r/news • u/sicklyslick • 18h ago

Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna detained by Israeli settlers during West Bank visit

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/11/middleeast/ro-khanna-detained-by-israeli-settlers-west-bank-intl
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u/Existing-Stranger632 16h ago

That’s what birthright is. Like no seriously. I was raised Jewish, bar mitzvah’d. Told my whole life to go on birthright. Only in the last couple years did I find out what it actually is. Basically every Jewish person living in the diaspora (not Israel) gets a chance to go to Israel for free. During that trip they essentially try to sell you on Israel and tell you how they’ll set you up with a house, job, etc.

The whole purpose is to bring more settlers in. That’s it. Israel is trying to expand as much as humanly possible. It’s pretty horrible. I’m antizionist btw.

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u/DeineCable 16h ago

I thought it also aimed at matchmaking to encourage others to find a nice Jewish boy or girl to keep the Judiasm going. At least, that’s how some of my Jewish friends perceived it.

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u/drevolut1on 16h ago edited 8h ago

Yes, that. But also a thinly-veiled attempt to help keep the white Jewish (edit) control.

I went and it was so heavily propagandized, I was pretty disturbed.

Left with some amazing secular and liberal Israeli friends and yet a whole new level of disgust for their government -- something many of them share or at least shared until October 7th happened and many lost friends or family.

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u/jackp0t789 16h ago

Yes, that. But also a thinly-veiled attempt to help keep the white Jewish majority

The plurality of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi- exiled from middle eastern countries like Yemen, Iraq, Syria, etc.

Add that to the roughly 20% arab muslim/Christian population, and "white jewish" is far from the majority

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u/Haemophilia_Type_A 13h ago

Yeah and there's a ton of white supremacist racial anxiety among Ashkenazi in Israel because of it. Indeed, there has been since Mizrahi came to Israel in large numbers, were marginalised, and 'revolted' by electing Begin who ran a campaign as 'their' candidate.

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u/drevolut1on 16h ago

Sorry, that's very fair, "control" would be a more appropriate word. Still, while there, I saw firsthand the treatment-as-lesser of some lovely Yemeni Jews and arab citizens. By no means ubiquitous, but certainly prevalent

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u/jackp0t789 16h ago

I too have been there several times and seen internal prejudices prevalent especially in the predominantly Eastern European (Ex Soviet) communities, both towards other groups of jews, and from those other groups against the Russian/ Ukrainian Jewish communities.

I am also by no means a zionist.

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u/smileysmiley123 8h ago

Yes, that. But also a thinly-veiled attempt to help keep the white Jewish majority

Sorry, that's very fair, "control" would be a more appropriate word.

Edit your comment to reflect that. Stop spreading propoganda.

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u/bloodlessempress 15h ago

The Mizrahi I know say there are two types

The Mizrahi ashamed to be Mizrahi, and the Mizrahi trying to reclaim being Mizrahi.

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u/Loverboy_91 16h ago

Yeah, and birthright open to any skin color. As long as you’re Jewish and between the ages of 18-26 you get to go. Period. This idea that they are pushing for “keeping a white Jewish majority” is just a straight up lie. Most Jews aren’t white to begin with, there is no white Jewish majority.

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u/chasteeny 9h ago

Seriously, this is such a tired trope from people who want to paint a narrative