Nonsense. They also uplift people and do a lot of good in the world. Billions of people find benefits in religion. The problem is human nature.

Don’t say “religion” when you only mean Christianity.

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As best as we can tell, he truly didn’t care what locals thought. He wanted to buy the land and make everyone else leave so an all Jewish state could be created.

Unfortunately this plan didn’t sit well with the locals who eventually stopped selling land to these newcomers, and the rising illegal immigration caused conflicts. Eventually an actual war erupted and new militias massacred and forcibly expelled the local Arab communities, creating the Israel we have today.

Herzl’s concept wasn’t as terrible on paper as it actually was in practice. (It just wouldn’t work in modern society where countries aren’t governed under ethnic supremacy) But likely if the World Zionist Congress had voted a different way, we’d be talking about how awful Israel was for mistreating Ugandans and forcing them off their land.

It’s actually a good question. We didn’t.

The desire to create a country Israel came about in the 1800s, when Theodor Herzl looked at anti-semitism in Europe and concluded that Jews would never be accepted by countries or have any political power so the only way to get ahead in such a nationalistic world would be to make their own country. It was built on an anachronistic set of ideas; religion was tied to your citizenship of a country. Turkey represented European Muslims and UK/France/Germany represented Christians, and he concluded there was no way Jews could be considered equal citizens in Europe.

Originally the plan was to buy land in Africa or South America and declare a new country there. It was a purely secular plan to build an ethnostate. The World Zionist Congress had a vote and they narrowly approved to build the country in British mandate Palestine, not for religious reasons but because the connection to Jerusalem would help motivate immigration and tourism. They almost had it in Uganda or Argentina or Madagascar.

The holocaust merely accelerated the plan and gave a justification after the fact to build the country. Initially Israeli society didn’t like having holocaust survivors and they weren’t treated well, only today are they out on a pedestal and used as justification for their colonialism.

That’s because Israel got what they wished for when they adopted Herzl’s idea.

Herzl said that Jews will never be accepted as truly American or truly French etc. so they need their own country and form their own distinct nation. Well they got it and found out that form of nationalism is outdated and exposes them to these accusations. Israel claims to speak for all Jews, and thus people draw the false conclusion that Jews worldwide collectively support all Israeli policies even the rightwing and criminal ones. The existence of Israel only worsened the accusations that Jews are a fifth column or secretly more loyal to Israel over their own countries.

It’s actually kinda sad because diaspora Jews are more likely to oppose Netanyahu, and this discrimination is being wielded by Netanyahu to claim they won’t be safe anywhere unless they immigrate to Israel.