Editor's note: Below is an excerpt of an important post that's been up for a few days already, Jerome Slater's earnest/tormented/scholarly effort to reconcile his belief in the necessity of a Jewish state with the project's unjust record in Palestine. Slater ends up (as he has in a dialogue at this site that helped provide the impetus for his post) by endorsing the two-state solution. He says that binationalism has many times failed, and the Israelis want a Jewish state and the Palestinians want their own state, too. "Israel is here to stay." He also calls for international pressure to end the settlements. Well, it's an important conversation. Slater's allowed me to post the first quarter of his long post below, including the wonderful scholarly portions on Zionist history near the beginning. You can go to the link to see how the story ends...
A small but growing number of Israeli and American Jewish critics of Israel have concluded that the root cause of Israel's continuing oppression of the Palestinians is Zionism, which at its core is the belief that the Jewish people have both the right and the need of a state of their own. Some of them even argue that because of the inherent conflict between Zionism and the rights of the Palestinian people, the creation of a Jewish state in part of Palestine was never justified. Tellingly, though, almost all who so argue are Jewish, for there are few if any Western gentiles of good will in this camp.
Most contemporary critics of Zionism hold to a more moderate view, that of "post-Zionism," or the belief that whatever its initial justification, Zionism and the insistence that Israel must remain and be formally acknowledged by the Palestinians as a Jewish state is now a pernicious anachronism and an unbridgeable obstacle to a just settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Zionists disagree. However, further distinctions must be made, for on this issue there are at least three different schools within Zionism. Rightwing Zionists believe not only that Israel must remain a Jewish state, but that the main failure of the early Zionist years was that the large-scale expulsion of the Palestinians during the 1947-48 period did not go far enough, for it still left more than 150,000 of them within the Jewish state.
The Zionist left--or "liberal Zionists," as they are widely known today--accepts that some form of Palestinian expulsion was necessary to establish the state, but strongly deplores the Israeli occupation and repression of the Palestinians since then, especially after the 1967 war. For example, Zeev Sternhell, perhaps Israel's most prominent and honored political scientist and an outspoken opponent of Israeli policies, recently told David Remnick that "Our basic failure in 1967 was not to understand that what was good and legitimate until 1949 had ceased to be after that."
The largest group, the centrist Zionists, while somewhat uneasy about the continued occupation and often willing to give lip service to a two-state settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, typically oppose the Israeli concessions that are the sine qua non of such a settlement.
Was Zionism Ever Justified?
The first step towards answering that question is to sort out Zionism's good arguments from its bad ones. For one thing, doing so is a crucial intellectual necessity if one is to truly understand the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Second, it is also morally necessary, for much--but not all--of the Zionist argument cannot withstand serious logical or moral analysis. But most importantly, it is the continuing failure of most Israelis to distinguish serious history from Zionist ideology that largely accounts for Israeli self-righteousness, rigidity, moral failures, and blindness to their own best interests.
A good beginning to this demythologizing process is to separate the original Zionist argument for the necessity of a Jewish state from the argument that such a state had to be in Palestine, and nowhere else. Jewish nationalism, the Zionist political movement, emerged in Europe in the early 20th century, a reaction to the centuries-long history of antisemitism in Europe and elsewhere, and especially to the revival of severe antisemitism in France and, even more so, the pogroms in Russia and eastern Europe in the late 19th-early 20th centuries.
As Sternhell has put it, "Jewish nationalism was first of all a defensive reflex," and an "existential necessity," a consequence of "the rise of state anti-Semitism in the Russian Empire, which clearly sought to rid itself of its Jews." In light of the often-murderous persecution of the Jewish people throughout history, culminating of course with the Holocaust, few if any other people have had a more powerful case for possession of a state of their own.
Where that state should be located, however, was a very different matter. The terrible paradox of Zionism is that by the mid-twentieth century the arguments for the creation of a Jewish state were so strong as to be nearly self-evident, but most of the arguments for the right to create that state in Palestine were very weak.
The founder of the Zionist political movement, Theodore Herzl, initially considered the question of where the Jewish state should be located as an open one, a practical rather than an ideological or religious issue; consequently, for awhile the Zionists canvassed a number of locations. However, the search for alternatives to Palestine was quickly abandoned. The turning point--and the origin of the Palestinian-Israeli and the larger Arab-Israeli conflict--came at the Zionist congress of 1905, which decisively rejected any effort to create the Jewish state in any place but Biblical Palestine.
To be sure, even if Herzl's secular views had prevailed, it was by no means certain that a Jewish state could have been created elsewhere--most of the supposed alternatives were frivolous and held very little promise. Perhaps the most serious one was suggested in 1903 when, following the Russian pogroms, British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain offered 5,000 square miles of what was then British East Africa to Herzl, to serve as a refuge for the Jewish people.
The Zionists were not interested. In any case, the British offer would obviously have not solved the problem of a Jewish state being created by colonial imposition, and ultimately it probably would have simply transferred the problem of the conflict between Zionism and the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine to those of Uganda and Kenya, thereby creating an African-Israeli instead of an Arab-Israeli conflict.
Even so, it is a reasonable argument that the search for a better solution than Palestine was abandoned prematurely and, more importantly, for the wrong reasons.
That is, even if alternatives to Palestine ultimately had proven to be unfeasible, the very willingness to search for them would have required a dissociation of Zionism from Biblical theology, and that would have made the need for a just compromise with the Palestinians evident from the start.
Biblical History.
From the 19th century to the present, Zionists have made a number of arguments for exclusive Jewish political rights in Palestine, all but one of them entirely unconvincing, beginning with the argument from Biblical history.
Modern Biblical historical scholarship and archaeological evidence calls into question most of the Zionist mythology. In brief summary (for a fuller discussion, see here), it is not the case that the central homeland of the Jews was in Palestine, nor that the Jews had established political sovereignty over much of that land: there were large Jewish communities in Egypt and elsewhere throughout the Mediterranean basin, and Palestine was inhabited by a number of peoples, no one of which was politically dominant.
Moreover, there appears to be little evidence that the Romans engaged in a wholesale expulsion of the Jewish people from Palestine after they suppressed the Jewish rebellion of 66-70 AD. Rather, most of the Jews remained in Palestine throughout the period of the Roman Empire, but over time the majority became Christians, and later Muslims, leaving only a small group which preserved its Jewish identity.
Thus, while there has been some kind of unbroken Jewish presence in Palestine for some thirty centuries and that it is true that some Jews have religious or emotional ties to that land (especially to Jerusalem), the much more important fact is that the overwhelming majority of the Jewish people who have lived throughout the world in the last two thousand years do not think of themselves as a "Diaspora," longing to "return" to Palestine. In any case, the key point is that Christians and Muslims in general, and Palestinians in particular, also have strong historical connections, claims, and ties to Palestine of religion and sentiment. That being the case, there is no persuasive basis for privileging the Zionist claim of ancient rights, let alone eternal ones.
Territorial Rights.
The argument for Jewish political rights in Palestine does not rest solely on unsupported Biblical mythology, let alone on the religious belief that God promised Palestine to the Jews for all eternity--a claim that can persuade only those people who can be persuaded by such an "argument."
However, the full Zionist case also is based on a secular argument: instead of (or in addition to) religious beliefs, territorial history establishes a permanent Jewish territorial right to rule Palestine. In order to fully analyze that argument, let's assume--against most of the serious historical evidence--that the Zionists are right that the Jewish people lived primarily in the ancient land of Palestine for many centuries, that they established political sovereignty over it, and that they lost their homeland only because they were forcibly driven from it.
Even if all that had been true, however, it is a fallacy to believe it would establish a persuasive modern Jewish claim to the land of Palestine. The argument that an ancient claim to a land has precedence over very long periods of a different reality--in Palestine, eight centuries of Christianity followed by thirteen centuries of an overwhelming Islamic majority--is accepted in no other place in the world, whether in law, moral reasoning, or plain common sense.
