[Serious] Jews of Lemmy, what are your family conversations about the war like?

I've had multiple family members deployed to active warzones.

Whenever we talked about war, it was never about politics. It was always "X's tour is supposed to finish next month," or "I heard something happened near [town], wasn't X deployed near there?"

I know how everyone talks about it on the internet, but what is it like for you at home?

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My family still has pretty significant generational trauma from surviving the Holocaust, so the genocide going on in Palestine is quite black and white for us. It’s wrong, Israel’s behavior is monstrous and immoral, and it needs to stop. The Palestinians never deserved this. We talk about it constantly.
Your question kinda implies that we all must have family deployed in a war zone though (unless I misunderstood), and that’s not the case. I’m American. I do have some Israeli relatives who I won’t ever speak to again because they support the genocide, but they’ve all aged out of the army.
- Your question kinda implies that we all must have family deployed in a war zone though
  I didn't mean to come off that way.
  All of the Jewish people I've met had some kind of on-purpose connection to Israel, like family members who lived there, or a community-sponsored coming-of-age trip, etc.
  My having family deployed is the closest thing I have to that kind of personal connection to a place in the middle of a war, but I expected your experience to be different from mine.
  
  Right on, that’s my bad. I read too far between the lines.
- ❤️ I'm sorry it's affecting you (all) in this way. I agree that the double standard of Israel is just utterly incomprehensible. How can they do unto others the same atrocities done unto them. I just do not understand.

My family agrees that Israel learned nothing from the fascism that their families escaped and fought against and believes Israel is committed to nazism against Arabs. But my ex’s family is the typical liberal Zionist family that attributes all of this at the feet of hamas and Netanyahu. It’s a form of delusion that prevents any dialogue about the subject. They read passages from the Passover Seder with absolutely zero connecting of the dots to the horrors the state of Israel is committing against a helpless population. It completely makes clear to me how Hitler came into power and it makes me sad.
Fixed spelling error.
- "Liberal Zionist?" Asking because I dont understand, not attacking anything.
  
  Liberal Zionists prefer more palatable methods for eliminating Palestinians (cultural erasure, apartheid, legalized land seizure) but they don't oppose genocidal escalations when they do occur.
  
  They would prefer a two state solutions but believe Arabs and Jews are incompatible together. They are otherwise relatively progressive for their age. They're Bernie supporters. it's what is called Progressive Except Palestine (PEP).
  
  I don't even know what anyone means when they throw out "liberal" anymore.

My ex is Jewish and my kids are half Jewish. Our discussions have been focused on the fact that what Netanyahu is doing has been making Jews less safe around the world. anti-Semitism is rising because of the fact he is murdering innocent people and children
My kids are less safe because of the Israeli PM and his Zionist government
- I wonder if they admit that other prime ministers been oppressing Palestinians too and resulted Hamas throwing rockets toward Israel

My brother and I (both 38) actively speak out and oppose it.
My mom has been sort of in a state of shocked bewilderment. She's horrified and also constantly confused as though trying to comprehend how 2+2 = 5. For her, it doesn't make sense: Jews aren't killers, they're victims. But they're killing all these civilians. Why would anyone want to keep the war going instead of getting the hostages back? Netanyahu is a monster. We all know this. Why is he still in charge?
I'm sorry that she's suffering (then again, anyone of concience is). She's also expressed a sense of alienation, since she has no idea how others feel, because she doesn't feel like it's socially acceptable to say what she feels outside the home. But I'm grateful that this hasn't created any conflict between me and her. She doesn't feel as comfortable as I do saying the plain facts of it, but I remind her that all my convictions are a reflection of the values she raised in me, and I think that reflects highly of her.

My da is Jewish and believes that all of Israel belongs to the Jewish people, and any killing over it is justified because "it was promised to us in the Bible."
My only retort was "That's actually fucking disgusting. Wonder what Jesus would think of that? For fucks sake."
He doesn't mention it anymore.
Hate that shit.
EDIT: Jewish lineage, not a practicer of the Jewish religion.
- ~~There's something wrong in your story. Jesus?~~
  
  Religious Jews believe in Jesus as a person that existed. Opinions on him range from very negative to very positive, it's complex and varied - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_Jesus
  Possible this guy's family has a very positive view of Jesus.
  
