How will Obama's visit to Palestine play?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
It was a real kingdom, you know. Passed laws, minted coins, and everything. You don’t have to put it in quotation marks.
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Yes. But that kingdom, if we go by the traditional Jewish narrative, was established through genocide, forced dispersion, enslavement etc. and was an unrelenting theocracy - which leaves one to wonder whether or not the moral obligation to support the right of return for the Jewish people to that particular part of the world exists in the first place. If the case for Israel were to be made on strictly secular grounds, then there would be no problem in supporting their right to pursue a homeland(and it wouldn’t necessarily have to be in Israel), but to accept the histrocity of the kingdom of Israel as offered by the Jews as grounds for accepting whatever it is that they do over there, and on my dollar no less, is completely unacceptable, IMHO.

42

[QUOTE=cmkeller]
blinkthrice:

That line of reasoning goes: “We were willing to accept “Palestinian” as a national identity back in 1947, when we accepted the partition plan. You guys rejected it and attacked us, and you became Jordanian and Egyptian subjects for twenty years without asserting a “Palestinian identity.” Somehow, that identity is only important when you wish to use it against Israel. Sorry, your identity of convenience means nothing to us.”
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That’s how the story goes, I suppose, but Ben-Gurion’s memoirs are now available for everyone to read - it is clear that Israel has always been based on expansionist idealogy, and it’s history, and behaviour in the present day proves that to be well beyond true. The Arab states have made major political blunders, and are obviously far from angels, but it isn’t at all far-fetched to consider the Palestinians (you can call them whatever you want) an oppressed people, and at root, innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of global jousting.

43

[QUOTE=blinkthrice]
Yes. But that kingdom, if we go by the traditional Jewish narrative, was established through genocide, forced dispersion, enslavement etc. and was an unrelenting theocracy - which leaves one to wonder whether or not the moral obligation to support the right of return for the Jewish people to that particular part of the world exists in the first place.
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Well, if we go by traditional Jewish narrative and historical record that kingdom was established through a revolt against a Diadochi founded state brought on by forced Hellenization.

It’s a moot point, anyway. Israel’s already there, they’re not leaving, the Palestinians are already there, and they’re not leaving.

44

Blinkthrice, you do know that Zionism in the 20th century was almost entirely a secular project? Jews didn’t envision creating a state between Egypt and Lebanon out of some religious crusade, they envisioned doing so as a way to escape the (by the 1940s) genocidal Europeans. Israel is a secular state that isn’t founded on some farcical aquatic ceremony or what is written in some ancient book. It was founded by people escaping genocide who thought that establishing a state outside Europe was their best hope of survival. What do you want them to do, exactly? Where else should they go?

45

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Blinkthrice, you do know that Zionism in the 20th century was almost entirely a secular project? Jews didn’t envision creating a state between Egypt and Lebanon out of some religious crusade, they envisioned doing so as a way to escape the (by the 1940s) genocidal Europeans. Israel is a secular state that isn’t founded on some farcical aquatic ceremony or what is written in some ancient book. It was founded by people escaping genocide who thought that establishing a state outside Europe was their best hope of survival. What do you want them to do, exactly? Where else should they go?
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Right, but the reasons cited to support Israel’s legitimacy often carry religious overtones. Is it not called the “Jewish state,?” is it not a major concern in Israel that the Palestinian population will at some point exceed that of the Israelis, thereby neutralizing its character in that regard? Isn’t this why the squabble over Jerusalem carries so much weight? I don’t think its fair to say that Israel is a secular democracy in the same sense as we do other nations built on the western model, simply because if an Arab majority someday comes about in Israel and votes Jews out of government through standard democratic process, this would be looked upon as a catastrophe by Jews everywhere - regardless of the political climate, or relations between the two peoples at the time.

I wouldn’t say the Jews should go anywhere, now. They are there, and Israel exists in all its might and glory. But, we have to come to grips with the reality that any campaign designed to situate a foreign population amongst an entire people with the intent to make them a minority in a land they have lived in their whole lives and consider theirs, then attempt to downplay their identity as a people, or deny it altogether, is bound to be met with fierce resistance.

