This afternoon I attended the final session of the Rabbis for Human Rights conference on Judaism and Human Rights, at which my beloved rabbi, Ellen Lippmann, was on a panel with Peter Beinart. It was a bit surreal going to the United Jewish Appeal building, as the dark side of their history is a major theme of my forthcoming book. How Rabbis for Human Rights, which is certainly far more outspoken and frank than J Street, has been deemed kosher by so much of the Jewish establishment remains a mystery to me. But one thing that is clear from this conference and in particular this panel, which had the blessing of The Forward, is that the rush of the mainstream to the Zionist left, akin to the rush to embrace the South African Liberals once apartheid was clearly collapsing, is definitely proceeding apace.
Though I understood it all intellectually, I was not prepared for just how deeply committed to the survival of Zionism Peter Beinart is. He began by talking about his four-year-old son, about hanging an Israeli flag in his bedroom, and about how jarred he can be by some of the things his son says to him coming from an Orthodox pre-school. The general thrust of his talk was that a progressive Zionism which is rooted in a confrontation with Israeli illiberalism can yet be the basis of a youthful American Zionism, even organized along the same lines as Birthright or the Orthodox Israel programs.
There was definitely a Don Quixote quality to the whole thing. And this much I could have anticipated. Just yesterday I read a column he wrote celebrating an Israel Rabbi trying to liberalize the Shas Party from within, proclaiming this as a cause American Jews could embrace. Tilting at windmills indeed.
Up to a point I can admire and sympathize with this, as a philosophical conservative among left-wing Jewish anti-Zionists, as a member of a progressive shul whose favorite philosopher of Judaism is Will Herberg, who himself walked a very lonely path in his Judaism. What nagged at me however was that this was the very conceit that so shook me at the J Street Conference last year: that in the final analysis they are less interested in saving Israel as a Jewish state than in saving Zionism for themselves.
One friend who was also at the J Street Conference, as we reviewed our reasons for not intending to return to the next one, said that his overall impression of it was that it was above all meant to be a feel-good event for the intended audience of aging liberal Zionists. This was certainly the feeling I got today as well. The most perplexing phenomenon was surely that The Forward was getting applause lines that others did not.
None of this, however, should detract from giving Beinart credit where its due. To take just the most breathtaking example, his line on BDS: "The best way for BDS to enter further into the mainstream is for Israel and the American Jewish establishment to keep doing what they're doing."
My rabbi, who remains a co-chair of Rabbis for Human Rights, offered some much needed fresh air as usual. She spoke of a recent delegation she led to Israel/Palestine, and in particular of being in Hebron and being deterred by an armed Israeli soldier from walking down the Palestinian road - "we really did learn a lot from the Nazis". She also made clear that she does not call herself a Zionist, "the term is just a conversation stopper". One other interesting point was that she endorsed the suggestion of one person she met for the next flotilla - that it consist of largely empty boats so that the people of Gaza could get out.
As for Beinart, while the Don Quixote quality I've described should make his sincerity abundantly clear, I do have just the slightest bit of pause. In his recent writings on American politics it is clear he has very shrewdly taken the pulse of American liberalism, and so in this case I must also wonder to what extent he has just shrewdly recognized what the progressive Zionists want to hear and is milking it.
I'll conclude on this note: there was a lot of talk about who was to blame for the distance between American Jewish youth and Israel. Jane Eisner of The Forward posed the question directly to Beinart - is the blame less with the American Jewish establishment than with parents, teachers, and rabbis?
I've talked about this here before. What is most striking to me about my formal religious education in retrospect is that the fundamental premise of Zionism - that the Jews are a "nation" and that we, the Israelis, and all the Jews of the world are of one and the same "nation" - was never spelled out for us. I can only presume that this is so because my teachers and rabbis were simply not quite so credulous as to say this, even if most of them believed it in their heart of hearts.
This condition, of not being credulous enough to be able to plainly articulate one's beliefs, or to admit what one actually believes to oneself, did not obtain even in totalitarian movements of the past. In short, the root of American Zionism's crisis is its inability to understand what it even believes.
Jack Ross's book, Rabbi Outcast, is a biography of the late anti-Zionist leader Elmer Berger.
Fundamentally, Jews are a people, not a state. But, to the extent that we are not accepted as a people, self-governing in a home LAND, then we require a state to provide boundaries, jurisdiction for self-governance.
According to halacha, children of a Jewish female and willing converts are Jews. Functionally, with the majority of then halachically legal Jews converted to other religions or unidentifiable as Jews and even self-identifiable as Jews, the only way to include the majority of all in the Jewish nation is to offer it to all in some form. That would include Palestinians.
