1. Many Israeli Jewish Zionists are either "traditional" (religious but not that much) or Religious Zionist, and they are generally part of the right wing coalition. Actual atheists tend to be in the Israeli (still-Zionist) left.
2. The Zionist conception of Jewish identity is not "racial" in the American sense. The most obvious sense in which this is true is that it considers converts and their descendants full members of the nation. Probably the closest analogies are some Native American nations' identities or Armenian nationalism.
But you're directionally correct - Zionism is not a particularly religious ideology within the Jewish world, and outside of the Religious Zionist minority the political class is (openly!) on the less observant end even on the right.
Hey there I'm Israeli and I'm quite politically informed and moderately religiously educated and I have never heard of this "curse of the eighth decade" thing you've heard of.
You probably know a lot more than me but my understanding is there have been two previous Jewish states in the Levant, the ancient Kingdom of Israel ruled by King David and then the Hasmonean dynasty during the Second Temple period.
Both of those states lasted for around 80 years before collapsing. My (probably worthless) 2c is there's nothing magical or surprising about that, a lot of people have pointed out that political entities often last around the length of a human life before change occurs.
The most prominent current theory is the Strauss–Howe "fourth turning" one but the idea goes back further than that
This is not a common narrative in Israeli discourse (especially since in that discourse David's kingdom is considered to have continued in the southern Kingdom of Judah, and to have lasted several centuries).
That is not the ruling Likud ideology in Israel nor the allied national religious ideology; both refer to Israel+Palestine+Golan as "the Whole Land of Israel".
And in any case, the "most religious" (ie those whose politics are most totally driven by Judaism) bloc in Israel are at best ambivalent about the Israeli state and the settlement enterprise, and actively hostile to military service.
Israeli hostility to Iran is driven by a "defensive" paranoia, not a religious mission.
Israel literally has minted coins with the image of Greater Israel (they claim this is only in reference to some ancient coin designs). The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has just a few days ago given an interview where he explicitly stated that Israel / the Jewish people has a right to that entire land, from the Euphrates to the Nile. The Israeli opposition leader was then asked about this, and he agreed with the US ambassador that yes, they do have this right, but that of course it must be viewed realistically given security and operational limitations.
Of course it needs to be approached pragmatically. If Israel stated that its number one goal is to rule the entire region, they wouldn't have been as successful as they are.
Also God didn't say when. But he did promise, according to the Book.
This is insane conspiracy theory nonsense, and is also not how actual Jews read the Tanakh.
(Which is also not referred to as "the Book", since it's a collection of books. This may seem like a nitpick, but I think is indicative of you getting your information from non-Jewish conspiracy theorist circles rather than anything related to Jewish theology or culture.)
I agree with you for the most part. But we aren't talking about the ordinary spiritual Jews or Christians or Muslims. We are talking about religious fundamentalists who have a very distorted view of their religion, and mix it with identity politics. Israeli-right religious fundamentalists have captured full power in Israel, and are now even threatening their own democracy. Don't forget that the Likud party that Netanyahu leads was once a terrorist organisation in its previous avatar, that used to do Hamas like massacre of Palestinians and assassinate Israeli leaders that didn't subscribe to their ideology and wanted peace with Palestine. Indeed, if the Israelis were freed of these religious fundamentalist leaders peace is very likely. (The Terrorist Forefathers of Israel: The Irgun and Lehi - https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/03/the-terrorist-forefathers... ) .
Try to resist the temptation to lump me in with the conspiracy theorists. If you can, provide facts. Thanks for your nuance about the Books. I was using the terminology I learned for the Bible (which also consists of multiple Books, but is referred to as the Book), but I'm happy to switch to "scripture".
The Dati Leumi, the Religious Zionists, who constitute the ideological backbone of the settler movement, and have a lot of political influence in Israel, absolutely believe in their duty to govern the biblical land. For many, holding the West Bank is a religious obligation, and they consider the Golan settled and annexed. Religiously, the same principle that justifies them holding Golan applies to these territories.
Here are some recent statements from political leaders:
Bezalel Smotrich (Finance Minister, Religious Zionist party) "it is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus."
Daniella Weiss (prominent settler leader) said in 2024: "We know from the Bible that the real borders of Greater Israel are the Euphrates and the Nile."
Benjamin Netanyahu said he's on a "historic and spiritual mission" and that he is "very" attached to the vision of Greater Israel, which includes Palestinian areas and possibly also places that are part of Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon.
Yair Lapid, the secular centrist opposition leader (!). "I don't think I have a dispute on the biblical level about what the original borders of Israel are... I support anything that will allow the Jews a big, vast, strong land."
Mike Huckabee (US Ambassador to Israel) "It would be fine if they took it all."
Huckabee speaks for himself and maybe some Christians.
I would say a lot of Jewish people and Israelis get upset at what you're saying and so maybe our reply will be a bit adversarial. Here's trying to be more factual (I used Gemini to research though I'm personally familiar with these figures as well).
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (1920–2013): The highly influential former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel. While his political party (Shas) later shifted rightward, Rabbi Yosef issued a landmark religious ruling in the late 1970s stating that Israel is permitted to cede land in exchange for a genuine peace treaty, prioritizing the sanctity of life over holding territory.
Rabbi Menachem Froman (1945–2013): An Orthodox rabbi and resident of a West Bank settlement who famously engaged in direct dialogue with Palestinian leaders, including the PLO and Hamas. He supported the creation of a Palestinian state, arguing that shared religious reverence for the land should be the foundation for peace rather than an obstacle.