Palestine has been repeatedly conquered by outside invaders since ancient history: by Assyria, Babylon, Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, the Crusaders, the Ottoman Empire--indeed, if the Old Testament is to be the historical source, by the Jews themselves! On each occasion, the previous inhabitants of the land were killed, driven into exile, or subjugated by new rulers, who then held sway for centuries. Who, then, are the "rightful" claimants? In the absence of a persuasive religious claim accepted by everyone ("the Promised Land"), including those of different nationalities and religions, the stopping of the clock as it marches backward in time to twenty centuries ago, neither earlier nor later, must be completely arbitrary and self-serving.
Put differently, by what objective criteria are the claims of one set of victims--the Jews, supposedly driven out by the Romans two thousand years ago--privileged over all other such claims? If ancient victimization is the criterion, then the descendants of the Canaanites--that is, today's Syrians--must have priority over the descendants of the Jews. On the other hand, if recent victimization is the criterion, then all victims of conquest after the Roman "expulsion"--certainly including today's Palestinians--must have priority over the Jews.
There is scarcely any place in the world that has not at one time been conquered, subjugated, and populated by a previously foreign people. Thus, a kind of common sense statute of limitations on land claims by right of previous inhabitance has evolved--as it must, since in its absence there would be no stability, no principled objection to endless wars of restitution, and no law other than might makes right.
Of course, there can be no precision in ascertaining the point at which the passage of time has nullified the moral or legal validity of previous land claims, and certainly there are hard cases. However, the Zionist claim, based on dubious "history" two thousand years ago is not one of them. On the other hand, paradoxically, the Palestinian claim, whose historical validity is not in doubt, is based on events only sixty-four years ago. (Even so, as I shall later argue, a Palestinian "right of return" is, in practice, unrealizable).
wow, this sounds very very interesting. i will definitely be following the link as i am intrigued.
the only part that really didn’t resonate with me and wasn’t fully explained in the text was the last segment in the following:
i’m not jewish and my opinion has been all along that zionism would be fine with me if it didn’t hurt anyone. that it isn’t zionism per se i reject (tho i am not an ethnic nationalist) it is zionism manifested on someone else’s land which included or required expulsions based on ethnicity for the fulfillment of that goal. i don’t really comprehend how that can ever be justified.
i recall mentioning this in one of your other threads here tho i don’t recall you addressing it and do appreciate you addressing it further in this segment. i guess i am just a little curious why my opinion is perceived as not of good will or in that camp as it just seems logical to me. i do note your wording is a little different w/the caveat of never.
i could accept a 2 state solution if they were equitable viable states but that’s for the sake of compromise, that’s not a matter of ‘justification’. it’s not up to me anyway so what i would or could ‘accept’ is immaterial.
I’d go a little further and point out that Slater seems to be classifying anti-Zionists into three camps–
1. Jews of good will who don’t think it was fair to Palestinians
2. Palestinians and Arabs in general –I suppose what he means by non-Western gentiles. Maybe he extends it to all non-Western victims of Western colonialism who could be expected to be more sympathetic to the Palestinian side.
3. Western gentiles–These are motivated by anti-semitism.
I agree with annie. I don’t have much sympathy for any sort of ethnic or religious state, but certainly I can see the need for a place of refuge for persecuted groups and Jews certainly qualify (as do many others). The problem with a Jewish state in Palestine is that there were Palestinians there already. Noticing this fact doesn’t make me evil, I don’t think, but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?
The problem with a Jewish state in Palestine is that there were Palestinians there already. Noticing this fact doesn’t make me evil, I don’t think, but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?
yeah, this was sort of my take on it although i haven’t read the rest of slater’s article yet. there’s a difference between rationalizing something and justifying it. we can rationalize there is a whole population there now and it would of course create massive havok to expel them and time has moved on and i don’t wish to see anyone expelled at this time and we can’t turn back the clock. but that still doesn’t justify what was done. there’s really no justification for determining one ethnicity has right to expel people from their land which is against international law anyway. the kind of zionism that let palestinians remain where they lived might be justifiable but that’s not a zionism that’s ever existed except maybe in someones mind. no amount of prior genocide of any ethnic group justifies expelling another people from their land. it presumes their right to a homeland supercedes those being removed, that’s just racism.
so while one might rationalize why it might have been necessary under the circumstances of the time, it’s still no justification. possibly if one changed the definition of zionism so that it divorced itself from the way it’s manifested itself in practice since israel’s inception maybe. but practically speaking i’m just not comprehending how there’s a justification for a zionism in palestine that doesn’t include all the palestinians.
Donald:
“Western gentiles–These are motivated by anti-semitism.” I’m not sure where this comes from–in no sense do I believe or say that all Western gentiles who oppose Zionism are anti-Semitic. If anything, I say the opposite: see my response to Annie’s first comment.
Noticing the fact that there were Palestinians already in Palestine obviously doesn’t make you evil, because I’ve also “noticed” this for about sixty years or so, so that would also make me evil. Again, read the whole post,in which I try to come to grips with how to reconcile Zionism with Justice to the Palestinians.
Evil is noticing that there were Palestinians already in Palestine and taking it anyway. “The bride is beautiful, but she is already married to another man.” To lust after another man’s wife, to commit adultery with her, and finally, like David, to murder her husband so as to take the wife for his own – this is sin. It is the original, founding sin at the heart of Zionism.
“The problem with a Jewish state in Palestine is that there were Palestinians there already.”
It’s amazing that this needs to be repeated, even brought up! Why would a guy like me otherwise would object to Zionism? Why would I give a rodent’s derriere about they believe is their right or not? The land is already owned and it’s not up for grabs! Why is this so hard to understand is beyond me!
Why would a guy like me otherwise would object to Zionism?
If one has a warped image of self, others and history, that’s easy: you would be an anti-Semite (or ignorant or brainwashed or all of the above). You would be part of a dynamic created and perpetuated by Arab mythology, hostility, resentment and intransigence.
It’s a vicious cycle. Zionism is respectable (in all respectable circles, of course). To object to it is to object to respectability is to be unreasonable, an extremist. No one likes an extremist.
“Zionism is respectable (in all respectable circles, of course). To object to it is to object to respectability is to be unreasonable, an extremist.”
Are you joking, Shmuel? If not, then how insular and blinkered can you get? Your view of respectability must be severely constricted by your affiliations.
Are you joking, Shmuel?
you have to ask? a newbie mr rutherford?
Yes, and yes. Is he joking? For me, Zionism is a political ideology which can be respectably objected to like any other ideology.
My sense of the matter is that there are many millions of Americans who object to their country’s enslavement by this same Zionist ideology – and the number is growing rapidly. Jews can debate among themselves as to whether this ideology serves their interests or not, but the issue of whether it is in America’s interests will in the end be decided by others.
Not joking; expressing a bitter truth. In mainstream western society (in Europe as well as North America), Zionism is considered respectable, and to question it an extremist position. When the president of the Italian Republic (a former communist, currently associated with the centre-left) declares that Israel must be a Jewish state and that to object to that is anti-Semitic, he does so because it is considered the moderate, respectable position. People may be horrified or baffled by Israel’s settlements and wars, but to question Zionism itself is to be a member of the lunatic fringe.
In case it wasn’t absolutely clear, I consider myself a part of that “lunatic fringe”.
In case it wasn’t absolutely clear, I consider myself a part of that “lunatic fringe”.
And of course, most here join you in our jammies.
from the link
outweighed the rights of those Palestinians who were involuntarily relocated? really? this is not a justification, it is a contorted rationale. and how can you say ‘ in practice by 1947 could have been established in no other place but Palestine’ ? what about this:
the next time you ponder about “generously recompensed relocation ” could you please include what generous bribe you think jews would accept to relocate out of israel. just to put your rationale into proper perspective.
i’m very curious. if you are operating out of some illusion palestinians could be bribed out of their homeland i’m sure you’d agreed jews could be susceptible to the same persuasions. name the price and we’ll see if we can make some arrangements to pay off the israelis to move.
one more thing, this:
in practice by 1947 could have been established in no other place but Palestine
is absurd. in this decade the bush family bought piece of real estate in south america practically the size of israel. if there was any chance of paying people off zionists could have picked a place less populated. but claiming the premier holy land in the world (hot real estate!) with the populated city of jerusalem was ‘in practice’ the only alternative is stunningly ridiculous. you might as well have claimed the zionist could only take paris! they could have built tel aviv anywhere, they didn’t. they think the tiny religion of judaism should trump the religious rights of the one city that is home to three religions. crazy logic.
