Jack Ross, who is writing a book about the anti-Zionist rabbi Elmer Berger, had this response to Ralph Seliger's comments earlier today:
I could go on forever about the absurdity of his premises about anti-Semitism and anti-anti-Semitism, but I'll resist. (When a friend once asked me if I was anti-Semitic, I replied that I was an anti-anti-anti-Semite.)
But I doubt very much that his views are shared by the actual Meretz Party in Israel, which seems to be for a two-state-solution in name only (forgive me if that's a crude way of putting it) a la Avnery, Burg, Carter, and indeed yourself.
Indeed very few right-wing Israelis seem to believe in the ideology of Zionism anymore, I have often said that the most stunning thing about Bush's speech to the Knesset last spring was that he seemed to be the only one in the room who believed a word he said.
A while back you blogged about Hillel Halkin's piece on Jewish genetics in Commentary. Halkin has always been a revelatory experience to me about how one can develop a deep and abiding respect for one's enemy. This began when I saw in his article of a long while back "If Israel Ceased To Exist" that he was one of but a few neocons to recognize what they had wrought. So I was very intrigued when he said in his recent article that he would be prepared to settle for a binational state where Hebrew remained the official language--much as my roll my eyes at such a suggestion.
Re Seliger: I do not know how else such a dual and mutually dependent commitment to "progressivism" and "peoplehood" can be described but as a species of national socialism.
[Weiss again: Here is Halkin's statement re binationalism. I also was struck by it as forwardthinking, though I think it's open to interpretation.
Yes, he is exactly right. The combination of progressivism and nationalism at work in Seliger's ideology is reminiscent of national socialism. There is no other way to characterize it.
Just to add: this is not to say that it has anything to do with Hitler or the worst excesses of Nazism.
"Perhaps one day Israel will be become the “state of all its citizens” that democratic values require it to be, a country of Hebrew-speaking Jews, Muslims, and Christians, all equal before the law. " Halkin.
This seems the only outcome in line with American values as defined in our Constitution. The language spoken is negotiable.
I'm going back to Lebanon in three weeks. My family home looks out upon a Crusader's castle built on an island off Sidon city. The city itself has been flattened and rebuilt countless times in the last three thousand years. It has been invaded, occupied, pillaged, sacked, conquered, etc.
The Crusaders – the Franks – held Sidon for about two hundred years. Then it all fell apart around 700 years ago. Many Franks fled, abandoning successive cities along the Levantine coast. Many stayed, converted to Islam or not, intermarried with the local population, if they hadn't been doing that already. Some of my (Christian) Lebanese cousins have flaming red curly hair and pale skin. My father had one sister with blond hair and blue eyes. These are common among Lebanese and Palestinians. There's a whole town south of Sidon whose citizens all have red hair and green eyes – supposedly Irishmen who didn't want to go home. They are Muslims now and have been for 700 years.
There were Jews living in Sidon up until the 1970s, trading and practicing various crafts. Bank Safra was founded by Sidonian Jews, also Bank Audi; the Zilkha family of Baghdad had Sidonian branches.
Israel as it's set up now is not sustainable in the long term. Whatever happens, I hope the transition is easy and involves no bloodshed (or as little as possible). We don't want to see mass expulsions again. No sweeping people into the sea or sending them off on trains, please, enough already.
But from the perspective of people who have been living on this disputed coast for millenia, two hundred years is not long. 60 years is long for a family but it's also not that long. The Palestinians will wait a hundred and sixty years… two hundred and sixty. They can and they will.
The Jews will never be expelled from the Holy Land; Jews will always live there. We are now arguing about the terms. The terms will shift with time, responding to events we cannot foresee (and some we can).
Similarly, the Palestinians will not be exterminated, nor will they otherwise disappear from Palestine/Israel. Even a forced expulsion/transfer as suggested by extremist Israelis cannot in the end be successful. Guess what, you guys are going to find equilibrium one way or another.
Why not find a workable compromise, humane and just, sooner rather than later? Democracy – one person, one vote, for all living within the boundaries of the larger, current state.
I, as well as most supporters of Meretz, can certainly concur with what Hillel Halkin has to say here about a Hebrew-speaking state with all its citizens equal before the law. Why Jack Ross should "roll his eyes" at the notion of a Hebrew-speaking country is beyond me.
Also, we have Ross's bizarre notion that my combination of progressivism and Zionism means some species of "national socialism." I am sympathetic to social democracy but actually said nothing about socialism. And my "nationalism" is rather nominal and liberal.
I labored through the three 'antis' as he declares himself an "anti-anti-anti-Semite"; it washes out to his being an anti-Semite. The contempt and share hostility that drips from this guy's keyboard should bother Phil. Instead, he gives him a platform.
There won't be a "binational state".
The Arabs won't be rewarded for their intransigence and bloodlust; not with a state of their own and not with our state.
By the way: ARAB BIRTHS DOWN – JEWISH BIRTHS UP: NO DEMOGRAPHIC THREAT
Ralph,
Phil and Jack, like fascists, like anarchists, like religious fanatics, are seeking to "cut through" propaganda to truth, as if truth were so simplistically definable.
That state they are sick of liberalism, sick of compromise, sick of delay, sick of obstacles (even the objective ones), sick of the responsibility to propose.
That there is no relative truth, no relative title to land, no relatively just solution, that there is only THE just solution represented by "there first" (ignoring the present for the past nearly solely).
Leila,
The concept of partition is a definition of jurisdiction.
To exclude partition from the palette of options, would imply that there should be a plebiscite to determine the governance of Lebanon/Syria/Israeli/Palestine/Jordan/Gaza.
Which "larger state" do you suggest?
Why preserve Lebanon's sovereignty for example?
The purpose of establishing jurisdiction, is to guarantee that the vast majority of citizens live in an environment in which they perceive that they are self-governing, rather than being governed by others.
The one-state solution would result in an imposition of governance onto a 49% minority, rather the prospect of imposition on 20% minorities.
It is a most elegant proposal as 20% minorities do not comprise a threat to the self-governance of each, whereas a 51-49% majority of such fundamental difference in identity would lead to permanent civil war.
For what its worth, I'm also seeking to cut through to truth.
In my case by living progressively as a Jew. Universalistic in place, benevolent in place.
NOT any inference of dissolution.