I assume there is a character limit, but this is the extent of my question. Why is Israel bulldozing olive trees. My assumption is for reasons of cruelty, but if there is another reason, I'd like to know.

It can't be land clearing for homes as this is rural areas. From my experience, land clearing results in erosion, so this is an obvious downside regardless of ethnicity. Do we really need to be bulldozing trees for no practical reason?

Tell me new things you've learned recently! I'll go first.

In the past half hour, I've learned:

1. Sagebrush (a dominant plant in the intermountain West) is evergreen, and unlike many plants, continues to photosynthesize and grow slowly throughout the winter months, leading to an adaptive advantage over other plants come the wet period in spring. This dovetails into my current special interest of the Sagebrush Sea biome and its plant species-- I am planning a garden when I eventually get my own property consisting of native plant species of this special biome, specifically focusing on native fruit plants.

2. Time crystals consist of particles that, condensed into their lowest-energy state, move in predictable, regular patterns. Regular crystals arrange in regular patterns in space-- time crystals arrange in regular patterns in both time and space. Still don't quite understand how that works. Wack.

3. It's generally considered best practice to call it "Islamist terrorism" as opposed to "Islamic terrorism" because the vast majority of Muslims do not adhere to the extremist strains that translate their ideologies into violent action (Ie Qutbism, Wahhabism, extreme Salafism etc). This use of language is more precise, because it points the blame of terrorism specifically at the adherents of these extreme interpretations of Islam rather than the religion as a whole. Without it, it would be like calling the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church "Christian terrorism," even though the vast majority of Christians have nothing to do with such extreme versions of Christianity. Along with this, I learned that these extreme interpretations of Islam view other Islamic people who do not accept their interpretations as takfir (ie apostate) and thus worthy of death-- which is why 80-90% of the victims of Islamist violence are themselves Muslim, and why extreme Islamists target Sufi shrines and other Islamic holy sites or institutions that violate their version of Islam.

Let's hear what you've got! Teach me something new.

There is a growing mythology surrounding "Palestine" and "Palestinians" among leftists, progressives, western Muslims and non-arab Muslim. In this narrative, Palestinians are always the poets, the doctors, the scientists, the human rights champions, portrayed as a people of endless grace and creativity, tragically held back from their full potential by the usual villain: Israel.

According to this narrative, Gaza could have been Singapore, the West Bank could rival Tuscany, if only the Zionists would vanish. It’s a neat story. It just happens to fall apart the moment you zoom-in and you will find five decades of internal dysfunction, glorified martyrdom, and a leadership culture that has mastered grievance but shunned growth.

Israel, for all its flaws, has offered education, healthcare, jobs, and infrastructure to Palestinians. So, what has been offered in return? What have "Palestinian" institutions or leadership produced for the benefit of the world? Where are the scientific breakthroughs, the tech startups, the Nobel prizes, the social innovations? Has Palestinian nationalism, as a modern project, produced anything besides resentment, violence and rupture?

This is not a denial of Palestinian suffering. But suffering alone does not confer moral superiority or global value. Many nations have suffered. What matters is what one builds from it.

So I’ll ask bluntly: what exactly has "Palestine" given us?

I find the following numbers factual and persuasive evidence that helps disprove the antisemitic argument that Israel is a European-white-colonial-project mixed with a Holocaust-Survivor-pity-state.

Post-1948, Arab countries expelled more Jews (850,000) than Israel took in Holocaust Refugees (350,000). There weren’t many to take in, you know, on account of the N-z- policy of murdering us all.

Here is a brief overview of the numbers.

Before 1948, 650,000 Jews already lived in the land, many from migrations going back to the 1880s (the Yishuv). https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-population-of-israel-1948-present

You might ask: well, if Israel wasn’t primarily a Holocaust refugee state, how many Jews did it take in and from where and how do you account for the majority of the population?

As mentioned, only 350,000 Holocaust survivors immigrated to Israel after WWII. This is a significant number, but not the majority of Israel’s early Jewish population. Yad Vashem: https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/remembrance/immigration.asp

In fact, when looking at sizable Jewish migrant figures, you’ll find the aforementioned fact that 850,000 Jews were expelled from or fled Arab and Muslim countries (Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Iran) between 1948–1970 due to the formation of Israel. This is more than double the Holocaust refugees Israel took in.

World Jewish Congress: https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/jews-from-arab-countries-and-iran JIMENA: https://www.jimena.org/jimena-advocacy/jewish-refugees-from-arab-countries/

Between the pre-existing Israelis and the MENA region refugees, Israel was never simply a “European colonial project.” It was the return of an ancient people (a great number of them from the Middle East) to their ancestral homeland, much of it purchased piece by piece.

What do you think about these numbers? What questions might you have about them?

Edit: this is one of several arguments that disprove the settler colonial framing and by no means the only one. For a brief summary, please see this list I wrote: Ten Reasons Why Israel is not a Settler Colonial State

I've originally asked another more broad version of this question in a Jewish sub and was recommended to ask this here. So I've rephrased the question to be more specific (as much as I can) and can give some context too, if it helps:

Some context and clarity - If the mods need me to be even more specific I can try to be, but I am not asking about a specific year or a specific area of the middle east, because there is no year, specific country or event in that timeframe that is of particular relevance to my question, and I hope this is still narrowed down enough to allow for insightful replies.