Annie:
I gather you disagree with my argument. Your first two comments, though based on a careless reading of my argument, were at least within the realm of serious discourse–that’s why I answered them. But I’m sure as hell not going to waste my time on juvenile sarcasm based on an inability to comprehend a complex argument. So from now on you will know why I don’t answer you.
Go ahead, sputter away.
Yeah, take a crap on one of the most respected commentators on the site, Slater. See how much credibility that nets you.
Seriously. Mooser, you’re right. Ziocaine goes right to brain, where it inflames whatever center of the brain in which inhabits every man’s inner bile-spitting bully.
But I’m sure as hell not going to waste my time on juvenile sarcasm based on an inability to comprehend a complex argument.
Wow, you really do have a problem with criticism don’t you? Why bother responding at all, or even pretending to be interested in a dialogue if you set the parameters of the discussion so narrowly? And could you ever even consider contemplating that the “careless”-ness was not in the reading but in the writing?
You engaged in this same type of behavior in the comment section with your last piece or two. Really, if you don’t want to respond, then don’t, but there is no need to bash commenters that disagree with you. It just discourages an open dialogue, which I would have thought would be the purpose of posting your essay here. Otherwise, what was the purpose?
“in practice by 1947 could have been established in no other place but Palestine”
The Sudetenland had recently been vacated as had Silesia and
Pomerania. Palestine was chosen because the Palestinians were a “backward people” and a pushover for the Zionists who made their peace with the Germans far more quickly than they could ever manage with the people of Gaza. And we know who ran the Shoah. It wasn’t Khan Yunis.
Anyway what to do now? Can Israeli Jews recognise the honour in coexistence or does it have to go all all Masada ?
I think (from previous conversations with her) that annie has some sympathy, at least mild sympathy, with the Territorialists who thought that there should be a Jewish State somewhere, presumably in a place where objection and resistance would be least, hence a place of low population. I think she’s quite right to say, amid all this complex argumentation, that though places of low population did exist in 1947 – and so that to that extent the outside-Palestine option was practical – the place actually chosen was the one where objection would be greatest and that this was for reasons related much more to religion than to practicality. So a position for which she has some sympathy – she’ll correct me, maybe sharply, if I’m putting wrong words into her mouth – was overtaken by one for which she has none.
But I’m sure as hell not going to waste my time on juvenile sarcasm based on an inability to comprehend a complex argument. So from now on you will know why I don’t answer you….Go ahead, sputter away.
hmm, from now on you won’t be addressing my points because i’m sarcastic and unable to comprehend your ‘complex argument’? sounds like an ad hominem attack to me. i happen to think there are other reasons you are not addressing my point. so go ahead and don’t respond but i’m not shutting up.
i’m trying to think of a serious and polite non sarcastic way to broach the subject of a generous compensation to relocate jews outside of palestine. (i can’t think of one because ethnic cleansing is repulsive and ethnicities reject the concept of accepting money to leave their land)
you didn’t think it worthy of consideration in your complex argument about solutions to this problem. how many times over the decades have we heard about compensating palestinians for their homeland? this doesn’t seem to be outside the realm of serious discussion but i’m just not recalling the same argument being made about jews and israel.
we have two ethnicities and one home. what kind of complex argument considers compensation for transferring one ethnicity and not the other? ( and i realize you are not advocating this yet it is included in your argument) what kind of societal mindframe completely rejects the idea of merely mentioning transferring one ethnicity (to the point of firing people from their jobs for even suggesting one ethnicity move) while including that same consideration in complex arguments wrt the other ethnicity?
your complex argument includes hypotheticals i completely reject based on your convenient simplistic cleansed definition of zionism and i will explain why:
which in practice by 1947 could have been established in no other place but Palestine
you can’t have both. you can’t hold a cleansed simplistic definition of zionism divorced from the imperative zionism be established in palestine while at the same time claiming in practice there is no other place for it. it’s a cop out.
while zionism ‘at it’s core’ may be include ‘the belief that the Jewish people have both the right and the need of a state of their own’ zionism is ethnic nationalism and an irredent movement.
do you understand what i mean by ‘you can’t have both?’ you either need to face the fact zionism in practice (what mhughes calls ’1905 Zionism’ ) is an essentially Irredentism or drop this pretext by ’47 it could have been established in no other place but Palestine. it’s a fallacy to pretend zionism is merely ethnic nationalism ( ‘Jewish people have both the right and the need of a state of their own’) which in itself is anything but progressive. at least wj’s definition of zionism is honest about it (Zionism- (the movement to place that state/homeland/refuge in the historic “homeland”)
JNSlater–
Annie is right about this, you know. The idea of paying Palestinians to leave and of gentle but forced expulsion for those who won’t–well, those are essentially repulsive notions. You don’t solve a problem of racism with racist policies against innocent people.
And once you open the door for that sort of solution it’s an extremely short step towards what actually happened. After all, it’s quite likely that people who don’t wish to be expelled from their homes in order to establish a state with the right ethnic balance might react violently or it might require violence to remove them and then you’re right back to 1948.
So I think you’d have been better off envisioning a different past involving the Judah Magnes-like form of Zionism, with Jews and Palestinians living together but with a guarantee that Israel could be a refuge for any Jew anywhere who needed it. Maybe Palestinians of good will (to use your term) could have been persuaded to accept this.
Or you could have skipped that portion of your essay altogether and focused on the present. I thought you made a good case there–I don’t know if a one state solution would work with people thinking the way they do now. But I think it’s ultimately up to the Palestinians to decide what they want to push for.
I think that the right of a people to self-govern is by definition progressive.
Which is why you support the denial of said right so a religion could get a want.
you think jews getting other people’s rights and property as progress. it isn’t though. Israel was if anything a step back.
rather than whining about the criticisms your view point is faced with Mr. Slater perhaps you should do some soul-searching and realize just loathsome your viewpoint is.
your view point is worse than settlers them selves because at least they can defend them selves with they think they are doing is right and legal. you acknowledge its illegality and than defend it any way.
Mr. Slater’s view is pretty obviously, like Witty’s, based on his perception of the relative worth of Jews and Palastinians.
And like the rest of ‘em, he turns sort of pissy when you disturb his ziocaine high.
The Jewish people are first and foremost an ethnic nationality and not a religion. That is why “progressive Jews” like Weiss can call themselves Jewish. You dont think they practice the religion, do you?
“…And like the rest of ‘em, he turns sort of pissy when you disturb his ziocaine high…”
Yes, unfortunately it’s a fairly common phenomenon. And, like the rest of ‘em refuse to even consider kicking the habit! The aversion of what is happening in Israel in the here and now – and the unwillingness to wake up and do what needs/must to be done. The 2SS is dead.
Hi, Annie:
The “few if any Gentiles” comment was a little cryptic. What I meant to say that almost all of the arguments I’ve read by those who said that the creation of Israel was never justified have come from Jews, because almost all Gentiles of good will (by which I mean are not merely non-anti-Semitic but those who deplore and deeply feel that Christianity bears a heavy responsibility for historic anti-Semitism) have been very reluctant to criticize Israel, until recently, and none that I know of make the more extreme argument about Zionism.
In fact, I certainly don’t classify you as a Gentile of non-goodwill, because of your argument that you would have accepted the original creation of Israel if it could have been done without harming the Palestinians. Of course, this is a very serious issue, and I have addressed it in the full essay—one of the purposes of which was to address serious argument that differ from my own, and to develop my position at some length.
Also, if you read the entire essay, you will see that in no sense do I even rationalize–let alone justify–the Nakba. On the contrary, I say that there were alternatives that the Zionists didn’t try, and that if I thought that the Nakba was the only way Israel could have been established as a Jewish state, I would argue it shouldn’t have been created.
