I think this discussion in itself proves that to be utter non sense.
All of that is true and it is all part of the often heard ethnic claim to the state of Israel. But of course, as Tom says, ethnicity has no relevance in the discussion of Israel. Sorry Zevsteinhardt
Oh Captain, oh Captain, your remarks have no relevance in a discussion of the state of Israel, according to Tom .
But Allessan , your mention of descent has no place in a discussion of Israel, according to Tom .
FWIW, my ex wife is of mixed black/white parents, I dated an hispanic girl for a year and right now, a skinny dip in the gene pool with one of the Jewish girls sounds like fun. How about a naked grudge match Allessan?
Thank you. I admit I hijacked the term, but I hijacked it with a purpose, to show that there is an inherent bias in the discourse about Jews and Arabs. What term should we use for someone who hates Arabs?
Well, when you take it out of context that way, of course.
People tend to be divided among different ethnic groups and Israel includes people who are in those groups. The context of my statement is that Israel has no law regarding ethnicity in determining citizenship. Your claim is that such imagined ethnicity is of “the utmost importance” despite the fact that you cannot point to any law which uses ethnicity to define citizenship and have to twist and falsify the evidence you have presented in order to pretend that it does have relevence.
Are there ethnic concerns in Israel? Sure. Heck, in this thread, alone, we have identified five separate ethnic groups who are among the various Jewish communities of Israel (none of whom were admitted based on an ability to trace their bloodline back to Moses or Abraham).
So, tell us, how many of the Falasha to Israel were admitted to Israel based on their ethnicity?
The only people that I have ever encountered talking about an ethnic claim to Israel have been anti-Jewish hate mongers trying to distort the record of the Khazar to claim that they had no ethnic claim. The claims to Israel I have heard from supporters of that state have been that it is the spiritual homeland for the people who follow Judaism. As zev points out, there have, indeed, been Jews living on the land continuously, but that is simply a refutation of the claim by some ignorant people that Judaism disappeared from the land after the destruction of the Temple–a totally baseless lie. Meanwhile, Israeli law makes no provision for a person to become a citizen based on the amount of ethnic “Jewish” blood that person has.
A person with seven great-grandparents of one ethnicity and one great-grandparent of another would typically be considered a member of that ethnic community. However, if that eighth great-grandparent was a woman who was not Jewish who gave birth to a grandmother who did not convert who gave birth to a mother who did not convert, that person would not be considered “Jewish” for the purpose of Israeli citizenship. Ethnicity plays no part in Israeli law.
Perhaps I should have been clearer. I wasn’t addressing you. I was addressing mystic2311’s lie that the choice of Israel as the Jewish homeland was completely arbitrary.
Ooops. Bad assumption on my part. Sorry about that Allessan . Zevsteinhardt, I know you weren’t addressing me but you were taking part in a discussion of Israel. **Tom ** claims ethnicity has no relevance in such a discussion and I just trhought it ironic that he would make such a statement within the context of a discussion about Israel that is full of relevant ethnic issues.
You are a real bullshitter Tom. Up until your stupid remark, there was no context of citizenship. I brought that up after your remark. Try again. Only this time remember, when back pedaling, look behind you.
And the ethnic claim stands. “Whosoever is born unto a Jewish mother”. That is ethnic in nature in more than one sense of the word, it describes “born unto” which indicates a genetic link and “Jewish” which is an ethnic and religious term. It is an ethnic consideration. You can twist and squirm and lie all you want. It won’t help.
That was not a lie, it was just a different interpretation of history than what you are proposing. Believe it or not, different people are allowing to think differently and arrive at different conclusions.
If we all had to agree with you, what would be the point of debate?
We all make mistakes. I confused Mauritius with Mauritania. Tomndebb forgot that US Marines played a role in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy (which he graciously admitted). Making a mistake is not the same as lying.
But I still say that if Herzl made a passionate argument for the Zionists to settle in Uganda, that implies that there is something arbitrary about their choice of homeland.
You can disagree with me, but you have no right to call me a liar.
Now when someone says that I posted a cite to a website when in fact I posted a cite to another website, that could be a mistake or a lie. If it is done intentionally, it is essentially the same as deliberately misquoting someone, which is against the rules of the forum.
I’m not asking you to agree with me. You made an assertion and I countered it. I am now asking you to respond to the substance of what I wrote (forget the word “lie.” I’ll retract it and apologize if that’s the hangup).
Please respond to the series of questions that I asked regarding your claim that the choice of Israel for the Jewish homeland was completely arbitrary.
