@subnetter @Ree @patchuun @scathach studies on ashkenazi jews find we are (until recent intermarriage) incredibly monolithic with a founder effect and a bottleneck, so its not really an issue of many ashkenazi jews. its an issue of "how much". reputable studies ive seen (anything not by elhaik I consider reputable) range from jews being 25-58 percent middle eastern. thats a substantial portion, enough to help make calling ashkenazi jews european oversimplistic. one recentish study found that ashkenazi jews are 60 percent canaanite related (not necessarily canaanite, but canaanite related), and moroccan jews 70 percent. I should also note that sephardic jews and ashkenazi jews are very closely related, yet few discount sephardic jews as indigenous (except elhaik, lol, I think he said they were Kurds?). anyway, even if its true that ashkenazi jews are only 25 percent middle eastern, being indigenous is a matter of being defined as indigenous by an indigenous people. the israelites consider converts to be fellow israelites and accept them into the sphere of their indigenous culture, sacred language, and religion. and ashkenazi jews bear those things and are part of the "jewish story". I believe its existence that makes a people, not essence. prior to america weve always been treated like foreigners, except perhaps briefly by cosmopolitan roman pagans, so we became perpetual foreigners. and existence, not essence, also made the palestinian people separate from syrians, jordanians, and lebanese.
as far as the necessity of israel, I do believe it was necessary for a jewish state to be formed. the proof is the antisemitism I see every day. in another thread ive been arguing with a bunch of holocaust deniers. its not that deep for me. honestly, I am not religiously jewish and israel is more sacred to me for jesus than for moses. but people who hate jews with every fiber of their being keep making it my problem. my ex best friend just posted "I wish the holocaust had happened" just the other day. it made me feel frankly violated, he kissed me more than once without my consent. anyway, theres a lot of folks like him. leftists now like to say its all Israels fault they exist, but nazis say the holocaust was jews fault too, if they admit it happened at all, so that doesnt convince me too much.