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Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

You think fully half the population of Israel opposes the current government and the actions of the settlers?

That seems ... unlikely.

Call it a million, maybe, at most, that might want to move .. pragmatically a hundred thousand per year over the next decade.

Currently

   304 million people—3.7 percent of the world's population—lived outside their country of birth in 2024, nearly double the 153.9 million in 1990, per UN Population Division data. 
  The United States hosted more than 52 million migrants in 2024

~ https://www.migrationpolicy.org/journal/feature/top-statisti...

so the precedent is there to absorb another million across the globe, although realistically the US in its current state is unlikely to welcome "peaceniks" who'd be accused of supporting Hamas.

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> You think fully half the population of Israel opposes the current government and the actions of the settlers?

Well we know with a certainty that more than half of Israelis oppose this government by quite a majority, the current government can't get re-elected. As for what Israelis think about the violence in the territories - I don't have numbers but yes I think the vast majority opposes it. It might surprise you but it is being reported on almost daily in the major Israeli news media with an extremely alarmist and negative tone (which it should). Perhaps it's self serving (every Israeli with 2 brain cells understands what this is doing to our reputation and our longterm ability to survive) but I truly believe it just contradicts most Israeli's morals.

You will find very few people say it's cool to attack some elderly reporter or some shepherd kid just tending to his goats. They exist for sure but I don't think they're that many.

BTW I'm even surprised to see opinion pieces by very prominent and quite radical figures in the settlement movement (Hagai Segal, Benzi Lieberman to name a few) calling to stop with this shit.

Thank you for the thoughtful comment.

In the context of the upthread comment made not by myself which I appear to have taken on the task of clarifying as best I can ... that quoted statement probably really should be about the percentage of the Israeli population that { oppose the current government AND oppose settlement (not just the extreme actions) AND are prepared to leave and move elsewhere }.

It's good to see a growth of internal opposition to the extremes of Israel action against Palestine; that's something that in an ideal world should have been far stronger a good many years past.

Arguably both sides here have been guilty since the get go of not reining in their more extreme and likely more traumatised members; both understandable and escalatory in an arc that has lead to where things are today.

I was replying to a comment which stated that they didn't support "Israel's right to exist" and suggested that Israelis move. I interpreted the comment as saying "we can solve this problem by moving the Israelis out of Israel." But this is dumb. It's not like anyone can just go move to another country because they feel like it. You generally need a spouse, a job, or some other wedge to get into that country. And there are no countries volunteering to make a special exception and take in Israeli's, even at "only" a hundred thousand per year.

Of course, they also might also not feel like it. I was born and raised in the US. I strongly oppose almost everything President Trump does. I don't see why that means I should have to move.

I suggest you carefully reread the original comment:

  This has become beyond ridiculous. I have personally gone from full support for Israel to now not even supporting Israel's right to exist. And I can't be the only one. I feel sorry for the (clearly increasingly rare) "normal" people of Israel but they will soon need to move out of Israel to not be bundled in with the crazies.

> I interpreted the comment as saying "we can solve this problem by moving the Israelis out of Israel." But this is dumb

You're correct here - it was dumb to interpret that comment as you did. It specifically talked about the small numbers of citizens opposed to the current arc of the state.

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