Really? Perhaps you should pay more attention to discussions when you jump into them. My statement was
which was a reply to the whole hoary nonsense about “Khazars” and the “right” of the Jewish people to move to Israel. There are certain hate groups that claim that the Ashkenazi do not have a claim to be admitted to Israel because they are not ethnic Jews. However, long before the genetic tests were brought out to find out the ethnic origins of the Ashkenazim, the fact was that they were always considered Jewish because of their beliefs, not their bloodline. The “Ashkenazi are Khazars not Jews” argument is bogus on its face because it is not ethnicity that Israel looks at when considering who is a Jew. That was my statement in context.
This Right of Return is only manifested in the context of extending citizenship to individuals born outside Israel. Citizenship is the only point–and you introduced the word, pretending that you understood the discussion. There is no other context for it (other than for a few hate groups to claim that the Jews are not really Jews or some such double talk). Is that your position?
There is no Israeli law that says one must be 7/8 Ashkenazi or 13/16 Sephardic to become a citizen. The rule is simply that if your mother is recognized as an adherent to Judaism, regardless of her “ethnic” makeup, you are eligible to be considered a Jew and become a citizen.
Closing your eyes and repeating the same nonsense over and over does not make it true. We have already established that a woman does not need to be an “ethnic” Jew to pass on her religion to her children. I have already pointed out that a person with as many as seven out of eight ethnic Jewish great grandparents will not be considered Jewish if the maternal line is not Jewish, so that claiming an “ethnic” link in defiance of the “generally accepted” meaning of the word (which you pretended to use) is false. Are you going to continue to pursue this claim if you discover that the same rule holds true for adopted children of Jewish mothers? Your whole argument is based on ignoring the “generally accepted” meaning of ethnicity–which relates to all of one’s ancestry, not a single parental phenomenon–and claiming that a single mother-child generation establishes such an ethnicity.
The Falasha were accepted into Israel as citizens despite the fact that they are clearly African, not semitic. The Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrahi ethnic groups are separate, yet all are admitted to Israel regardless of ethnicity. The state of Israel makes no mention of any ethnic group when identifying potential citizens.
Let’s review the facts. Back on page 3 of this thread, as evidence for your assertation that some of the 9-11 hijackers are still alive, you posted the link to indymedia.no. Thing is, the indymedia website is basically just a collection of links to other websites, including the “Duh the Jews” one. So it is reasonable for one to examine said links in an effort to determine the reliability and veracity of indymedia.no as a citation. Both reliability and veracity are clearly lacking, on the citation YOU offered as evidence.
Do I believe you didn’t see the “Duh the Jews” thing when you posted your link to indymedia? Yeah, probably. So we have either sloppy research on your part, or you really believe some of the craptacular stuff posted on that website, because DTJ was just one of many b.s. links on that website. Which is it?
You are a weasel Tom . But you are kind of cute when you
weasel. Where, oh where is the mention of citizenship anywhere? It isn’t there Tom . The entire discussion was about the use of “anti-semetic”, who was semitic genetically, who had a claim of thier ancestors living in Palestine, etc. I can’t find a single metion of current Israeli citizenship policy before I metioned it. Yet you give this weasel - like shit:
Again, where is the context to which you refer? You made the remark before citizenship law was mentioned then try to back pedal and squirm your way out of that remark by attributing it to the context of citizenship law, context that didn’t exist at that point of the discussion.
We have established that a woman can pass on religion through child birth? I don’t recall that discussion but it would be an interesting one. Wonder how one would describe such a transaction?
A person with only one Jewish great grandparent could be considered Jewish on the other side of your coin.
Main Entry: 1eth·nic
Pronunciation: 'eth-nik
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin ethnicus, from Greek ethnikos national, gentile, from ethnos nation, people; akin to Greek Ethos custom – more at SIB
Date: 15th century
1 : HEATHEN
2 a : of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background <ethnic minorities> <ethnic enclaves> b : being a member of an ethnic group c : of, relating to, or characteristic of ethnics <ethnic neighborhoods> <ethnic foods>
Seems to me you are the one avoiding the accepted use of the word.
And if you were to tell me that adopted children were recognized without conversion… well, why don’t you make that claim and see.
Inherent bias? No, not really in my estimation. Or at least not in the sense that these terms were invented because Jews have been given some sort of automatic superior moral standing in debates. Quite the contary - the reason we have a specific term for anti-Jewish sentiment and not anti-Arab, is that bias against Jews is far more historically rooted in western society than bias towards Arabs ( or even Islam ). Sure, in the middle ages Islam and Islamic states were a major boogeyman and very real and dangerous adversary to the Christian west sensu latu. But Jews were particularly reviled as an “internal problem”, all the more so as they were highly resistant to conversion and some elements of Jewish society were able to become quite prosperous despite this ( in some limited fashion perhaps, because of this ). Arabs ( outside of a few locales and for limited periods of time ) were mostly “the other” - foreign, perhaps barbaric and technically theological adversaries. But not the creeping third column ( yes, post-reconquista Spain excepted )Jews were regarded as by so many conspiracy theorists and just plain bigots down through the millenia.