Some of them even argue that because of the inherent conflict between Zionism and the rights of the Palestinian people, the creation of a Jewish state in part of Palestine was never justified. Tellingly, though, almost all who so argue are Jewish, for there are few if any Western gentiles of good will in this camp.
I find it hard to continue with the essay after this little gem of a swipe in the first paragraph, although I will read the rest of it later when I have more time to digest it. Despite your attempt at “clarification” of the statement, the statement still reads as a claim of anti-semitism against any gentile who thinks that the creation of Israel was never justified. I think that if you really want a sincere discussion of the topic, then a slam at gentiles who disagree with you in the first paragraph is not the way to go about encouraging an open discussion. And if you really haven’t heard any gentiles “of goodwill” argue that the state of Israel was never justified then that really is saying more about you than it is about gentiles. Either you haven’t been listening, or you are actively discouraging gentiles from discussing the subject lest they be considered anti-semitic (or “not of goodwill”), or you have a prejudice that leads you to assume that when a gentile makes such a statement they are a priori anti-semitic.
You now have three different people here who’ve stated that they find that quoted sentence offensive. What’s surprising to me is that you find the offense taken at all surprising.
That was for annie, but I objected to that remark too.
Anyway, I’m glad you clarified that. I think the original statement was easily misunderstood in the way that Annie and I misunderstood it. And this part rings true in my experience–
“because almost all Gentiles of good will (by which I mean are not merely non-anti-Semitic but those who deplore and deeply feel that Christianity bears a heavy responsibility for historic anti-Semitism) have been very reluctant to criticize Israel, until recently, ”
To some extent I think this sort of Christian has compensated for centuries of Christian crimes against Jews by becoming insensitive to Israeli crimes against Palestinians.
Yeah, that’s great, but imagining a Zionism without the Nakba is like imagining eating cheesecake five times a day and not getting obesity-related health issues. Or, perhaps more aptly, envisioning the success of Nazi reconstruction of the German economy but divorcing it from the death camps and the militarism.
It’s all two sides of the same coin. Talking about them in separation is wonderfully fantastical. But ultimately completely irrelevant to the reality of the situation.
“all Gentiles of good will (by which I mean are not merely non-anti-Semitic but those who deplore and deeply feel that Christianity bears a heavy responsibility for historic anti-Semitism) have been very reluctant to criticize Israel”
I think Europe also had a big role in the shafting of the Palestinians. The Poles went back to business as usual in 1946 in Kielce. The Austrians were delighted to get of their Jews, as were the Slovaks. It was far easier to send them off elsewhere and forget they ever existed. There is a real sadness today in the old cities of Vienna, Prague , Krakow, Vilnius and in lots of smaller towns across Europe which once were home to millions of Jews and now have none.
Jerry,
The gentile opponents of Zionism would include the old foreign policy establishment (George Marshall, Forrestal, etc.) but also people like columnist Dorothy Thompson and the American Friends of the Middle East whose board members included Virginia Gildersleeve and liberal clergyman Harry Fosdick–all fairly eminent at the time.
That said, I find your overall argument extremely lucid and well presented, and look forward to giving the longer essay the time it deservers.
Dear Mr Slater,
I have re-read this statement that few if any gentiles believe that the creation of Israel was not justified three times, and your expanded justification. Honestly it still says to me that you really do believe that those, such as myself who have withdrawn my support for the creation of Israel are antisemitic. Even at the time many thoughtful people of both the jewish and nonmonotheistic persuasion thought that it would be a moral and practical disaster, including the late and lamented Albert E.
History has now proven beyond doubt that the original opponents were c0rrect in every way about the bad effects of setting up a religious state. It is really too bad to continue to pretend that they were either wrong or of bad faith.
I wish there had been space to reprint the entire article, because I think it’s an important contribution. But, it’s available at the link Phil supplied above. I highly recommend reading the whole article.
Phil has already mentioned the valuable historical context it offers.
Jerry has presented a convincing (at least, to me) and original critique of the one-state solution. I have had my doubts about one state, as well. For example, what would prevent the wealthier Jewish inhabitants of such a state from buying up most of the land, thereby establishing Palestinian ghettos?
He has also attempted to encourage us (not to mention the two most involved parties) to be more realistic about possible solutions, rather than to think only in terms of moral absolutes. (This point mostly applies to the Palestinian side, in my opinion, based on the history to date.)
The question on which I would appreciate more elaboration is, how are we going to make a fair settlement happen? Jerry speaks of international and US political and economic pressure, but how is that really going to happen before much of the WB is settled? It really comes down to the US, in my opinion. But no American president is going to risk political suicide for himself and his party in future elections by opposing The Lobby.
which means at the end of the day. he cares more about a “solution” the justice and dealing with the root causes.
than I meant than not the in between “solution” and justice
“…Jerry has presented a convincing (at least, to me) and original critique of the one-state solution. I have had my doubts about one state, as well. For example, what would prevent the wealthier Jewish inhabitants (and those in the US) of such a state from buying up most of the land, thereby establishing Palestinian ghettos?…”
It’s happening now! And with a “supposed” 2SS all that illegal land is going to revert back into Palestinian hands? Give me a break.
“Our basic failure in 1967 was not to understand that what was good and legitimate until 1949 had ceased to be after that.”
More like “what they got away with in 1948 was no longer acceptable”.
If I understand correctly, it was also understood to be unacceptable in 1948 too.
At least since 1905 ‘Zionism’ has most usefully been defined as a claim to biblical lands. The claim to some land somewhere, not necessarily bible-related, was called ‘territorialism’ in those days and that still seems the best name for it. However, I think that Professor Slater would rather use ‘Zionism’ in the wider sense. If we go along with this usage then we need another term for Zionism in the Palestine-only form – ’1905 Zionism’ perhaps.
I’m glad to see an argument so strongly philosophical, noting not only that many historical claims are questionable but also that they prove nothing, certainly no claim of right to land or sovereignty, even if they’re true.
It’s true that Zionism in a form that would have been content with anywhere, or any viable territory, could have been satisfied without a Nakba specifically in Palestine. But why does this point, true as it is, even begin to affect our moral valuation of ’1905 Zionism’, the ideology that was actually put into effect?
I’m not sure whether Professor Slater is saying that even ’1905 Zionism’ could have been satisfied without a Nakba – by an agreement with the Palestinians, perhaps. If he is – though I see no argument for it – the references to Zionism operating elsewhere seem distracting. If he means that the Palestinians should have made an agreement, but did not, then the Nakba was essentially the Palestinians’ fault – this proposition seems to me to point logically to Zionism in the sternest form. If 1905 Zionism involved wrongful and unacceptable demands on the Palestinians then the whole Israeli structure and all its works are morally tainted, always have been and always will be, at least until a settlement, a treaty and a reconciliation finally occur.
Professor Slater does suggest that a minimal displacement elsewhere in the world, with only a few Ugandans or Patagonians involved, would have been all right. This counterfactual point seems to me to have very little relevance to the real situation. And anyway it’s not true, except perhaps, very much perhaps, on the further counterfactual claim that they would not have argued. The heart of all human rights lies in the right of the people who live in any area, other than those who have broken in by force and made no agreement or treaty, to a share of sovereignty. If this heart of the matter is set aside the whole moral system collapses.
Slater’s argument hasn’t changed essentially since it was posted here previously. It runs aground at the same point:
the Holocaust made the case for the creation of a Jewish state and a haven for the victims of antisemitism not only irrefutable but urgent.
Neither irrefutable nor urgent. And Slater, once again, does nothing to argue for either of these points but simply asserts them as if they were necessarily true. His argument centers instead on the issue of the location of the Jewish state, the urgent necessity for which he assumes but does not prove.
And this being the keystone of the entire case, it falls apart at the first puff of logic.
Further, Slater himself refutes his own “irrefutable” proposition when he says, In my view, if the kind of ethnic cleansing that the Israelis actually engaged in had been genuinely “necessary” to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, it would have been better to have done without a Jewish state.
If no Jewish state is preferable to a Jewish state established by ethnic cleansing, it must necessarily follow that a Jewish state is not necessary. If a Jewish state had truly been necessary, then it would have had to be created at the cost of every last Palestine life, or risking the life of every last Jew. While I suspect there are many Zionists who would accept the former, the position is morally indefensible.
