Jamie Stern-Weiner has a wonderful wide-ranging interview with Israeli journalist Gideon Levy at the New Left Project. In addition to discussions about the Israeli left, Gaza, the Israeli media and the prospects for peace, the interview includes this interesting exchange below. Please be sure to read the entire piece here.
Jamie Stern-Weiner: I’ve noticed a shift in your own writings, which seem to have become increasingly radical in their criticism. I’m thinking in particular of a recent column in which you argued that “[d]efining Israel as a Jewish state condemns us to living in a racist state”, and urged people to “recognize the racist nature of the state”. Has there been a shift in your writings, do you think, and if so, what’s behind it?
Gideon Levy: It’s not a shift, it’s a process. My views became more and more radical throughout the years, in contrast to the opposite stream of the entire society – the more Israel becomes nationalistic, the more the government becomes violent and aggressive, like in ‘Cast Lead’, like in the Second Lebanese War, like with the flotilla, all those developments put me in a much more radical position, obviously, because there is much more to protest against. So yes, I am becoming more and more radical, but you can’t put a finger to say one day I became a radical. It’s an ongoing process.
Would you accept the label ‘anti-Zionist’ to characterise your views?
It depends what is ‘Zionism’. Because Zionism is a very fluid concept – who can define what is Zionism? If Zionism means the right of the Jews to have a state, I am a Zionist. If Zionism means occupation, I’m an anti-Zionist. So I never know how to answer this question. If Zionism means to have a Jewish state at the expense of being a democratic state, then I am anti-Zionist, because I truly believe those two definitions are contradictory – ‘Jewish’ and ‘democratic’. For me, Israel should be a democratic state.
So would it be right to say that you support a state for Jews, but not a ‘Jewish state’ in the sense of a state that artificially maintains a Jewish majority?
Absolutely. It should be a state for Jews that will be a just state, a democratic state, and if there will be a Palestinian majority, there will be a Palestinian majority. The idea is that Jews have to have their place, but it can’t be exclusively theirs, because this land is not exclusively theirs.
This brings us nicely to the ‘liberal Zionists’, of whom you’ve been very critical. You have written that “[a] left wing unwilling to dare to deal with 1948 is not a genuine left wing”. Firstly, in terms of the Palestinian refugees – do you have a view about whether they should be permitted to return?
First of all, something must be very clear – the problem must be solved. And as long as their problem will not be solved, nothing will be solved. Those hundreds of thousands of refugees cannot continue, generation after generation, to live in their conditions. They have rights. Now on the other hand, you can’t, and you don’t want, to solve the problem and to create a new problem. Full return means creating new refugees. The place I live in Tel Aviv belonged to a Palestinian village. If the owners of this village will come back, I will have to go somewhere else. All Israel is originally Palestinian – if not its villages then its land, its fields… almost all of it belonged to the Palestinians. So if you do a total return, you create a new problem. And also there are very few precedents in history in which everyone was allowed to return to his original home decades after the war. But it must be solved.
I think there could be a solution, but it requires Israel to have good will – which it doesn’t have. It would involve, first of all, Israel recognising its moral responsibility. That’s the first condition. It’s about time for Israel to take accountability for what happened in ’48 and realise and recognise that there was a kind of ethnic cleansing, and expelling 650,000 people from their lands was not inevitable and was criminal. I think that taking responsibility will be the first step. Second step, Israel has to participate in an international project of rehabilitating the refugees – some of them in the places where they live. The third stage, obviously, is full return to the Palestinian state, if there will be a Palestinian state. And the last stage should be a symbolic, limited return also into Israel. It goes without saying, Israel has absorbed within the last few years one million Russians, and half of them were not Jewish. Why can we absorb half a million non-Jewish Russians and not absorb a few hundred or tens of thousands of Palestinians, who belong to this place, whose families are living in Israel? So that’s the way I see it.
Do you have a preference – two-states against one state? And if you prefer a two-state settlement, what is that preference based on? For example, my ideal outcome would be a bi-national or one-state solution, but I think that for now the most just solution that can be achieved is a two-state settlement. So if you have a preference for a two-state settlement, is that because you think it’s the most just settlement, period, or merely the most just settlement that can realistically be achieved in the foreseeable future?
First of all, I totally agree with the way you phrased it, I couldn’t phrase it better. The ideal, the utopia? One state for Palestinians and Jews, with equal rights, a real democracy, with real equality between the two peoples. The problem is that I don’t see it happening now, and I’m very afraid that a one-state would become an apartheid state. The two communities are very – there is a big gap between them. We have to realise that the Jewish community in Israel is more developed today, more rich, and to immediately mix both societies will create a lot of friction. There is also a lot of bad blood between the two communities. I don’t see it working, and for sure I don’t see it working in equal terms. So the only other solution left is the two-state solution. The problem is that it’s starting to become too late for this, because to evacuate half a million settlers – who will do it? No one. So I’m quite desperate. And the other solution, which I think will be the most probable, will be all kinds of artificial solutions - of half a Palestinian state, on half the land…this will not last, and this will not solve anything.
‘Liberal Zionism’
I’ve just finished reading Yitzhak Laor’s ‘Myths of Liberal Zionism’, which is obviously very critical of the ‘Zionist Left’. What do you think of the politics of people like David Grossman, Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua and Meretz? Do they offer a sufficiently radical critique of Israeli policy, and if not, why is their critique so compromised?
First of all, I had Oz and Yehoshua at my home for dinner a few weeks ago, so I have to be very cautious in what I say, but I am very critical about this kind of thinking. You can add [Israeli President] Shimon Peres and Labor to this. This is the typical Israeli hypocrisy, and I in many ways appreciate [Israel’s far-right Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman more than Shimon Peres, because with Lieberman, at least, what you see is what you get. It’s very clear what he stands for. With people like Shimon Peres or Meretz – and I don’t say they are identical – or Oz and Yehoshua and Grossman, they want to eat the cake and leave it complete, as we say in Hebrew. This doesn’t work.
I think they lack courage, some of them. Others, like Shimon Peres, are hypocrites who talk about peace and do the opposite. I think that Oz and Yehoshua and Grossman, who I know very well personally, mean well. But in many ways they are still chained in the Zionistic ideology. They haven’t released themselves from the old Zionistic ideology, which basically hasn’t changed since ’48 – namely, that the Jews have the right to this land, almost the exclusive right. They are trying to find their way to be Zionistic, and to be for peace, and to be for justice. The problem is that Zionism in its present meaning, in its common meaning, is contradictory to human rights, to equality, to democracy, and they don’t recognise it. It’s too hard for them to recognise it, to realise it. And therefore their position is an impossible position, because they want everything: they want Zionism, they want democracy, they want a Jewish state, but they want also rights for the Palestinians… it’s very nice to want everything, but you have to make your choice and they are not courageous enough to make the choice.
I think there could be a solution, but it requires Israel to have good will – which it doesn’t have.
This sums it all up. This is why all Obama’s pandering will fail to reach a peace – Israel just is not operating out of good will.
It’s interesting, though, that despite Levy’s self-described radicalization, he still pulls back from the unrestricted return of the refugees. Why? Because he would have to move, people like himself would have to move. He even now regards the movement of the settlers as an impossibility.
*heh* The Emperor has no clothes…!
On the other hand, THIS by Levy is nothing more than explosive. This is ripping the clothes right off the emperor and exposing the shame that no one dares mention: There are too many Jewish billionaires funneling money into Israel.
link to haaretz.com
I just read it. It is quite amazing and taboo-breaking. One death threat against Levy in the comments section so far.
And it always was.
There are many fascinating things in this excerpt (I haven’t read the whole thing.) Personally, Levy’s “process” mirrors my own, first questioning the “excesses” of the Israeli state, then acknowledging the inalienable rights of Palestinians in their homeland, and eventually, recognizing the necessity of full equality, even if it means the dissolution or transformation of the Jewish State to a true democracy. For me, and apparently for Levy, this process took decades. I understand people not raised as Zionists being mystified as to how it could take so long to support things so basic as equality and freedom for all, and to oppose ethnic preferences, but it did. And we are still a small minority.
It’s a tug of war between the idea of a Jewish State and liberal notions of equal citizenship. The two are incompatible, and recognizing that incompatibility is the first step toward deciding which is more important. For Levy’s friends, Oz/Yehoshua/Grossman, they cling to the absolute necessity of a Jewish State, which means their liberal principles have to be compromised. Levy, however, has taken the last step, and recognized that equality is the more important value.
As for refugees, potsherd complains that Levy refuses to recognize return if it will inconvenience him and others like him. I understand, but the only thing that effect a full right of return is a time machine. Many hundreds of Arab villages were destroyed, and it would be absurd to require millions of Israelis to leave their homes because they were built on the ruins. I have no problem with his ambiguity in dealing with the right of return. He understands that it must be resolved fairly, but fairly does not mean achieving the impossible.
Two-state v. one-state? I agree with some of Levy’s analysis, but not his conclusions. He is right to be apprehensive about the difference in wealth and the bad blood between the communities, but these are problems, perhaps very big problems, that must be tackled carefully and patiently. They are not insurmountable, but forcing Palestinians to live as second-class citizens in the Jewish State is unacceptable, and forcing half a million Israeli settlers (colonists?) to leave their homes may prove impossible.
Finally, I’m a little surprised at Levy’s numbers. He says 650,000 fled as a result of the 1947-9 war, and that there still are “hundreds of thousands of refugees.” Most Naqba figures I’ve seen were over 700,000, but much more significantly, the number of refugees today, including the descendants of the originals, is well into the millions.
I know Ha’aretz is supposedly “liberal,” but it most definitely is Zionist. I hope Levy has some employment protection. So far, he and Hass continue to work there.
“Many hundreds of Arab villages were destroyed, and it would be absurd to require millions of Israelis to leave their homes because they were built on the ruins.”
