"I know that people do not like to hear all this; but anything more thoughtless, more hare-brained than our present-day citizenship laws scarcely exists. There is today one state in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the American Union, in which an effort is made to consult reason at least partially. By refusing immigration on principle to elements in poor health, by simply excluding certain races from naturalization, it professes in slow beginnings a view which is peculiar to the folkish state concept.

The folkish state divides its inhabitants into three classes: citizens, subjects, and foreigners…."

Not that I feel any inclination to defend Palestinian political culture either. The US obviously wanted this civil war (perhaps with a different outcome, but I'm not so sure they're not happy with the split), but it wouldn't have happened if there weren't a fair number of corrupt greedy Palestinians who want power at any price.

What the two sides badly need are a huge majority of people capable of serious self-criticism. Not that America can set any kind of example in that department.

See:
link to prudentbear.com

The Immigration Act of 1924, which largely restricted immigration to the richer countries of northwest Europe, produced the greatest social leveling the United States has ever seen, with the Gini coefficient declining by around 10 points between 1920 and 1965, the years of its salience (the 1924 Act replaced previous restrictions introduced during World War I.)

After 1965, immigration policy was reversed, to encourage a larger flow of immigrants, primarily from developing countries. Initially, this had only a modest economic effect. Then the 1986 amnesty encouraged low skill immigrants, allegedly now numbering 12 million, to try their luck with the overstretched immigration bureaucracy. Even large companies, knowing that immigration laws would not be enforced, seized the chance for some cheap labor.

Whatever the economic effect of moderate amounts of skilled immigrant labor, almost certainly positive, the economic effect of large amounts of unskilled immigrant labor is very clear: it drives wage rates down to rock bottom levels, particularly in personal service sectors where training is minimal and employment informal. That's why a haircut costs less in real terms now than it did 30 years ago, it's why even modest middle class households now have a cleaner and a gardener, which they usually didn't 30 years ago and it's why enormous numbers of dubiously constructed houses appeared when finance became available in 2002-06.

Burg has not really read Asher Ginsberg (Ahad Ha`am).

Cultural Zionism was just a way of being more circumspect or sneakier about the ultimate goal of stealing Palestine from the native population. Ginsberg worried that precipitous Zionist aggression would cause an Arab reaction that would destroy the Yishuv while it was small and weak. By the 20s when the Yishuv had grown and was less vulnerable, Ginsberg is a mainstream Zionist and consultant to Weizman.

German proto-Nazis or early German Nazis borrowed many ideas from Max Nordau, who championed eugenics and national revival through racial purity. Nordau also condemned racial or ethnic mixing as the cause of cultural degeneracy.

One could easily make the case the Herzl, Nordau and Jabotinsky were the three primary leaders and thinkers of Zionism at the Fin de siecle. (Stanislawski discusses their role in his book Zionism and the Fin de Siecle.)

Zionist leaders and thinkers of the 20s, 30s and 40s either avoided learning Arabic or treated Arabs like the fossils of a classical or dead civilization whose remnants could be casually swept away. (S.D. Goitein belonged to this category.)

Yet, if Eastern European ethnic Ashkenazim transcended their racist attitudes and entered into a dialogue with Arab intellectuals in the 20s and 30s, they would have found a welcome for ethnic Ashkenazi emigration to Arab countries as long as Ashkenazim renounced Zionism and the goal of making Palestine into a Zionist state by stealing it from the native population.

I have read precisely this idea in the writings of Islamically inclined Lebanese like Shakib Arslan, who was a pan-Islamist of Druze background, Syrian nationalists like el-Baroudi and numerous Egyptians.

Gandhi may have been right. If German Jews and ethnic Ashkenazim had on the whole rejected Zionist criminality, many more Jews would probably have survived the 40s.

In this Burg comes with a slightly clearer statement on what he means by the 'law of return' being the 'mirror image of Hitler'. This is what he said to Goldberg:

"the Law of Return is an answer to the Nuremberg Laws. That’s not its actual origin, but that’s how it has come to be seen. Whomever Hitler would have killed, we will accept as a Jew. And I say Hitler will not define me and who I am.” Hence the book’s title, “Defeating Hitler.” "

Also, the English translation of Shavit's interview seems to be an abridged version of the Hebrew original. According to Goldberg that is what he said in the original version (but not the English one) about the state:

" "A state in my eyes is a tool,” not a spiritual or religious value. “To define Israel as a Jewish state and then to add the words ‘the first dawning of our redemption’” — a quote from the chief rabbis’ Prayer for the State of Israel, and the core principle of settler messianism — “is explosive."

Incidentally, Burg has accepted French nationality. Whether he indeed plans to settle there at this stage is unclear.

But it seems that,like another distinguished Israeli, Amos Elon, Burg has opted for being a European Jew again. Shavit also interviewed Elon at one stage. This is what E. said then about his decision to leave Israel (in his case for Italy)in his old age:

"And the reason is very simple. It's also related to my leaving Haaretz. Nothing has changed here in the last 40 years. The problems are exactly the same as they always were. The solutions were already known back then. But no one paid attention to them. And I found myself repeating them. I found myself saying the same thing all the time. And I started to bore myself. The dialogue wasn't fruitful. It was a useless dialogue. I was a lone voice in the wilderness."

Burg has denounced Israel in its present form before (originally in Le Monde, I think). Then too his words created a stir. But have they changed anything there? It looks as if his voice too remains a 'voice in the wilderness'.

I have to impression you don't belong in any? Is this a wrong impression?

I have "the"

One should maybe first state that the Nurnberg Laws were a mirror image of the Jewish law of endogamy.