It follows that a Jewish state must be regarded as something that many (by no means not all) Jews at the time believed (erroneously) to be necessary, but in fact was something that was merely (believed to be) advantageous to them.
If it were truly necessary, then it would be necessarily true that a Jewish state must be established or every Jew must die in the attempt. I do suspect there were Zionists who believed this. They have at least the virtue of consistency.
For some reason PW chose, or Slater and PW chose, to excerpt the historical overview section of the piece. I’m not sure that even the relatively narrow historical argument depends on absolutes, or that Slater even tries to put the Zionist argument on its strongest possible foundation. He seems quite conscious of alternative views, and his concluding remarks are supportive of the Palestinian counter-claims.
The bulk of the essay focuses on settlement proposals, and is largely if not completely independent of the validity of the central Zionist argument or the wisdom of founding the Jewish state then/there/in that way.
But this is the most fundamental question. Also the one that interests me more.
I also see that while slater has addressed some comments, he still evades this one. I suspect he will continue to evade it in his promised “one size fits all” response.
good point ck, it was the opening of the piece. maybe i’ll ask jerry and we can post the nub of the piece’s solution stuff subsequently
Potsherd2, I think you’re right that justice is fundamental, but getting to fundamental questions is a philosophical project – implying definition of first principles and clear and necessary development from them.
I also agree that it’s a very interesting question, but the requirements of that philosophical discussion go beyond Jerry’s main purposes in the essay.
For instance, you respond to Jerry’s assertion that the Holocaust made what MHughes calls “1905 Zionism” irrefutable as follows:
“Irrefutable” can mean “logically irrefutable,” and I think that’s the primary meaning, so I also reacted against Jerry use of the word. It’s a word I don’t really associate with any philosophically rigorous discussion (in which any mere assertion or proposition already implies its opposite, its refutability). I would have qualified it with “effectively” or “practically” or some such.
But I also think this problem speaks to a limitation in Jerry’s approach that I don’t consider a flaw, since he doesn’t present himself as offering a philosophical treatment of the history of the Jews (which means the Jews in world history, not just the internal history of Jewish communities), or a critique of the concept of Zionism.
What this conversation skirts – because we are mostly ill-equipped and disinclined to see into the minds of the people of the Earth, the decisionmakers on top of the governing coalitions and nation-states of 1947-8 – is the reason that the world, as represented in the United Nations and the leadership of the old and new “Great Powers,” found Professor Slater’s argument, the Zionist argument, adequately persuasive – or, possibly, “effectively irrefutable.”
Looking into their minds and their decisions would require, among other things, that we re-familiarize ourselves with the terms of what in Europe was known as “the Jewish question,” and which was re-cast and reinforced in each main era of European civilization (which, from the perspective of 1947-8 was, and in many ways still today is, “civilization” per se).
What was “the Jewish question”? In its historically proximate, secularized form, it was a problem for the nation-state. Previously, it had been posed as a question of minimum necessary uniformity of belief under Christian-theocratic governance – typical “answers” often including expulsion, expropriation, forced conversion, isolation, etc. Jerry’s essay handles this question by sticking to the practical-political, but necessarily unfolds as a critique of two main competing answers to the Jewish/Israel question of the state. It is inevitable that this critique tracks the theory of the state as enunciated during the 19th Century, because our terminology derives from that earlier discourse, implying that we have not yet evolved, advanced, thought our way all the way beyond it.
Now, many participants in this discussion seem to believe that they possess a full-fledged, ready-to-go, fully workable alternative/replacement theory, and that it’s just the stubbornness of the nasty Zionists that prevents us from putting it into practice. At a minimum, they will need to overcome Jerry’s critique, but they need to consider that merely convincingly themselves that they have done so won’t be sufficient. Overcoming the impediments to ideal justice that Jerry isolates, and somewhat regretfully seeks to adapt to, is something that would have to be done, in real human detail, not just theorized. It may not be convincingly theorizable at all until or to whatever extent it’s actually done.
CK: I stand corrected, “effectively irrefutable” is better.
Potsherd’s point was that there is a contradiction between the ideas that a Jewish state was absolutely necessary and that it should not have been allowed unless a certain condition, a condition referring to the Palestinians, was met. Yet both these ideas seem to be asserted, meaning that the case is not ‘effectively irrefutable’ but logically refuted.
As to the case for the absolute or relative necessity there is a certain problem in refuting it since it has not been stated. Is it that an intense degree of suffering and deprivation of rights confers the right on the sufferers to a state of their own, even if the result is a certain injustice to others? If this is what it amounts to, I think it plainly wrong, being effectively refuted by its conflict with all recognised philosophical theories about sovereign rights. Perhaps the principle should be stated some other way, in which case I wait to hear it.
I ought to say again that I appreciate Professor Slater’s logical onslaught on the derivation of Zionist claims from ancient history.
CK – I don’t see “effectively irrefutable” as an improvement.
The point is that slater (HI SLATER) is resting his entire argumentative edifice on this point of “irrefutable” necessity. Which, far from being irrefutably, effectively or otherwise, is an unexamined assumption that he makes. He doesn’t say so, but this “argument from necessity” would seem to be an attempt to prove that the foundation of Israel was, because necessary, therefore just and/or good, or some positive moral thing. And that, therefore, the current existence of Israel is also some positive moral thing, deserving to continue even at the cost of (hopefully minimal) injustice to the Palestinians.
And that isn’t what “necessity” means, even if necessity can be proved, which we would never know from slater’s presentation.
The issue isn’t that people at the time believed a Jewish state was necessary. We know that they did. We know that much of the world (the part that counts, the part with the power) agreed with them at the time. The issue is whether they were right in so believing.
Because the assumption went largely unquestioned. As slater still continues to leave it unquestioned. So as far as I am concerned, the rest of what he has to say must be entirely worthless, as built on such a foundation.
Jerry/Slater, can speak for himselves, but “effectively irrefutable” merely means that no one in the part of the world that counted could see to refuting it.
As for “necessity,” I’m still not sure what necessity means to you in these contexts. “Historical necessity” is a traditional phrase – and often means that someone is paying a heavy price for a crime someone else committed, or for no crime at all – because some other historical process was for all practical purposes irresistible.
More to the point, if founding Israel there/then/in that way wasn’t really “necessary” in your 2011 view, why exactly would it make it “necessary” now to re-visit or revoke the unnecessary judgment of ’47-8 and overturn the entire history that followed up to the present day? Why shouldn’t we still be permitted, in fact required, to calculate comparative advantages and balance equities?
@CK,
“Effectively refuting” the necessity of a Jewish state = “no one in the part of the world that counted could see to refuting it”
The parts of the world that supported the division of Palestine giving most of the land to the minority Jews didn’t include Palestine or the neighboring Arab countries, or India. Those voting for included at least a couple who were heavily complicit or considered complicit in the holocaust (France, Poland), and 3 countries whose arms were twisted into voting in favor. You’re saying basically that only the western states, victors in WWII, and Russia counted. Not the people who were most affected. Why do you consider that only those with military force count?
The fundamental principle of justice we’re arguing for is that one should not be allowed to arbitrarily take someone else’s life, or home or possessions by pointing a gun at them and threatening them, just because they don’t have the wherewithal to defend against it – which is exactly what the zionists planned to do and did.
As for revisiting the past, I believe J Slater is the one who asserted the Jewish State was necessary in 1948. Do you believe this isn’t revisiting it? Or are you just asserting that all past crimes shouldn’t be revisited? Do you agree that no property that formerly belonged to Jews pre-holocaust should be returned to them?
“Why shouldn’t we still be permitted, in fact required, to calculate comparative advantages and balance equities?”
Go ahead, compare advantages. I can sort of see the advantages of a Jewish state for Jews, they can make the rules and make sure no one else prospers or lives in it by various means, including the original people, so that it remains Jewish. Do you happen to notice the disadvantages for the indigenous Palestinian people of that land, deprived of their ancient heritage and cultural artifacts, deprived of lives, livelihoods and way of life, forever exiled and families split, the many children and elderly who died, basically, of exposure, the forced impoverishment in refugee camps? What were you proposing to “balance equities?”
