The melting point of copper is 1085° C.
Which has nothing to do with your post. But then again your post had no connection to the one you were responded to either.
Israel’s unique UN status (“exceptionalism”) might be seen as aberrant by many, and resented as a result.
The world was not created in 1967. There was already ongoing military hostility between Israel and neighbouring countries. The start of this hostility was when Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948 and the League of Arab States declared war on Israel on May 15, 1948.
OurLordPeace:
So do I, but I’m willing to bet we’re talking about the exact opposite.
Okay, what do you consider the legitimate basis for founding a country?
Many of the present points of contention have their roots in that war. In any case, the hostility started in the late 19th Century, when modern political Zionism began. This bunch had a nefarious agenda, that most of the world’s Jewry considered dangerous lunacy. The native Jews of Palestine and elsewhere in the Middle East, including the Haredi groups that had trickled in over the years, had no political secessionist agenda. As a result, there was usually very little friction with the non-Jewish inhabitants. Some Ottoman sultans were anti-Jewish, but most saw the Jews as a loyal and unobtrusive group of “people of the Book.”
The Zionists changed all that.
In principle, nothing, since I oppose nation-states. If one must found a country, then I don’t consider armed theft of land to be legitimate. Similarly, if we must have nation-states, they should be based on ideas, not on ethnicity, religion, or anything arbitrary and artificial like that. I’m just as opposed to a “Jewish state” as I am to an Islamic Republic or a White-ruled apartheid state or anything like that. I don’t want my own country to support such endeavors (Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kosovo) or seek to destroy countries based on ideas that the leadership despises (Cuba, Yugoslavia, many more).
If perhaps you do support volkisch, ethnically defined states, shouldn’t Judaistan have been carved out of Germany, Austria, and perhaps other nearby places after WWII?
So you oppose all the countries in the world and it’s just a coincidence that the only country you talk about happens to be the only Jewish one?
The first clause of your sentence is correct. The rest of it is incorrect. I have mentioned many other countries just in this very thread.
Do you oppose the Palestinians trying to found a nation-state of their own?
Regards,
Shodan
Yes, inasmuch as ideally we would see a no-state solution. A one-state solution is still much better than two, and it seems that Zionist expansionism has actually made the one-state solution very likely.
So your approach to the geo-political/religious/regional/nationalist conflicts that have existed throughout human history is to simply say, “Why can’t we all just get along?”
<group-hug everybody!>
Seizure of land by armed force, and maintainence / defense of that land against all comers, is the only historical and practical definition of a nation. Nobody has ever looked at a map and said “hey, let’s create a nation out of whole cloth here” who didn’t already own the land to begin with. Even Israel was created out of the existing British mandate in the region.
That’s simplistic, as the state will not surrender its authority voluntarily, but the first step is to demonstrate solidarity across the artificial boundaries that are thrown up between us. There’s no reason to make someone your enemy because the ruling class says they are. There’s no reason to fight others of your same (or similar) social class because they happen to have citizenship of another state.
Do you know anything about the opposition to WWI by people like Emma Goldman, Eugene V. Debs, Rosa Luxemberg, and many more?
Fight the state, not its wars! Fight the rich, not their wars! -Anarchist slogans
I’m not sure I understand your second sentence, but the first isn’t true. Tribes throughout history have arrived upon genuinely vacant land, and decided to stay. In any case, as I’ve said before, tribes are based upon arbitrary accidents of birth. There’s no intrinsic reason for them to exist. If we must have nation-states (and we don’t have to) they should be based on an idea held in common, not arbitrary tribalism. Religion is arguably the worst defining factor.
Don’t forget the even more memorable anarchist slogan: “There will have to be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder: we will kill, because it is necessary; there will have to be destruction; we will destroy to rid the world of your tyrannical institutions.”
Israel’s existence is based on a UN mandate. That’s an idea held in common. Ergo, Israel is correctly founded.
The Palestinians are trying to take over Israeli land. Israeli land is not vacant. Ergo, the Palestinians have no right to do what they are trying to do.
How about if they shoot rockets at you across the artificial boundaries, and try to steal your land? Is that a good reason?
So why aren’t you condemning the Palestinians for doing that? Why is your criticism aimed only at Israel?
Regards,
Shodan
Yeah, propaganda of the deed. That was controversial back then, and not well thought of today.
Palestine was not vacant when the Zionists began arriving in the late 19th century. As I’ve already stated, they were very clear about their desire to expel the non-Jewish inhabitants, by force if necessary. They stole the land. This was not a desire held by the indigenous Jews of Palestine, nor did most of the Haredi groups (who had drifted in over the centuries) feel that way.
The Palestinian movement is a movement of national liberation. I do not support the two-state solution, for reasons I have discussed. It would be better than the status quo since Al-Nakba (the catastrophe, when they were violently ethnically cleansed from their lands), but I still find it objectionable for the reasons I discussed. I agree with the one-state solution (and secularism, and leftist stance) of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Ideally, this will be a temporary step on the road to a stateless future.
The rockets fired by Hamas (and rogue hooligans acting alone, such as the shots which precipitated Operation Cast Lead) are pathetic. The US corporate media portrays it as some kind of apocalyptic onslaught, when in fact that better describes the Israeli airstrikes. The rockets are used because “you go to war with the army that you have,” to ironically quote Donald Rumsfeld. The Palestinians don’t have a foreign benefactor providing them with an air force, so they use what they have.
Since you are against nation-states, this statement has no meaning.
IOW, you just mean that you are not really against all nation-states, just Israel. And the notion that Hizbollah and Hamas are more secular (and leftist) than Israel is laughable. You do know that Islam is a religion, don’t you? And that it rejects the idea of a secular state out of hand?
It might help if you could find some kind of moral consistency, and stick to it. Firing rockets at your neighbors is fine, but keeping teenagers between you and their friends throwing stones is a horrible atrocity. You are in favor of a one-state solution, provided that state isn’t Israel. You are in favor of a government led by religious terrorists, provided those terrorists are Muslim. Nations should be based on ideas held in common, unless those nations are Israel.
:shrugs:
Regards,
Shodan