Israel says no 2 state solution for at least 2 years

yosi

What specifically are you referring to? How do you see me as "stacking the deck?"

FiveB247x

Meaning it's very easy to sit on your hands and wait simply say the other side needs to do x,y and z when in reality such demands may not be practical at all. So for example, obviously Israel is in the position to control the situation, but rather than pre-emtively or seek a real, viable peace strategy or plan which not only works for their interests, but invites the other side to want to join and participate. So instead of this type of policy and talk, we simply hear rhetoric and action which merely passes the buck to the weaker, less organized and volatile side which is impractical and simply leads to further violence and hatred. It's a self-fulfilling practice which keeps things the same. Israel gets tired of "defending" itself and of recently does more than simply defend, but has gotten quite aggressive in reaction. Palestine gets tired of being oppressed and fighting back and double-talk from Israel. It's no different from the tons of meaningless treaties the US government signed and ignored with the American Indians to simply pacify them into submission and later disappearance. You may say I'm biased, but in practical and realistic terms, this is exactly the scenario and exchange between the two sides for roughly the last 10 or so years. You can hope to get blood from a stone, but the result will be pretty obvious..

yosi wrote:

What specifically are you referring to? How do you see me as "stacking the deck?"

redrock

yosi wrote:

How is the idea of a "Jewish state" racist in the slightest? It isn't a Jewish-only state, nor is it a "non-Jews-are-legally-second-class-citizens state." You wouldn't say that a "French state" is racist, so why is a Jewish state racist?

There is no 'French state', no English or German states. There is a country called France, another one the United Kingdom and another one Germany. Being French, English, German, etc. is a nationality. You get it from your parents by birth or, for example France, by being born in the country (even if your parents are not French), or even possibly by marrying a person from that nationality. It's not 'being' a race or a religion. People will not converge to any of these countries because they are of a certain faith.

Jewish, on the other hand, is not a nationality therefore a jewish state is discriminatory as it excludes those that are not part of this cultural and religious entity. That is why Israel cannot even contemplate a one state solution. You said it yourself, afraid of being 'taken over' by non jews. Let's keep the infidels out (while grabbing their land and oppressing them).

yosi

Yeah, I agree. I think Israel needs to be doing things very differently. But these threads aren't generally rational discussions of specific policies. For example, in this very thread it has been suggested that Zionism is racism, and that Israel has no right to exist. I find these to be extreme, and frankly offensive views, and so I've tried to argue against them. The occupation is a travesty and has to end. But arguing for a bi-national state isn't arguing for an end to the occupation, it is arguing for an end to Israel.

yosi

redrock wrote:

yosi wrote:

How is the idea of a "Jewish state" racist in the slightest? It isn't a Jewish-only state, nor is it a "non-Jews-are-legally-second-class-citizens state." You wouldn't say that a "French state" is racist, so why is a Jewish state racist?

There is no 'French state', no English or German states. There is a country called France, another one the United Kingdom and another one Germany. Being French, English, German, etc. is a nationality. You get it from your parents by birth or, for example France, by being born in the country (even if your parents are not French), or even possibly by marrying a person from that nationality. It's not 'being' a race or a religion. People will not converge to any of these countries because they are of a certain faith.

Jewish, on the other hand, is not a nationality therefore a jewish state is discriminatory as it excludes those that are not part of this cultural and religious entity. That is why Israel cannot even contemplate a one state solution. You said it yourself, afraid of being 'taken over' by non jews. Let's keep the infidels out (while grabbing their land and oppressing them).

How do your comments square with the fact that Israel has about 1 million non-Jewish citizens, and the fact that most of Israel's Jewish citizens are entirely secular? I would also recommend that you go back and take another look at the history of the nation-state. France is the state of the French, just as Germany is the state of the Germans, Turkey of the Turks, Armenia of the Armenians, Greece of the Greeks, etc, etc. You claim that Jews are not a nation. Why is that? How is it that despite the fact that Jews have thought of themselves as a nation for thousands of years that we are not one?

