annex one and keep a Jewish minority, but not both), and Israel does not want that, as you said it would require permanently disenfranchising or expulsion to keep their state, both of which would be very ugly and horrible in the eyes of the world. Most Israelis realize this.

This is also why recognition helps prevent this, the leadership of the UAE and Bahrain might not care much for the Palestinian government (or the dysfunctional semi-governmental mess it is) but the still could not support Israel annexing the whole thing or emptying the population of those area entirely.

And the current situation is still just an ugly bandaid over the real problem.

There will have to be two states in the land that was the Palestinian mandate West of the Jordan to actually solve the problem.

The question is in the details. Where the borders should be, control over airspace, etc.
Over which the Israelis and Palestinians themselves are deeply internally divided, too much to come to a consensus enough to actually hammer out final borders and details, so the problem just continues on.

The biggest problem is the lack of political unity and will enough to actually come up with a solution acceptable to both given neither can decide exactly what they want internally. .

Given the majority of Israelis cannot agree on what exactly the details and borders should be, and neither can the Palestinians agree on critical points, they too being very internally divide, (the governments of Gaza and the West Bank effectively in a Cold War struggle against each other), I doubt a solution to that is coming any time soon.

[Genivaria]

I'd say this is an overall good thing as Israel like any country does have the right to exist.

[Fahran]

There is a significant amount of Jews that opposes the current existence of Israel on religious grounds - mostly based around the idea that they are not allowed to live there before the Messiah has come. Are they anti-semetic ?

Of course, those people do not oppose the existence of Israel in the future - just now.

It depends on who you're talking about, really. The Ultra-Orthodox oppose the existence of Israel at the moment and as a secular polity.

While some of this opposition is rooted in halakha, I think it's almost universally agreed that the goyim (nations) violated the third oath not to persecute the Jewish people excessively when they wiped out most of the European Jewry and ethnically cleansed most of the African and Middle Eastern Jewry in the span of about forty years. The question then is whether the Jewish people were still bound by the first and second oaths. Given the establishment of Israel came with the sanction of the UN, it's difficult to really assert that its existence came about solely through violence or that it constituted an act of rebellion against the nations of the world. From a halakhic standpoint, it's pretty easy to see why a good many Jews who aren't Ultra-Orthodox have no problem with Zionism. In fact, the majority position has been supportive of Zionism since Israel's establishment.

The other principal objection among the Ultra-Orthodox largely stems from the argument that Zionism as conceptualized by Herzl is the quintessential secular Jewish movement, one rooted in European notions of national identity rather than in the Jewish faith. That's a more compelling argument if you have an aversion to the secular but it's not really relevant to anyone's objections outside the Jewish community unless they intend to use the Ultra-Orthodox as a cudgel against the rest of us. And, in any case, the lines have begun to blur on that to an extent since Labor Zionism has waned in influence.

The last group of Jews who are consistently opposed to Zionism have largely become assimilated into the American or European Left and now seem to broadly interpret Jewish values as synonymous with progressive values. This includes a robust anti-colonialism, and the portrayal of Israel as a vestige of European colonizers among the Arabs tends to run afoul of that. It's not really coincidental that more attention is paid to the killing of Arabs by Israel than has been paid to the killing of Arabs by Saddam Hussein or Bashar al-Assad. At its root, the perception of Jewishness as synonymous with whiteness plays into how people respond to Israeli atrocities. They're probably the largest group of Anti-Zionists.