Hi lyn,
The phrase “world that counted” was borrowed from Potsherd2′s concession regarding the actual correlation of forces ca. 1948. It goes without saying that in an ideal world, everyone would count, and that the new and old great powers would have treated the Palestinian Arab rights as sacrosanct, like everyone else’s rights.
Instead, you had a bunch of people who’d just finished – well, actually hadn’t quite finished at all – tolling up the “butcher’s bills” and registering 10s or 100s of thousands of casualties, 100s of thousands killed in two blinks of an eye in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and nodding gravely, then getting on to the next case. They were still watching millions of people, sometimes millions of their own people, the ones who counted the most to them, being pushed from one end of the table map to the other. They were drawing and re-drawing boundaries containing millions of square miles and crossing out hundreds or maybe thousands of years of history with red pencils. Millions of people were still dying all around the world – most prominently in the Chinese civil war, the India-Pakistan partition, and the German mass re-location – as part of this globe-spanning re-division of empires, culminating a process that had actually been going on intensively for 30-40 years. “Arbitrarily take someone else’s life, or home or possessions by pointing a gun at them and threatening them, just because they don’t have the wherewithal to defend against it” is how an overwhelmingly large amount of the world’s business was still being done in 1948, if in the name of not having to do it (as much) anymore.
“They” (we) were used to playing God with people’s lives, and – ironically, in historically very telling ways – they/we didn’t take the plight of a few hundred thousand Palestinian Arabs being asked to vacate most of a not exceeding attractive patch of a land and enjoy citizenship and new lives in the re-defined landscape. Considering that in many of their/our minds the Palestinian Arabs had been Nazi collaborators, and the Jews deserved a special place divvying up the spoils, the victors probably thought that the former were getting off fairly easy, at least considering the pitilessness with which the defeated, and their friends, were customarily treated elsewhere and since forever. That the resisters turned around and defied the solemn decision of the people that counted, and instead went to war, re-submitted them again to this ancient moral logic.
Which brings up the relative absence throughout this entire discussion of the Palestinian Arabs and allies as self-conscious actors in their own destinies. I’ve just gotten through explaining how they were on the other side of overwhelming and pitiless historical forces, but, of course, the Palestinians themselves, along with the future Israelis, played a role in determining how hard or easy the whole thing went, and much of the character of the fight was determined locally. I fully understand and accept that they had a right to resist, but that resistance included a number of very bad decisions, and it didn’t take the form exclusively of Gandhian soul-force and exemplary commitment to the highest in ca. 2011 humane and democratic values.
What I propose generally is that we view the history historically, not from false presumptions of supreme understanding and towering moral superiority, and treat the present and potential futures with a view not just to what any one or a group of us think should happen, but also to what our knowledge of human nature and relevant facts allows us to guess about what can happen and about what must happen – that is, if we want to do better than our forebears, instead of just repeating their mistakes from the other direction. As Woodrow Wilson put it, but in foreign affairs didn’t always achieve it, “Speculative politics treats man and situations as they are supposed to be; practical politics treats them (upon no general plan, but in detail) as they are found to be at the moment of actual contact.” The speculative aspect of this conflict is incredibly fascinating, it ends up being the through the looking glass history of human morality and civilization. It is therefore a dangerous temptation, since it leads people to seek and get “religion” on what must be done.
CK – I am not sure why you consider my remark a “concession.”
The definition of who did and did not count was a self-selected definition by the WWII victors. They may not have been calling themselves in those days the Great Powers, but they still thought in those terms. The most tangible heritage from those days is the establishment of the permament members of the UN Security Council with their permanent vetoes.
btw – if you scroll about 3/4 down these unnumbered comments, you’ll see that I replied to your post from yesterday.
Potsherd2 – a concession to reality, to “natural justice” if not to ideal morality. The two often come into conflict. By natural justice, trial by combat on the large scale, being a victor in a cataclysmic world war means that you count. Might made you right.
I think you’re correct about UN Security Council, whose establishment and configuration was also a concession to natural justice, or historical necessity, or practical politics. Making it obsolete, in a good way, would be a good thing, would define a great historical task.
I understand the justifications for a Jewish State. I empathize with Jews who claim the need for a state of their own as an answer to a long history of persecution. What I have never understood, however, is how a Jewish State is supposed to work AS A DEMOCRACY in a place where there are so many non-Jews. The tiresome histrionics, the mincing and hairsplitting of factoids, misses this central issue. What are Israeli’s doing right now, what have they ever done, to include Palestinians as equals in the part of Israel that calls itself democratic? Where is their place in Israel’s constitution? Where is Israel’s constitution? These are fundamental issues concerning Israel’s claims to being a recognizable, respectable democracy. I’ve yet to hear any convincing arguments that allow Israel to keep its legitimacy as both a democratic and Jewish State.
From Slater’s responses, I get the impression that his ideological views owe a lot to his own perceptions of the world around him. That is to say that generally speaking, he needs to step down from his ivory tower. He might actually start to see life for what it is and start appreciating the world around him instead of living in a cognitive paranoid state where Israel is needed to protect Jews from harm.
But then again, if you don’t mince like Slater does, then you’re not engaging in a “serious discussion”.
And I use “mince” here not as criticism of nuance or of context. I use “mince” to point to the logical gymnastics in which he engages to justify his argument.
Slater doesn’t live in Israel. His understanding of the conflict comes from books and newspaper clippings. Does he even speak Hebrew or Arabic?
Nonetheless, he’s here to tell all that a Jewish state is needed contrary to the privilege in which American Jews are currently marinated, soaked and saturated.
Incidentally, if Slater plans on living in Israel some time in the future, he’d better loosen up a bit about whom he engages in dialog with given the pervasive ‘rough and ready’ (to put it mildly) culture in Israel.
It is the same fallacy over and over – Jewish and democratic. If it wasn’t the Palestinians there would be the the marrying out threat or whatever.
In that sense, what he is arguing for is a Jewish theocracy with democratic trappings as necessary to safeguard the Jewish people who are unique in needing safeguarding. Tell it to the Roma.
The logic of your argument about ‘the necessity of Israel’ is impeccable, I think.
Professor S seems to be aghast at the sheer scale of the Nakba – that’s what makes it unacceptable as far as he’s concerned. Had it involved fewer people and a compensation scheme it would have been all right, only a small injustice.
It does not seem to be clear whether he thinks that this was never offered, putting the Israelis completely in the wrong, or was offered and refused by the Palestinians who should have accepted it, making the whole sorry business their fault. There seems to be a rather comfortable ambivalence here. And the comfortable conclusion that the Palestinians have no right of return is about, we’re informed, to unfold. After the complex argument the cold comfort.
Not sure whose argument about the ‘necessity of Israel’ is impeccable, certainly not Slater’s
Leaving aside the intentional Zionist mass murders and racism against the original and native people of Palestine. Slater’s argument is that Israel was necessary due to anti-semitism. But that’s a-historical and backwards logic.
If history teaches us anything, anti-semitism was necessary to create Israel. Without the nazis chasing the Jews out of Germany, there just wouldn’t have been the additional Jewish population in Palestine to support a Jewish state, most Jews would have preferred to stay put. The holocaust played such an important part in Israel’s creation, in bringing about diplomatic support from the U.S. and other victors of WWII, that it could be argued that the holocaust was necessary in order to create Israel. Logically, if you wanted a Jewish state back when it was being conceived, anti-semitism, mass murders and progroms against Jews were necessary.
One of the Christofascists made this argument, iirc.
the two are irreconcible as zionism is at its core the creation of a state that illegally either devides or takes from the palestinians the territory of palestine
Several comments have read the last sentence of my first paragraph as meaning that I am accusing gentiles who believe that Zionism was never justified as being antisemitic. I can see how that sentence can be read in that manner but that was not my intention, and indeed comes close to reversing the point I was trying to make.