FiveB247x

Your assumption that a bi-national state would lead to and end of Israel is merely the slippery slope or prognosticating the situation, not reality. Also, yes anyone who says Israel doesn't have a right to exist is not right... that's just an extremely nonsensical belief. Lastly, Zionism in practice can be racist solely because it involves removal of people from lands which are not completely there own. It incorporates the right of one group because of religion (at the heart) to dictate the will, power, freedom and growth over another. So to simply make it black and white and say Zionism doesn't hold significant repercussions to the other half is not acknowledging it fully or how it effects others. So in that respect, it can be racist/bigotry.

yosi wrote:

Yeah, I agree. I think Israel needs to be doing things very differently. But these threads aren't generally rational discussions of specific policies. For example, in this very thread it has been suggested that Zionism is racism, and that Israel has no right to exist. I find these to be extreme, and frankly offensive views, and so I've tried to argue against them. The occupation is a travesty and has to end. But arguing for a bi-national state isn't arguing for an end to the occupation, it is arguing for an end to Israel.

Byrnzie

yosi wrote:

How do your comments square with the fact that Israel has about 1 million non-Jewish citizens, and the fact that most of Israel's Jewish citizens are entirely secular? I would also recommend that you go back and take another look at the history of the nation-state. France is the state of the French, just as Germany is the state of the Germans, Turkey of the Turks, Armenia of the Armenians, Greece of the Greeks, etc, etc. You claim that Jews are not a nation. Why is that? How is it that despite the fact that Jews have thought of themselves as a nation for thousands of years that we are not one?

http://www.counterpunch.org/neumann10142009.html

'...Hitler 'understood' that peoples had a right to their homeland. The 'national' part of National Socialism was not civic nationalism, the nationalism that calls on French, German, American, Italian or Spanish *citizens* to cherish and defend their countries. It was ethnic nationalism, the nationalism of 'peoples', races, who did not have a homeland, or who had suffered a diaspora or historic wrongs. Hitler held that the German people had suffered both and was threatened with extinction. The Germans wanted their homeland back, all of it. Every other people had its homeland; why not the Germans?

Of course this was nonsense. The 'German people' was a bit of a fiction, and the borders of their 'homeland' were founded largely on historical myths irrelevant to contemporary rights and wrongs. But despite the most awful and obvious fulfilment of Lansing's worst nightmare, we have never abandoned Wilson's and Hitler's endorsement of ethnic nationalism. It infects even our condemnations of 'the Germans' for the Nazi era...

..So a miracle appears among us. The very ideology of homelands and peoples under whose auspices the Jews were all but exterminated has become the sustaining ideology of Israel, a state devoted to Jewish ethnic sovereignty. This is why we always hear that Israel - not Israelis - has a right to exist. What matters are not the citizens of a state, but the state itself, the totemic icon of 'the Jewish people'. The fatal confusion that legitimized ethnic nationalism at the Paris Peace Conference now legitimizes Israel itself. When Zionists suggest that the French and Germans have a right to their states, they conveniently forget that this means the *inhabitants* of France and Germany, not those of some French or German *ancestry*, not a 'people' in the sense of an ethnic group. (The world was outraged when it suspected that Britain's 'patrial' immigration laws were designed to favor those of ethnically British ancestry.) But 'the Jewish people' have a right to their state, and this is supposed to be some lofty ideal. Why? Because ethnic nationalism has taken on the cloak of civic nationalism, and we are too stupid to notice. Had ethnic nationalism not shed a single drop of blood, we should still be ashamed for crediting its mystique of peoples, historical wrongs, collective vices and virtues, ineluctable destinies. Abstractions and myths that could not even gain entrance to a university's ivory towers flow daily from the lips of supposedly practical people...'

Byrnzie

http://www.counterpunch.org/neumann01262006.html

The Core of Zionism

By MICHAEL NEUMANN


'What matters for an understanding of the Israel/Palestine conflict is what the expression 'a Jewish state' would mean to any reasonable person. What, in particular, could the Palestinians reasonably expect when they heard that such a state was to be established in Palestine?

The state itself--the human community--is, everywhere in the world, an absolute dictator bound neither by morality nor by law. Even in the most impeccable democracy, there are ways to institute anything humans can do to one another. Frequently, as in the case of the democratic Weimar Republic of Germany, just invoking emergency legislation is quite enough to open the gates of hell.

For the Zionists to demand a state, any state, was therefore no small thing for anyone--like the Palestinians--falling within its proposed boundaries. But what the Zionists demanded was a Jewish state. Whether this was racism is not of any immediate concern. For one thing, to say that something is racist is not, for many people, immediately to say that it is unjustified: there are those, for instance, who accept affirmative action as 'reverse' racism yet still defend it. For another, the project might have begun as racist yet outgrown its racism by instituting sufficient protections for non-Jews. Or it might not have outgrown it altogether, but exhibited a form of racism that, though reprehensible, was not particularly virulent. It, therefore, does not seem particularly fruitful to examine whether Zionism was racism.