But, the Jewish nation is not a mush. It is a distinct people with a distinct mission and instinct on the planet. Per Torah that is to serve as priests to the One, and in practice to do so in the form of tikkun olam, or healing “all my relations” (emphasizing the most intimate, with the political healing a symptomatic indication of the degree of adherence to “my commandments”).
We live in a commercial world, and in an externally forceful political “mush” ideological world, which DOES seek the annihilation of that distinct mission, though it claims to desire to retain the instinct to support that mission.
I regard political ideology as an external imposition, an externally compelled conformity, a square peg, unnatural even to the soul matured by self-discipline to wholeness.
I like Beinart’s writing and inquiry.
“Per Torah that is to serve as priests to the One,”
Oh really Witty? Then what happened to the priesthood? Didn’t God His Very Own Self de-frock the motherf-ckers? Read your Bible!
Oh, and how many times did you idiotically contradict yourself in that stupid comment? The Jews are a distinct people? What are their characteristics? Oh what the hell, doesn’t matter because “According to halacha, children of a Jewish female and willing converts are Jews” So what is the distinction, that they were born of woman? Most people I know are, you know. ”
“I regard political ideology as an external imposition, an externally compelled conformity” Gee, wasn’t I just reading a comment from you in which you identified as a “Zionist” which is a political ideology.
Look Witty, maybe this unction is how you lubricate yourself for the intellectual (my apologies to all sentient beings) masturbation you call thinking, but did it ever occur to you that other people are not quite as stupid as you think? “unnatural even to the soul matured by self-discipline to wholeness”. This from the man who goes around the world chasing gurus, but can’t conceive of the Palestinians humanity, except as part of the “Jewish Nation” How insulting.
Why the hell are we subjected to this? Phil, if your intent is to humiliate Witty, or as is much more probable, you get to laugh while he humiliates himself, why subject your readers to it? I think Witty is poor substitute for the people you really want to get to. That is what I think.
what about your zionist relatives? can you get em in here? surely theyd hearken to the autumnal trumpet of the rutting moose?
Mr Witty, perhaps you could help me understand something, something I’ve never really understood and it is this notion of ‘a people’ which you claim applies to all of Jewish extraction, be they dark-skinned Ethiopian or the most ultra-whey-faced chap, or chapess, from somewhere close to the Urals or even the Catskills.
Generally when one uses such a phrase it is used either :
in the sense ‘A citizen of’ some geographical region usually defined within, some specific political border.
Or
in the sense of some genetically distinct grouping with shared common cultural characteristics.
So my question for you, Mr Witty is this: Absent the Religion and the actual customs/rituals associated with that, what shared cultural characteristics exist between some dark-skinned Ethiopian chap, or chapess, who has lived all their life in the hills and valleys of Ethiopia, and some ultra-whey-faced chap, or chapess, who has lived all their life in the hills and valleys of the Urals or even the Catskills?
P.S.: “A love for/desire-to-emigrate-to the geographical space now known as “Israel”", would not by any means be considered a reasonable answer
Thanking you in advance for your reply . .. .. .
He’ll never answer. He never does.
I almost wrote a defense of why Jews are a people. But it’s pointless; they are because they say they are. It’s called self determination. The existence of Jews who say that Jews are not a people doesn’t change it.
The Jewish people do not require approval or consent from other people’s to exist.
That’s just the equivalent of stamping your feet, having a tantrum and screaming “Because I say so, . . . . so there!”
I’ll hold out a little longer, in the hope of something a tad more nuanced.
Clenchner,
To the extent that Jews today consider themselves a people, you are right that there is little point in disputing it – just as there is little point in disputing whether or not Palestinians constitute a people. That is more a matter of self-definition however, than self-determination.
The problems start when said self-defined people starts demanding the right to self-determination, with serious ramifications for others. Then the international community – and especially those directly affected by said people’s demands for sovereignty over a given territory – have the right to start asking a few questions, ascertaining whether or not said people indeed has the right to self-determination, and to what extent does that right trump the rights of others (including their own right to self-determination). And the Jewish claim happens to have a few holes in it – initially, the lack of significant presence in the territory it laid claim to, and subsequently, the supra-territorial nature of the people in question – especially considering the fact that the territory was actually inhabited (and continues to be inhabited) by another people, opposed to the sovereignty imposed, supposedly on the basis of the principle of self-determination.
