Best products from r/Israel

We found 34 comments on r/Israel discussing the most recommended products. We ran sentiment analysis on each of these comments to determine how redditors feel about different products. We found 205 products and ranked them based on the amount of positive reactions they received. Here are the top 20.

Top comments mentioning products on r/Israel:

u/AlbertoAru · 0 pointsr/Israel

We're omnivores, not herbivores nor carnivorous (before anyone says it: that means that we can eat meat, not that we must).

About the brain… that's not totally showed and it doesn't mean anything if we kill the oceans in 2048.

All the major dietetics and health organizations in the world agree that vegan and vegetarian diets are just as healthy as omnivorous diets. Here are links to what some of them have to say on the subject:

American Dietetic Association

> It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.

Dietitians of Canada

> A well planned vegan diet can meet all of these needs. It is safe and healthy for pregnant and breastfeeding women, babies, children, teens and seniors.

The British National Health Service

> With good planning and an understanding of what makes up a healthy, balanced vegan diet, you can get all the nutrients your body needs.

The British Nutrition Foundation

> A well-planned, balanced vegetarian or vegan diet can be nutritionally adequate ... Studies of UK vegetarian and vegan children have revealed that their growth and development are within the normal range.

The Dietitians Association of Australia

>Vegan diets are a type of vegetarian diet, where only plant-based foods are eaten. They differ to other vegetarian diets in that no animal products are usually consumed or used. Despite these restrictions, with good planning it is still possible to obtain all the nutrients required for good health on a vegan diet.

The United States Department of Agriculture

> Vegetarian diets (see context) can meet all the recommendations for nutrients. The key is to consume a variety of foods and the right amount of foods to meet your calorie needs. Follow the food group recommendations for your age, sex, and activity level to get the right amount of food and the variety of foods needed for nutrient adequacy. Nutrients that vegetarians may need to focus on include protein, iron, calcium, zinc, and vitamin B12.

The National Health and Medical Research Council

> Alternatives to animal foods include nuts, seeds, legumes, beans and tofu. For all Australians,
these foods increase dietary variety and can provide a valuable, affordable source of protein
and other nutrients found in meats. These foods are also particularly important for those who
follow vegetarian or vegan dietary patterns. Australians following a vegetarian diet can still meet nutrient requirements if energy needs are met and the appropriate number and variety of serves from the Five Food Groups are eaten throughout the day. For those eating a vegan diet, supplementation of B12 is recommended.

The Mayo Clinic

> A well-planned vegetarian diet (see context) can meet the needs of people of all ages, including children, teenagers, and pregnant or breast-feeding women. The key is to be aware of your nutritional needs so that you plan a diet that meets them.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada

> Vegetarian diets (see context) can provide all the nutrients you need at any age, as well as some additional health benefits.

Harvard Medical School

> Traditionally, research into vegetarianism focused mainly on potential nutritional deficiencies, but in recent years, the pendulum has swung the other way, and studies are confirming the health benefits of meat-free eating. Nowadays, plant-based eating is recognized as not only nutritionally sufficient but also as a way to reduce the risk for many chronic illnesses.

From Your vegan fallacy is:

Eating Animals Does Not Cause Disease

>Many human diseases come directly from animals. For instance, pigs and birds carry influenza, pigs and dogs carry whooping cough, and cows carry tuberculosis, smallpox, and cowpox. So when we raise and eat animals, we increase our risk of exposure to these and other diseases. Further, plants contaminated by animal agribusiness runoff can be vectors of salmonella, which is the primary way spinach, peanut butter, and other plant-based foods come into contact with the bacteria.

Other resources

Nutrition Facts

>NUTRITIONFACTS.ORG is a strictly non-commercial, science-based public service provided by Michael Greger, MD, FACLM, launched with seed money and support by the Jesse & Julie Rasch Foundation. Now a 501c3 nonprofit charity, NutritionFacts.org provides free updates on the latest in nutrition research via bite-sized videos. There are now hundreds of videos on more than a thousand topics, with new videos and articles uploaded every day.
>
>Dr. Greger is a physician, New York Times bestselling author, and internationally recognized speaker on nutrition, food safety, and public health issues. A founding member and Fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, Dr. Greger is licensed as a general practitioner specializing in clinical nutrition. Currently he proudly serves as the public health director at the Humane Society of the United States. Dr. Greger is a graduate of the Cornell University School of Agriculture and the Tufts University School of Medicine. His latest book, How Not to Die, became an instant New York Times Best Seller. Dr. Greger receives no compensation for his work on NutritionFacts.org.