When a state is described in relation to the territory it controls, its ethnic character is open. The French state is not necessarily a state for some ethnic group called Frenchmen, just as the Belgian or Yugoslav or Jamaican state weren't states for ethnic groups of that name. But a Catholic state would be a state run by Catholics; a black state would be a state run by blacks; a heterosexual state would be run by heterosexuals. This could hardly be clearer: what would be Catholic or black or heterosexual about a state not run by at least some members of those groups?

When, as in the post-World-War-I era, the ideology of self-determination added to the picture, the expectation develops further. Now it is that ethnic states would be run not just by members of their ethnic groups, but in some sense by those ethnic groups themselves. At the very least, such states would be governed in the name of those group members in the area. This would amount to something more than a formality. Thus, an Armenian state would be not simply have Armenian rulers. These rulers would truly govern in the name of Armenians. They would not just claim to act for their Armenian subjects or citizens, but would genuinely rule on their behalf, that is, for their benefit. The Armenian inhabitants might--and from Wilson's standpoint, would--be governed democratically, by themselves. If not, one would hope and expect that they would be governed for themselves, or for, in the interests of, Armenians as a whole.

A Jewish state would, therefore, be a state run by and for Jews. In such a state, Jews would be sovereign. The state would be run in their interests.

For non-Jews to expect as much was and is, therefore, entirely reasonable. Only a consistent, ongoing, highly public campaign to explain that this was certainly not going to happen would be sufficient to dispel this expectation. Nothing remotely like that occurred. So, it is worth reviewing what living under Jewish sovereignty must mean.

It means that Jews have a monopoly on violence in the areas they control. The perceived legitimacy of this monopoly need go no further than a settled expectation familiar to Star Trek fans: resistance is futile. A Jewish state is simply a state where Jews are firmly in control and where that much is recognized. Within its borders, Jews hold the power of life and death over Jews and non-Jews alike. That is the true meaning of the Zionist project.

If that's what the project is and was, there are a lot of things it wasn't. The Jews who came to Palestine as individuals and in small groups had various motives. But the overall direction of the Zionist movement, the ultimate goal to which all these individuals and groups would be directed and the one which it would in fact achieve, is something else again. Most accounts of the settlement do not focus on this ultimate purpose, and are therefore misleading. The Zionists and their camp followers did not come simply to settle. They did not come simply to 'find a homeland', certainly not in the sense that Flanders is the homeland of the Flemish, or Lappland of the Lapps. They did not come simply to 'make a life in Palestine'. They did not come simply to find a refuge from persecution. They did not come to 'redeem a people'. All this could have been done elsewhere, as was pointed out at the time, and much of it was being done elsewhere by individual Jewish immigrants to America and other countries. The Zionists, and therefore all who settled under their auspices, came to found a sovereign Jewish state.

In this state, however tolerant, however easygoing, however joyful, however liberal, Jews would always have the final say, on everything. Affairs would be run in the interests of whatever its rulers or inhabitants considered the interests of the Jewish people. Within that state, the final decision on how much force was to be used to advance those interests was entirely in the hands of its Jewish occupants. This does not have to mean that non-Jews had no representation, no say at all. It does not mean that non-Jews had no civil rights, or that their human rights would necessarily be violated. But it does mean that--since it is the essence of a Zionist state to be Jewish, run by and for Jews--things would always be arranged so that sovereignty remained in Jewish hands. This might be by law or it might be by political manipulation; it might be de jure or de facto. So it would be for Jews alone to decide whether non-Jews had civil rights, whether their human rights would be honored, indeed whether they would live or die. The purpose of establishing a sovereign Jewish state may or may not have been domination; that doesn't matter. That would certainly be the effect of its establishment.

What then of the claims that Zionism wasn't necessarily the demand for a sovereign Jewish state? Certainly, there were people who called themselves Zionists and who demanded something else, though what it was always remained obscure. There was talk of a state; its mechanisms never clearly defined. There was talk of a homeland guaranteed by international powers, or simply a homeland. It would be correct to say that not all Jewish settlers demanded a Jewish state, and that some of these settlers considered themselves Zionists. It would be incorrect to say that the Zionist project or enterprise was anything less than an attempt to establish a Jewish State.