Dan and his Etruscan friends scattered throughout the world can define themselves as a people if they like, but when they start demanding the right to self-determination in historical Etruria – at the expense of the current inhabitants of Latium, Umbria. Tuscany and Liguria – their legal claim (and that is what “self-determination” is – a legal claim) can certainly be examined.
I’ll hold out a little longer, in the hope of something a tad more nuanced.
i’m a believer in peoples own self identification therefore because they say they are is good enough for me. of course i also recognize some jews don’t feel like that, so i respect them too.
have you read the author’s ‘i’ve talked about this before’ link in the diary?
frankly i think all this talk of ‘people’ either ‘being’ or requiring ‘nationhood’ is where it all gets a little fuzzy to me. using judaism to justify ‘jewish nationalism’ appears to be (relatively speaking) some what new. it appears to me as zionism utilizing judaism. it militarizes the religion.
so while i respect people’s self identification, i reject this people/nation leap . ethnic nationalism was born out of the ‘racial anthropology’ movement
same circa as the founding of the zionist movement. zionism is ethnic nationalism.
While your answer appears more nuanced, Annie, it still does nothing to address the question of what, besides Religion and it’s associated customs/rituals, connects some dark-skinned Ethiopian chap, or chapess, who has lived all their life in the hills and valleys of Ethiopia, and some ultra-whey-faced chap, or chapess, who has lived all their life in the hills and valleys of the Urals or even the Catskills?
The first part of your answer is really just a more polite, though much less petulant-sounding , variation on clencher’s “Beacuse I say so, . . . so there!”.
Personally I am reluctant to ever accept an answer such as “Because I say so, . . . so there!” in response to ANY question. Indeed I am inclined to think that the tendency of many humans to accept such a shoddy response is in the long-term a serious, and potentially very dangerous, cognitive flaw.
One of the main reasons Europe emerged from the period of history known as ‘the Dark Ages’ and dragged itself into what is known as the ‘Enlightenment’ is precisely because more and more people started refusing to accept “Because I say so, . . . so there!” as a reasonable answer to any question
African Americans insist they form a community. Some among them even claimed to be a nation, and demanded independence for a section of the ‘Black Belt’ that touches ten states.
An organization in the US, a religious one no less, calls itself ‘the Nation of Islam.’ Hrm. ‘Nation’, eh?
The Roma consider themselves to be an ethnicity. But – what is the Roma homeland? Unclear. Are Roma then not really a nation at all, but something else? They certainly do not practice the same religion.
Are residents of Darfur part of the nation of Sudan? If not – what nation are they part of? Is it up to each individual, or shall a council of anthropologists tag and label each clan as belonging to one or another tribe, ethnicity, or linguistic group?
Are Palestinians are nation? Were they a nation 100 years ago? How about 1000 years ago? Who gets to decide, retroactively, when a group of people constitute a nation or people?
Are the Armenians in Palestine truly Palestinian? Who decides? Are the Armenians in Lebanon actually Lebanese? Are the residents of the Faroe Islands ‘Faroese’? Or just ornery Danes?
I don’t have answers to all these questions. But I’m likely to give extra weight to the opinions of the affected, self identifying group than to outside experts who try to use ‘objective’ criteria to deny peoplehood to one group or the other.
you seem to be a terribly confused individual.
Strictly speaking ‘Nation’ can be defined 2 ways – “a politically defined body of people under a common government e.g.: ‘citizen of a particular Nation/State’ OR “some genetically distinct grouping with shared common cultural characteristics.”
I listed both above in my original question to Mr Witty. You might want to re-read
But since Mr Witty appears to be otherwise engaged, I’ll ask you:
With regard to this notion of yours that “Because I say so, . . . . so there!” is a rational answer to my reasonable question:
You may say that, you have a right I guess, but what you do not have is an absolute right to demand that everyone else be forced to agree with your definition
Clenchner,
I agree that arguing over whether Jews are a people or not is generally unhelpful. Better to focus on the unacceptable components of Jewish nationalism – such as the outrageous “thanks for looking after the place for 2k years, but we’ll take it from here”.
“Are Palestinians are nation? Were they a nation 100 years ago? How about 1000 years ago?”