I didn’t think the right of return necessarily meant the right to actually return to the exact spot where the Palestinians used to live. Some of those areas are forested now, from what I’ve read. The ROR means they’d have the right to move back inside the 67 borders. Presumably they’d receive reparations (they should, of course), but that’s a separate issue.
The sacrosanct character of those forests is an anti-Arab ploy. Forests that cover villages can be removed.
I agree with you, but I was responding to potsherd, who in turn was responding to Levy. Levy said that he would not have to move from Tel Aviv, and potsherd thought that was a restriction on ROR. I meant to convey that it was not a realistic interpretation of ROR to force all Tel Aviv residents to move.
The villages are all gone, some to forests or unrecognizable ruins, and some to Israeli villages built over them. I have no idea what percentage for each.
“Many hundreds of Arab villages were destroyed, and it would be absurd to require millions of Israelis to leave their homes because they were built on the ruins.”
I am surprised (although not entirely) at Levy. This is standard Zionist propaganda, which has absolutely nothing to do with the proposals developed by Palestinian intellectuals and adopted by Palestinian leaders, regarding the right of return. ROR is not about revenge or “putting things back the way they were”. It is a real expectation that takes all reasonable objections (“maintaining the Jewish character of the state” does not count as a reasonable objection) into account. No one is suggesting that the return of Palestinian refugees should or would entail a nakba in reverse. To talk about Palestinian return as potentially displacing “millions of Israelis” is thus (at best) irresponsible nonsense.
“I know Ha’aretz is supposedly “liberal,” but it most definitely is Zionist. I hope Levy has some employment protection.”
David, check out this extremely funny article. It’s devoid of any reference to the Nakba, and any need to address that injustice. Just more stereotyping/fear-mongering:
link to haaretz.com
Well, before that the name was Canaan.
What that piece said to me was how very tenuous is the notion of “Jewish” among some Israelis. As if something like, say, gefilte fish was the essence of Judaism.
Avi writes:
Not being raised a Zionist, I do understand. Sometime in the mid-sixties or so, I became aware of the reality of the founding of Israel and the Nakba. I still supported Israel. My attitude was a crime was committed in 1948 but so were many other worse crimes in that terrible decade so we just have to get used to it.
It was only in the last decade that my position has hardened against Zionism. That is the slow realization is that the Zionist goals have not yet been completely realized, that the crime of land theft and ethnic cleansing continues today, that these goals mean more war, and that worse, from a very selfish perspective, it is the US that is now expected to fight those wars. Also, it is much easier to be critical of Israel today since the country has moved so hard to the right and its people are so more overtly racists (at least visible to the west) than ever before.
SYVANEN- You make a very good point with significant implications. First of all, Zionism is more about a never ending process than a specific goal to be achieved. A critical part of this process is the ongoing organizational network and ideological motivation which unites the Jewish “people.” Zionism is the secular religion of most organized Jews. In the words of Joel Kovel, “Zionism is Jewish power….” As a consequence, Zionism in its present form cannot coexist with peace and justice in the Middle East (neither can the US Empire, for that matter), which is why Kovel recommends overcoming Zionism as a necessary step.
synanen, interesting point, but don’t confuse me with Avi. We can tell each other apart very well.
“He says 650,000 fled as a result of the 1947-9 war, and that there still are “hundreds of thousands of refugees.” Most Naqba figures I’ve seen were over 700,000″
Yes David..Sounds strange to me too that they still ignore the UN’s updated figure (in 1950) of 950,000..and I’m tired of linking to the source as it could start to sound like I have a fixation with it..but hey what difference does 350,000 make, it’s just a number ..
Also I loved the “fled”..
TGIA – I’m not sure “fled” is that loaded a word. They certainly did flee. Hasbara says they “voluntarily” fled, and history and common sense says they fled because they were in fear for their lives because of massacres or even gunpoint forced marches.
Actually, he doesn’t say “fled” at all. That’s a misquote in an earlier comment.
He clearly says:
What he says about Lieberman is absolutely right. At least everyone knows where he stands.
You are right, IM. I think “fled” was my word, and I did mean it in the sense that they were forced to flee for their lives. Expelled, the word Levy used, is much better and less ambiguous. I try to be careful with my language, but …
Levy’s numbers are ‘conservative’, which can be a choice to avoid discussion on that.
I think even better than the numbers would be to use a percentage. One percentage I would like to hear is if you exclude the people in the little triangle(which was added to Israel after the armistice) and those who fled there, and the people in Nazareth (it was too delicate to cleanse that) and those who fled there, then what percentage of the people had been cleansed? I think you’ll get 90% or more.
David, hope you come up with a good resolution for yourself, as each of us must, in the end. Just please don’t become an honorary resident in Bernard Avihai’s Hebrew Republic. Which sounds great at first – at least as a way of salvaging something positive and semi-universal sounding out of the messy zionist goulash. Only problem is, the “hebrew culture” of which people like Avihai and Gorenberg (both olehs from North america) are so enamored with, is just as profoundly ethnocentric and clannishly inward gazing as Avigdor’s version of the same, just spiced up with a better brand of cultural paprica.
Why bring up Avishai here? because he is one of the best cultural/liberal zionists out there, yet, as his writings bear witness to his own moral wanderings, there’s no salvation even under that finer wrapping. Which mean there’s no good place for J street to go either.
Ultimately, the key is in that sentence Levy made about “good will” on the part of the Israelis. With “good will” much that seems impossible can be solved. Without it, nothing good can happen. Certainly not with one side is intent on sabotaging any outcome short of the whole enchilada. I believe there’s no “good will” in the hearts of the majority of Israel’s population since they have been brain-washed and socialized out of it – very effectively too. Realization of that is what makes some of us – who know that in our guts – deeply pessimistic about a civilized ending to this saga. It just may not be in the cards. which is why personally, I have been preparing – for quite a while now – for ways to take the edge of the incivilities likely to ensue.
Danaa, there is no chance of such honorary residence for me, and although I am happy with the direction of Levy’s movement and see similarities with mine, I do not completely share his conclusions. As Witty of all people aptly notes, there is some confusion and contradiction in Levy’s formulation that the Jewish people are entitled to a state, but not a Jewish State. If there were one state with equality and security for all who live there, and the collective will of that state did not renew the “law of return” for diaspora Jews, thereby cutting off that life choice currently available to me, I’d be fine. It’s up to them.
As for the absence of “good will,” you are surely correct, though I see this as simply another example of human beings casually accepting privileges over others without questioning them. It’s much easier for victims to see the intolerable injustice of inequality. I don’t think the effort at brain-washing and socialization of those on top has to be all that good to be effective. Most people are naturally quite receptive to it.
“It’s a tug of war between the idea of a Jewish State and liberal notions of equal citizenship.”
The thing that I don’t understand is this, David: What on earth gave you the idea that Judaism or Jewishness would be a good basis for a state in the first place? Look, I love being Jewish (not much choice there) and I love Jews and Jewishness in many aspects. But as the basis for a state? Hell no! States are not nice things, they may be necessary, but why on earth degrade Judaism and Jewishness by making it one.
The only thing I have ever been able to come up with is this, as shallow as it is. If you are a rich or elite Jew, it naturally seems like a good idea, and an opportunity for aggrandisement. If you are a poor Jew, like me, it just seems like a perfect way to get screwed by Jews instead of non-Jews. Somehow, I never found that preferable, especially since as an American Jew, non-Jews were not taking very effective or energetic measures to screw me as a Jew.
So why on earth would I advocate a system in which I would inevitably end up hating Jews?
It’s pretty obvious that somehow the Jewish part was supposed to transcend and improve the “state” part all out of reason. Which was a ridiculous assumption from the beginning. It’s always been a mystery why any Jew not compelled by the basest and most immediate forms of necessity would do this. Unless of course, unless they considered themselves an elite, in which case a Jewish State would provide opprtunity, glory and praise and power.
Gideon Levy assumes that Israel will be setting the agenda and doing the deciding, once settler and Palestinian sit down together for the purpose of working things out based on one equals one with liberty and justice* for all. Except the Palestinian not only will be setting the agenda. she’ll be in command. Undoubtedly the settler will bring up the one about whether or not Americans would give Manhattan back to its original people. Same as for the Palestinian’s situation, tne answer has to be that this question best be put to the descendents of an indigenous people, they are the ones to decide.
*including the setting up of criminal courts for the prosecution of those who have committed mass-murder and/or crimes against humanity.
I do not see what is wrong in Levy’s assumptions. Israel is the strong party, so it sets the parameters.
The problem with Zionism is that it lacks conceptual framework for values that cannot be translated into benefits for Jews here and now. It is almost like trying to prove why preventing cruelty to animals benefits humans while being a card-carrying non-vegan.
By the way of contrast, EU is basically a confederation of tribes, often jealous about their identity, cultural survival, mistreating the minorities to the degree they can get away with — but within a framework of universal rights and minority rights, so tribal impulses should not get out of hand. Israelis like to whine that they live in a “rough neighborhood”, but in actuality, Europe managed to surpass everyone in “roughness” before advancing to less brutal conditions.
So I would not sneer at “semi-universalism”. But I would agree that it is a hard semi-ideal to achieve. And Zionism may be a particularly hard case.
Since for the moment it is Israel that has the military power, it would have a lot of say in any negotiated settlement. If Israel would now settle for a binational Israel/Palestine state with two legislatures, one Jewish and one Palestinian, and two executives, one Jewish and one Palestinian, each with a veto over the other (and constitutional guarantees for the rights of both nationalities), I suspect the Palestinians would accept the offer.
But the longer Israel waits, and the worse its long-term prospects become, the less negotiating power it will have.
Yes, the settler-state has the military power, but outside of its settlers (every Jewish Israel except for those actively participating in the Palestinian liberation struggle) and a steadily dwindling number of supporters outside its borders (wherever such may be), it’s more and more alone in the world. Even more devastating for the settler-state is its loss of the moral high ground (which it didn’t deserve in the first place), consequence of its siege of Gaza and its massacre of innocents on the Mavi Marmara. What’ll happen now is that the settler-state (not its people) will dissolve just as fast as South Africa did two decades ago. What’ll replace it? That’ll be up to the Palestinian people. Fortunately for the settlers, though, expect the Palestinians to be generous, not vindictive. And one can count on the right to return being established.
let’s cut-to-the-chase:
zionism today is a criminal act
Laor’s Myths is certainly good stuff.