Vegan Health and JackNorrisRD.com

> Jack Norris is a Registered Dietitian and the President and Executive Director of Vegan Outreach. Vegan Outreach promotes individual outreach primarily through distribution of our booklets on college campuses through our Adopt a College program. In 2005, Jack was elected to the Animal Rights Hall of Fame.
>
>Along with Ginny Messina, MS RD, Jack has written the book Vegan For Life: Everything You Need to Know to Be Healthy and Fit on a Plant-Based Diet.
>
>Jack writes a nutrition blog at JackNorrisRD.com. He is the author of Vitamin B12: Are You Getting It? and maintains VeganHealth.org. Jack earned a degree in Nutrition and Dietetics from Life University (Marietta, GA) in 2000 and finished his dietetic internship at Georgia State University in 2001.

100-year-old surgeon, WWII vet who retired at age 95 shares secrets to longevity

> Dr. Ellsworth Wareham, 100, a celebrated heart surgeon, still mows his lawn and trims his bushes. He credits his longevity in large part to his vegan diet, which he adopted midlife.

As you see, this is not some kind of 5 years of malnutrition. It's a perfectly viable option and more ethical and environmental than eating dead animals and using them and their products. You'll find more information and people who have been vegan for decades on r/vegan.

u/Battle4Hypocrisy · 1 pointr/Israel

For one, Mark Twain has no credibility on the subject. Mark Twain was also a racist bigot who hated Arabs. He was also comparing the geography and agriculture he encountered to his home, the United States.

Why do you think Zionists cherry pick this one quote and use it over and over and never provide any credible sources, or should I say; more than just this Mark Twain quote? And why is it always displayed as horribly unsubtle and transparent propaganda (see OP's submission image, which is ridiculously vulgar and lowbrow)


Here are also some of Mark Twain's geographical musings:
------------------------------------
"From Athens all through the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, we saw little but forbidden sea-walls and barren hills, sometimes surmounted by three or four graceful columns of some ancient temples, lonely and deserted---a fitting symbol of desolation that has come upon all Greece in these latter ages. We saw no ploughed fields, very few villages, no trees or grass or vegetation of any kind, scarcely, and hardly ever an isolated house. Greece is a bleak, unsmiling desert, without agriculture, manufactures, or commerce, apparently."




Now lets hear what a famous early Zionist had to say about the region:
----------------------

"Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg (18 August 1856 – 2 January 1927), primarily known by his Hebrew name and pen name, Ahad Ha'am (Hebrew: אחד העם‎, lit. one of the people, Genesis 26:10), was a Hebrew essayist, and one of the foremost pre-state Zionist thinkers. He is known as the founder of cultural Zionism."

"In 1891, a Zionist of the first hour, Asher Ginzberg (under the pseudonym Ahad Ha'am, "one of the people"), wrote after a visit to Palestine:

  • "We who live abroad are accustomed to believe that almost all Eretz Yisrael is now uninhabited desert and whoever wishes can buy land there as he pleases. But this is not true. It is very difficult to find in the land [ha'aretz] cultivated fields that are not used for planting. Only those sand fields or stone mountains that would require the investment of hard labor and great expense to make them good for planting remain uncultivated and that's because the Arabs do not like working too much in the present for a distant future. Therefore, it is very difficult to find good land for cattle. And not only peasants, but also rich landowners, are not selling good land so easily.."