  One of the more famous Jews, I guess.
  
  Jewish lineage ≠ Jewish religion.
  You can be Jewish but not practice all that.
  
  Its almost as if ethnicity and practiced religion are different things
  
  Who do you think Jesus was? A Buddhist preacher? 😅
- I'm not jewish so idk for sure, but I'm pretty certain Jesus is still considered a prophet and generally an pretty cool guise in Judaism.
  
  He's considered a false prophet, certainly not in a place of honour. At least by orthodox Jews.

Not a Jew, but my family's Jewish, and it's about as difficult as you'd expect. They get offended by the slightest implication that maybe Israel isn't perfect, assume I support Hamas just because I'm opposed to the IDF killing children - to clarify, I'm opposed to anyone killing children, including Hamas. We don't talk about it that much though.

Zionism wasn’t just taught to the boomer generation in America their entire lives, there was no other concept at all. The reality was that Jews belonged in Israel and no other context was provided. It was true for our Jewish education, too, but the internet and global media has changed things. It’s really hard to get someone to understand that we are not Israel and Jews are not Israel. We are not them and this is something we should be condemning. I had a bit of a time just getting my father to come around to the idea that a ceasefire might be a good idea on account of all the children being killed. That’s how deep this goes even oceans away.
- There's a synagogue right in the center of Munich that has been flying the Israeli flag since the October 7 attacks. At the time fair enough but now? I just don't understand it. The Israeli flag is guarded by road spikes, police with MPs as well as private security (rather the synagogue is but that's where the flag is after all) while showing the Palestinian flag can get you arrested. All in the name of combatting antisemitism. It's one big powder keg.

Its a genocide, not a war

I know my family are raging Zionist so I don't even bring it up.
- How did you manage to differ?
  
  🤷 The woke mind virus got me.
  I think it comes down to exposing myself to other people and their perspectives. As a teen I was as racist as any Zionist. Once I moved away from home and met people from outside of my insulated Zionist/Jewish community I started hearing other perspectives. This led me to take a serious look at Zionism and the state of Israel including how they operate to maintain apartheid. I didn't like what I saw, I tend to be an empathetic person so it really hurt to see my people and culture I identified with take part in these Injustices.
  What followed was years of deprogramming and the painful process of coming to terms with the fact that Israel were the bad guys in this scenario. I grew up in the West Bank on a settlement so the roots went deep and they were painful to RIP out. A great eye opening book I read was "A Day In The Life Of Abed Salama". It really helped connect the puzzle pieces and pull down the propaganda curtain that I experienced growing up in a Jewish settlement.
  Also my parents were born in the 60s so probably lead poisoning right?