To my mind Zionism is not a particularly fluid concept, though its defenders do not all agree on the reasons for it. It means that people who are Jewish, and only they, have a share in sovereignty over what some call ‘the Holy Land’ by right, others only by generosity limited by the vital interests of the rightful heirs. Levy still seems to entertain the ‘limit set by vital interests’ clause and so still to be a Zionist.
Generosity has always been part of the story, as the dreaded Israeli Right keeps pointing out, receiving so little gratitude. But it must be understood as real generosity, giving from what is our own, not returning what was yours.
“Generosity has always been part of the story, as the dreaded Israeli Right keeps pointing out, receiving so little gratitude. But it must be understood as real generosity, giving from what is our own, not returning what was yours.” This is very well said I must remember this formulation.
Good to Levy going at least part of the way.
But
“the right of the Jews to have a state”.
What is the basis for that right? Does it apply to Australian Jews, and if so, is there a right of Australian Baha’is to have a state?
“Jews have to have their place”
Why?
“It goes without saying, Israel has absorbed within the last few years one million Russians, and half of them were not Jewish. Why can we absorb half a million non-Jewish Russians and not absorb a few hundred or tens of thousands of Palestinians, who belong to this place, whose families are living in Israel? So that’s the way I see it.”
That is because the issue goes much deeper than merely one being Jewish or not, it is racism. As long as you are “white” it is OK, however if you are not, well that is a different matter. Some will say they absorbed half a million who are not Jewish to establish the fact of a presence and this might be partially true – but they are still lily white. So, we need to ask ourselves what is the basis of the “Jewish state?”
Of course, what follows this fact (above) is actually in the title of the post – “contradictory to human rights, to equality, to democracy.” Positively racist.
The point is not so much that they are white but that they are not Arab. Not people with a claim on land that Israeli Jews covet.
Good point potsherd, and still the instrument used to accomplish this is racism. Even if I say anyone can claim the land except the Arab, not only does it close them out, it does so and is fueled by racism (what else do you call these atrocious activities? Colonial settler states thrive on racism, there has never been one that is not racist – it is a primary elite tool used, coupled with religion, etc.) – Zionism is racism in its current makeup.
No argument there.
“If Zionism means the right of the Jews to have a state, I am a Zionist. If Zionism means occupation, I’m an anti-Zionist. ”
A Zionist in the same meaning that I am a Zionist.
In the present, Zionism is both.
Which non-compromisable value will be compromised?
Or, can both be designed into a peace?
I don’t know, Witty. How many white phosphorous mortars, armored bulldozers and “flying” military checkpoints strip-searching six year olds do you think peace can accommodate? That’s your answer as to whether Zionism and peace are actually compatible.
“A Zionist in the same meaning that I am a Zionist.”
Do you want to try that again Witty, without the circular logic?
Richard, he most certainly says that Jews have the right to a state, but not a Jewish State. I wouldn’t put it that way myself – it is a bit unclear – but he definitely prefers a state with equality for Jews and Palestinians that would not be called a Jewish State. Levy says: “It should be a state for Jews that will be a just state, a democratic state, and if there will be a Palestinian majority, there will be a Palestinian majority.” I suppose he means that Jews would continue to be able to call the state their home, though could not guarantee permanent Jewish rule or majority. That’s very different from what you favor; at least I think so.
David,
The words are there in black and white.
You want to start slinging at Gideon Levy now, go ahead.
There are differences in my views and interpretations of events in real time than Gideon Levy, but the gist of my political commitment is the dual apparently contradictory statement that I quoted, the lead for the article.
My point is the extent that the left (as represented here) alienates those that hold that view, rather than noting, appreciating and encouraging it.
It is far more than just me.
And don’t forget Levy says in, the words are there in black and white, “I am a Zionist”. And so are you. So really you are on the same page with Levy and anyone who disagrees should start slinging mud at Levy.
Richard, the words you quote are in black and white, but so are the words I quote. I am happy with Levy’s general direction, though his conclusion that the Jews are entitled to a state, but not a Jewish State, is obviously a little confusing. My point to you is that he goes much further than you, insisting on full and equal rights for all and that if a majority becomes Palestinian, so be it. He even says that one state would be an ideal solution but one that he thinks is not achievable. I’ve never seen you go nearly that far.
What I reject is any solution in which the Jewish residents of the area have power and control over the non-Jewish residents. Only when full equality is realized, one way or another, can there by a permanent solution. You seem to feel that if there is a conflict between equality and a Jewish State (and there definitely is imo), you think the latter is more important. That’s where you and I disagree, and Levy seems clearly on my side.
If you’ve read my comments, you would have noted that I support the stated goals of BDS, including full and equal rights for Palestinian Israelis, establishment of viable and healthy Palestinian sovereignty with the green line as basis of boundary, and right to day in court and compensation to individuals for demonstrated chain of forced removals and establishment of collective development fund for classes that are not directly identifiable.
I think there is a tension between nationalism and democracy that exists in every national democratic state that is resolvable by effective design that preserves both. France IS majority French and will remain so in spite of differences in populations’ birthrate. I don’t know what is written in their constitution or basic laws. Israel is majority Jewish and will remain so.
It is entirely up to the populace of the nation, to determine which political parties they associate with, and how those parties form policies and behave.
To date, the left has not invested in the formation of primarily civil non-radical parties.
If moderate civilist parties emerged, as Avram Burg recommended and was rejected as a ploy here, they would achieve a likely comparable portion of the vote to the religious parties, and by their actions could achieve majority or wither away.
It is a way for Arabs to participate as peers in Israeli politics.
To only complain that there are only Zionist parties, is really to do nothing.
The difference, Witty, is that when a Somalian comes to France, they can apply for and get citizenship. And then they are French.
Your “Jewish state” doesn’t work that way. You yourself have insisted that you consider your citizenship to be “Jewish” (put in quotes, since sane people don’t treat Judaism like that) before you consider it to be US. People who were born on land that Israel now claims — which includes the West Bank and Gaza, and you demand that claims to such land must be honored — are deprived of citizenship.
In effect, Israel has the same reinrassig-style definitions of citizenship and nationality as Germany used to have. Before Israel, it was perfectly possible (and indeed, common enough) to be both Jewish and Palestinian. So it is the nationality of Palestine that corresponds to normal nationality, like say French. But not “Jewish” nationality.
Again Chaos,
To ONLY complain is to do nothing.
You lost the argument. You were wrong. Categorically. Stop whining and move on, already
richard, i thought of you when i was reading a line in the first part of the interview.. here it is “This rare intellectual courage is also evident in his sharp criticism of those Israeli ‘liberals’ who, when their liberal values clash with their Zionist ones, betray the former every time.”
the interview with levy is excellent and worth reading to get a grip on the direction israel continues to descend into….
“This rare intellectual courage is also evident in his sharp criticism of those Israeli ‘liberals’ who, when their liberal values clash with their Zionist ones, betray the former every time.”
That’s Witty from A-Z. Same goes for the J Street mob
I don’t think Levy’s response is predictable if/when push comes to shove.
I personally regard need and health as a more important criteria of success than justice (especially retributive, which is always half a coin).
I don’t know if Levy feels the same.
The rest of us do not find those mutually exclusive, Witty. So much for your moral integrity.
“I personally regard need and health as a more important criteria of success than justice (especially retributive, which is always half a coin).”
What you mean to say, you personally regard need and health as a more important criteria of success than justice where Israel is concerned. When it comes to Hamas, you’re quite prepared to doll out the retribution.
“When it comes to Hamas, you’re quite prepared to doll out the retribution.”
True. Several days ago I suggested that Israel could have chosen to lift the blockade back in 2008 as Hamas demanded as part of a new ceasefire. Witty referred to that option as “appeasement”.
And, in multiple posts on my own blog, I declared that Israel was negligent in not relaxing the blockade in response to Hamas’ compliance with the hudna.
Don’t lie about my views.
I know you are looking to cast thought as inferior to movement, but it ain’t so.
Here is what you said in comment 10 on September 6 under the post “Arundhati Roy and Ken Loach narrate the Goldstone Report”–
“It had bad choices of either not responding to the shelling at all – letting it continue – ignoring it, responding to the shelling of civilians by appeasement (that you recommend), token military response, or grand military response.”
My recommendation was that Israel accept the Hamas proposal to renew the ceasefire and lift the blockade. You called it “appeasement”. See that word above?
Don’t lie about what you said.
And here’s a link to the post, or anyway to the thread that contains your post–
link
If you don’t mean “appeasement” when you use the word “appeasement”, then perhaps you shouldn’t use the word. Just saying.
What are you talking about Donald?
That was a description of the Israeli military options. In response to a militia shelling your civilians, escalating and escalating, to do nothing is appeasement.
donald, for future reference to get a permalink to a post click on the post number to the right of the time stamp. here it is.
richard is blatantly not acknowledging the option of ceasefire, as if it hasn’t been a successful option in the past. obviously a negotiated ceasefire isn’t appeasement.
Witty? Appeasement is about letting land thieves lay claim to territory they never owned. Appeasement was Neville Chamberlain letting Germany carve up Poland.
Appeasement is letting Zionists carve up Palestine.