Anti-Arab sentiment, modern anti-Arab sentiment, didn’t really take off ( at least in the U.S. ) until the oil embargoes of the 1970’s, the creation of the PLO and their ( and their more radical splinter groups ) expansion of terror tactics, and the Hostage Crisis in Iran ( never mind they aren’t Arabs - to Joe Q. Public it looked like part and parcel of the same thing ). It reached a crescendo with the first World Trade Center bombing. In contrast, anti-Jewish sentiment is considerably more venerable.
I’m afraid the less-than-euphonious phrase “anti-Arab” or some iteration will have to cover it. If you wanted to use a broad definition of anti-Semite you could ( with perhaps a word or two of explantation and with a handy, polite and reasonably worded stock return ready for the inevitable correction ). However keep in mind that if say anti-Semite should mean anti-Semitic-language-speaking folks, you are presented with the potential philosophical problem ( if you’re being a stickler for etymological accuracy ) of making sure the person/comment/action under fire is both anti-Arab AND anti-Jewish ( and if we really get technical, anti-Syriac et al ). Not to hard when addressing a KKK chapter leader perhaps, but Ariel Sharon saying something inflammatory about Arabs wouldn’t fit - He may be anti-Arab, but he’s certainly not anti-Jewish ( I might argue his actions occasionally are in a metaphysical sense, but that’s a matter of policy disputes, not racism ).
Hank Fescue - Judaism is a rather unusual and confusing case. A tribal identity for many/most that is also a religious faith that accepts ( but doesn’t seek ) converts above and beyond that. And it’s true that ethnicity can be defined in a multitude of ways.
But having observed this argument wending along I really have to agree with tom ( not surprising, I usually do, which you can take as bias if you wish ), that you are casting ethnicity in a way it isn’t commonly used in this case. In this case, the fact that converts are accepted as citizens of Israel trumps the fact that sons of Jewish mothers get an automatic in - Descent is a factor, but religious faith ( which merges with and helps define the tribal community to be sure ) is the major guiding principle. Your insistence that this is an ethnic identifier flies in the face of normal modern usage of the term. You can say it is a biased system ( it clearly is and quite deliberately so - whether it is a justified bias is a different question ), but I think you are mislabeling it structurally.
However, it was “living in Palestine” in the context of the nation of Israel. The whole “who is a Jew?” discussion that generally surrounds any talk of the Khazars (and whether or not they have invalidated “Jewish ethnicity”) is always framed in the context of the nation of Israel. If we were discussing only religion, no one would care that an ethnic Turkic group had converted. Christianity converted lots of good Roman pagans, Celtic druids, Nordic pagans, and other groups. No one goes on about whether the French or the Irish have a right to be Catholic because they are neither semitic nor the original Italic pagans from the region of Rome. The only time the discussion arises is when someone points to the Khazars and claims that some large numbers of Jews have no business going to the region between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. Since the Jews do not care about the ethnic bloodlines of the adherents to their religion, it is true, as I said in the comment that set you off, that “the ethnic background of any Jewish group is irrelevant to any discussion of the state of Israel.” Nations are composed of citizens. My specific comment was that regardless of the origins of the Khazars or the relationships of the Khazars to the Ashkenazim, such discussions have no impact of the nature of who Israel will or can or should admit to their nation since they do not care about ethnicity–as demonstrated by the willingness of the Jewish nation to admit Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Cochin, and Falasha ethnic groups.
You correctly identified the issue as citizenship, which was, indeed, my point in the context of the Khazars, but then incorrectly tried to claim that ethnicity was the chief issue for the Israelis. Ethnicity is the issue for opponents of Israel, but it is of no concern in Israeli law. Are you claiming that if we can identify any Khazar descendants, they should be barred from Israel? Are you saying that Israel should have denied admission to the Falashas? Israel said the answer was no–ethnicity is irrelevant.
In response to your questions, I don’t doubt any of the facts about Jewish history. Rather than put words in their mouth, I will let the Zionist tell of their love for Jerusalem:
"In fact, many prominent Zionists who had toured Palestine felt the place to be less of an ideal Jewish homeland and more of a dump.
“You talk of the Holy Land. In God’s name what do you know about Palestine? I have been there and a more God-forsaken place there does not exist on this planet. How can a land thrive without water and whence can you find a supply for irrigation? The whole thing is pernicious nonsense,and what is more the advocates of the plan know it to be
impossible” (Cohen 90).
Herzl himself found Jerusalem to be a city lacking in all sorts of modern conventions and was not entirely pleased by what he found there. “Jerusalem, with it’s musty deposits of two thousand years of inhumanity, intolerance and uncleanness lying in the foul-smelling little streets, made a terrible impression on Herzl” (Prior 7). In Herzl’s own diary he declared that while Jerusalem was a majestic city it was also in dire need of modernization.