How about since 700 BC, according to the antique maps preserved at the University of Texas, and the Ottoman Empire occupied Palestine, or didn’t you know.
what you do not have is an absolute right to demand that everyone else be forced to agree with your definition
of course. i didn’t read sands book but it’s my understanding he gives a little lesson on his version of peoplehood. the idea of peoplehood being a rather recent development on the world stage.
respecting peoples’ own self identification is a matter of principle to me. if you want to call it ‘because i say so’ that’s fine w/me. if you want me to call you bob i will call you bob. if you want to claim you are bonded to joe and joe agrees w/you who am i to say you are not. by extension if 1000′s of people want to claim they are connected far be it from me to dispute that. this whole ‘genetically distinct grouping’ thing is a bit out of my ballpark and i’m sure you must know ethnicities are not required to share genetics. some people say all jews are genetically connected, like i said this kind of info is out of my range of expertise but i am inclined to think all humans are genetically connected if that makes anyone feel better. there are also jews rabbis don’t consider jews so do i defer to them? no, i defer to individuals because i think people have a right to define who they are.
but what i want to know is what difference does it make? i already made it clear this people or no people thing makes no difference wrt the deserving-ness factor wrt acquiring real estate and calling yourself a nation. there’s no imperative a people should get a country because if it did i could join or make a group and demand a country myself. when you ask what, besides Religion and it’s associated customs/rituals, connects some dark-skinned Ethiopian……., you imply religion and associated customs/rituals do not an ethnicity make..and i’m here to tell you they do.
“respecting peoples’ own self identification is a matter of principle to me. “
Normally I’d agree, if say for example someone were to say “My people came from Russia therefore I am ethnically Russian” Or “I am a Cisgendered Transsexual from the planet Humongous in the Constellation of Andromeda” I’d have no problem, wouldn’t consider it important or even noteworthy to be honest.
When people like Witty and Clencher start to loudly insist that the dark-skinned Ethopian and the whey-faced person from the Urals are ‘members of the same distinct separate race’, I might have been inclined to ignore the obvious untruth in that assertion, were it not for the nefarious reason these persons have chosen to make that ridiculously false connection.
Your comment “i am inclined to think all humans are genetically connected if that makes anyone feel better.”, is a wonderfully all-encompassing solution which actually negates Witty & Clenchers ridiculous claim since it negates the very notion of race entirely – if, absent the Religion, all that connects those two is that they are humans, then there is no such thing as ‘race’ and therefore the ridiculous assertions of Witty and Clencher become nothing but silly fairytales.
Like you I don’t mind that Witty & Clencher choose to believe in silly Fairtales, until they then go on from that and try to use the ridiculous Fairytale they have chosen to believe in, as the basis for a justification of attempted Genocide. So again we are mostly in agreement on that.
But if someone uses their belief Fairytales in such a manner, I see no reason why I shoulld not take the time to point out that what they are claiming has no basis in fact, at all. If they choose to then act all offended by that, well that’s just tough – Don’t spread lies and use those lies as a basis to justify attempted Genocide and I won’t call you on it, ok?
But where we part ways is when you assert that Ethnicity and
Religion are in someway interchangeable. They are not. And especially not when the particlar Ethnicity is supposed to contain both the dark-skinned Ethopian and the whey-faced person from the Urals , merely by virtue of the fact that they both have Religion in common.
We do not speak of ‘The Christian Race’ nor the ‘Buddhist Race’ nor the ‘Shinto Race’ nor the Zoroastrian Race’ , and most normal intelligent people realise that such Labeling would be utter nonsense, so to speak of the ‘Jewish Race’ is equally nonsensical
Words have distinct definitions for a reason Annie. Otherwise you could have just written ‘Lorem Ipsum, Lorem Ipsum, Lorem Ipsum . . .” numerous times in your post above and demanded that everyone understand your meaning.
“When people like Witty and Clencher start to loudly insist that the dark-skinned Ethopian and the whey-faced person from the Urals are ‘members of the same distinct separate race’, I might have been inclined to ignore the obvious untruth in that assertion, were it not for the nefarious reason these persons have chosen to make that ridiculously false connection.”
I never claimed that Jews are a race. Red herring alert! (Polite way of saying that Hu Bris appears to be inventing a quote for me.)
MRW: When Rome occupied the region, it was first the province of Judea, for the most part. As a response to political events, it was renamed Palestina specifically to spite the Judeans. It derives from ‘Philistines’ a biblical people that disappeared around the 5th Century BCE. There is no relationship between the modern day Palestinians and the Philistines.
After the Romans named the province Palestina the land was at the crossroads of various empires for many years, sometimes linked more strongly to one area or another – a way of saying that it was never the center of a specific culture or national identity. (Neither was Lebanon – this isn’t a disparagement.)
Which is to say, if you are claiming that modern day Palestinians are the ethnic and cultural descendants of the people who lived there 2700 years ago, then we might as well agree that modern day Italians are actually Etruscan or some thing like that.