46

But you’re conflating Jews as a religion and Jews as an ethnic group. Jews are different than Arabs, not just becuause they practice different religions, but because they speak different languages, follow different customs, and so on–most importantly, they don’t consider each other to be the same ethnicity.

“Jew” doesn’t just mean “follower of the Jewish religion”. Not to Godwinize, but there were plenty of Christians sent to the camps because they were Jews.

47

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
But you’re conflating Jews as a religion and Jews as an ethnic group. Jews are different than Arabs, not just becuause they practice different religions, but because they speak different languages, follow different customs, and so on–most importantly, they don’t consider each other to be the same ethnicity.

“Jew” doesn’t just mean “follower of the Jewish religion”. Not to Godwinize, but there were plenty of Christians sent to the camps because they were Jews.
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Correct, but in the case of the Jews, I wouldn’t consider it wholly unreasonable to conflate ethnicity and religion. You’re right in the sense that if I convert to Judaism tomorrow, I wouldn’t be granted automatic Israeli citizenship the day after, but this serves to bolster the argument that there really is no moral justification to support a state that holds such views pertaining to ones ethnicity - especially if we are going to portray Israel as a “beacon of hope” in the Middle East, built on the ideals of liberal democracy, when that simply isn’t the case.

48

But what’s so offensive about the notion of an ethnic state? While there’s nothing wrong with multiethnic states in principle, in practice you often see one ethnicity seize power completely. And so while it might be nice for Slovenes, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Montenegrans, Macedonians and Albanians to all live in one large multiethnic state, it sometimes turns out that the Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians and Macedonians don’t want to be ruled by the Serbs.

And it’s not like Jewish ethnicity is a requirement for Israeli citizenship, there are Israeli citizens who are Arab and Christian or Muslim. And it’s not like Israel is the only country in the world that concieves of itself as an ethnic state. You aren’t going to be allowed to emmigrate to Israel and become a citizen unless you’re jewish, but you aren’t going to be allowed to emmigrate to Japan and become a citizen either. Or Korea, or China, or Jordan, or Saudi Arabia, and on and on.

49

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
You aren’t going to be allowed to emmigrate to Israel and become a citizen unless you’re jewish,
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Actually, that’s not true. A huge percentage of the Russian immigrants during that wave of Aliyah, for instance, weren’t Jewish.

On a total tangent, I’m curious to see what blink’s supposed Ben Gurion quotes are, as there is of course an entire hobby of creating false quotes to bolster a partisan political position. Walt and Mearsheimer, for instance, got in on some of that action.

Likewise,Dio’s claim that the Arab residents of the Mandate were “indigenous” displays ignorance in service of a political agenda. Most people who are now termed Palestinians were immigrants to the area themselves, some, according to UNRWA, had moved to the area as little as two years prior to 1948. Hardly ancient indigenous peoples. Even many whose parents had been born there, or even whose grand parents had been, were the result of various Ottoman relocation programs which aimed at providing serfs to the region. Which isn’t to say that Palestinian nationalism is any less valid than Israeli nationalism, simply that we shouldn’t invent facts when the real ones don’t work for our pet political narratives.

Along the same lines, the meme that the Arab populace in the region were innocent bystanders makes good copy, but has a few serious holes.

Which, again, isn’t to say that every Arab living in the region supported the Nazis (remember, of course, that there were a roughly equivalent number of Jewish Arabs who left and/or were driven from their homes as Palestinians who left and/or were driven from there homes in 1948). But the meme that they were all entirely blameless is… a rather odd distortion.

Anyways, back to the OP, I agree with D. Obama managed to walk a fairly narrow line without falling off to either side. He came off as a serious contender on foreign policy without appearing like a babbling neophyte or hardcore partisan. There are neither photos of a sea of Hamasniks in front of him burning Jews in effigy or firing RPG’s at his fleeing motorcade.

He did well, all in all.