“The musty deposits of two thousands years of inhumanity, intolerance, and foulness lie in reeking alleys. The one man who has been present here all this while, the lovable dreamer of Nazareth, has done nothing but help increase the hate. If Jerusalem is ever ours, and if I were still able to do anything about it, I would begin by cleaning it up. I would clear out everything that is not sacred, set up workers’ houses beyond the city, empty and tear down the filthy rat-holes, burn all the non-sacred ruins, and put the bazaars elsewhere. Then,retaining as much of the old architectural style as possible, I would build an airy, comfortable, properly sewered, brand new city around the Holy Places” (Hammer 211)."
And Palestine wasn’t arbitrary?
“After the British made it clear that they would no longer consider a Jewish settlement in Uganda due to reasons of practicality, Zangwill considered settlements in places as far ranging as Canada, Australia, Iraq, Libya, and Angola but nothing came from any expeditionary force that was sent to scope these territories. He even sponsored a project with the help of the wealthy American Jewish banker named Jacob Schiff wherein some 9,000 Jews came to Southwestern Texas to form a settlement. Zangwill had little if any real attachment to Palestine as a homeland, and his movement was successful until the Balfour Declaration of 1917 gave British support in writing for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The British, wanting support from the
Jewish population in order to enter World War I and also hoping to protect British economic interests in the Suez canal were much more favorable to Zionists desires than they had been previously.”
Zangwill had little if no attachment to Palestine as a homeland. The Zionists were so desperate, hell, they even settled in TEXAS! Where’s Irishman?
You are really a low life form, somewhere between the cockroach and the leech. I present to you evidence that is richly sourced to reputable journalistic media such as BBC and CNN, and what do you do, you rummage around at the end of the article to pull up some link that has nothing to do with what I posted, it is not supportive of the information that I posted, perhaps the author felt it was related, so what?
Here is an analogous scenario: I show you an article on the front page of a newspaper, and instead of reading it, you sniff around in the back of the newspaper, you find a wanted ad for homosexual encounters with young boys and you accuse me of being a pedophile. I forgot, you don’t understand analogies, so you probably don’t understand what I am talking about.
You must have been a dog in your past life, you certainly enjoy sniffing around people’s arses.
So Tom, now you seem to come down on the side of Mystic. The choice of the Jewish homeland was arbitrary and has nothing to do with ethnic ties to the region? As others have pointed out, the choice was not arbitrary but based on religious, cutural and ancestral history in the region. Religion, culture and genetics being the the very definition of ethnicity. Tom, is it possible that ethnicity is very important to Israel? Do you even consider the possibility that is of some importance? Your statement still makes no sense, no matter the context you choose to place it in. “ethnicity is irrelevant in any discussion of Israel”. That is bullshit Tom.
Lets examine the great great grandma theory you seem to like so much.
Great, great grandma was Jewish. By this virtue her daughter, great grandma, was Jewish. Great, great grandma and little great grandma moved out west to dig for gold. Away from cultural influence, great grandma took to drinking and swearing in a local saloon as a young woman and soon forgot all about any religious notions she learned as a child. Now great grandmas daughter, grandma, was raised in and out of bars and honkey tonks and also learnecd to drink and swear and gave little or no thought to being Jewish although she was Jewish because great grandma was. Now mom, knew very, very little of any Jewish family tradition. She was more into the drinking and swearing family tradition. Now along comes…um…we’ll call her Fred. Along comes Fred. Fred is Jewish. Jewish because her mom, by virtue of her grandmother, by virtue of her great grandmother, by virtue of her great, great grandmother, was Jewish. Any practical elements of Judaism have been absent from the family for generations. Tell me Tom , what the hell makes Fred Jewish? What gives her a right to citizenship in Israel? Are you going to claim religion after all those years? What it is called Tom ? There must be a word somewhere in your vast vocabulary that comes closest to describing Freds claim to being Jewish. I can’t wait to hear.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by mystic2311 *
**In response to your questions, I don’t doubt any of the facts about Jewish history. Rather than put words in their mouth, I will let the Zionist tell of their love for Jerusalem:
**
I don’t know that these quotes that you present are accurate. However, let’s pretend for a moment that they are. So what? You have a couple of negative opinions on a place that wasn’t developed. You know, people do buy houses that are “fixer-uppers.” In fact, in the “Hammer 211” quote you presented, they even talked about fixing up the city, acknowleding the Holy places that were there, and making a go at it. Obviously, if there were Jewish holy places there already, then it wasn’t arbitrary, was it?
In any event, just because some people were willing to accpet places such as Uganda, Argentina or Antarctica (yes, I’m being facetious), that doesn’t mean that the final selection wasn’t arbitrary. And if you’re going to concede my points about Jewish history and yet tell me that the choice of Israel for a Jewish homeland was completely arbitrary, then you’re just contradicting yourself.