    Bonus Quote
    -----------------
    "We who live abroad are accustomed to believing that the Arabs are all wild desert people who, like donkeys, neither see nor understand what is happening around them. But this is a grave mistake. The Arab, like all the Semites, is sharp minded and shrewd. All the townships of Syria and Eretz Yisrael are full of Arab merchants who know how to exploit the masses and keep track of everyone with whom they deal – the same as in Europe. The Arabs, especially the urban elite, see and understand what we are doing and what we wish to do on the land, but they keep quiet and pretend not to notice anything. For now, they do not consider our actions as presenting a future danger to them. … But, if the time comes that our people's life in Eretz Yisrael will develop to a point where we are taking their place, either slightly or significantly, the natives are not going to just step aside so easily."







    Zionist Sir Moses Montefiore of England
    -----------------------------------------------------

    Zionist Sir Moses Montefiore of England, who traveled to Palestine in 1839. Wrote about the land of Palestine (before mass Zionist colonialist settlement again in 1838-1839) in particular the city of Safad, Palestine.

  • "From all information I have been able to gather, the land in this neighborhood appears to be particularly favourable for agricultural speculation. There are groves of olive trees, I should think, more than five hundred years old, vineyards, much pasture, plenty of wells and abundance of excellent water; also fig trees, walnuts, almonds, mulberries, &c., and rich fields of wheat, barley, and lentils; in fact it is a land that would produce almost everything in abundance, with very little skill and labour.” Source



    From Mark Twain's "The Innocents Abroad"
    -------------------------------------------------------

  • "The narrow canyon in which Nablous, or Shechem, is situated, is under high cultivation, and the soil is exceedingly black and fertile. It is well watered, and its affluent vegetation gains effect by contrast with the barren hills that tower on either side." (The Innocents Abroad, p. 322)"


  • "and the highly successful Palestinian city of Jaffa (in Arabic Yaffa): "We came finally to the noble grove of orange trees in which the Oriental city of Jaffa lied buried." (The Innocents Abroad, p. 360)"



    Random Quotations
    ------------------------

  • "Between Ramleh and the hill-country, a distance of about eight miles, is
    the rolling plain of Arimathea, and this, as well as the greater part of
    the plain of Sharon, is one of the richest districts in the world. The
    soil is a dark-brown loam, and, without manure, produces annually superb
    crops of wheat and barley. We rode for miles through a sea of wheat,
    waving far and wide over the swells of land. The tobacco in the fields
    about Ramleh was the most luxuriant I ever saw, and the olive and fig
    attain a size and lusty strength wholly unknown in Italy. Judea cursed of
    God! what a misconception, not only of God's mercy and beneficence, but of
    the actual fact! Give Palestine into Christian hands, and it will again
    flow with milk and honey. Except some parts of Asia Minor, no portion of
    the Levant is capable of yielding such a harvest of grain, silk, wool,
    fruits, oil, and wine. The great disadvantage under which the country
    labors, is its frequent drouths, but were the soil more generally
    cultivated, and the old orchards replanted, these would neither be so
    frequent nor so severe."
    *From Bayard Taylor's "The Lands of the Saracen; or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily and Spain" (1854), Page 25


  • According to Paul Masson, a French economic historian, "wheat shipments from the Palestinian port of Acre had helped to save southern France from famine on numerous occasions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries." Source: Marwan R. Beheiry, "The Agricultural Exports of Southern Palestine, 1885-1 9 14", Journal of Palestine Studies, volume 10, No. 4, 198 1, p. 67.

  • English poet George Sandys, who visited Palestine in 1615, found Palestine to be "a land that flowed with milk and honey; in the midst as it were of the habitable world, and under a temperate clime; adorned with beautiful mountains and luxurious valleys; the rocks producing excellent waters; and no part empty of delight or profit."


  • Englishwom­an Lady Hester Stanhope who was in Palestine in 1810: "The luxuriance of vegetation is not to be described.­...Fruits of all sorts from the banana to the blackberry are abundant. The banks of the rivers are clothed naturally with oleander and flowering shrubs.... [The Arab orchards near Jaffa] contained lemon, orange, almond, peach, apple, pomegranat­e and other trees."

  • Upon visiting Gaza in the 14th Century, Syria geographer al-Dimashqi described it as "so rich in trees it looks like a cloth of brocade spread out upon the land." More recently, in the early 20th Century, Gaza historian Ibrahim Skeik recalls the dazzling views of "trees all about the city, olives and almond groves."