Anyway, on my own blog I have rewritten the first paragraph, which now reads:
“A small but growing number of Israeli and American Jewish critics of Israel have concluded that the root cause of Israel’s continuing oppression of the Palestinians is Zionism, which at its core is the belief that the Jewish people have both the right and the need of a state of their own. Some of them even argue that because of the inherent conflict between Zionism and the rights of the Palestinian people, the creation of a Jewish state in part of Palestine was never justified. Tellingly, though, almost all who so argue are Jewish, for few Western gentiles of good will–by whom I mean those who are not merely non-antisemitic but who deplore and deeply feel that Christianity bears a heavy responsibility for historic antisemitism–are prepared to go that far, whatever their criticisms of Israel today.
Most contemporary Jewish critics of Zionism hold to a more moderate view, that of “post-Zionism”….
I think the new version still lends itself to being misread, but I understand better what you meant.
On the question of one state vs. two state, even from the pov of a two stater I think there would be value for the Palestinians in continuing to point out that they have every right to demand a one state solution. Call it a moral bargaining chip if you like. Part of the problem with the US as a supposed mediator is that we have been willing to go along with the notion that letting the Palestinians have 22 percent (or less) of their original homeland is a “generous offer” on the part of the Israelis. Well, no, it’s not. It’s allowing Palestinians to live on 22 percent of what they have the moral right to demand.
Moral bargaining chips might prove useful to Palestinians even if they are willing to settle for a two state solution because the way things are now, the US as the supposed mediator stacks the deck in Israel’s favor. Now if every advocate of the two state solution were as honest as you are at admitting what has been done to the Palestinians maybe there wouldn’t be a need for moral bargaining chips, but in the real world we’ve got a situation where the US government condemns without reservation any act of Palestinian terror and at most expresses regret for any loss of Palestinian life at the hands of Israelis. And many who claim to be advocates of a two state solution really favor bantustans. I think obtaining a two state solution that is minimally fair to Palestinians will require Palestinians to make their full case in the court of US public opinion, and that is going to involve them pointing out that the most of their homeland was unjustly and brutally stolen from them and they have every right to demand a one state solution.
Then they can smile sweetly and express a willingness to work out a compromise. If they wish to do so. But they’ve got the moral high ground (to the extent that such a thing exists in a long dirty conflict) and they shouldn’t be shy about pointing this out.
Donald:
The concept of a “moral bargaining chip” is very interesting, but I’m afraid that from the point of view of the Israelis it is worth very little. Indeed, the whole history of Israeli dispossession, occupation, and repression of the Palestinians already should have given them a “moral bargaining chip” of much greater weight–except that the moral blindness of the Israelis prevent them from seeing it that way.
On “moral bargaining chips”, I agree that Israel has been morally blind, but was thinking more of winning the PR battle in the US. In the US Barak’s offer is commonly described as “generous” and that is the mindset that needs to change if the US is going to play a constructive role.
no it doesn’t a moral bargaining chip only holds when you bargaining against your victimizers. if I’m party A and party b mistreats me that doesn’t entitle me to things from party C which is essentially your argument.
” if I’m party A and party b mistreats me that doesn’t entitle me to things from party C which is essentially your argument.”
I’m not sure what argument you’re reading. Apparently
party C is the US, and since the US has enabled Israel’s crimes the Palestinians are entitled to something from us. But that wasn’t my argument anyway. My argument was that the discussion is heavily weighted against the Palestinians in America–if the Palestinians pointed out that they would be within their moral rights to demand one man, one vote, it would shift the discussion in their favor–it might change the politics of the issue enough so that American politicians might be pressured into taking a more fairminded stance, instead of monotonously repeating the claim that Barak made a generous offer and Arafat turned it down, that Israel leans over backwards to make peace on very generous terms and the Palestinians refuse, etc…
But yeah, since you brought it up, the US also owes the Palestinians restitution, given that we’ve helped Israel kill so many of them and steal their land.
I read the argument as being for Israel crimes( which I do believe Mr. Slater has a tedency for) rather than being for palestinian rights
a two state solution by it very nature cannot be fair to the palestinians as it denies them the residents of the territory of palestine their right to self determination by deviding the territory against their will. we very well might have to accept a two state solution( hopefully not) but we must never for instant pretend that such an outcome is fair nor perfectly legal.
Great, Western “gentiles of good will” “deeply feel that Christianity bears a heavy responsibility for historic antisemitism” but you don’t want the zionists to pay, you want the “international community” to pay for the historic crimes of the zionists committed against Palestinians because of their ethnicity.
P.S. I don’t mean to imply that you don’t have good will.
“Zionism, which at its core is the belief that the Jewish people have both the right and the need of a state of their own.”
An even more fundamental error is that Jews are a “people”, and that “peoples” are morally significant.
“existential necessity,”
And this phrase assumes that Jews should remain Jews. But there is no necessity for this. The moderators do not like me to keep saying this, but there is no moral imperative for Jews to remain Jews, and for the “Jewish people” to continue to exist.
(This is the stage at which someone will point out that the Nazis persecuted people whose ancestors were Jews, even though those people themselves were not. But would this have happened if there were no Jews – or very few Jews – anywhere? Probably no. We do not hear of anti-Avarism, or anti-Etruscanism these days.)
“Moreover, there appears to be little evidence that the Romans engaged in a wholesale expulsion of the Jewish people from Palestine after they suppressed the Jewish rebellion of 66-70 AD. Rather, most of the Jews remained in Palestine throughout the period of the Roman Empire, but over time the majority became Christians, and later Muslims, leaving only a small group which preserved its Jewish identity.”
And this cannot be repeated too often. Modern Palestinians include descendants of the ancient Jews.
So far, an excellent debunking of the Zionist arguments for the alleged right to establish Israel.
Ok, you’re arguing that Zionism isn’t an evil philosophy because ethnic cleansing wasn’t necessary to create a Jewish state.
But the Zionists did commit ethnic cleansing to create the Jewish state, quite deliberately and with malice and planning. Plenty of the early Zionists, well before the Holocaust, considered ways and means to commit ethnic cleansing. An extremely tiny minority of them approved of equal rights for the Arab inhabitants of Palestine. Rather, during the British Mandate the official Zionist organizations lobbied for, and sometimes got, superior privilege for Jews and in addition adopted racist policies against the native Arab peoples. For example, the policy of hiring only Jews on land the JNF bought.
So you are arguing that Zionism isn’t an evil because racism or favoring ethnic cleansing aren’t necessary to it as a philosophy. Yet racism and the goal of ethnic cleansing have always been a part of it, a major part of it, and still are. You’re claiming virtues for a philosophy that was only held by a minuscule fraction of those calling themselves Zionists who were irrelevant to any actions taken by Zionists as a group in the real world.
And you’re saying that the official state racism must continue in order to maintain the Jewish state as Jewish.
As for the argument that the Holocaust made the Jewish state necessary, I’m sorry, the Jewish state didn’t save a single Jew from the nazis. We don’t know what would have happened had Zionism not started and those same Jews had spent their energy confronting naziism instead of providing a convenient way for the nazis and other anti-semites to rid Europe of its Jews, or providing the second to final “solution” of the Jewish “problem.” I personally believe that many Jews fleeing persecution would have been welcomed by the Palestinian Arabs in Palestine had Zionists not proposed to take it over and rid it of the Palestinian Arabs. You’re claiming the need for a state for refuge for Jews fleeing persecution, but that refugees might have existed anyway if Zionism hadn’t existed, many refugees of the earlier Armenian genocide were welcomed in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.
As for the “unique” history of persecution of the Jews, I believe it’s a bit racist not to recognize the persecution of so many other peoples, in medieval Europe, for example, Cathars and other heretics and practitioners of folk medicine tended to get accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake, some put the numbers slaughtered in the millions, a true genocide of religious sects.
In theory one can separate Jewish territorialism- (the need of the Jews for a state/homeland/refuge somewhere) from Zionism- (the movement to place that state/homeland/refuge in the historic “homeland”).
When individual Jews were acting as individuals for the most part they headed to destinations other than Palestine: North America mostly. The idea of territorialism was that we, the Jews, should not just act as individuals, but should act as a group. That the Jews as a group would focus on Jerusalem rather than place x was practically automatic. Survival for individuals can take place anywhere on the globe, but survival of the group implied Jerusalem.