For me, I totally accept the Palestinians as a nation deserving of full rights, and respect that they do not need my opinion on the matter. What does origin matter in the face of collective determination?
“I never claimed that Jews are a race. Red herring alert! (Polite way of saying that Hu Bris appears to be inventing a quote for me.)
since I know you have read my previous comments, I know that you know that I was very obviously paraphrasing. The quote marks were obviously never intended to imply that those were your exact words and since you read my earlier comments you already knew much earlier than this that I was the first one to use that phrase when I earlier paraphrased what you had said. But you already knew that
I never invented anything – you used the phrase ‘Jews are a people’ so you obviously intended to convey the idea of some ‘racial separateness’
You also used the phrase ‘nation’ in your defense of the notion that ‘Jews are a people’ — and it is obvious you were not using it in a political context – so obviously you were again intending to convey the idea of some ‘racial separateness’
So ‘members of the same distinct separate race’ is completely valid as a paraphrase for what you were saying
that sounds like an odd interpretation to me, nothing obvious whatsoever.
what’s obvious to you is flying right over my head.
maybe there’s some sense in that somewhere but i doubt it is of the common variety. maybe you should try not paraphrasing clencher. last i heard there was a difference between a people and a race. for purposes of legal description of race discrimination laws ethnicities and races are interchangable because they apply to both but generally speaking they are different and people regard them as different.
“while i respect people’s self identification”
Always?
A lot of the “self identification” I hear seems silly and pointless.
What’s to respect?
“that sounds like an odd interpretation to me, nothing obvious whatsoever.”
Well that’s interesting because it’s the first time you have mentioned it, annie. we’re a fair bit into this conversation now, and if you really thought that it seems curious that you only mention it now.
“that sounds like an odd interpretation to me, nothing obvious whatsoever.”
Once again, it seems curious that you only mention it now. Because re-reading your previous statements it seems that you yourself were choosing to interpret his words in that manner.
“for purposes of legal description of race discrimination laws ethnicities and races are interchangeable because they apply to both but generally speaking they are different and people regard them as different. “
I disagree entirely – in fact I would say that that is exactly how the vast majority of people interpret those words. This statement of yours that ‘people regards them as different ‘ is a strange one.
“It’s called self determination.”
The problem being that Zionist self determination tends to include subjugation of someone else.
“Some among them even claimed to be a nation, and demanded independence for a section of the ‘Black Belt’ that touches ten states.”‘
Did anyone take them seriously? Were they given a chunk of land based on that claim?
“An organization in the US, a religious one no less, calls itself ‘the Nation of Islam.’ Hrm. ‘Nation’, eh?”
Were they given a chunk of land, belonging to someone else, based on that claim?
“But I’m likely to give extra weight to the opinions of the affected, self identifying group than to outside experts who try to use ‘objective’ criteria to deny peoplehood to one group or the other.”
Do the outside exp[erts get to have a say when they are required to support this cult?
“. But, to the extent that we are not accepted as a people, self-governing in a home LAND, then we require a state to provide boundaries, jurisdiction for self-governance.”
Clarly you don’t, becasue since 1948, Israel has never accepted the concept fo borders.
Totalitarian movements of the past were chock full of outspoken yet naive and gullible followers. Peer pressure was high, at the very least, in their social circles. OTH, more wily and equally ambitious religious leaders and close followers have always been circumspect, couching what they believed in more general politically acceptable terms when in the presence of any audience suspected of possibily harboring outsiders. Since when were code words not the order of the day? Looking at the human race generally, the crisis of any ideology or theology has always been rooted in turning a willfully blind eye to the factual ramifications of the principles preached and the utter banality of
justifying double standards to retain a sense of unearned specialness. That’s always precisely where the most vague (and often mystical) generalizations are employed. The Jewish concept of their nation is as old as Judiasm itself. But it is no longer a metaphor used merely for ethnic group solidarity both aggressively and defensively. Biblical Israel now holds nuclear bombs, the 4th strongest military in the world, itself lavishly supported by the world’s only superpower. And its own ground to stand all this on. That new Israel claims to represent all Jews in this world (and those dead). Hence, being a “nation within a nation” inevitably has taken on new meaning since 1948. The German American Bund in the USA was called out for what it was back in the day, back in 1916, and back beginning largely in the mid-1930′s. Time to force American zionists and their enablers to look in the mirror.
Analogy: Look at the current American fiscal crisis. Look at the IRS tax code.