In the first place, we have seen that a Jewish state was the objective of the Zionist leadership and the mainstream Zionist movement. Second, by the time 'nonexclusive' Zionism had become visible, in the 1920s, its notions of cooperation with the Palestinians had already become unworkable. Too much blood had been shed: the 1921 Jaffa riots had taken 200 Jewish and 120 Palestinian lives, followed in 1929 by the killing of 207 Jews and 181 Palestinians in Hebron. A contemporary Jewish comment on the first serious anti-Jewish riots, in 1920, already asserts that in Palestine there was a general understanding that Zionism would mean a Jewish state, and that this understanding ushered in bloodshed:

"...we all know how the [Balfour] Declaration was interpreted at the time of its publication, and how much exaggeration many of our workers and writers have tried to introduce into it from that day to this. The Jewish people listened, and believed that the end of the galush [exile] had indeed come, and that in a short time there would be a 'Jewish state.' The Arab people too... listened, and believed that the Jews were coming to expropriate its land and do with it what they liked. All this inevitably led to friction and bitterness on both sides, and contributed to the state of things which was revealed in all its ugliness in the events at Jerusalem last April [1920]. " (Ahad Ja'Am [Asher Ginzberg], "After the Balfour Declaration", 1920, reprinted in Gary Smith, ed., Zionism: The Dream and the Reality, London 1974.)

The British showed as little capacity or indeed inclination to curb the ethnic violence as they were to show in India and many other possessions. I know of no case in which cooperation between ethnic communities followed anytime soon on massacres of this scale. Third, even most 'nonexclusive' Zionists were not distinguished by an explicit renunciation of a Jewish state, but rather by a commitment to partition Palestine rather than go for the whole thing. By then, the Palestinians correctly saw that the main tendency of Zionism was to create a Jewish state in Palestine, the intentions of a tiny nonexclusive minority with nebulous plans for some implausibly cooperative two-people government had no point of contact with the political realities.

This is probably why the 'nonexclusives' remained, in the words of Norman Finkelstein, "numerically weak and politically marginal."

yosi

FiveB247x wrote:

Your assumption that a bi-national state would lead to and end of Israel is merely the slippery slope or prognosticating the situation, not reality. Also, yes anyone who says Israel doesn't have a right to exist is not right... that's just an extremely nonsensical belief. Lastly, Zionism in practice can be racist solely because it involves removal of people from lands which are not completely there own. It incorporates the right of one group because of religion (at the heart) to dictate the will, power, freedom and growth over another. So to simply make it black and white and say Zionism doesn't hold significant repercussions to the other half is not acknowledging it fully or how it effects others. So in that respect, it can be racist/bigotry.

yosi wrote:

Yeah, I agree. I think Israel needs to be doing things very differently. But these threads aren't generally rational discussions of specific policies. For example, in this very thread it has been suggested that Zionism is racism, and that Israel has no right to exist. I find these to be extreme, and frankly offensive views, and so I've tried to argue against them. The occupation is a travesty and has to end. But arguing for a bi-national state isn't arguing for an end to the occupation, it is arguing for an end to Israel.

Yes, but that is no different than saying that any nationalism, or for that matter any ideology, can be racist in its implementation. What is being said here is that Zionism is racist as a matter of principle, which I find to be grossly offensive. As for my assumption re. a bi-national state, I don't get your response. Israel is the Jewish state. That is the whole point. If there was a state called Israel that wasn't a Jewish state it wouldn't be Israel anymore. It isn't a slippery slope at all. It is an acknowledgement of demographic reality, namely that there are more Palestinians than Israelis, and that a bi-national state would therefore not be a Jewish state.

SolarWorld

yosi wrote:

it is arguing for an end to Israel.

I want the US to end it's undying support of Israel, it's at the root of the problems we have diplomatically in the middle east.

And the reason they say at least two years is because we have to attack Iran first, and if you don't think that is going to happen you haven't been paying attention...