Don’t they teach finance majors history? No? Guess not.
actually i will amend my last comment. he’s ignoring it in terms of an option, he hasn’t ignored the ceasefire
so he said this right before launching into this fantasy
it’s fairly obvious to any casual observer what they were communicating was ‘israel broke the ceasefire and came in here killing a bunch of our guys and now we’re gonna bomb israel because that’s what happens when one side breaks a ceasefire.
this all happened in the last couple weeks of the past ceasefire. israel had an option to renegotiate a ceasefire and they declined, no one has to spend much time wondering why because israel had been planning the assault timed for the end of bush’s term and the run up for their own election season for 6 friggin months, during the entire ceasefire. they obviously broke the ceasefire to provoke a response to then claim their pre planned massacre was some kind of ‘response’ to hamas. it wasn’t a response, it was a full on massacre.
“That was a description of the Israeli military options. In response to a militia shelling your civilians, escalating and escalating, to do nothing is appeasement.”
That was a also a lie Witty, because you know very well that Israel were not “responding” to shelling but initiated it.
Here are more than half a dozen reports revealing that Israel broke the truce, not Hamas.
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&shva=1#inbox/12b058504ec8e43b
You’ve been repeatedly infomed about this fact countless times but refuse to accept it.
So yes, you were lying then and youre lying now.
Renewing the ceasefire and lifting the siege weren’t options in Wittyworld, then? Political options – such as adhering to promises made – weren’t options the Israeli government (in control of all decisions – civil & military) could take? Poor ickle Israel – the Pals make ‘em do it every time.
Relaxing the siege should have been an option to Israel, as I stated.
Once the shelling of civilians started and escalated to larger towns 20 miles from Gaza, Hamas initiated war, not a skirmish.
I get that you don’t want to take that in, that Hamas contributed or even insisted on the harms to Gazan civilians, but it is a truth.
Relaxing the siege should was an option. Israel ignored it in favor of puniching Gazans.
Sticking to the ceasefire was also an option that Israel ignored. Israel initiated the war, especially when after rejecting Hamas’ proposal to return to the ceasefire. Israel had killed 6, Hamas none, yet Hamas proposed a return to calm.
Israel wanted war and initiated it.
“I get that you don’t want to take that in, that Hamas contributed or even insisted on the harms to Gazan civilians, but it is a truth.”
No it’s not the truth, and you have no evidence to support it Witty.
You’ve been presented the truth and ignored it countless times. You can’t even bring yourself to discuss the breaking of the truce by Israel.
That’s pretty handy, Israel being able to enter Gazan territory and kill people and that’s not an act of war. Or maintaining a siege, that’s not an act of war. Unless Israel is the victim.
Why do they let you lie-spam Mondoweiss, again? Seriously, 50% of the posts on this blog are now having to clean up after you every time you posit your prevarications. And this is what moderation is like?
Thanks for the tip, Annie. I knew that once, but forgot.
Richard–
“That was a description of the Israeli military options. In response to a militia shelling your civilians, escalating and escalating, to do nothing is appeasement. ”
I see. Only Israel is allowed to inflict violence and Israel should always be the last one to fire, otherwise it is “appeasement”. If saving lives meant anything to you (I mean, aside from Israeli lives), you wouldn’t dismiss a renewal of the ceasefire. It’s clear from what you say in this thread that you think Israel was right to kill Palestinians rather than take Hamas up on its offer.
Richard, you’ve often refused to admit any right of return for the Palestinian refugees, which is logically the same thing as approval of the ethnic cleansing of 1948, and it follows that you approve the massacres and terror that accompanied it which you routinely dismiss as propagandist.
Zionism is and always has been a movement to colonize someone else’s land and seize it from them. Throughout Zionist writing is the idea that the “right” of Jews to have a state means that they can use murder and theft to get one as well as less violent means such forcing non-Jews into poverty within the boundaries of the Jewish state, confiscating land and property, denying non-Jews permits to build homes or businesses and so forth, so that they’ll leave. Or as you’ve put it, you want what’s best for Palestinians which is to thrive anywhere but in the Jewish state.
There’s a difference between supporting the right for Jews to have a state and supporting the “right” for Jews to rob Palestinians at gunpoint of their land and worldly goods in order to establish a Jewish state. Robbing at gunpoint is the Zionism as actually practiced, the other one is theoretic, divorced from reality and generally used only for propaganda, for presenting Zionism as something benign and for accusing its critics as being anti-semitic.
Lyn,
You are either ignorant or lying about my proposal for right of return.
“There’s a difference between supporting the right for Jews to have a state and supporting the “right” for Jews to rob Palestinians at gunpoint of their land and worldly goods in order to establish a Jewish state.”
I agree with that statement.
My advocacy for Zionism is “enough Zionism”, enough to be a genuinely self-governing Jewish state (as France is a French state, not precluding equal due process under the law). But, not enough that is a gamble. Enough that is confident.
If the effort is taken to make the confidence in the security for Israeli civilians strong, then the argument within Israel that “we need ….” is vapid, and rejected.
To the extent that solidarity seeks punishment of Israel, justifies murder of civilian settlers, advocates for the political dissolution of Israel, then those movements comprise an enemy of Israel, a warring, rather than a force seeking justice (which is by definition mutual if it is real justice).
Again, it is a bad precedent. It is a status of relations in which anything goes, in which murderers rule (rather than moralists).
No Witty,
It is you that is lying and conflating. Your proposal for right of return is deliberately intendde to be unworkable and unsatisfactory, so as to ensure it fails.
And like your rejection of BDS, you conflate right of return by creating a straw man as to what ROR means, and then rehect it on that basis.
For example:
“To the extent that solidarity seeks punishment of Israel, justifies murder of civilian settlers, advocates for the political dissolution of Israel, then those movements comprise an enemy of Israel, a warring, rather than a force seeking justice (which is by definition mutual if it is real justice).”
There is no solidarity movement that seeks punishment of Israel, justifies murder of civilian settlers, advocates for the political dissolution of Israel, but you lie by pretending that there is.
Of course, you will never even try to provide evidence to back up your straw man.
You advocate “enough Zionism” to be a genuinely self-governing Jewish state, fine. Noting that mass murder and terror, pointing guns at people and forcing them from their homes and land, and robbing Palestinians of their land and property were necessary to establish such as state, that means you advocate mass murder and terror of innocent people. People who weren’t even illegal settlers, but villagers and townspeople whose ancestors had lived in the land for 1000s o years.
As for your proposal regarding the right of return for the refugees from such mass terror, last I heard you thought it just might be OK for the elderly, those who were actually born in what’s now Israel, to return and die without their children or grandchildren around them, since that would not present the threat of making the state less Jewish.
“to be a … Jewish state (as France is a French state,”
But being French is not a religious ethnicity. It is a nationality based on citizenship.
Exactly, RoHa. Israel is an ethnocracy, while France is a democracy. What makes Israel an ethnocracy is the state ideology of Zionism. RW may advocate “enough” ethnocracy, but then any comparison to a democracy like France would necessarily be false.
“There is no solidarity movement that seeks punishment of Israel, justifies murder of civilian settlers, advocates for the political dissolution of Israel, but you lie by pretending that there is.”
None?
If forced removal was not reciprocal in 47-48, you would have a good point. If I knew that at the time, I would state that “maybe we should find an alternative”.
Once established, once 6 million Jews live there (NOW), that time is passed. The present (and 63 year history) for one that advocates for self-determination, is one of a Jewish state, Zionism, that is simultaneously fully democratic.
There is NO just way to repatriate in the present, the generations of Lebanese, Syrian and Gazan refugees into Israel without civil war.
In the context of a confident and permanent peace, Israel should repatriate certainly those that directly were not permitted to return. Maybe their children. But, NOT on the maximalist national logic.
Its not justice, its only rage pretending to be justice. Justice affirms the rights of all parties, not just the demands of a single party.
My advocacy for Zionism is “enough Zionism”, enough to be a genuinely self-governing Jewish state (as France is a French state, not precluding equal due process under the law). But, not enough that is a gamble. Enough that is confident.
what do you mean by gamble witty. certainly not like france:
as France is a French state??? surely you jest. the ‘confidence’ you speak of is illegal in france. 1/2 the population israel rules over have no rights. not like france at all.
Does Witty think that the current President of France is French, or does he regard him as a Hungarian Jew?
Interesting, though, that Witty chooses France for his comparisons, and not Australia or the U.S.A.
Could it be because in those countries, despite their obvious faults and flaws, the official attitude is to try to give equal rights to ethnic minorities, and to equate nationality and citizenship?
“Could it be because in those countries, despite their obvious faults and flaws, the official attitude is to try to give equal rights to ethnic minorities, and to equate nationality and citizenship?”
Indeed Roha, and because none fo those countries is an apartheid state that offers ROR to people who have never been born in those countries or ever visited in favor fo those who have.
“If forced removal was not reciprocal in 47-48, you would have a good point. If I knew that at the time, I would state that “maybe we should find an alternative”.”
Reciprocal Witty? How many hundred of thousands of Jews weer driven from their homes?
“The present (and 63 year history) for one that advocates for self-determination, is one of a Jewish state, Zionism, that is simultaneously fully democratic.”
False. In a state that is 20% non Jewish, it is eitehr democrtic or Jewish, but not both.
“There is NO just way to repatriate in the present, the generations of Lebanese, Syrian and Gazan refugees into Israel without civil war.”
In other words, you admit that Israel is not a democracy or a land of laws.
You’re making progress.
“repatriate certainly those that directly were not permitted to return. Maybe their children. But, NOT on the maximalist national logic.”
There is no maximalist national logic.
Does Witty think that the current President of France is French, or does he regard him as a Hungarian Jew?
You mean a French (mostly secular) Catholic, of Hungarian, French, Greek, Spanish, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish ancestry.
Were Israel “Jewish like France is French”, the word Jewish and French would be interchangeable, n’est-ce pas? How does a “Jewish (mostly secular) Catholic, of Hungarian, Jewish, Greek, Spanish, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish ancestry” sound? No need to go into the question of whether such a redundant (and possibly oxymoronic) person could ever become president/pm of a state that has just “enough Zionism” to make Witty happy.
France was far far far more colonial in its history than Israel has been.
France was far far far more colonial in its history than Israel has been.