Just wanted to say you're getting a skewed picture of people's opinions, as Lemmy isn't popular / well known at all in Israel.
The absolute majority of Jews in Israel are united in wanting the hostages back (currently 58, of which an estimated half are still alive).
A lot want that and to end the war ASAP, not for any real concern for the Palestinians, but for the troops, the economy, and world image.
A lot want to keep going to eradicate Hamas and Hezbollah and Houthis to prevent October 7th from ever happening again.
It's difficult to be pro Palestinian when your friends and family have been slaughtered or held hostage by a (seemingly) unprovoked attack against soldiers and civilians.
The Overton window in Israel doesn't currently allow it, though things might have been changing very recently.
At least here, we don't discuss it much in the same way we don't discuss the mountain near town; it's there, we can't move it, shrug your shoulders, it's part of the landscape.
- Important distinction that might help you: Being against this war doesn't make you "Pro Palestinian," it just makes you anti-war, and especially, anti-genocide. On the flip side, being anti-war/ anti-genocide doesn't make you anti-Semitic.
  Genocide is NEVER justified.
- This is a lengthy question, but it comes from a place of positive intent and genuine inquiry.
  As someone stateside with Jewish friends in JVP as well as Palestinian sympathies of my own, this is context that I'm missing. I read about the refusenik movement and the Likud Party's stances on conscientious objectors. And similarly, Holocaust denial on the Hamas side and openly cidal rhetoric. I read a bit about the original treaty between Mohammed and the other local tribes, as it was a founding document for sharia law. As a result, the subsequent Jewish exile shaped the lives and culture of the diaspora. Not just their religion, but their philosophy and morality. The genocide of the Holocaust led a number of German and European Jews to be given the option--from the bloodied hands of the Nazi regime--an opportunity to instead be deported to Palestine as part of the Haavara agreement. The following Nakba, what Israel describes as the War of Independence, was described by neutral parties in the region as a massacre by extreme-right settlers who killed Palestinian Arabs (regardless of religious denomination) and Jewish sympathizers equally. Subsequent laws drawing the lines of Israel by the 1948 lines drew Palestinian Arabs as blatant second class citizens in what I, as an outsider, percieve as a reflection of Sharia law. Gaza's creation as an open air prison complex is, by national convention, a collective punishment.
  This is the context as far as I understand it. Forgive the gaps in my knowledge, I'm a white American with no religious or familial ties to either. But if both the Israeli system treats non-Jews as an other to be eliminated, and the pro-Caliphate extremists favor nearly identical conditions for non-Muslims, which is better? Each regime results in an apartheid-driven ethnostate. Each party having, at one point or another in the past several hundred years, perpetrated several wars and genocides against one another in a struggle for a piece of land that has formed the axis of every major Abrahamic religious conflict since the 8th century, is... a lot.
  Is returning a genocide for a genocide right? Is it equitable to vow the extermination of an outsider as vengeance for a crime that their great grandparents don't remember? Obviously, my fluency in both cultures is severely limited, and I'm trying my best to understand. But if the sanctity of life and the forgiveness of one's enemies are values held by both cultures, what is the catalyst for this genocide as it stands currently?
  If this sounds like an attack, I swear it isn't. I haven't had a conversation with someone actually from Israel concerning the matter, believe it or not. So my picture of the situation has been incomplete. Obviously, this was never about October 7th. This started long before that. But where, and when? And why?
- October 7th? Seemingly unprovoked?
  Do they not understand how Israel was created and how it's maintained ? It's like if the Europeans who invaded, pillaged and settled in North America also stole their identities afterwards to spin the narrative! After all, Germanics and Eastern Europeans are as Semitic as I am a lady (I'm a hairy dude). The only moral thing to do is to condemn Israel as the European colonial project it always was, and not to take part in the killing at the very least.
  But how can "Jews" (Moses killed ONE man in a way that one Palestinian could kill one low level IDF soldier and that was enough for him to realise that wasn't the way... how do they claim to fear God? Lol) talk about it in earnest when their hands are covered in blood? The cowardly, weak and irresponsible way of acting will follow their personalities and they'll just have a tantrum not to accept the reality of things: if you were part of the IDF, you 100% murdered innocents and have probably earned your place in Hell (definitely if you never repent!). I understand how sensitive that can make one feel, at the same time I understand they're truly horrible human beings who will make any excuses and believe any lies necessary, so honest dialogue is impossible...
  
  "Seemingly unprovoked" does not mean unprovoked, but perceived as unprovoked
  The post asked for how Jewish opinions, this reply tries to sum up what they hear. Don't shoot the messenger.
  Of course you can (and should, inho) disagree with the general opinion, fuck, they've been reelecting that absolute moron for how long?

My family overwhelmingly supports the genocide and the Israeli government. My father even thinks they arent going far enough and my mother just wants it to look pretty. The majority of Jewish people (especially religious people) see not only Palestinians but all muslims as lesser people.
Im not intrested in hearing "not all Jews" like its supposed to make me feel better because it doesn't. It just whitewashes real issues and fundamental problems with the Jewish community. The simple fact that Zionists control Jewish education and own most Jewish institutions, and they use it to spread hate.

lol bruh, nonexistent. I’m not into starving civilians, my family’s not into thinking. One cannot overstate the intergenerational trauma of the holocaust and how it impacts the worldview of the children of survivors.
- One cannot overstate the intergenerational trauma of the holocaust and how it impacts the worldview of the children of survivors.
  Which is odd considering it was the Germans that committed the holocaust and I'm sure these people you speak of have no issue with Germany now while Palestine never committed genocide and yet they're the villians because the holocaust happened.
  