    Links
    --------


    Quoting Mark Twain out of context on Palestine


    Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy


    Isn't it true that Palestine was destitute until Israelis made its desert bloom?



    Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I


    The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)








u/forrey · 2 pointsr/Israel

I think the key to learning Hebrew is to think of it like weight training. You need to maintain consistency, target all areas, develop routines, adjust depending on what works for you, and when you plateau, you need to vary things up.

What does that mean? Pick a few from the following strategies and try them out to see what works well. Get a routine going that involves using 1-3 of them every day, and make sure the methods, when combined, target all major areas (though realistically, you can put a bit less weight on writing): | reading | writing | listening | speaking | vocabulary | grammar |

  • This course is pretty decent for beginners, definitely the best bang for the buck. It works on | reading | writing | listening | vocabulary | grammar |

  • Do the Hebrew Duolingo. I recommend doing it on your computer when possible because it'll help with your typing skills. Get a Hebrew keyboard overlay or stickers from Amazon. Make a point of verbally repeating/speaking every prompt and sentence whenever possible. | reading | writing | listening | vocabulary | grammar |

  • Also do the Memrise companion course as you move through the Duolingo. It'll reinforce the vocab and allow you to better internalize the Duolingo lessons. | vocab | reading | writing | listening |

  • Practice verb conjugations. For every verb you learn, right it down on a flashcard. Once a day, pick 10 flashcards and conjugate the verb in all forms and tenses. Or, for a shorter practice make 2 other decks, one for tense and one for subject (i.e. you - male, they - female, we). Then you draw a verb and a card from each deck, and write the conjugation (i.e. "to go", past, they). Use Pealim.com religiously to check your conjugations and learn new verbs. | writing | vocab |

  • Make a flashcard for every new word you learn, always. Personally I like the brainscape app because you can rank each card on a color scale for how well you know it, and the app's algorithm will serve you new cards and cards you're struggling with more frequently. Practice the cards whenever you have downtime (every poop break is now a learning opportunity!) Read the cards out loud whenever possible. | reading | vocab |

  • Get a kids book and work your way through it. Mark each new word and add it to your flash cards. When you're done with the book, read it again. Sounds terrible, I know, but it'll go twice as fast the second time around. Note which words you marked and now know. Practice the ones you marked and still didn't remember the second time around. Diary of a Whimpy kid in Hebrew is a good starter book. | reading | vocab |

  • Listen to podcasts and the radio. Streetwise Hebrew is fantastic, and for radio I use Tunein Radio. Some good channels are Here is Culture, 103, Galei Zahal. | listening | vocabulary |

  • Watch Israeli movies and TV, on youtube whenever possible (because you can slow down the speed). צפוף is a great show, and it's quite funny. I also like לה פמיליה. היהודים באים is totally irreverent and absurd but quite funny as well (not recommended for religious people, it's not exactly the most PC show out there). You can also search for Israeli shows or movies on Netflix and find some good ones. Just pause and rewind as needed and write down new words (skip niche words and focus on important ones) for later practice. | vocabulary | reading | listening |

  • Most important: speak to people. As much as you can and stay in Hebrew. Do one of those online conversation partner things, find some other Hebrew speakers, go to language exchanges, whatever it takes, but always be speaking lots and lots of Hebrew. | speaking | listening | vocabulary |

    Try some of these out and cycle through them as needed and you'll be surprised at how quickly you pick it up!
u/thefilthyviewer · 1 pointr/Israel

Resolution 242...which states in the preamble:

Emphasizing further the in admissibly of acquisition of territory by war....hehe that one?

"Yawn yada yada yada Zionist yada yada yada can't yada yada yada law human yada bwah bwah. Let me call an abuwance for you."

Curses, the Seinfeld tactic! It always trumps international law, human rights, and the dignity of people...of course, I'll remember to use that next time.

Oh and Einstein was a cultural Zionist, not a political one. Which, I'm all for actually :)

Einstein's view can be described as "cultural Zionism", the belief that in Palestine Jews could create an entity, a spiritual and intellectual center which would serve to foster Judaism as a culture, and Hebrew as a language, to unite Jews worldwide. In 1929: "It was a great achievement of Herzl to have realized and proclaimed...the establishment of a national home or, more accurately, a center in Palestine..." In this sense there is no question but that "Zionist" is a term that can justly be applied to Einstein.