To the best of my knowledge, France has never colonised Hungary, Greece or Spain. The problem lies not in France’s past but in Israel’s present (and foreseeable future). Political Zionism of any and all stripes makes Israel a Jewish ethnocracy, precluding affording any significant power to those who are not members of the “charter” ethno-religious group” (such as a hypothetical Israeli Sarkozy).
France has no such charter ethnic group, only civil-secular nationality. A French national can be of any ethnicity or religion and enjoy the same rights (de jure, at the very least) as a Catholic descendent of the great Asterix himself. There is no such thing as civil-secular “Jewish nationality” (ask the Israeli Supreme Court and the Knesset). So please stop repeating the complete nonsense that Israel is or can be “Jewish like France is French”. It is dishonest nonsense.
Ethnocracies do exists. Let us define the term as a state in which the dominant ethnic group is under 80% and which has policies that bolster the dominant group at the expense of minorities, lest the ethnic character of the state is compromised.
One could consider Latvia, Slovakia and Turkey. In the first two example, the case that Israel goes an extra mile is easy to make, so let us concentrate on Turkey. Turkey does not have policies restricting Kurds on personal level of the kind that Israel does: stripping residency rights, manipulating property rights and permits, prohibition of intermarriage. Then there are cultural rights where Turkey is bad, but (1) is making progress, (2) to the degree that the progress is insufficient, they are regularly criticised — no fabled double standard.
In fact, what was striking to me when I tried to Google facts for the comparison, is the following scene: a female minority deputy in the national parliaments making a brief speech causing a pandemonium among the deputies of the dominant ethnic group, who shout her down and demand to expel her from the parliament. Several years ago a deputy was expelled from Turkish parliament in this exact situation. She said part of her speech in Kurdish, which is today legal, and had some warm words about Ocalan, which is still illegal.
What I am trying to say is that ethnocracies are “imperfect democracies”, and that Israel and Turkey are moving in the opposite directions. The most amazing are attempts to remake Israel in the image of Iran.
“France was far far far more colonial in its history than Israel has been.”
Wonderful non-sequitur!
Just what is needed to avoid admitting the total incoherence of your position.
>> France was far far far more colonial in its history than Israel has been.
If you think in the past, you are not progressive. France WAS more colonial; Israel IS and CONTINUES TO BE colonial. Glossing over the realities does not make them less real.
Israel’s ON-GOING occupation, oppression, land theft and destruction of property, lives and livelihoods cannot be explained or excused by its (twisted) concept of “self-determination” or by its desire for security.
Piotr,
Ethnocracies do exist. Some are better and some are worse, some are getting better and some are getting worse. As to whether they can be classified as “imperfect democracies” is a matter of debate. Oren Yiftachel (cited above) sees a fundamental difference between democracies and ethnocracies. The thing about Israel however is that it is not treated as an ethnocracy – like Turkey, Serbia or Slovakia – and does not suffer international pressure or pay the costs of its structural discrimination (again, see Yiftachel). Calling Israel an ethnocracy is not meant to imply that it is sui generis, but to put Israel in the correct category – a matter of no little consequence in terms of Western, and especially US support for its system and its actions.
The United States is no longer colonial, but is frequently described so.
The word is almost solely just a pejorative.
The condemnation of the concept of “enough Zionism” is indication of the advocacy for “no Zionism”, no Israel.
It is not innaccurate to regard that as attack, constant, seeking the death of the association.
The criticisms raised are opposition to a theocracy, but Israel is not a theocracy, there are only opportunistic minority religious parties. Iran is an actual theocracy (but not condemned here).
Many states have religious oriented parties that exert opportunistic and irrational influence. I regard political ideology as a form of religion and certainly the adherence to political religion is very evident in discussion here.
The second is that Israel is an ethnocracy. Israel is in the middle of the range of ethnocracies in the world. All of Israel’s immediate neighbors are ethnocratic national states.
There are few assertively non-ethnocratic democracies, and they live in great tension. For example, in the US, there are many, some that post here, that think in terms of privileging “native Americans” (and they mean white, of British – not Irish – descent).
“Give me your tired, your poor…” is an immigrant centered democracy.
Israel is in the middle of the range of ethnocracies in the world.
So Israel is not Jewish and democratic like France is French and democratic, but Jewish and ethnocratic like say Latvia is Latvian and ethnocratic.
Just out of curiosity, which countries did you have in mind when you said that “All of Israel’s immediate neighbors are ethnocratic national states”, and would you consider them good models for Israel (e.g. Israel is Jewish and ethnocratic like Syria is Alawite and ethnocratic – not necessarily the case, just an example for the sake of argument)?
There are a number of definitions of the term ethnocracy, but here’s Oren Yiftachel’s again:
RW
You “regard political ideology as a form of religion”, so when Zionist Israel is criticized for its structural discrimination against non-Jews you can cry “persecution! antisemitism!” on that basis.
I include dogmatic approaches as comparable theocracies.
There are multiple forms of anti-semitism.
1. Persecution or prejudice against Jews on the basis of their birth or name. “I hate Jews”
2. Persecution or prejudice against Jews on the basis of their customs, isolation, family relationships, religious practises in their communities. “I hate that Jews live as Jews”.
3. Condemnation of Jews self-governing as Jews. Its an extension of 2, the idea that Jews are fine in their place. That is the logic of sharia, that Jews are religion or a community and are welcome so long as they don’t constitute a majority and “take over”.
It is a form of anti-semitism. Criticism of Israeli policies is not anti-semitism. The line between criticism and demonization is grey.
Israel is more similar to France demographically than to Latvia. Israel actually has more diversity among its citizens than France.
Ethnicity is formed by identity, by the desire to self-associate as a distinct community.
I don’t believe that one is right and the other is wrong. They are both right, the desire to live as a cosmopolitan and the desire to live in a national entity.
Its really up to the peoples themselves to determine how they self-identify.
And, its up to the ability of persuasion to shift people from an identity that emphasizes ethnicity or culture or tribe to an identity that emphasizes political ideology, to an identity that emphasizes cosmopolitan civil values.
In Israel there are parties by each of those definitions: ethnic and cultural, political ideology, and cosmopolitan. Every party has some elements of all three.
Persuasion is the issue of the day. External force is just external force.
External definitions of law are relevant to moderate behaviors. But, external force to artificially change their identity is just external force.
I agree that the isolation of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza is the opposite of self-determination.
But, that is enforced by both Israel and their Arab neighbors, and others. Egypt is not inviting Palestinians from Gaza to migrate to Egypt. Lebanon is not enfranchising its three generations of “refugees”. Syria is not (noone is enfranchised there).
The condemnation of the concept of “enough Zionism” is indication of the advocacy for “no Zionism”, no Israel.
It is not innaccurate to regard that as attack, constant, seeking the death of the association.
don’t you mean your concept witty? the one you introduced here. why did you put it in quotes? i’ve googled it and this ‘concept’ as you call it is nothing more than another of your orwellian circular posts. i queried you about it here and thus far you have not addressed my question. you say (and i am going to eliminate the quote marks because what’s the point in quoting yourself? )
“My advocacy for Zionism is enough Zionism, enough to be a genuinely self-governing Jewish state….. But, not enough that is a gamble.
so i ask you before what you meant by ‘gamble’ with a reminder that it is illegal in france to collect data on ethnicity and race because your ‘concept’ what predicated on israel being like france (how can a state that aspire to be as ethnocratic as one that is isn’t???). in this new declaration of yours, that anyone condemning your concept of enough zionism is indicative of advocating for no israel, you go even further by declaring this an attack, constant, seeking the death of the association while ignoring the obvious..that we would support an israel that is not ethnocratic. no death of israel.
and the accusation of constant? you introduce a weird concept declaring it is a ‘gamble’ and assert those who don’t agree with you (constantly) are seeking the death of your concept (and israel right, that is what ‘no israel’ means?
i’m not understanding how this is any different than the canard that anti zionism is seeking the destruction of the jewish state. is that what you’re up to. the same ol same ol dressed up in the emperor’s new clothes.
sometimes your posts remind me of a computer generated auto response. just a grab bag of options all leading to the same place with varying weird ways of inserting them into every conversation. worthless rhetoric usually.
Really? Would you like to tell that to Puerto Rico? Iraq? Afghanistan? The Mariana Islands? I believe Okinawa has something to say about that too.
Gosh, I just love getting up on Sunday, toasting a bagel, and reading Mondowitty!
I know, isn’t it sickening, Mooser?
Chaos4700,
on the contrary. It’s fun watching RW make his daily verbal-aerobics. Helps stretch our Zio-rebuff muscles. I enjoy reading your intelligent responses. He’ll be the minority opinion soon.
He already is the minority opinion. It’s just that now a clear third of the posts that go up are now his. How’s that for moderation?
‘If I knew that at the time, I would state that “maybe we should find an alternative”.’
The Palestinians weren’t leaving voluntarily. What alternative to force would you suggest? More to the point, why is it important to you to get rid of the Palestinians from their original homes and not let them back? How does such a position represent a liberal point of view?
And, when you talk as if the forced removal of a few 1000 people, many of them members of the official Zionist armed forces such as at Gush Etzion, is “reciprocal” to the deliberate, premeditated, forced removal of hundreds of 1000s, mostly innocent civilians, by mass murder and terror, in order to create a firm Jewish majority, do you realize how much you discredit yourself? In any case the government of Jordan had offered to allow those Jews to return as I believe had all the Arab governments in return for Israel taking back all the people it had forced out.
Well finally!
I have taken a lot of flack over the years for saying exactly what Levy is saying now. Those of us on the outside looking in have always seen zionism for what it is.
There has been so much myth and propaganda built into zionism and imprinted on the Jews …….it’s tangled web that I am not sure they can ever unwind.
The history of the Jews reminds me of a light bulb going on and off and on and off…gaining and losing over and over. I am not expert enough to say why this occurs thruout history but somewhere along the later lines the notion of being a “distinct ethnic people” , which is ridiculous on it’s face, instead of a religion of Arab, Asian, African, European and etc., etc. Jews, went totally haywire and coalesced into that ‘people apart” and ‘nation within a nation” structure. And that, no matter how or why it came about, has been the main problem of and for the Jews.