Rabbi Michael Melchior: An Orthodox rabbi and former Israeli cabinet minister who leads the Mosaica religious peace initiative. He actively works on "track-two" diplomacy, fostering dialogue between Israeli rabbis and Palestinian imams.
Rabbi Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994): A highly influential Orthodox Jewish philosopher and scientist. Immediately following the 1967 Six-Day War, he became a vocal opponent of the military occupation of the Palestinian territories, warning that it would corrupt Israeli society and Judaism itself.
Rabbis for Human Rights: An active Israeli organization made up of over a hundred Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist rabbis. They physically protect Palestinian farmers, advocate against settler violence, and largely support a two-state solution based on the biblical mandate to protect the vulnerable.
On the question of the applicability of religion: "Does Judaism Mandate a Specific Political Solution?
No. Judaism predates the concept of the modern nation-state, so the religion does not explicitly mandate a "one-state" or "two-state" political framework. Instead, different religious camps emphasize competing core values within Jewish law (Halakha) and scripture to justify their political stances"
There's a lot more to explore and I encourage you do that on your own.
Remember, the claim wasn't that all Israelis believe or support this. The claim was that religious motivations for violence exist. And a stronger claim that I think I have sufficiently defended was, that many influential people have these motivations.
If the weaker claim is that some Israelis have religious motivations or feel like religion supports their position - sure. But big picture religion doesn't play as large as a role for Israelis as it might play for Iran or let's say Hamas or the Houthis. Even with those more religious actors I don't think religion is the only driver, e.g. with Iran this is probably partly just a way to control the population vs. a religious belief held by everyone in the regime (not sure about the ex-supreme leader)
The NPT did not exist at the time of the US developing nuclear weapons, and it explicitly allows US (and other pre-existing nuclear powers') weapons.
Israel, like India and Pakistan, simply never signed it, forgoing the international nuclear technology market as a consequence but also avoiding a treaty obligation not to develop them.
That was before the revolution. The revolutionary government still honored the deal, but that's been obviously a losing move for a while. The whole Middle East recognizes that, just look at how many countries Pakistan has sharing agreements with recently.
They might not disappear, but it's more like loan sharks insisting you must inherit your father's gambling debts than anything. The US and Israel have absolutely no place criticizing others for breaking agreements in any case.
The Paris Agreement included an explicit clause allowing parties to exit it after giving notice of withdrawal. It did not go out of effect immediately on Trump's election, but the administration went through the legal procedure.
The NPT has much stricter terms for withdrawal, which in any case Iran has not followed.
(The better and much more relevant analogy would be the JCPOA. That's what happens when the US does foreign policy by "executive agreement" instead of treaty. Foreign countries should not value them more than the paper they're written on.)
There are commercially available drones that can carry a payload of high-single-digit to low-double-digit kilograms for at least 10km.[1] They fly low enough and are small enough to avoid most radar.
Their use in cross border smuggling of weapons and drugs is well documented[2]; interception rate is low enough that they can make multiple runs before being downed, and they can pay back their purchase cost with only a few successful runs. Typical concept of operations is similar to manned ground crossings, but with drones covering the most dangerous 5-10km of actually crossing the border: a team on one side loads them up and sends them to a team on the other side, with both having a LOT of real estate to hide in because of the drone's range.
(I work on counter drone EW, and border-control customers are under intense pressure to get this under control.)
"Because we are focused on building a Driver and not a vehicle, we’ve designed a versatile, integrated autonomous driving system that can be adapted to various platforms and use cases over time. Our versatile hardware approach allows us to reconfigure our sensors and generalize our AI to meet each platform's unique needs—whether it is the Ojai or the Hyundai IONIQ 5—providing the Waymo Driver an optimal view of its surroundings while streamlining for efficiency."
ie this is a sensor+software package for any vehicle that they install on.
My understanding of the text is that, to get this to run on the existing fleet, they'd need to go into the shop for sensor/computer replacement, but the text isn't explicit about that.
Can you start actually reading what you quote? "The implications must be understood and weighed" does not mean "you are required to have a good reason not to do it". I can know of the Message-ID field, understand what it's used for, and carefully weigh the possible lack of interoperability against the effort required, concluding that I'm too lazy to do it right now. I have then understood and carefully weighed the implications before choosing a different course, but I don't have a good reason to.
Words mean things, especially in standard texts. You can't just carelessly rewrite sentences using not-quite-synonyms like you're doing here.
Oh, and that "must" is not a "MUST". Had the text said "The full implications MUST be understood ..." it would have been a proper requirement by the standard, but this lower-case "must" is just normal part of prose and not the magical "MUST" word which formally imposes a requirement.
1. Many Israeli Jewish Zionists are either "traditional" (religious but not that much) or Religious Zionist, and they are generally part of the right wing coalition. Actual atheists tend to be in the Israeli (still-Zionist) left.
2. The Zionist conception of Jewish identity is not "racial" in the American sense. The most obvious sense in which this is true is that it considers converts and their descendants full members of the nation. Probably the closest analogies are some Native American nations' identities or Armenian nationalism.
But you're directionally correct - Zionism is not a particularly religious ideology within the Jewish world, and outside of the Religious Zionist minority the political class is (openly!) on the less observant end even on the right.
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