However, Einstein never favored the existence of Israel as a political state. In fact, his writings attest that he firmly and consistently throughout his life opposed political Zionism. But wasn't that what the movement begun by Herzl was all about? One gets the impression that at the beginning Einstein, it could almost be said, deceived himself about the actual Zionist goals; but as time wore on, the scales fell from his eyes. He came to see that Weizmann and the rest of the Zionists represented a Jewish chauvinism whose realization would render impossible any just rapprochement with the Arab inhabitants of Palestine -- and which in the end would fail. To Weizmann, 1929: "If we are not able to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned nothing in our two thousand years of suffering, and deserve the fate which will befall us" (p. 78). In this sense, Einstein was anti-Zionist -- much to the chagrin of Weizmann and the mainstream Zionist movement.

http://www.amazon.com/Einstein-Israel-Zionism-Provocative-Middle/dp/0312362285/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Oh Zionist, you a wonderful one!

But seriously, this whole two state biz is just silly, after the Israelis kinda shot it in the head, and a Jewish state wont work with a growing non-Jewish population (hell in 50 years even, I'll be generous with time), so a just and lasting peace is going to have to be a single state, bi-national with rights for all.

Its what Moses would have wanted.

And all these advices too! how kind and generous of you Zionist!
But i'll pass and stick to what I'm doing, being a free world and all (this is not Israel, for me to fall into line, you know)

;)

And its quite funny, first ignoring Einstein's opinions, yet quoting him. Fine stuff, indeed!

u/gingerkid1234 · 1 pointr/Israel

Honestly if you're teaching you probably need a verb table book. It's just much easier. You can see the patterns instead of trying to learn them from a chart, which just lists individual verbs, rather than showing the patterns and verbs that fit it. Something for that may exist online. I quite like [this one](Hebrew Verb Tables https://www.amazon.com/dp/9653760106/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_MQXpxbZEKNVK9). Most online tools (and many books, like the 501 verbs) list only individual cases.

Also, a note. Every Hebrew teacher seems to use the damn charts, but they're terrible. There's just too many verbs to memorize. It's far better for most learners to learn and practice a particular verb, then figure out how to generalize it, using a chart for help, rather than starting out with the chart. "Here's a chart of verbs in hitpa'el starting with a sibilant and ending in ה, practice the chart" is unlikely to help students retain anything. A much better approach is to learn a particular verb, use it, get comfortable with the conjugations, and then generalize it to similar verbs. A verb pattern book, rather than just lists of specific verbs, is helpful for this.

u/davidsa35 · 3 pointsr/Israel

>Who/which are the best Israeli musicians/bands in your opinion?

I like Avraham Tal (singer) he has unique and stirring songs

>How much can you understand Arabic (or other Semitic languages) just basing on Hebrew?

While watching "Fauda" last year (an Israeli tv series about Israeli unite disguised as Arabs to collect intelligence and make operations and arrests in the Palestinian authority) I realized that there are many words in Arabic which resemble Hebrew

>How are the relationships between the Mizrachim and the Ashkenazim?

As the time goes by the differences between the two are blurring more

>How are the Ethiopian Jews treated in your opinion?

There is some racism from private people and not from the government which gives them many privileges as scholarships and affirmative actions

>What's the greatest thing about living in Israel? What's the worst thing about living in Israel?

The greatest thing in my opinion (as one who had also lived abroad) is to feel Jewish pride, to see the renascence of the ancient Jewish identity in Israel (Judea) after 2000 years and having our own country and military to take care of ourselves
The most irritating thing in my opinion is the feeling that here is too much corruption, especially on the municipal levels, I've seen many bribery and such stuff that I feel that it's not fair for the law abiding citizens who work their ass off for a decent salary. I also think that some of the public sector is not efficient in that there is much hidden unemployment. People who literally contribute nothing and get large salaries just because they have "connections" with the right people - although those phenomenons here aren't as bad as in 3d world countries and I think there is some improvement and efficiency under Netanyahu's tenures

>Got any good (and translated) Israeli poets or writers to recommend?