  Germans killed other Germanics, Northern and Eastern Europeans so these Germanic, Northern and Eastern Europeans moved to the Middle East and killed Semites. 🤷😔
- Seems like an easy moral "don't go to jail card" that collapses under any sort of scrutiny ("so your parents were murdered by their European neighbours so now you can murder Semites without issues?"), perhaps because they themselves have some blood in their hands and would rather bury their heads in the sand. Diabolic behaviour, NGL.

I’m an American atheist Jew, and I’ve had conversations with my (converted) mother about it. She’s pretty solidly on Israel’s side, but she’s also not very educated about the conflict. She just kinda goes by the mainstream media’s narrative and doesn’t think too much beyond that. When I present her with information, she’s horrified and agrees with me that “Israel is going too far,” but it never results in her thinking the U.S. should stop sending them money. She hates Netanyahu and his conservative government, but she’s very hung up on Hamas being a terrorist organization. And I suppose I am too, to be honest. I want a free Palestine and for the Israeli settlers to be expelled, but I don’t want to support Hamas and I think they should pretty much be eradicated. I’m just much more willing to condemn Israel for their actions than she is; she’s very caught on the idea that Israel has a right to defend itself from Palestinian terrorism, and has a hard time seeing that it’s gone way past that at this point.
- Hamas being a terrorist organization.
  For what it is worth the Warsaw Uprising and the Yugoslavian Partizans were also terrorist uprisings against their legal governments that were committing a (technically legal) Holocaust.

Apologies in advance for the wall of text. We've had a lot of conversations....
Spouse is half Israeli with lots of family over there. I'm casually Jewish with AuDHD for context so we tend to see things really differently.
I personally don't like that religious countries exist in the first place. So I'm not only against Israel, but also most countries in that part of the world. "Just nuke that entire part of the world" has been mentioned quite a few times. So that's a bit of the conversation.
We tend to focus on the hostages when we talk about the war, and that Israel may be winning the ground war but it's losing the pr war.
We blame Bibi for keeping the war going and not making more surgical spy-type strikes. I used to say that he had one day to get the world behind him and say "look, this is what I've been talking about about!!!" That was all dismissed though when the first cease fire happened. Hamas broke it by sending some small numbers of missiles that got caught by the iron dome and Israel retaliated by sending 100x the number of missiles, killing several people. The news outlets all led with Israel sending the rockets and only briefly mentioned that Hamas struck first.
We blame Hamas for keeping all of their leaders in other countries and all of their weapons and missile silos in civilians backyards. Treating their citizens like shit and saying the only way their family is guaranteed to not go hungry is to join the military....
Just putting this out there .... If you're American and not native American. And native Americans were yelling "from sea to shining sea the native American tribes must be free" and started killing people, started saying how they want their land back and everything ..... How would that be treated?
- Bibi literally admitted that the Israeli government feeds Hamas in order to have excuses for the war. “Hamas struck first”, should always be followed with “Israel is an invading power committing genocide”. You would've been the kind of German who would always justify the Nazi occupations, because “the partisans struck first”, Then feel righteous because you think Hitler shouldn't be the one leading the Reich. Like, even your example is ignoring the fact that the British committed genocide against Native Americans, then the American state continued it.
  
  Link for the "literally admit" claim?
  His words have always been to the effect of the reason we're not letting aid in is because hamas steals it from the people and lets them go hungry
  Btw We still blame Bibi for not handling the war properly, only even agreeing to sit at the table for peace talks once he knew that trump would give him unlimited usage of weapons, and many other things.
- You cannot seriously be blaming the people in a concentration camp for richting back.
  Lovely how Israelis compare themselves to genocidal American colonizers and think they have a point.
  