Byrnzie

http://www.btselem.org/English/Publicat ... _Crook.asp

July 2010, Comprehensive report

By Hook and By Crook: Israel’s Settlement Policy in the West Bank

Some half a million Israelis are now living over the Green Line: more than 300,000 in 121 settlements and about one hundred outposts, which control 42 percent of the land area of the West Bank, and the rest in twelve neighborhoods that Israel established on land it annexed to the Jerusalem Municipality. The report analyzes the means employed by Israel to gain control of land for building the settlements. In preparing the report, B'Tselem relied on official state data and documents, among them Attorney Talia Sasson’s report on the outposts, the database produced by Brigadier General Baruch Spiegel, reports of the state comptroller, and maps of the Civil Administration.

The settlement enterprise has been characterized, since its inception, by an instrumental, cynical, and even criminal approach to international law, local legislation, Israeli military orders, and Israeli law, which has enabled the continuous pilfering of land from Palestinians in the West Bank.

The principal means Israel used for this purpose was declaration of “state land,” a mechanism that resulted in the seizure of more than 900,000 dunams of land (sixteen percent of the West Bank), with most of the declarations being made in 1979-1992. The interpretation that the State Attorney's Office gave to the concept “state land” in the Ottoman Land Law contradicted explicit statutory provisions and judgments of the Mandatory Supreme Court. Without this distorted interpretation, Israel would not have been able to allocate such extensive areas of land for the settlements.
In addition, the settlements seized control of private Palestinian land. By cross-checking data of the Civil Administration, the settlements’ jurisdictional area, and aerial photos of the settlements taken in 2009, B'Tselem found that 21 percent of the built-up area of the settlements is land that Israel recognizes as private property, owned by Palestinians.

To encourage Israelis to move to the settlements, Israel created a mechanism for providing benefits and incentives to settlements and settlers, regardless of their economic condition, which often was financially secure. Most of the settlements in the West Bank hold the status of National Priority Area A, which entitles them to a number of benefits: in housing, by enabling settlers to purchase quality, inexpensive apartments, with an automatic grant of a subsidized mortgage; wide-ranging benefits in education, such as free education from age three, extended school days, free transportation to schools, and higher teachers’ salaries; for industry and agriculture, by grants and subsidies, and indemnification for the taxes imposed on their produce by the European Union; in taxation, by imposing taxes significantly lower than in communities inside the Green Line, and by providing larger balancing grants to the settlements, to aid in covering deficits.

Establishment of the settlements violates international humanitarian law. Israel has ignored the relevant rules of law, adopting its own interpretation, which is not accepted by almost all leading jurists around the world and by the international community.

The settlement enterprise has caused continuing, cumulative infringement of the Palestinians’ human rights, as follows:

* the right of property, by seizing control of extensive stretches of West Bank land in favor of the settlements;
* the right to equality and due process, by establishing separate legal systems, in which the person’s rights are based on his national origin, the settlers being subject to Israel’s legal system, which is based on human rights and democratic values, while the Palestinians are subject to the military legal system, which systematically deprives them of their rights;
* the right to an adequate standard of living, since the settlements were intentionally established in a way that prevents urban development of Palestinian communities, and Israel’s control of the water sources prevents the development of Palestinian agriculture;
* the right to freedom of movement, by means of the checkpoints and other obstructions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank, which are intended to protect the settlements and the settler’s traffic arteries;
* the right to self-determination, by severing Palestinian territorial contiguity and creating dozens of enclaves that prevent the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state.

The cloak of legality that Israel has sought to give to the settlement enterprise is aimed at covering the ongoing theft of West Bank land, thereby removing the basic values of legality and justice from Israel’s system of law enforcement in the West Bank. The report exposes the system Israel has adopted as a tool to advance political objectives, enabling the systematic infringement of the Palestinians’ human rights.

The extensive geographic-spatial changes that Israel has made in the landscape of the West Bank undermine the negotiations that Israel has conducted for eighteen years with the Palestinians and breach its international obligations. The settlement enterprise, being based on discrimination against the Palestinians living in the West Bank, also weakens the pillars of the State of Israel as a democratic country and diminishes its status among the nations of the world.

FiveB247x

Perhaps, but it's nationalism mixed with religious motivation/intent and because of that second facet, it can be exclusionary and bigoted because it effects others in a very negative manner through it's existence.