Whether this structure goes on forever and Jews stay ‘seperate’ or whether they eventually come to accept themselves as simply followers of a religion instead of ‘their own nation’ whose culture, however created, over the centuries has set them away from others, who can say.
But I remain convinced zionism and Israel is a negative for both Jews and the world.
Think how much simpler (and safer for Jews also) it would have been if they had just assimilated back into the countries they originated from.
With half the world’s Jews not even living in Israel and with Israel’s constant claims of ‘insecurity’ and ‘terrorism’ and ‘existential threats’, common sense tells one that the creation of Israel was one of the most pointless, absurd things the world ever ever went along with.
It’s just been a frigging disaster.
“common sense tells one that the creation of Israel was one of the most pointless, absurd things the world ever ever went along with.
It’s just been a frigging disaster.”
I agree. Also the word mistake comes up often….
Before 1950 there were several Nakba like population transfers, Germans from Poland and Bohemia, Poles from Ukraine, Ukrainians from Poland, Muslim and Hindus in Indian partition. But afterwards there were very few and relatively small, and none was recognized by “international community”.
Poland will never agree on any kind of German “right of return”. I am not sure how is it in Czech republic: some aristocrats with non-Czech names like Lichtenstein got their castles back.
Putting genies back into their bottles, like Jews back to the countries they came from (some, like Iraq of Yemen, quite unsafe) requires a master magician.
So democracy and human rights do not imply righting all historical wrongs, in part because they form a Gordian knot.
The problem with Zionism was quite well described by Yoram Hazony: there was a paradigm shift. Purely tribal ideologies and states belong to 19 century and now they should vanish from the pages of history — perhaps by changing. Interestingly, Hazony proposes a Zionist solution: undo the anti-tribal paradigm shift (preferably, by giving him a grant to write more books). But to paraphrase Trotsky, can Tribal Paradigm survive in a single country?
The problem with Zionism was quite well described by Yoram Hazony: there was a paradigm shift.
I find it hard to believe that anything has been well-described by Hazony. In any event, following his logic, the problems (for some) raised by Jewish emancipation (or universal suffrage, or abolition) are merely the result of a paradigm shift. A racist (or sexist or colonialist) solution would be to undo the anti-inequality paradigm shift.
I for one don’t quite understand what Levy is saying here, nor, in the final analysis, what he believes in. Take, for example, his marquee line that Phil led with:
“‘Zionism’ in its present meaning, in its common meaning, is contradictory to human rights, to equality, to democracy.”
The problem however is I don’t think Levy has really seen through to some solution to the situation by qualifying Zionism to mean “in its present or common meaning,” nor with his subsequent talk about how he’s a Zionist but only if it means certain things.
(A) He says he’s a Zionist “[i]f Zionism means the right of the Jews to have a state.”
(B) He then says “[i]f Zionism means to have a Jewish state at the expense of being a democratic state, then I am anti-Zionist…,” and it’s here that I think is the problem. Both practically and even theoretically I don’t see how you can support the jews “having a state” but then also have that state being truly democratic. And indeed Levy himself admits the problem by saying “I truly believe those two definitions are contradictory – ‘Jewish’ and ‘democratic’”.
(C) So it’s not just that Zionism in its present *or* common meaning that contradicts democracy, it contradicts it in what can seem *any* meaningful sense. So Levy hasn’t and can’t square that circle. Thus, is he a Zionist, or a democrat? I dunno.
I suspect he’s a Zionist, as I am. On the other hand it worries me that I suspect he’s a Zionist for different reasons than me. “Tribal/ethnic”-type reasons rather than more moral/practical ones. And as regards such “tribal/ethnic” Zionists my problem is that they seem to feel they that jews are the only people on the planet entitled to their own state, and that it’s the height of evil for any other people or states to similarly exclude or discriminate in favor of anyone.
Don’t think that circle can be squared either. Makes me question Zionism for any reason.
Oh, but you’re a “moral/pratical” Zionist? Sure, okay.
Great interview, Gideon is a shining light in a country being overtaken by fascists and right wing zealots. As he says himself, his is an increasingly lone voice amongst the barbarians. Can you imagine the NYT printing his columns, and how healthy that would be for democracy? Funny that is so unthinkable (and that’s not to Israel’s credit).
While the rest of the interview is very illuminating, Levy gets something very wrong. He calls Zionism a “fluid concept.” While it is difficult (not impossible) to define Zionism to a consensus, there is little evidence to substantiate the claim that Zionism has been dynamic or changing. In fact, the very failure of Zionism and its rapid decline in popularity may very well be attributed to the elements in it that have absolutely resisted adaption or moderation. Instead, we see that with the remarkable success of Israel in achieving its aim of Palestinian land conquest and removal of Arabs for the establishment of a Jewish state, Zionism has seen little need to reform, and instead it has flourished. Where Holocaust survivors used “self-determination” as a rationale to establish Israel, the settlers today similarly use the excuse in their Greater Israel project, that continues unrestricted to this day. This very same militant Zionist movement that has parallels to the initial establishment of Israel is today operating in the occupied Palestinian territories and freely engaging in racism and raw colonialism.
The shift towards an Israel that does not consistently violate human rights, democracy or equality will be through the transformation of Zionism into a movement that is universal in nature, and not (as Jeff Halper correctly identifies as the crucially offensive core of Zionism) as inherently exclusive. Unless that element of exclusivity is removed or adapted to modern humanistic values, a 1S or even 2S solution is a fleeting imagination when Zionism lacks the basic tenet of co-existence, preferring instead colonial domination with American provided impunity.
>> He calls Zionism a “fluid concept.”
Perhaps he means to say that Zionism is the murky river of self-determination against whose relentless current the tugboat of Palestinian aspirations is straining as it desperately attempts to reach the shore of liberation.
But doesn’t the tugboat have to pull the rafts around the obelisk in the river?
Damn, I forgot the obelisk! :-\ ;-)
Hard to forget. He is large, not too bright, and very strong. (He fell into the cauldron of magic potion when he was a baby.)
And of course, he is French enough to make France a French state.
sherbrsi, while the concept of zionism may be somewhat fluid the direction and actions have thus far always been fixed and uncompromising.
I think Levy is very similar to the posters here that see something that they regard as wrong and describe it.
I don’t think that he is all that much of an ideological leader, clarifier in this.
I do appreciate, as I said earlier, that he appears to support the dual identity of Israel as currently Jewish and democratic, emphasizing the democratic.
The confusion occurs when thinking of possible futures. If the demographics change, what happens then? If Palestinian or world politics drifts further anti-Zionist than it is now even, even at 67 borders, what happens then?
Do we “cross that bridge when we come to it?” or do we “target a peace now so that that bridge is two generations hence, a Jewish majority for at least 50 years?” or do we “structure a Constitution and agreement, so the Jewishness of the state is permanent?”
The insecurity of Israelis in light of the continual and near universal condemnations of existence, and of defensive and offensive military actions alike, is reasonable.
Levy embodies both the hope and faith in democracy and the insecurity.
>> The insecurity of Israelis in light of the continual and near universal condemnations of existence, and of defensive and offensive military actions alike, is reasonable.
It’s truly astounding how your bias enables you to gloss over the tangible causes for Israel’s “near universal condemnation”, namely, the fact that Israel has spilled over both its 1948 borders and its 1967 borders (Lebensraum, anyone?) and that it continues to steal and occupy land, to build and expand settlements, to wantonly destroy homes, fields, lives and livelihoods and to seize control of natural resources.
Cause is relevant, if remedy follows.
You’ve stayed vague Eljay on whether you are a Zionist as Levy is, or oppose Zionism entirely and in all conditions.
If peace were permanently confident (I know that nothing is permanent), then the question would not be a question. It would be simple to distinguish between those Israelis that seek expansion to a greater Israel and those that seek “enough Israel”.
Its not confident.
I oppose the settlement effort. Its a policy, a practice, something worthy of criticism. The trace of title transfer is the way to combat it per law. The invocations of “international law” have some merit, but ultimately are vague and not yet confirmed by court appeal.
But, I don’t hate the settlers. I don’t regard them as combatants, as fair game.
Which is the rock? Is law the rock that your views yeild to? Is irritation? Is some other political principle?
>> Cause is relevant, if remedy follows.
But in order for remedy to follow, cause must be addressed. And you – and Israel – don’t wish to see actual cause addressed. You prefer to “relegate the past to the past” because resolving past wrongs “fixes nothing”. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. Well, more precisely, that’s not how it should work.
>> You’ve stayed vague Eljay on whether you are a Zionist as Levy is, or oppose Zionism entirely and in all conditions.
If you want an answer, all you need to do is ask. :-)
“If peace were permanently confident (I know that nothing is permanent), then the question would not be a question. ”
Please take a crash course in the English language Witty. Peace (which is a state of calm) cannot be confident.
“I oppose the settlement effort. Its a policy, a practice, something worthy of criticism.”
Yes Witty, you oppose the settlement effort to the extent that it is worthy of criticism – that’s all. How noble of you.
“The invocations of “international law” have some merit, but ultimately are vague and not yet confirmed by court appeal.”
Earlier this week you were using international law (without quotes) to condemn the attacks on civilians, but you’ve since returned to the quoted version and re asserting that it’s “vague” now that you’re applying it to Israel.
“But, I don’t hate the settlers. I don’t regard them as combatants, as fair game.”
Of course you don’t hate the settlers, because deep down you duport what they are doing.
Do you regard Rachel Corrie as fair game? Do you blame Israel for making them fair game the way you blame Hamas for making Gazans fair game?
Peace is not “a state of calm”.
Its a state of mutual acceptance.
Do you offer it?
If, as you say, peace is a state of mutual acceptance, do you offer it, Witty?