  No. The native American bit was for the "why don't Israelis just leave/give back the land?" people... Because after 70+ years people have grown up, worked hard, bought land, raised families, etc.
  nobody I know in America would want to say "hey, I worked my whole life to (own my property, build my business, raise my family, etc) ... If the native Americans asked really hard I'd give it back" ...
  But a lot of people are saying that the Israelis should just leave.
  Edit. The other bit is that there are Muslims who live in Israel. There are Christians/atheists/etc who live in Israel as well.
  Jews aren't welcome in SA, Iraq, Iran...
  Concentration camp is not a good analogy for what's going on here

I'm going to give an honest answer, but i fully expect to be downvoted and demonized for doing so. Nothing I can do about that, but op, you want an honest answer, this is it. I'll also add that I would 100% consider myself leftist, in fact, extremely leftist in most of my views. Why the hell would my username be what it is and why the hell would I be on lemmy if I wasn't... anyway... here's the answer since you asked for it:
The large majority of jews I know, including myself and my family feel like this current war is the fault of Hamas. Oct 7 doesn't happen, this war doesn't happen. We also are continually annoyed by the fact that most people on the left, constantly refuse to acknowledge that Hamas has been pushing this war forward non-stop for decades. All you have to do is look up number of missiles launched at Israel since 2000 to see that. People no-doubt try to rebut this by saying "but Israel has been stealing territory". My constant response to that is they have been taking territory to establish buffer zones to enhance security. As almost all of this land has been taken after conflict. Israel even tried to give back some of this land, but was then attacked again, and had to take land back in order to protect itself -- But eventually our conversation just goes back to why this is even happening and we are always frustrated by the fact that any argument from the left condemning Zionists always begins in 1948 -- when in fact the troubles of the region started hundreds of years before that. This pre-1948 history seems to never be brought up however. So the blame is always cast 100% on jews and all of the attacks on Jewish civilians within Israel are never ever given the time of day.
It's incredibly frustrating and scary, because the narrative is fully turning into "jews are evil", and there is nothing any Jewish person can do about it. Jews are never going to willingly leave Israel and Hamas is never going to stop trying to eradicate jews. There are only 16ish million jews on the planet and almost 2 billion Muslims. There is no way jews could ever win this propaganda war. I think a lot of jews who feel they are on the left side of the political spectrum are too scared to even speak about their feelings on Israel/Palestine at the moment, because they know they are going to be vastly outnumbered and demonized, by those they would usually consider friends, with anything they say. So most of us are silent on the subject because we don't want to be ostracized.
I will end this by saying, we of course feel bad for civilians caught in the crossfire, but we feel like Jewish civilians are not given that same respect. The sentiment we get is that Jewish civilians seem to deserve it.
- I appreciate the honesty but you seem to be missing the perspective that:
  The existence of the State of Israel is an explicit British colonization project and currently exists as a puppet state of "the empire".
  The power imbalance between the state of Israel and Hamas and the repeated, and well documented, war crimes and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the State of Israel.
  Left wing vs Right wing is a false dichotomy. You will have opinions and viewpoints of both matter your political self identification and they are poorly defined.
  I would be curious to know your opinions about the judenrätes of WWII (whether they were heroes or villains, left wing vs right wing, etc.) and how the current State of Israel is not just a continuation of that?
  
