Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree with most of your post, but did want to point out one thing: >[...] most Jews I know are intensely critical of Israel's policies and recent actions. While that certainly might be true wherever you live, note that the majority of the world's Jewish population lives in Israel, and at least some fairly large portion of that population does support Israel's policies and recent actions. (I assume we're talking about…
The plurality of the Jewish population is believed to be in the US (there are some issues around estimation) although it's close. As for Israelis and support for their government, that is... complicated. Unfortunately, if the Israeli state didn't exist, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Jewish people in the region would likely be murdered by people from neighboring countries. This isn't because Arabs are "in…
It's definitely close, but Wiki still gives it to Israel right now (at least here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country#D...)
> Unfortunately, if the Israeli state didn't exist, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Jewish people in the region would likely be murdered by people from neighboring countries. This isn't because Arabs are "innately" warlike or antisemitic (I don't think that's true) but because the states in the region are deeply corrupt, failing states [...]
I tend to agree that that is what would happen, but I think the neighboring countries have at least a somewhat legitimate beef with Israel and its actions. It's largely promoted by leadership for reasons like you stated, but it is still true that lots of Arab (and Muslim) people think that Israel did something wrong. I mostly don't agree with their POV, but it has a legitimate basis. (And my disagreement is at least partly by saying "yeah, almost every country has a... problematic history, you can't just forever be at war with it for that".)
> The Israeli state is deeply problematic, corrupted by capitalism and some amount of racism (as almost all Western states are). It also has a job that is tough as hell: protecting a vulnerable minority group from millions who would murder them. The middle-of-the-road Israeli understands the need to protect themselves, but isn't a huge fan of the settlements (if he thinks about them at all) and certainly would love to see peace in the region.
I wish that were true about the median (Jewish) Israeli. I don't know if that's right. For sure it's less a topic of conversation inside Israel than it is outside of it, so I agree with the idea that most Israelis don't think about it too much.