Edit: in second thought I remember that Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by prof. Yuval Noah Harrari was a good read

>Why are Israeli girls so cute?

I think that it's because of 2 main causes:

  1. "Intermarriages" between Jews of different backgrounds in Israel (Europeans with North Africans and so) which make some amazing kids with unique facial features - reminds me a little of Brazilians

  2. Military/civil service - this period in their lives is shaping their personalities and make them grown up women in their early 20s

    >I've got to say that your national anthem is sick wicked. Fucking a+ music.

    This is my favorite performance, by the Jewish community in Moscow

    I hope I was informing, take care.
u/jacobheiss · 1 pointr/Israel

With respect to the Haredi community, you're probably right; however, the question arises: Is it possible to evoke pressure from the inside? Put differently, is the Haredi community so well isolated that it will be essentially unresponsive to any outside influence whatsoever? On the other hand, are there ways to effectively appeal to change?

I'm thinking of some parallel to Slavenka Drakulic's description of the true Iron Curtain during the Soviet era being made up of "glossy pictures of beautiful women in amazing clothes," i.e. representing a winsome boundary with the West marked by appeal and not just partition. (Can't remember if this was in Cafe Europa or How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed.)

u/FBernadotte · 3 pointsr/Israel

Thanks for finding the source of the quote claiming that "Israel is worth five CIAs". Looks like it originated in Wolf Blitzer's book Between Washington and Jerusalem: A Reporter's Notebook. Blitzer interviewed Keegan.

The quote itself is a distortion of what Blitzer cites the general as saying. Which was that he could not have gotten the same amount of intelligence about Soviet weapons capabilities "with five CIAs". Only to the logic-challenged does this amount to the blanket generalization that "Israel is worth five CIAs".

As for Keegan's having been the "head of Air Force intelligence", clearly he was not. Unless "assistant chief of staff" equates to "head". For hasbara, anything is possible. To be fair, the NY Times reviewer in your link does use the phrase "Air Force intelligence chief", so perhaps we should blame him, or maybe that is how Blitzer (wrongly) described him. Don't forget Blitzer's origins as a journalist and his time at AIPAC. Blitzer usually does a pretty good job of pretending to be objective.

Ironically, exactly at the time Blitzer's book was published (November 14, 1985) the American Jonathan Pollard was less than a week away from being arrested for perpetrating one of the most damaging security breaches in American history. Of course he was not working for America, he was working as a spy for his favorite country Israel. Israel worth five CIAs? What a joke.

u/The_Jackal · -1 pointsr/Israel

YOU ARE A LIAR. You know this. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-News-Israel-Greg-Philo/dp/0745320619 "Review The book does a very good job of summarising for the reader the complex historical background to present day Israel. It covers a lot of ground in a clear and readable manner and is particularly good at airing different views about the Arab-Israeli conflict. (Professor Avi Shlaim, University of Oxford ) A remarkable book, very comprehensive, with an innovative approach and full of interesting examples. It is convincing and very useful not only for researchers but for the general public as well. (Professor Lucrecia Escudero Chauvel, Universités de Lille III and Paris VIII ) Bad News from Israel reveals remarkable levels of ignorance about why things are as they are. What's more, the analysis offered here strongly suggests that the media are intimately linked to the perpetuation of this unhappy situation. (Professor Frank Webster, City University, London ) This superb study ... [blends] together material on what the media do, why they do it, and how their modes of reporting affect public knowledge and interest. (Professor Edward S. Herman, University of Pennsylvannia ) Coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often dangerously superficial. Bad News from Israel is a strong contribution to scholarship and public debate. (Professor John D.H. Downing, Southern Illinois University ) This volume is a must-read for those journalists and media critics who are tired of the same old debates about objectivity, and wish to move onto more sophisticated questions about how media bias actually works to alter public perceptions of important issues. (The Republic ) Philo and Berry have torn away the veil that has long obscured fair and objective reporting of the region. (Vertigo )"

u/Awkward_Arab · 2 pointsr/Israel

This discussion has been interesting, so thanks for that. I agree that the point of nukes is to have them for bargaining power, which I why I mentioned earlier that Iran might be keen on obtaining them as a bargaining chip, not necessarily against Israel, but against the Arabs and Sunnis.

