Me too. But the idea clearly has appeal.
Don’t forget this try also, and this one.
Perhaps we could also force Northern Irish Protestants to pack up and move to Scotland. If Scotland won’t take them, then we can send them to West Virginia where there is already a heavy Celtic Protestant presence.
There’s a greater question here. Does every religion deserve to have its own homeland? Should we carve out a section of the Arizona desert to create a Scientologist Homeland?
Didn’t the Zionists initially consider setting up a Jewish state in africa?
Well there is cheap land in Australia. But it’s only cheap because it’s not obviously productive or liveable.
The key problem is the outside support that those fighting in the region receive. The best solution would involve assisting all secular (in the religious and cultural sense) people to leave, then the whole world turning its collective back on the place. If those that remain are determined to fight it out over long standing cultural and religious rights and differences, then let them. But not a drop of aid of any kind goes in.
Course, this is a pipe dream because outsiders could not help themselves but assist “their” people, turning the whole thing into a proxy for wider differences.
Why limit it to religions? Why shouldn’t any and every substantial, self-identified population that wants a homeland have one? (Provided, let us say, that they are responsible neighbors, and do not restrict emigration of differently-minded persons from their lands.)
Actually, the west, and the U.S. in particular, have, several times, stopped Israel from exploiting victory. They forced the Israelis to make peace in 1973, when Israeli mobile forces had cut off and surrounded 1/3 of the Egyptian Army. We also wouldn’t let them advance all the way to Damascus, which they were in a brilliant position to do.
In your fantasy version, Israel would win, utterly and absolutely, in a couple of weeks.
It’s also ignoring the simple fact that the State of Israel was not founded just because of religion; plenty of those who fought to establish the country and those who continue to fight to keep the place are quite secular.
Monty: A very valuable point. Israel may be a Jewish State, but it doesn’t have a “Jewish Government” nor “Jewish Laws.” Most of its laws are perfectly ordinary secular laws, the kind to be found in any representative democracy.
The Knesset, Cabinet, and P.M. are far more interested in balances of payments, interest on the debt, and corruption in the Water Ministry than they are in whether men can get their hair cut or how women can be isolated during menstruation.
Actually, I live in a 2-bedroom apartment in a pre-war building. But I can see where you’d get confused.
So what if we have the occasional terrorist bombing or missile attack? Other countries have hurricanes, which IMHO are much scarier. No place is perfect. And despite our constant complaining, most Israelis really like it here. Not as some abstract concept of a “Jewish homeland”, but as Israel, our country, with the great food and beaches and pretty girls and free healthcare. Israelis love Israel the same ways the French love France and Americans love America - we love the reality, not the ideal. Can’t you understand why we wouldn’t want it to be taken from us?
Not culturally “secular” though.
What does “culturally secular” mean?
Well it’s a term I just made up; it is to culture as secular is to religion. Monty says those who fought/fight to establish/keep Israel are secular; that may be true as to religion but it’s not true as to being Jewish. I mean, those people weren’t/aren’t just a bunch of world citizens who decided to go grab some land in the Middle East, right? They feel very strong they want to be in a place where their particular culture is dominant, and they feel they want to be in a place where there culture arose.
Ask yourself this question: if Israel were to become majority Muslim - which it may or may not, as I understand it, but if - would that be significant? Why? It’s just a secular state, right?
It already has, really. What’s the difference? In my fantasy version I’m not suggesting anyone tolerate Israel taking over its neighbours.
I’m mostly fantasising about the idea that after anyone who wants to leave is helped to do so, it’s left to those who feel they must dominate the area, to fight it out without it being or being seen to be a proxy battleground for other cultures and nations.
I’ve been to Israel, I enjoyed it. A very interesting place. But it’s unfortunately a pressure cooker that a significant number of people from several cultures and religions feel they are entitled to and must control, and I’d rather those who feel so strongly were left to fight over it, while the rest of us go on with our lives without being judged as supporters of one side or the other.
What would they be if not culturally Jewish? Culturally Swedish? Culturally Japanese? Culturally American? Everyone has a culture. You sound like someone who says that unlike other people, he doesn’t have an accent. There are no “world citizens”. Everyone has a tribe, whether they want it or not.
Besides, at this point, Israelis aren’t culturally Jewish, they’re culturally Israeli. And yes, they believe that Israeli culture is something worth preserving.
I’m culturally Australian but I’d be happy living here, NZ, US, England, Canada. I’d be happy in pretty much any first world nation, except I’m a linguistic simpleton and I need language integration to practice my profession, so English is a limiting factor.
If Australia didn’t exist I sure as fuck would not go traipsing halfway across a continent from a secular first world country I already live in so as to set myself up in an Australian enclave.
Read **Procrustus’ **post above: it says it all and he’s Jewish.
Does it sound as bad as, say, a “Cherokee Nation?”
The entire South and adjacent areas in the West are substantially Scots-Irish in heritage. Pennsyltucky too.
If Israel were to fail for some reason, all the Israelis would come here.
Is Israel officially secular?