Also, Israel was formed as a Jewish state, but most of the people there are not very religious, correct? Also, there's also plenty of non-Jews in Israel, so to make such an overstated point deludes the reality of the situation. Israel was formed as a Jewish state because of what occurred in the holocaust as a refuge for all Jewish people, but perhaps it's time to recognize people aren't flocking there for this reason anymore, in fact one of the issues in this situation is a result of this - extremist jews who continually make new settlements.

yosi wrote:

Yes, but that is no different than saying that any nationalism, or for that matter any ideology, can be racist in its implementation. What is being said here is that Zionism is racist as a matter of principle, which I find to be grossly offensive. As for my assumption re. a bi-national state, I don't get your response. Israel is the Jewish state. That is the whole point. If there was a state called Israel that wasn't a Jewish state it wouldn't be Israel anymore. It isn't a slippery slope at all. It is an acknowledgement of demographic reality, namely that there are more Palestinians than Israelis, and that a bi-national state would therefore not be a Jewish state.

yosi

Actually Israel was not created because of the Holocaust. Zionism, as a concrete political movement started in the 19th century, though the Jewish desire for a return to the homeland goes back some 2000 years. The Holocaust may have been the reason why the world was amenable to the creation of Israel in the late '40s, but it was not what motivated Israel's founders.

I think that many of the people here are laboring under a misconception. Judaism is a group identity first, and a religious identity second. If someone is born a member of the Jewish people they do not stop being considered a member of the people if they convert to another religion. When I say that Israel is the Jewish state I am not arguing that the state should have a Jewish religious character (I'd actually very much like to see a separation of "church" and state in Israel). I'm arguing that Israel is and should remain the nation-state of the Jewish nation, an argument that is in essence no different than that of any other nationalism.

FiveB247x

I am fully aware of it's history but was making the point that, that occurrence in history specifically led to the state coming into being. The political movement began previously but didn't get full recognition and clout til after the holocaust.

Also, I am very familiar with the religion and nationality conundrum of Judaism as I am one (non practicing). But what you seem to ignore is not what some consider themselves to be (which isn't a guarantee either - not all jews consider that their nationality and religion together), but how outsiders don't acknowledge it because in many respects it is a backwards mindset and practice. I don't think any other religion in the world bases it's historical origins and predicates nationality of it's followers who live elsewhere. Christians don't consider themselves Romans or from the Vatican or similar and same goes for Muslims, so in that respect, it's not that everyone else is odd in this thinking, it's the jewish practice is very, very weird.

yosi wrote:

Actually Israel was not created because of the Holocaust. Zionism, as a concrete political movement started in the 19th century, though the Jewish desire for a return to the homeland goes back some 2000 years. The Holocaust may have been the reason why the world was amenable to the creation of Israel in the late '40s, but it was not what motivated Israel's founders.

I think that many of the people here are laboring under a misconception. Judaism is a group identity first, and a religious identity second. If someone is born a member of the Jewish people they do not stop being considered a member of the people if they convert to another religion. When I say that Israel is the Jewish state I am not arguing that the state should have a Jewish religious character (I'd actually very much like to see a separation of "church" and state in Israel). I'm arguing that Israel is and should remain the nation-state of the Jewish nation, an argument that is in essence no different than that of any other nationalism.

redrock

yosi wrote:

I would also recommend that you go back and take another look at the history of the nation-state. France is the state of the French, just as Germany is the state of the Germans, Turkey of the Turks, Armenia of the Armenians, Greece of the Greeks, etc, etc. You claim that Jews are not a nation. Why is that? How is it that despite the fact that Jews have thought of themselves as a nation for thousands of years that we are not one?

These are not States but simple countries which have evolved and which are non-exclusive - anyone can buy 'state' land, anyone can marry one of it's citizens, all have the same rights,etc. which, as one well knows, is not the case in Israel. If you want to nitpick, the countries I mentioned as examples could be called plurinational state, should anyone want to use that term. With globalisation movement of people, this notion of 'nation state' is defunct. And I never said the Jews are not a nation. I said being Jewish was not a nationality. Not the same thing.

Also, I don't think anyone is saying Israel should not exist. But why are you so hell-bent on it being a 'jewish' state? Israel can be a country like France, the UK, etc. - ie inclusive, without losing any of what you call self-determination.

yosi

Five, it is weird, but that doesn't make it illegitimate. I think it's just that our people (I hope you don't mind the inclusion) are something of a relic from an earlier time when religion and peoplehood were very much interconnected. I would actually argue that in many ways Christian/Muslim universalism is far "worse" than Jewish particularity in that Judaism makes no claims on anyone else. The idea of a crusade or jihad just doesn't exist for us. We just don't care what other people do in their religious lives. As for what the world acknowledges, I think this is viewing the issue the wrong way around. Identity is internal. So long as Jews continue to view themselves as a nation they will be a nation. Other people can claim that we are not, but I don't really see how that is relevant in any way other than the political (which is a different issue).