Levy’s position as a Zionist does seem to offer it where he suggests a democratic OS, allowing for an Arab majority scenario. I agree that this is a bit vague: the point where there would be an Arab majority is predictable, and raises the question how Jewish that state would/could be at that point. Would the Arab majority respect the rights of a Jewish minority any more than the Jewish majority does now with respect to Israeli Arabs, not to mention Palestinians? Would an Arab majority continue to grant citizenship to Diaspora Jews, or would they be excluded from automatic citizenship, as the non-Israeli Palestinians are now?
You probably don’t even have to be a Zionist in the sense of insisting on a Jewish majority state to be plausibly afraid of a future state in which a Jewish minority fares no better than the Arab minority does in Israel past and present. There is plenty of motive for revenge to scare Jewish Israelis as well as Diaspora Jews. There is arguably not much mutual trust or good will available at present.
The OSS as suggested by Levy sounds fair enough, but it would not be the first time that the Israeli Right subverts suggestions of the Israeli Left. See Avnery on the security wall and the OSS:
link to zope.gush-shalom.org
As was pointed out above, Europe was as ‘tough’ a neighborhood as the ME prior to and at the end of WW II. Surely, if the Europeans managed to maintain peace after 45, it must also be possible in the ME?
So how did Europe, in the 17th or the 20th century, move from decades of horrific religious and national strife to peace?
In either period, Europe was devastated by and sick of war, realizing that there was no military solution to its problems. Do we need the big war shaping up on the horizon for the ME to come to that conclusion? I hope not.
And yes, international law and treaties did play a significant role, be it the Peace of Westphalia, the Geneva Convention, or the EG/EU. That also meant: restrictions regarding sovereignty and self-determination.
Zionism, at least in historical practice, if not in theory, was and is an anachronism by adhering to the old principle of head-through-the-wall and ‘might makes right’. Israel abuses the universally recognized victim-status of the Jews in WW II to extend a state of impunity beyond what an increasing number of people consider reasonable and just. This impunity, not a Jewish homeland or state, is what has to go, without transferring the same impunity to the victims of Israel’s colonial project, the Palestinians.
I think there is a good point to the two reasons for Zionism:
1. Haven from persecution
2. Self-determination for the Jewish people
Impunity in harrassment should be criticized harshly. Effective defense should be respected and supported by progressives.
Democracy is in the present. Democracy in 2010 is not referenced by democracy in 1948. If you are a progressive, you think in the present.
And, democracy is not in the fantasy future of what the world would look like with the magical single state, in a “world without Zionism”.
If you wish support a democracy that is non-Zionist, the only legal way to do that if you are an Israeli is to encourage the development of a civilist party. THAT is the path to both a peaceful two-state solution and a peaceful single state.
BDS from outside, agitation, light violent demonstration, intense violent terror, war, are not just, nor kind, nor progressive.
>> If you are a progressive, you think in the present.
Yes, in the present, and not in the post-WWII “haven from persecution” past.
>> RW: BDS from outside, agitation, light violent demonstration, intense violent terror, war, are not just, nor kind, nor progressive.
Occuption, oppression, land theft, destruction of property, lives and livelihoods are not just, nor kind, nor progressive.
Were Israel to remove these from the equation, not only would it likely realize a significant decrease in re/actions against it, but it would also have a more just and moral footing for its claims of self-defence.
As it currently stands, the whole aggressor-victim thing (which, as I’ve stated before, must be very hard work!) is a joke.
Here we go again. Ignore it in the way you usually do.
If the “right of self-determination” means the right of a group to set up a state in a particular territory, that right is only a right of the residents of that territory, and not of any others. Jews as a group are not residents of a single territory, so the right cannot be applied to Jews as a whole.
Also, claiming such a right for Jews leads to bizarre consequences. If Australian citizens have the right of self-determination, and exercise it to maintain the Commonwealth of Australia, then Australian Jews will have that right. But Australian Jews, born in Australia, and holding no other citizenship, will also have the right of self-determination as Jews. Yet other Australians will not have an extra right of self-determination.
“Haven from persecution”
Poor, persecuted, Sir Isaac Isaacs. He suffered the fate of being Governor General of Australia between 1931 and 1936. Sir Zelman Cowan suffered the same fate from 1977 to 1982. Even more tragic is the case of Sir Matthew Nathan, who was Governor of Queensland in 1922–26.
. Self-determination for the Jewish people
You use the word self-determination a lot Witty, without defining its rationale and acceptable forms. The Nazis also had a policy of “self-determination.” They called it lebensraum.
Does your “self-determination for the Jewish people” include the Greater Israel movement as pushed by militant Zionists and the IDF? If yes, then Zionists cannot claim any more legitimate “self-determination” than that of Nazi Germany’s militarist expansionism.
If your definition of self-determination, however, discourages militarism, force and crimes against humanity, then you may have a case.
“If your definition of self-determination, however, discourages militarism, force and crimes against humanity, then you may have a case.”
There would be no Zionist definition of self-determination withnout militarism, force and crimes against humanity.
“Occuption, oppression, land theft, destruction of property, lives and livelihoods are not just, nor kind, nor progressive.”
Peace that includes the ending of those is the only way to accomplish it.
BDS for example does not. Violent resistance does not.
“Does your “self-determination for the Jewish people” include the Greater Israel movement”
NO. That is the distinction between “enough Zionism” and greater Israel.
You can’t see that? Why after so many clarifications?
“That is the distinction between “enough Zionism” and greater Israel.”
Enough Zionism is your own creation and doesn’t exist.
“BDS for example does not. Violent resistance does not.”
One day you say you suport BDS, the next you oppose it.
Is this a cry for help Witty?
>> eljay: “Occuption, oppression, land theft, destruction of property, lives and livelihoods are not just, nor kind, nor progressive.”
>> RW: Peace that includes the ending of those is the only way to accomplish it.
No, it’s not the only way, and to suggest that is an outright lie.
It is fully within Israel’s power to end unilaterally its acts of aggression and expansion (occupation, oppression, land theft and destruction of property, lives and livelihoods). Israel does not need permission from anyone to do any of these things.
Once Israel has halted its aggression and expansion, and returned to (at a minimum) the ’67 borders, negotiations for a lasting peace based on compromises and concessions can begin in all sincerity.
Until then, no matter how one attempts to gloss it over, the thief and brutalizer continues to be rewarded for his theft and brutality.
“If you are a progressive, you think in the present.”
In which case, the need for a haven from persecution is not necessary, seeing as it ended in 1945.
And self-determination for the Jewish people is redundant becasue it is an age old fable.
There is a tension between all nationalism and democracy, and that tension is reconcilable as the majority of states in the world are simultaneously national and democratic.
Palestine is proposed as a national and democratic state (I hope).
The proposed single state is proposed as a national and democratic state, similar to the US, hopefully not similar to Lebanon.
Again and again, the way to achieve democracy in a state is to establish civilist political parties, “law” parties, “democratic” parties.
There are only incidental non-nationalist parties in both Israel and Palestine currently.
When for example, Omar Barghouti develops a genuinely non-nationalist party in the West Bank, then the single-state approach will achieve a critical qualitative shift.
Similarly for Avram Burg.
The parties can distinguish themselves, and without alienating the nationalist parties, if they are clear in their fundamental principles, and creative and effective in their policy formation.
It would be doing something, rather than only dissenting. The development of institutions is how Zionism succeeded. The militant stuff is really incidental, important events but occurring at moments, not over years and years.
Is that what happened in Israel, Witty? Do tell.
NO. That is the distinction between “enough Zionism” and greater Israel.
So the distinction between militant settler Zionism and “enough Zionism” is that the settler Zionism push for a Greater Israel, while the “enough Zionism” advocates are satisfied with smaller boundaries.
Thank you for establishing that there is no fundamental difference in the activities of the “enough Zionists” and the “Greater Israel” Zionists, when it comes to the policies and perceived necessity of ethnic cleansing, racial privileges and rampant colonization, but they instead only differ in the extent (that is, political boundaries) of which to apply their commonly shared Zionist doctrine.
It is not possible for there to be ‘a state of the Xian people (collectively)’ which is not a state where non-Xians do not fully belong. If the non-Xians are nevertheless present in numbers large enough to cause a problem, their fate has to be expulsion, seclusion, occupation or at least some kind of more or less humiliating second-class status. At this rate I can’t see a way for Zionism to be liberalised without being abandoned.
Exactly. This is why it is morally wrong for Israeli Jews to declare even just the Israel of 1948-67 to be a Jewish State.
And Witty is wrong (as usual) in appealing to his talismanic “right of self-determination” here. There cannot be a right to take a course of action which is morally wrong.
The literally only reason that you cannot see how a national state (Jewish in this case) cannot be simultaneously national and democratic, is your failure of imagination.
As the majority of states in the world are national and democratic simultaneously, to not be able to imagine that is an oddity.
The present is where democracy lies. What was is literally now past.
If you describe self-determination for the Jewish people (a nation) as morally wrong, then you are expressing the opposite of democracy.
An example of an exception to your “logic” is Ireland. There are more Irish in the US than in Ireland. Ireland is still Irish and democratic.
For what its worth, there are less non-Irish in Ireland than there non-Jews in Israel.
“The literally only reason that you cannot see how a national state (Jewish in this case) cannot be simultaneously national and democratic, is your failure of imagination.”
Cotrrect Witty and that would be because the existance of a state that is Jewish and democratic exists only in your imagination.
“As the majority of states in the world are national and democratic simultaneously, to not be able to imagine that is an oddity.”
Yes they are national and democratic simultaneously, they are not ethnocentric and democratic simultaneously.
“If you describe self-determination for the Jewish people (a nation) as morally wrong, then you are expressing the opposite of democracy.”
Self-determination for the Jewish people at teh expense of the human rights of another popualtion is the opposite of democracy.
“There are more Irish in the US than in Ireland. Ireland is still Irish and democratic.”