It’s a manual for income redistribution and tax exemption/avoidance (for those with enough money/assets to hire creative CPAs). It’s filled with magical nouns to hide its disproportionate negative or positive material impact on various economic groups of citizens. The politics of tax reform does not even scratch this surface. The USA is a democracy if any country is entitled to that name. The IRS (along with the Federal Reserve) were entities created by a handful of representatives in the middle of the night over the Xmas holidays of 1913. And here we are today, listening to our leaders, for example, tell us that we should all have equal rights to less taxes, both the kid working at McDonald’s and Donald Trump. And this on the “practical” supporting theory of trickle-down economics, and job creation–when the majority of jobs are in the hands of large corporations who have been transferring jobs overseas for decades. Are said leaders afflicted with the inability to understand what they believe? Conversely,
can the same be said for the now disgruntled far left of Obama’s base?
Is this a matter incredulous or credulous?
A thing of note is that there is a big reluctance to talk in detail about specific tax plans, proposals, reforms, extensions, etc. Ring a bell?
Interestingly enough, citizen, about 15 years ago a banker who had been a Treasury official in the main banking division, whose name I’ve forgotten, told me that the US Treasury did an extensive and thorough study of what it would take to pay the country’s bills every year via taxes.
They concluded that a flat 10% tax would do it, with a cap for the extreme poor who wouldn’t have to pay at all. Can’t remember what that amount was…it was graduated for the number of kids you had.
Anyway, this study determined that it would work by checking every SSN and Tax ID in the country and determining 10% tax from that. Including drug dealers and criminals. Pay what you owe. The study said the Govt would not need all the IRS real estate, nor the 16,000 employees either.
It never got off the ground because H&R Block and the tax attorneys got wind of it and fought it with a vengeance.
Are you dissing CPA’s? or rich people and the tax law?
I do too.
Well, aren’t you a regular Abbie Hoffman! How brave, “dissing” rich people! And oh, that hip language is the way to communicate with today’s young people.
The linked column isn’t by Beinart.
So Beinart wants his son to inherit Zionism? Of some flavor or other? Peter, why not simplify your life (as a teacher) and his (as a learner) and try to teach him something worth learning. namely, what it means to be a Jew. Of some flavor or another. It does not have to mean loving what Israel does (or did) and, in fact, it does not require loving Israel at all.
Would you respect German-Americans who, in 1933-1945, insisted on loving Hitler’s Germany? No. And although what most countries DO is separate from who their people ARE (and Hitler was a temporary phenom, an anomaly), this is much less demonstrable in the case of Israel, where ROBBERY and DISPOSSESSION of Palestinians is of the essence, inseparable, from Israel and its people.
>> Peter, why not simplify your life (as a teacher) and his (as a learner) and try to teach him something worth learning. namely, what it means to be a Jew.
“What it means to be a Jew” is something worth learning? How about “what it means to be a humanist / human being”? You get all the morality and compassion without any of the tribal and mythological bullsh*t and baggage AND you don’t have to squander precious time poring over dull and primitive religious texts, or
worshipping* and praying* to one or more “gawds*”.
(*All three are unfortunate human inventions.)
Pre-emptive apologies to pabelmont if the tone of my last post (December 8, 2010 at 11:04 am) makes it seem as though I’m flaming him for his post. That wasn’t my intention; rather, I was attempting to address the general idea of religion – and religious indoctrination – as being somehow important.
“So Beinart wants his son to inherit Zionism?”
Would you want an industry which employs so many people to move out of your town or go under? He’s just thinking of the kid’s future.
Great post, thanks
Again, we arrive at the problem posed by the melding of the ideas of “nation” and “state”. They are not historically the same thing. The difficulty arises when a “nation” (a group of people bound by linguistic, cultural, and possibly religious affinities) decides to define itself as a state, thus bringing in the idea of geographic, physical boundaries. In order for this “state” to remain true to the idea of the “nation” that brought it about, it needs to enforce some kind of cultural or ethnic hegemony, or “purity”. This means it must consist of a majority of the people who make up the “nation” (cultural, historical, linguistic bonds), otherwise it really has no raison d’être at all.
Either you have an empty vessel, a state, which has a certain set of laws and customs (which can derive from basic, humanistic and logical principles) which are applied to all of its citizens, wherever they come from, OR you have a “nation” which tries to define itself as a state (geographic boundaries), and can only do so by engaging in ethnic cleansing (in order for the state to have any meaning at all as representative of its majority) if it wishes to keep any kind of consistency.