  Jewish re-colonization began long before the british had any input on the subject. The British were actually trying to stop Jewish migration for a while there. But the re-colonization of Israel by Jews goes back at least as far as the 1200s.
  There have been war crimes on both sides, and they both need be acknowledged in order to have a good faith conversation. Fact of the matter is that hamas is completely indiscriminate in their targets. There have been more than a few cases of Israeli civilian hostages being flat out raped and / or murdered by their captives during this war. I know of at least 2 instances where israeli hostages were actually killed by doctors.
  I don't know enough about the Judenrates to give an opinion on the subject. It looks like an interesting topic though, so I will read up on it.
  edit: on my brief reading abotu Judenrates during wwii i get the distinct impression that these were people thrust into leadership positions that they may or may have not have wanted. They were used by the Nazis to potentially make impossible choices that hurt their fellow community members, but they had to make these choices or else their community would have suffered even more harm. They had to make "lesser of the evils" choices. I imagine these choices often made their community members dislike them, whether or not the Judenrates were making these choices with intention of doing the best they could for their people.
  I'm curious where you find a connection between these WWII Judenrates and present day Israel?
- Yeah, I see where you're coming from. I mean, I'm also 100% a leftist, I'm extremely left on most issues, but I also just don't get why so many people are opposed to this one particular state.
  I mean, people always talk about the whole conflict with Germany starting in 1939, but you really have to consider that those wars happened because they were reclaiming territory like the Danzig Corridor that belonged to them historically. They even tried giving territory back to France by setting up the Vichy Republic. And it was the communists and partisans going around trying to stir up a class war who really started things, we had to put them in camps for the sake of security. And I feel bad for any innocent people caught up in it, but it just feels like nobody extends the same concerns to the German civilians the government is trying to protect. At the end of the day, if the Reichstag Fire hadn't happened, none of this would be happening.
  Oh! My mistake, it seems I mixed up the names of some countries and events there. You're totally right though, if those people didn't want to get massacred and starved, they shouldn't have tried to resist your political project and/or had homes in places you wanted to forcibly seize. You know, this is just like what I'm always saying, "It's your own fault you got slapped, because you shouldn't have resisted." I mean, that's what leftism is all about, amirite?
  
  not a fan of false equivalencies.
  blocked.
- Every time Hamas launched rockets, it was in response to Israel expelling more Palestinians from the West Bank and to increased violence by settlers.
  Please please oppose and put pressure on Israel occupation so atrocities end on both side
- I appreciate your forthrightness, and on many points we quite agree, notably noone's keen to leave and that the current charged atmosphere around the war does chill honest representation of one's ideals.
  That said, while this particular war was the result of Hamas and their October 7 attack, I believe that if not them, some other group would "lead the charge" maybe it would have been more of a single flashpoint or a series of smaller skirmishes, but conflict was (and continues to be) inevitable under the circumstances that Palestinians and Israelis live in.
  I want to inquire further on your take that Israeli buffer zones are the land theft so demonized by the anti-Zionists. We see the expansion of the buffer zone in Syria as a landgrab because any security buffer sufficient for defense against the Assad regime should be more than enough, especially when paired with Israeli strikes on weapons caches and bases in Syria. The more puzzling point, though, is the establishment of new settlements and growth of existing settlements in the West Bank even as recently as this week.
  
  I cannot defend the establishment of new settlements in taken territories. All I can say is palastine has had plenty of chances to maintain and keep their territories. Like I've said, Israel even tried to hand back large amounts of land, but that was jut followed by palistinian attack. Over and over again Hamas has decided that peace is not the way forward. I don't believe this is the fault of the average Palistinian though. I believe this is the fault of the palistinian leadership which uses these wars like a piggy bank. Robbing their people of billions in aid money while living in luxury in Quatar and other arab states. They're not waging these wars because they think they can win. They are doing it because they think they can profit. And I strongly believe, hell, I know, that Russia had a huge hand in pushing Hamas toward Oct 7 in order to distrac the west from Ukraine. If we're being honest, its was an absolutely masterful move by Putiin because, it 1. distracted from Ukraine and 2. split liberal voters in the west. And I think this really needs to be acknowledged a lot more than it is.
  I'll say this though. I do not believe a two state solution is realistic or possible. The hatred of palistinians toward jews is just too systemically ingrained and indoctrinated. This system of indoctrination of Palistinian youth needs to be completely dismantled for there to be a lasting peace. And I don't think that will ever happen while a seperate (from Israel) Palastine exists. I think Israel knows this well, and what we're seeing now is Israel trying to unite the two lands through force. They are trying to end the war for good. Israel and Palestine need to be one nation. And arabs and Israelis need to learn to live in peace. It is the only sustainable path forward.
- It’s incredibly frustrating and scary, because the narrative is fully turning into “jews are evil”, and there is nothing any Jewish person can do about it.
  If it's any kind of comfort to you, I got radicalized against Zionism by jews. A lot of jewish observers are fighting to free Palestine.
  I did hear some palestinian or muslim speak out against Israel's inhuman apartheid state, but jews have been making the best case I've heard for freeing palestine.
- The Zionist cries in pain as they strike you

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