Israel general discussion

[DC Al Fine]

Are there any places where I can look up polling since the last election? Wikipedia doesn't seem to have anything.

[DC Al Fine]

Israel needs to ask itself whether it wants to be the Soviets, or the Americans.

It should be neither of those. Israel should first and foremost be a Jewish state, and its laws regarding war and peace should be based on Jewish laws regarding law and peace.

Sounds like a theocracy

Israel needs to ask itself whether it wants to be the Soviets, or the Americans.

It should be neither of those. Israel should first and foremost be a Jewish state, and its laws regarding war and peace should be based on Jewish laws regarding law and peace.

Basing a country's laws and values on a system conceived by people 3000 years ago doesn't sound very healthy. The human society advanced a lot since then in values and morals, and there's no reason the people of the book shouldn't be civilized. In fact, the people of the book should strive to be more civilized than most.

Your game is weak. DavidB hits the nail on the head here. It's like some people forget how to argue when their opponent rejects a 'liberal' premise.

[DC Al Fine]

The theocracy is inevitable as the Haredi are the only ones actually having kids

It's too bad that the secular right would rather be in bed with the ultraorthodox wing for their own goals rather than work with the centre/centre-left in order to maintain secularism.

Nah. There are a number of trends which I believe will counter that- Haredi youths are secularizing and leaving their sect in record numbers with the help of the information revolution,

That's very interesting if true. Do you have any links/stats to support your thesis?

I'm a tad skeptical of Haredi decline (as opposed to US Evangelical decline) since their birth rates are so high (6+ births per women vs 2ish for non-Haredi I think). If the Haredi share of the population shrunk, that would imply a terrible retention rate, like sub 50%. That seems too low.

[DC Al Fine]

The theocracy is inevitable as the Haredi are the only ones actually having kids

It's too bad that the secular right would rather be in bed with the ultraorthodox wing for their own goals rather than work with the centre/centre-left in order to maintain secularism.

Is the secular right actually that secular.? I thought a lot of Likud support came from non-ultraorthodox, but still religious Jews. Am I mistaken?

[DC Al Fine]

The original post on Israeli was excellent Vosem. We need more stuff like that on the forum.

[DC Al Fine]

Dumb question: how hard is it to tell Ashkenazi and Sephardic people apart? Is it really obvious to the eye, or would you need to listen to their accent or ask them directly to know?

[DC Al Fine]

Statistics about birth rates in Israel are always iffy because they are so politically charged, but I found this article to be quite informative. It's definitely not just Arabs and Haredim (whose birthrate has actually declined over the previous decades, rapidly in the first case).

Thanks for this – it's a great article.

[DC Al Fine]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mcjesus-sculpture-ronald-mcdonald-crucifix-outrage-christians-israel/

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Oh, and here's a photo.



Would that offend you?

Absolutely. Its blasphemous.