It’s rather obvious that I despise Terr, am not a huge fan of Israel, and find the idea of ethnic states, particularly ones with large minorities, this isn’t the best argument to take.
He used three examples, France, Ireland and Germany. Israel was founded roughly 70 years ago. Germany(who’s official name means “land of the Germans”) was founded only about 70 years before Israel and I Ireland was found vastly less. The Irish Free State didn’t come into existence until 1922 and the Republic of Ireland didn’t come into existence until 1937 barely ten years prior to the creation of Israel.
For that matter there are multiple ethnic states even younger, several of which are NATO members.
For example, the Slovak Constitution opens by declaring “We the Slovak Nation” goes on to argue for “the natural right of nations to self-determination" and only after this refers to “members of national minorities and ethnic groups living on the territory of the Slovak Republic" who are rather clearly not part of “we the Slovak Nation”.
Latvia, which has a huge population of ethnic Russians opens its Constitution by citing “unwavering will of the Latvian nation to have its own State and its inalienable right of self-determination in order to guarantee the existence and development of the Latvian nation, its language and culture throughout the centuries" the Constitution goes on to say the Latvian Nation is “shaped by Latvian and Liv traditions, Latvian folk wisdom, the Latvian language, universal human and Christian values.”
I think all of those are horrible ideas and part of the reason most of those countries have a large amount of ethnic conflict, but not to beat a dead horse but I see no reason why the Jews be the only group not able to have their own ethnic state.
Huh? Is France exclusively French? Is Ireland exclusively Irish?
Again, there are ethnic states. There are. That’s a fact. You can dislike that fact, but that’s reality. So if you only object to Israel being the Jewish state, but have no problem with Ireland, France, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Lithiania etc. etc. etc. - that’s antisemitic.
You are looking at this from the wrong direction. It shouldn’t be, “They are wrong, so Israel might as well be, too.” It is, “They are all wrong and should change for the sake of their people.” Otherwise you are giving in to bullies, whether they are in Riga, Bratislava, or Tel Aviv.
Most (it’s late and I won’t look into some of them tonight) of those other nations have not divided their citizens into legal groups based on their genetic backgrounds. Israel has Israelis and Arab Citizens of Israel. It is a genetics and religion-based division that is, frankly, racist by my standards. We’ve had and have our own problems in the US, and I am not uncomfortable saying that we can be pretty racist, too.
What “shouldn’t be” isn’t realistic, and it’s not even objective. Your perception of nationality and Terr’s perception of nationality are different. Not a question of good v. evil. People are still tribal.
I think there are Americans who are so far removed from their ethnic roots to the point where they identify exclusively as Americans. That’s your tribe now, and it’s a different sense of identity than Americans who still identify with their ancestors’ country of origin, or tribal affiliation. I’ll always be a hyphenated American, and sometimes I just consider the prefix as my identity and think of the American part as citizenship/nativity that goes without saying - so I kind of understand Terr’s perspective.
I think there should be a Jewish state. I’m just not sure it can be that and be a real democracy. And I hate the idea of it being a bad democracy. It feeds the antisemitic narrative as well (as we can see the glimmers of it in this thread).
Based on the current political climate in Israel, it is tipping towards less democracy, in order to preserve its Jewish identity. Does it have to be a democracy?
Terr, what do the right wing parties really envision?
So the problem with the middle east would be lessened if there was more diversity and everyone lived around neighbors who they had nothing in common with?
Very carefully worded. Are we to take it that the original plan for partition was more agreeable because it envisioned a Jewish state that was actually and factually a Jewish majority, but somehow this happy prospect was diverted? It was “supposed to be” a thing, but it actually became something else altogether? Good intentions gone awry?
And brave, plucky Israel “survived” an attack, and this caused the borders to be re-aligned? Sounds to these ears as a very careful way of saying the borders were changed by right of conquest, but you didn’t really want to word it quite that way. So you opted for the passive voice, as if the borders changed voluntarily on their own volition. Or the border changes were not an action by Israel, but something that just sort of happened?
Is that what you are trying to sell here? Perhaps you should expand on that passive voiced history. Maybe when the borders inadvertently changed, some Jewish settlements sort of tumbled into the vacuum. Not that you approve of “right of conquest”, but it just sorta kinda happened, and anyway, its too late to change it. Darn shame about that “conquest” thingy, but oh, well, too bad.
America is as guilty as Hell by that way of thinking, Alessan, and it’s a moral dilemma I wrestle with. I’m a liberal and moral dilemmas are what we do. However, though we once shuffled off many our natives to reservations, those borders are not guarded. The inhabitants are not stuck there and they can leave whenever they please. When my parents built a house on reservation property they did not just take the land. They leased it from the tribe, with the knowledge that when the lease expires the land, and the house on it, reverts to the tribe. This is how one does business in a peaceful, modern world.
America and Americans have changed, grown. Yeah, some of my beliefs are unrealistic. Again, that goes with the territory, so I work toward a world where all people are treated fairly, though I know I won’t live to see it. A world where people retain their personal tribal identities, but feel they are part of a greater whole, one in which they are respected as humans first and their hyphens are not in the mix. The way America was envisioned by our Founding Fathers. Yeah, it seems totally unrealistic in the timespan of a single person, but I look back on the America of my childhood and that of today and I see enormous changes for the better. There is still much work to be done, but reduced to a bumper sticker, “No goals, no glory.”
French isn’t an ethnicity. In fact, any distinction based on ethnicity is strictly forbidden here. Even mentioning ethnicity in a database, for instance, is forbidden.
“French” is a nationality, a citizenship. Same with “German”. “German state” and “French state” means something very different from “Jewish state”. I believe you’re disingeneous, here, because I don’t think you’re unaware of the difference.
Besides, you’re saying that “Jewish” in that sense, isn’t a religion. So, can you tell me on what basis it is defined? For instance, regarding the right to immigrate to Israel, how do you think it’s determined whether you’re Jewish?
Let me help you :
You might think you’re ethnically Jewish, but if you happen to be Christian or Muslim, though luck! No Jewish state for you.
Well, darn, there I was, all ready to spout some bullshit about how long ago it all was, but your pre-emptive strike cut me off! Got me that time, Al! Curses, foiled again!
But maybe next time, wait till I actually do it? That would be nice.
So, if there is no specific legal injunction, no such prejudice exists? The non-Jewish resident of Israel enjoys precisely the same rights and acceptance? Is that what you are offering here? Or what?
According to Israeli law anyone who has at least one Jewish grandparent is Jew.The idea behind the law was to make sure to protect anyone who would have been killed by Hitler as a Jew.
Didn’t you say you’re an atheist?
If so then if you claim you’re a Jew you’ll have no problem becoming an Israeli citizen. If on the other hand your family was ethnically cleansed during Israel’s War for Independence, you were kicked out when you were 1, and you’d like to go back to the ancestral homeland of your people, fuck off.
The “who practices a religion other than Judaism” was added decades later, but frankly hasn’t been enforced on countless Russian immigrants who regularly wear crosses in public.
The legal distinction between the two groups is all it takes. It makes the latter Real Israelis and the former The Others, inviting discrimination. Yes, it’s a slippery slope argument, but those are not always invalid. Some slopes are easier to slip down than others, and by creating that distinction Israel has sprayed the slope with grease.
Humans have always been tribal, but that does not make it a permanently sustainable position. Keep your grandmother’s recipes alive, but the world is changing and tribalism, us vs them, has no place in it. To quote another Jewish philosopher who really is a darling of the American Left, “Your old road is rapidly aging. Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand, for the times they are a-changin’.”