I may not be Muslim, but if you're keen on reading about the origins of Islam and how it really spread. You would be surprised to find out the majority of Islam in foreign territories was not spread by the sword. I recommend Fred Donner's (a leading Islamic historian) book, which I have a copy of if you're interested in reading it. It'll give you perspective into Islam's complicated history from an academic perspective.

Here's a link, Muhammad and the Believers. It highlights the traditional account and offers a proper critique, and Donner adds some of his own interesting theories while rehashing contemporary historical analysis by other notable academics in the field. It's a light read, and not as dry as some other academic books.

u/Boredeidanmark · 3 pointsr/Israel

It sounds like your professor didn’t tell you anything about the violence that Palestinians committed against Jews before and during the creation of Israel.

Here are some starting points for you:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Nebi_Musa_riots

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936–1939_Arab_revolt_in_Palestine

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relations_between_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Arab_world

https://www.ushmm.org/research/publications/academic-publications/full-list-of-academic-publications/nazi-palestine-the-plans-for-the-extermination-of-the-jews-of-palestine

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947–48_Civil_War_in_Mandatory_Palestine

Here are a couple academic books you can read by a historian who is known to be among the most even-handed (not pro-Israel or pro-Palestine):

https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict-1881-2001/dp/0679744754

https://www.amazon.com/Palestinian-Refugee-Problem-Revisited-Cambridge/dp/0521009677/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539091713&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=birth+of+the+palestinian+refugee+problem&dpPl=1&dpID=41k290p1ICL&ref=plSrch

Now here are a few things for you to think about:

Why is your professor so intent on piling you with pro-Palestinian sources that she’s giving you fictional novels to read? Does that sound like she is trying to teach you or indoctrinate you?

It sounds like your professor has taught you about Jews expelling Arabs from the area they controlled, but didn’t teach you about how Arabs expelled Jews from the area they controlled. Why do you think that is? Do you think teaching students about each side’s violence would yield different opinions than only teaching about the Jews’ violence and framing all Palestinian violence only as a reaction?

It’s good that you asked about the other side of the issue and sought out reading material explaining it. But how many of your classmates do the same? What impression do you think that leaves them with? Do you think at the end of your class they will have a good understanding of the Israeli-Arab conflict, or a distorted impression?

What do you think are your school and your professor’s responsibilities to their students with respect to informing them of the facts of topics they choose to study? How do you think the actual performance compares to their responsibilities?

If most schools have intro professors like yours (on this topic and others, but especially this), what effect do you think that has for the current generation of students?

You said you keep up on current events in the Israeli-Arab conflict. What sources are you reading? Is it only left-wing sources? Centrist sources? A mix of left, right, and center?

FWIW, I find Ynetnews.com, the online version of Israel’s most popular newspaper, to be the best source. You are better off if you supplement it with the New York Times (pro-Palestinian editorial board, but the news articles are pretty fair). USA Today and Bloomberg tend to be pretty fair too.

u/testing_thewaters · 1 pointr/Israel

Yes!

Read My Promised Land by Ari Shavit
I would not be living here in Jerusalem if it weren't for this book.

Read A Tale of Love and Darkness

Listen to Meir Ariel

Watch The Band's Visit

u/[deleted] · 13 pointsr/Israel

That is a good point, however, they did protect Jews who were in Japan at the time from german persecution, they did allow Jews feeling Europe to transit through Japan (despite agreements with Germany to the contrary) and they did have a plan to establish a Jewish State somewhere in Asia after their (Japanese) victory.

Sources:

https://www.amazon.ca/Edokko-Growing-Foreigner-Wartime-Japan/dp/1936236141

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Japan

u/Battle4Seattle · 0 pointsr/Israel

In 1867, Mark Twain visited the Holy Land & recounted his travels in a book called "The Innocents Abroad". Here's a direct quote about what he saw (p. 361-362):



"..... A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds... a silent mournful expanse.... a desolation.... we never saw a human being on the whole route.... hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country."