Why am I asking this? I've dug back through some records and even some old cookbooks or herbal medicine references I could find, and it seemed that in many cultures (not Jewish) around the world, animal fats like lard and tallow were staples, in cooking and many other uses (like candles, medicinal salves, and beyond). It makes sense to me, as pressing seeds or nuts into oil using special stone tools must have been quite more involved and therefore likely less efficient and more expensive than it is today.

However, animal fats were more accessible to all, required no special tools to curate and preserved quite well if prepared properly.

Two of the most commonly used types of animal fats were tallow (made of suet, kidney fat) and lard (pig fat) and both are not kosher in Jewish law.

So this led me to wonder - what did Jews in the middle east (aka Mizrahi/sephardic Jews) commonly use, especially in terms of animal fats, if any?

Thanks!

An interesting article in this morning's Israel Today examines the olive tree as a truth barometer on Palestinian claims of indigeneity. Relevant text below:

Olive trees play a major role in Palestinian Arab society and culture. They are a constant presence near any Palestinian Arab home. Thus, the “Palestinian olive tree litmus test” can be used to accurately assess how long a Palestinian Arab has been living in their home or on the plot of land they claim has been in their possession for hundreds of years.

The majority of Palestinian Arabs living in Judea and Samaria live in private homes they constructed themselves. The first thing a Palestinian Arab does when they begin to build a home is to plant olive trees in the backyard or adjacent land. This is a given and can be observed in the hundreds of villages everywhere in Judea and Samaria.

A Palestinian Arab can claim that their home is hundreds of years old, but the age of the olive tree in their backyard is easily measured. In this regard, it is important to note that olive trees are very long-lived. In the Galilee, there are olive trees that are over 1,000 years old. Many of these trees were planted by local Arabs, which proves they have a long-standing presence in northern Israel.

Olive trees, in other words, are forever. Moreover, since they are seen as proof of land ownership, Palestinian Arabs very rarely uproot their olive trees.

I have discussed this phenomenon with various botanists and biologists. They have told me that the vast majority if not all of the olive trees in Judea and Samaria are less than 80-90 years old.

If the Palestinian Arabs have populated Judea and Samaria for centuries, why is this the case? The answer is obvious: The Palestinian Arabs are not and have never been indigenous to the region they call “Palestine.” Prior to 1948, the vast majority of Arabs in Palestine were foreign workers who migrated to the area seeking employment. They were motivated by the economic opportunities presented by Zionist development of the land.

Like I mentioned in the title, I am also an Ashkenazi Jew. Fortunately, my overall health is very good, but a disproportionate number of my Jewish friends have various ailments that don't seem to appear nearly as much in the general public. Some of the top ones are:

• psychological disorders (ADHD, anxiety, OCD, etc.)

• asthma

• allergies (some being potentially fatal)

• color-blindness

My theory to this is essentially in-breeding, that Jews (being a relatively small population) usually have kids with other Jews, but am I mistaken? I'd love a better insight to this.

I did aliyah 12 years ago. Some of my old friends fill their facebook pages with misinformation about Israel. Sometimes I correct them and sometimes I just unfriend them.

There was one item that felt fake(pallywoodish vibes - but I didn't find a refutation I could trust) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fslr2bZs864 . While googling around I found a whole subculture of allegations about IDF and settlers uprooting olive trees on the Westbank.

So how true are all these stories? They are full of unclear points. For example, when they say Palestinian olive groves, it is unclear to me if they are Palestinian because they are actually owned by a Palestinian or because Palestinians consider all land on the Westbank "Palestinian" so they plant on land that they don't own on paper. Also, I know there are settlers who attack olive groves owned by Palestinians, but I don't understand how common it is and if it is true that IDF don't act against it or even supports it. For example, if you compare settler aggresion against legal Palestinian plantations with aggression against Romani in Hungary, is it comparable? I ask because, my facebook friend who put up the item about uprooting trees is Hungarian, a country known for its racism against Romani.

So can anyone provide a fact based documentation (something I can trust) about the situation with Palestinian owned olive grooves in the Westbank and if it is true that IDF and settlers ruin legal olive grooves on a large scale?

I got allergy tested when I was really little after having a bad reaction to eating olives, and I just never went back to an allergist and simply avoided olives. I have had some horrible reactions when eating olives accidentally (none life-threatening, but still serious...I've even spent a night rashy, wheezy, and hugging a toilet just because I had a few dirty martinis). But I cook with olive oil almost every day and have never questioned it. I just always thought of olive oil like vegetable oil, which is primarily made from vegetable seeds, rather than the actual vegetable, and I honestly never gave it any more thought until last week when someone offered me tapenade and I told him I was allergic and he got visibly anxious and slowly told me that the meal he'd made was cooked with a lot of olive oil. I told him it was fine and olive oil doesn't bother me, and that's when I learned that the similarities between olive oil and olives are MUCH higher than vegetable oil and vegetables. Why do I react SO strongly to olives but I could probably drink olive oil and have no issue whatsoever?

Hi, I'm wondering if Jews have somewhat poorer health than many other groups? I'm 27 years old Jewish (Ashkenazi) male and I have ulcerative colitis, asthma, pet allergies, eczema and myopia since age 5 (probably something else too but those are the ones I now remember). My Jewish friend has type 1 diabetes, chronic migraine and lactose intolerance. My another Jewish friend has asthma, slight scoliosis, myopia and psoriasis. Those were just some examples of other Jews in my life with also health problems. Is this just my friends and family or do you have similar experience?