Occupied West Bank and Gaza, and further settlement anywhere, are a different conversation than the existence of Israel, as well as whether it be in the Levant.

Your call for carefully boxing concepts to be examined seperately is a nonfunctional idea from the getgo. These things are all connected and deeply related, for zionists as much as rank-in-file jews, and any student of human nature and history. What you ask for is a carefully controlled ground in order to begin to argue your case, and life doesnt fit into that model. As an example, try explaining to someone in a carefully concept boxed way why right wing jews spit on christian travelers in Jerusalem. You cant without dumbing it down to empty propoganda tropes. The effort to distance current events from the broader and more informative arc of history seems to be a self serving zionist trap, and I dont know if you are just a victim of that ideology or a pusher of it, but either way, it doesnt matter because it doesnt work at all.

(I haven’t even shared my opinions in here)

You opinions are obvious from the topics you chose and the way you go about discussing them. You tell yourself that you’re a moderate American zionist and you’re one of the people I talk about.

When I asked all my progressive friends and colleagues what we can do (this was like…3 yrs ago?), they just got downtrodden and didn’t have hopeful answers.

I have a hard time believing that. Any progressive would or should have said a real honest two state solution and a good neighbor policy over an extended period (which was never tried was it), and a disolution of the blockade of Gaza and the west bank. In time, thats going to work. Jews and muslims had common cause in the ottoman empire for 800 years and got along relatively well. Its when the far right religious splinter groups on both sides (although mostly the jewish side) take power that there are problems, and jews cant win through military force, even in a relatively small defensive ground like Israel. Regardless of whether Zionists are monsters or righteous, they are 100% doomed-- and personally I’d make a strong case for “monsters”. And they will drag innocents of all kinds down with them.

They explain the conservative argument against Arab citizenship and voting rights is the resulting immediate “overthrow” of status quo bc of demographics, the subsequent changes to law, and the virtual destruction of Israel. They don’t like that hence preference to multi state.

This could be a directly quoted passage from the South African governments justifications for brutality back in their apartheid era, do you see that? South Africa still exists, does it not?

Perhaps you can challenge your intellectual biases

The only person you’d every claim is unbiased is someone who agrees with everything you say. We’re all a lot more emotional in our reasoning than we’d care to acknowledge. The way I think of it is that everyone is trying to validate their own worldview constantly. You see it as bias, and I see it as you being biased toward me. Shrug beleive what you like, it doesnt affect me much. Want to prove to me that you’re unbiased? go ahead. Do it, I’ll read your answer. This oughta be good.

Perhaps you can challenge your intellectual biases and ask your friends directly about why they believe in the existence of “an” Israel or any Jewish state. That’s a completely different conversation for them that perhaps you haven’t seen that way.

They wouldnt hesitate to say that Israel has no reasonable basis to exist as a state in the modern era. Its on the wish list of a bunch of violent religious zealots, for shaky and self serving ideological grounds. It was a mistake to make that state, but it was born out of global pitty for the events of WW2. Jews are not in any sort of danger globally that they’d “need” a state, and some (including me) would even suggest that the need for a state stems from a desire not for a safe homeland, but for a place where dina demalkuta dina can be defined on their own terms, inevitably by rich people who are up to no good. The biggest enemy of the jewish people are usually monied interests and rightwing religious extremists of all sorts-- many of them zionists-- the same as its been going back to the very first kingdom of israel, and in every jewish political event since then. The biggest enemies of jews people are other jewish people, and its always been that way.

Are you pro choice? Have you argued with an anti choice person? It’s a fundamental belief to them that an embryo is a life. So your arguments don’t matter to them the way they do to you.

Of course I am pro choice. Who would I be to tell people what to do with their bodies? And I dont argue with pro lifers, I shun and disempower them. I think I understand how influence works and I see that its not worth my time to try to counter them directly based on my personal spoken ideology. Speaking to them is a waste of time.

You equate that to reaching the Sephardim. Thats troubled me for a while frankly. After this last round of dinner parties of largely Jewish American guests, I have frankly written most of them off. These are people I’ve known all my life. I tried telling myself that despite these conversations I know for a fact that they are good people-- except when this issue comes up a dark cloud descends. If the cost of being their friend is tolerating varying levels of zionism, then I cant do it. At best they are victims of deep propoganda, and I’m too tired and old to make that my problem. History will sort them and their ideas out, not my cautious quips over dinner, under threat of doxing myself in this viscious and unforgiving pogrom against anyone who supports basic human rights. I do miss my old Jewish friends, but perhaps I never understood all of who they actually were, and now I know. Say you discovered that the nicest person you know occassionally ate a random kid. Could you still be friends? There are lines.

If your friends fundamentally believe they need a home and they’re in one they have had and defended for nearly a century at this point, some Sephardim even longer

Jews suffered in the US the same as the Irish, the italians, the germans, native americans, and the asians, and the hispanics, and far FAR less than African Americans. But not a lot lately, so I think you’re crybullying here, which is the new normal. Muslims and people who advocate for human rights are being oppressed, beaten, disenfranchised and silenced pretty openly. So lets worry about these vague far fetched stories about your and my friends existential fears that they need to “defend” themselves in the US after the people that are being openly oppressed and murdered are cared for. So you’ll need to take yourself to the back of the concern line, and maybe you could take a stand and get to work on justice causes yourself if you fear for existential injustice that might effect you. Set some norms. Embrace a universal declaration of human rights, for jews and goyim equally. Theres no reason to be against such a thing is there?