This land was destroyed by the Arabs who invaded it, what you euphemestically call the "Arabization of the region". They then left it in a state of ruin, confirming what Sir Claude Jarvis, former British governor of Sinai said about your people "The Arab is not the son of the desert but its father".

It was not until Jews started returning back to their ancestral homeland en masse that Arabs started migrating there as well for economic opportunities. There are anecdotal accounts of entire villages in Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere picking up and moving to pre-independence Israel, only to settle themselves near a Jewish-owned factory.

So please, spare me your warped history lesson. The Arabs are mostly recent inhabitants of this land. Just because your grandfather once let his sheep graze on a hill outside Hebron doesn't give you title to anything there.

BTW - if you want to reference serious, scholarly research on just how many Arabs were living there when the Jews started arriving, I highly recommend the seminal work of Arieh L. Avneri - The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land-Settlement and the Arabs, 1878-1948. This is a definitive work on the demographics of the time.

u/MMSG · 2 pointsr/Israel

I want to also recommend "The Case for Israel by Allen Dershowitz" all supporters and opposers of Israel should read it. Very well written in English.

The Case for Israel https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471679526/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_m-9OCbY9BZWSS

u/nidarus · 2 pointsr/Israel

If you're not just interested in a textbook, I highly recommend Amos Oz's memoirs, a Story of Love and Darkness. It tells the story of his and his family's life, in Europe, Mandatory Palestine, and early Israel.

Do not, I repeat, not watch the movie with Natalie Portman.

u/speedy-G · 1 pointr/Israel

It's a survey carried out by Great Britain and the United States at the time of the British Mandate. The website is simply hosting it (if you don't like it reading from pro-Palestinian sites, you can get it here, for a price). The survey debunks one by one the allegations of "illegal immigration" that Israel's apologists keep using to our days to claim Palestinians' "foreign origin", as you are currently trying to do (without much success, I would say).

u/ChemiluminescentSpan · -25 pointsr/Israel

Well according to Israeli historians, the Haganah and Irgun did quite a bit of ethnic cleaning, not to mention rape and massacre. Worth mentioning that a quarter of Palestinian refugees were quite LITERALLY pushed into the sea.

u/Mythpunk · 2 pointsr/Israel

>Anti-Semitism originated in Christianity

Actually, antisemitism as a thing itself predates both Christianity and Islam by a fair amount. Nirenberg's book Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition (here) writes that the earliest known antisemitic text is from the beginning of the third century BCE, by an Egyptian named Mantheo. Check out this JCPA article about it as well.

u/Iconoclast123 · 1 pointr/Israel

I just read a review of one. Let me see if I can dig it up...

Well here's a cool list, but it's not what I was looking for:

http://igoogledisrael.com/2013/04/top-10-must-read-must-buy-books-on-israel/

There's always Joan Peters: From Time Immemorial (a bit controversial, but alot of it is solid).

There's also 'Anonymous Soldiers' by Bruce Hoffman.

Anyway - I found it - this just came out and was well-reviewed:

https://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-Israels-History-Rights-Struggle/dp/162157590X/ref=zg_bs_5001_3/130-7815220-4963960?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=6YZ9M38SN464GS6F59TR

And here's a cool new article:

https://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-Israels-History-Rights-Struggle/dp/162157590X/ref=zg_bs_5001_3/130-7815220-4963960?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=6YZ9M38SN464GS6F59TR

u/lebeardnekk · 5 pointsr/Israel

The site is simply hosting the survey. That one is some 40 years older than the Internet. If you don't like it from there, feel free to buy it in Amazon.

u/IbnEzra613 · 6 pointsr/Israel

Here are some book recommendations:

u/Crellian · 7 pointsr/Israel

I just read Israel by Daniel Gordis. It is a history of Israel and Zionism from the 19th century to today. I felt it was very well written. The book is long, but I could not put it down.

I'm currently reading The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz. This one is about dispelling common myths used to de-legitimize Israel. Since he is a lawyer, the book is written in a style that makes it read like a court case. It is a bit shorter but it might be what you are looking for if you need to take apart someone who argues that Zionism = colonialism.....