But yeah, we're crazy weird. That doesn't mean that we're wrong.

yosi

redrock wrote:

yosi wrote:

I would also recommend that you go back and take another look at the history of the nation-state. France is the state of the French, just as Germany is the state of the Germans, Turkey of the Turks, Armenia of the Armenians, Greece of the Greeks, etc, etc. You claim that Jews are not a nation. Why is that? How is it that despite the fact that Jews have thought of themselves as a nation for thousands of years that we are not one?

These are not States but simple countries which have evolved and which are non-exclusive - anyone can buy 'state' land, anyone can marry one of it's citizens, all have the same rights,etc. which, as one well knows, is not the case in Israel. If you want to nitpick, the countries I mentioned as examples could be called plurinational state, should anyone want to use that term. With globalisation movement of people, this notion of 'nation state' is defunct. And I never said the Jews are not a nation. I said being Jewish was not a nationality. Not the same thing.

Also, I don't think anyone is saying Israel should not exist. But why are you so hell-bent on it being a 'jewish' state? Israel can be a country like France, the UK, etc. - ie inclusive, without losing any of what you call self-determination.

Again, I don't care about the name "Israel," I care about Israel because it is a Jewish state. This matters to me for a lot of reasons, and having a refuge for endangered Jews is only one of these, and not the most important. As for the other states in the discussion no longer being "nation states," I just don't think this is true. Certainly that is the party line, so to speak, but I think that were this to really be put to the test we would see that the nations at the heart of these states really think differently. The fact that they are so willing to welcome people from other nations (and really, if you look hard at Europe, how welcoming are they really?) is dependent on the fact that at present they do not perceive that there is any chance of the demographic scales tipping (ie the "core" national group in each of these countries is large enough to ensure that immigration does not threaten their demographic superiority within the state). I don't think Israel is any different than these states at all, except that it is so small that issues of demographics and national identity cannot be easily ignored.

redrock

yosi wrote:

This matters to me for a lot of reasons, and having a refuge for endangered Jews is only one of these,.

:roll:

yosi wrote:

.....is dependent on the fact that at present they do not perceive that there is any chance of the demographic scales tipping (ie the "core" national group in each of these countries is large enough to ensure that immigration does not threaten their demographic superiority within the state). ..

So one sees that Israel is afraid of having it's native people back on the land, ie those that have been victims of ethnic cleansing to make space for the immigrants after the war.

Should the Roma make a claim for a homeland? Where could it be? Which native inhabitants shall they remove from the land to be able to grab it. After all, these people need a refuge since they are also 'endangered'.

Also, did I mention 'welcome' when it comes to European countries? I'm not talking emotions, I'm talking rights.

yosi

???

FiveB247x

Tradition and culture is great when it's kept to yourself, but when it effects others and in some instances in a very negative manner, it is not a good thing. And albeit, other religions mostly try to convert outsiders and judiasm does not in the same respect, it certainly doesn't make it all that much better because of it. And in terms of your commentary, it seems simply to the fact that because you personally believe or don't see the relevance or can't fathom why others don't see it in the same light, this somehow excuses the action and believe... and that's simply selfish, self-fulfilling. It also creates more problems in the long run through escalation compared to minimizing them. In sum, it's no different from saying a racist's actions against their victim should be tolerated because the racist doesn't believe he is one. Not a very decent way to be when you expect others to respect and coexist with you huh?

yosi wrote:

Five, it is weird, but that doesn't make it illegitimate. I think it's just that our people (I hope you don't mind the inclusion) are something of a relic from an earlier time when religion and peoplehood were very much interconnected. I would actually argue that in many ways Christian/Muslim universalism is far "worse" than Jewish particularity in that Judaism makes no claims on anyone else. The idea of a crusade or jihad just doesn't exist for us. We just don't care what other people do in their religious lives. As for what the world acknowledges, I think this is viewing the issue the wrong way around. Identity is internal. So long as Jews continue to view themselves as a nation they will be a nation. Other people can claim that we are not, but I don't really see how that is relevant in any way other than the political (which is a different issue).

But yeah, we're crazy weird. That doesn't mean that we're wrong.