The Irish didn’t create Ireland in eh middle of another society Witty. Your anlogy fails, as all your analogies do.
”For what its worth, there are less non-Irish in Ireland than there non-Jews in Israel.”
again your analogy fails miserbaly. The correcto analogy woudl be non-Irish in Irelan vs non-Israelis in Israel, but it’s hardly surprising that you wouldn’t consider the Arab population to be legitmate.
Anyone who can show that at least one of his parents or grandparents was born in Ireland (for this purpose, including Northern Ireland, and also including the time before the independence of the Irish state) has the right to an Irish passport and Irish citizenship. That includes Protestants (and other religions) as well as Catholics, persons of Anglo-Irish descent as much as persons of Gaelic, Old English, or Norman descent.
The fact that so many Protestants have chosen to leave Ireland (usually for Britain) is by their own choice. They didn’t wish to live in a country dominated by Catholics, and found the idea of living in a country where they were no longer the ascendancy distasteful. But they had the legal right to stay, and they and their children and grandchildren still have the legal right to go back.
“Anyone who can show that at least one of his parents or grandparents was born in Ireland ”
In the context of a confident peace agreement that would not be an irrational definition for right of return.
You mean like your Massechusetts-born white son getting a little slice of the Middle East because of his “Jewish self-determination?”
I haven’t said that “self-determination for the Jewish people” is morally wrong.
I have clearly shown why the concept of “self-determination” (as a right to form a state) does not apply to the Jewish people. I have also shown that trying to apply the concept to Jews in general leads to absurd implications.
“There are more Irish in the US than in Ireland. Ireland is still Irish and democratic. ”
If you are talking about Americans of Irish ancestry, I, of course, say they are Americans, not Irish. And they certainly do not have any right of self-determination over Ireland. Only Irish citizens have that right.
It just dawned on me that when RW says “Jewish and democratic” (or French or Irish), he’s talking about demographics, not political systems – i.e. there is no reason a country with a dominant ethnic group cannot be a democracy. He would also appear to have understood the word “ethnocracy” in a similar vein (a state with a dominant ethnic group), which is why he has no problem admitting that Israel is an ethnocracy (albeit a “middle of the range” one), insists that all of Israel’s neighbours are ethnocracies and that there are in fact “few non-ethnocratic democracies”, and somehow thinks that a “colonial past” is relevant to this discussion.
The term ethnocracy means government by an ethnos (see Yiftachel, Smooha and others), as opposed to government by the people (demos). It is not just a pejorative for a state in which there is a dominant “national identity”. There are ethnocracies, ethnic democracies and democracies (of various kinds). These terms are about systems and structures, not culture or identity.
An “ethnocractic democracy” (the hint is in the -cratic/-cracy part) is thus an oxymoron – if government is by a given ethnos, it is not by the people. You cannot have both. In an “ethnic democracy” government is by the people, although certain structures (note: not the simple fact of majority) afford dominance to a particular ethnic group (hint: not a good thing). Yiftachel believes that Israel is an ethnocracy, while Sammy Smooha considers Israel an ethnic democracy (Yiftachel is by far the more convincing, IMHO). No one has ever characterised France as either an ethnocracy or an ethnic democracy. It is a democracy, with a dominant national identity. That is all. To the extent that there is ethnic discrimination in France, it is not inherent to the French political system. Discrimination is, however, inherent to the Israeli political system, as determined by the political ideology of Zionism. “Enough Zionism” is thus “enough discrimination”.
It may not be rocket science, but it is political science, with specific terminology and definitions. Please take a minute to try to understand them (links and definitions provided) before using them.
Roha,
I hope you get that the term self-determination is the people themselves defining who they are, not you, not me, not some political norm.
I get that you find it confusing when the term “Jewish” is applied in different meanings, and sometimes opportunistically.
But, Jewish is a self-identification, a people. That Phil, Adam, Joseph Glatzer, Anna Baltzer, myself, Norman Podhoretz, Norman Finkelstein, Joel Kovel, describe themselves as Jewish, they are not talking religious. They are saying “we identify in some respect as Jewish”, even if we may disagree what that entails.
And, like Ireland in which the majority of those that identify themselves as Irish, live in the United States (for six generations now, some more recent, a few longer), it is still a people if the people themselves want it to be.
A family with the name Cohen, that is Lutheran for 8 generations that doesn’t think of itself as Jewish, isn’t. A family with the name Cohen that is religiously Lutheran for one, and thinks of themselves as Jewish, is.
Mel Brooks is a Jew, even though he is no longer Jewish religion.
And, Israel is the haven, the state of the Jewish people (Jewish in the way that Mel Brooks is a Jew, not in the way that he is no longer Jewish religion.)
thank you Shmuel for your precise definitions here. deep gratitude
“A family with the name Cohen that is religiously Lutheran for one, and thinks of themselves as Jewish, is.”
Which debunks your claim that the Jews are a people. It’s simply a religion, though you frquently conflate it with ethnicity.
I don’t see the precision Shmuel.
Israel is constitutionally a democracy. There is equal due process before the law written into its basic laws.
There are those in France, or Palestine or Lebanon that do seek to and do restrict political rights based on ethnicity. That is not the case in Israel. (It is the case in occupied West Bank ruled by Israel military.)
For example, in Lebanon, Palestinians that have been born there for two generations are not permitted to vote. In Lebanon, it is describable as a balanced ethnocracy perhaps by your definition.
In Israel, there is a tension. And that requires people to speak up to restore the balance to full equal due process before the law, including the right of those historically born and resided in Israel to be able to acquire citizenship and vote. (It is also not unusual to require some form of loyalty oath on acquiring citizenship as callous as that sounds. My wife did when she became a US citizen.)
By the definition you sited, I would not regard Israel then as an ethnocracy. (You do know that the term is most often NOT used as precisely as you intended, even by you. It is used as a pejorative, vague.)
The reason that I say that is because there is the legal possibility of those that are so inclined to start non-nationalist moderate democratic or law political parties, or even non-nationalist moderate conservative law parties.
It won’t happen by anger and militancy, but by care and determination.
“That is not the case in Israel. (It is the case in occupied West Bank ruled by Israel military.)”
It certainly is the case that some, many, seek to. It is law in the West Bank and Lebanon though, not just seeking.
“the term self-determination is the people themselves defining who they are”
So when you say “self-determination” you are not claiming any right to form a state. Fine.
(But I don’t quite know what you mean by “who they are”. I would think “what they are” would be better terminology.)
Still, you are claiming the right of people to apply any label they choose to themselves, so that the Pitjantjara tribe could call themselves Welsh if they were as daft as the Americans who pretend to be Irish. (The Pitjantjara aren’t.) I don’t see the point of claiming a right to be damned silly, but I’ll let it pass.
My point is that it is morally wrong for the Jews of Israel to declare Israel to be a Jewish state, for the reasons that MHughes gave.
And your “right to be silly” does not change that.
The reason that I say that is because there is the legal possibility of those that are so inclined to start non-nationalist moderate democratic or law political parties, or even non-nationalist moderate conservative law parties.
There are those in France, or Palestine or Lebanon that do seek to and do restrict political rights based on ethnicity. That is not the case in Israel. (It is the case in occupied West Bank ruled by Israel military.)
1. “Seek” and “do” are not the same. The French political system is not defined by Jean-Marie Le Pen’s druthers, any more than the Israeli system is defined by Avigdor Lieberman’s campaign slogans.
2. a) France – civic democracy (republican liberal)
b) Palestine – get back to me when it is established
c) Lebanon – consociational (confessional) democracy
3. Israel – ethnocracy (Yiftachel) or ethnic democracy (Smooha,
The Model of Ethnic Democracy) – most resembling e.g. Estonia or Slovakia.
4. After 43 years of occupation and extensive attempts by all Israeli governments to incorporate the OT (more specifically the WB) into Israel, without granting civil rights to its non-Jewish inhabitants, the discrimination that occurs there cannot be treated as separate from the Israeli political system, although the degree of ethnic discrimination may differ from that practised within the “green line”. The fact that members of the core ethnic group who reside outside recognised national borders are treated as if they resided within those borders, while those who reside in the same territory but do not belong to the core ethnic group are afforded virtually no civil rights or resources – is both an indication and a product of Israel’s ethnocratic system.
There is no contradiction between Zionism and democracy. As a state with a Jewish majority, it has resolved to implement policies that empower Jews – which after all is what any nationalism does for its people. The anti-Zionists overlook the fact that every Arab state in existence is an ethnocracy defined both by ethnic identification – citizenship and nationality are Arab and religion – virtually all Arabs are Muslim. None of these ethnocratic regimes, unlike Israel – are democratic. So Arab nationalism is legitimate but Jewish nationalism is illegitimate. And the irony is compounded by the fact all the Arab states are even more colonial creations than Israel which at least had a basis in international law that acknowledged a long-standing Jewish right of national self-determination in what eventually became Israel. So Zionism is not really an exception to how the various peoples in the Middle East live; it is organically part of the rule.
Then what is goose for the Arabs is equally gander for the Jews as well.
Israel isn’t a democracy, any more than Nazi Germany was a democracy. You don’t achieve democracy by saying, “I’m going to run out all the people who won’t vote for what I want, with davidkas and machine guns, and then we can vote on it.” That’s not democracy. That’s ethnic cleansing.
So Zionism is not really an exception to how the various peoples in the Middle East live; it is organically part of the rule.
But I thought it was the “only democracy in the ME”? If it is “organically part” of the “undemocratic ME,” then where lays its claim to being “the light among the nations?”
As Turkey becomes increasingly democratic, and Israel increasingly undemocratic, the claim that Israel is the “only democracy in the ME” more and more becomes false, and an insult to Turkey.
By the way, look what Obama said in his telephone call to Erdogan yesterday:
Interesting. And at the same time Israel’s EU integration or affiliation is in the news. A slap into the face for the Turks. So Obama has to chat about Baseball and democracy with Erdogan to balance things out diplomatically, or what?