The problem is that the justification of the need for a place, as in any place, is an easier argument than to justify the actual place with the actual suffering of the Palestinians.
By 1945 Palestine was the home of some half million Jews, that fact plus the reaction to the cataclysm in Europe made the move to establish a state in Palestine irresistible. There was too much momentum in that direction for any distraction to have made any difference. This is not a justification, but a factor in understanding that moment in history.
understanding that moment in history.
thanks for your honesty wj. i like your framing in the last paragraph. i don’t think it is helpful trying to justify zionism in palestine, better to just accept the here and now and figure out how to step forward. because really nothing justifies ethnic cleansing
“survival of the group implied Jerusalem.”
Are you saying that survival of the group implied ethnic cleansing or subjugation of the Palestinians?
If so, surely it is wrong for the group – as distinct from its individual members – to survive. Better to let it cease to exist than to perpetrate a gross wrong.
RoHa- I was speaking of those who saw the need to migrate. There were many who didn’t migrate who were devoted to the survival of the group. Of those who migrated and saw the need to migrate as a group, the destination of Jerusalem fit perfectly for their desires, but too many of them did not consider the consequences to the Palestinians. There were ways to avoid ethnic cleansing and subjugation, but the avoidance of those acts was not a high priority for most of those who chose migration with a national purpose.
I think the more critical lapses came after the struggle.
By calling it a struggle, I am validating the needs of the communities with needs. (Jews had needs. Palestinians had needs. The Arab League states had desire for empire.)
The first institutionalization of the nakba came in 1949-51 with legislation prohibiting return, prohibiting access to courts, and then expropriation of abandoned lands.
From 1949-1967 (and for some time after) the pioneer older officials and officers of the new state were aware that the establishment of Israel came through struggle and that Palestinians did not land on their feet, and knew that that would have to be remedied for Israel to remain.
Following 1967 war, and 1973 war in particular, there came in Israel the recognition that unless something fundamental changed, Israel would not be accepted. (As is indicated by many comments here.)
The assumption that the nakba had occurred, and needed remedy, was forgotten. The generation that had seen the struggle, the mutually valid needs, were gone. Only the “story” of the struggle, the mythology, remained for people my age and younger.
Phil’s thesis is that the original story now has less and less weight, among Americans in particular.
Again, the PRESENT Palestinian condition (and present super-majorities geographically separated) are what is compelling to my understanding.
I would hope that Dr Slater would dedicate some comment to goal and making that happen.
I’ve been writing to every Israeli that I know urging that they start, encourage, participate in, electoral efforts to unseat Netanyahu and to treaty with the PA. It has to happen electorally.
The wars have been devastating. Better that they be avoided.
It is still an open question of whether the Palestinian community will permanently accept a two-state solution. I don’t see the Palestinian community accepting a single state solution with Jewish Israelis dominant. That seems to be a recipe for civil war, continued resentment, and institutionalization of the current class relations.
There are people that post here that state that even three generations (60 years), that the Jews should leave.
I think it is accurate that there was no other site that could have served as Jewish national home. The international promise was made in 1917, 84 years ago. And, I think it is accurate that following the holocaust it is undeniable that if Jews could form the institutions of coherent governance (which they did), that they deserved to self-govern.
The only question that I see is how Israel is to relate to its neighbors. It will not magically disappear. And, the endless war is useless.
what a surprise witty wants to see a treaty that validates war crimes.
just because you breed on land that isn’t legally yours doesn’t make it your. every jewish resident of palestine should if they are unwilling to submit to the true expression of the rule of law should leave the terriotry of palestine. if they are willing to return the property they have stolen and live in peace with the palestinians they can stay. sorry witty but their is no right to get away with crimes. so what they lived their for 3 generation the palestinian for the most part lived their for many times that and you have no problem with them being removed. as usual you show your blatent racism.
“There were ways to avoid ethnic cleansing and subjugation, but the avoidance of those acts was not a high priority for most of those who chose migration with a national purpose.”
In other words, the Zionists thought that the survival of the group was more important than the wrongs they committed to the Palestinians.
And that is simply immoral.
If a group (say, the West Brisbane Cheescake Photography Club) disbands, and ceases to exist as a group, the individuals, (Dave, Ron, Les, etc.) continue to survive. The ancient and honourable traditional practice of glamour photography may cease, but that is all. The loss to the world is not of the same order as the loss that would be felt if the members, in order to maintain the group, were to kill or subjugate the people who live next to the club meeting place.
But the Zionist is in the same position. Thus, Zionism is clearly an immoral ideology.
“I think it is accurate that following the holocaust it is undeniable that if Jews could form the institutions of coherent governance (which they did), that they deserved to self-govern.”
I deny it. And I have argued against it. You, on the other hand, simply offer unsubstantiated asssertions.
I think that we need to recognize that a crime has been committed, and that we need, as much as possible to make right that crime. It does not help to brutally do so. We should try and make right that crime while trying not to create new victims.
At some point, a crime becomes irreversible. The dead can not be brought back to life. Those born in Israel and who do not hold two passports have no where else to go. A child should not be punished for the crimes of their parents.
I think we can do better than empty all stolen land. I think that villages can be rebuilt – new villages created – and people relocated – both Jews and Palestinians. I think that affirmative action – not as misused by JS, but the real thing – can be used to help create economic and political power among the Palestinian people who would enter in a situation of extreme disadvantage.
I went to a mass in the West Bank once where the priest read in arabic some passage from the bible about “Yerushaliyim” and I thought it was funny that he didn’t call it “al quds” . But in the Christian tradition the myth of Jerusalem is almost as strong as it is in Judaism. And it never changes and never adapts.
For the Jewish question I always though ‘”Jerusalem” was more of a symbol than a real place.
I don’t believe that “the Jews” as a group focused on Jerusalem post 1945 . Most of those in the East were settled and the 50% of Jews in the US stayed put. Israel and is was about imposing the will of the migrating/exiled/remant Ashkenazi on the rest of the Jewish community.
“then the existential need of the Jews for their state of their own, which in practice by 1947 could have been established in no other place but Palestine, would have outweighed the rights of those Palestinians who were involuntarily relocated.”
This is the need for a safe place for Jews? (Brilliant idea! Make enemies of everyone around you and then claim the bit in the middle is a safe refuge.)
But why, then, is the safety of Jews more important than the rights of the Palestinians?
“whatever the past history, antisemitism has been so discredited and is now so weak that it is no longer necessary for the Jews to have a state of their own.”
As an alternative to a Jewish State as a refuge from persecution, perhaps Slater could try working out why, in so many different places, times, and circumstances, the neighbours were so pissed off, and then work out how to get on with the neighbours so that there wouldn’t be any persecution.
“there is no necessary or inherent inconsistency between equal–or almost equal–civil, political, and economic rights for the Jews and Israeli Arabs.”
There you are, Seham. Almost equal. Nothing for you to complain about, then.
“the creation of a Palestinian state with its own “right of return” granted to Palestinians anywhere.”
Palestinians live in Palestine. The right of return they want is the right to live anywhere in Palestine. People whose lives are based in other countries do not need a right to go and live in a Palestinian state.
“In short, the Palestinian right of return can only be realized in a Palestinian state”
So it is to be no more than a right to go to where they already are.
“most Israeli Jews still want to live in a Jewish state for historical, cultural, or religious reasons, and that they have a right to do so.”
What is the basis for that alleged right? A “Jewish State” seems to be an immoral concept from the start.
“As an alternative to a Jewish State as a refuge from persecution, perhaps Slater could try working out why, in so many different places, times, and circumstances, the neighbours were so pissed off, and then work out how to get on with the neighbours so that there wouldn’t be any persecution.”
Oh, I can answer that one. Anti-semitism exists for the same reason that white racism exists, misogyny exists, homophobia exists, and Islamophobia exists. You seem to think that in the case of Jews it’s something wrong with Jews, but why would you think this? A lot of people are prone to bigotry. Islamophobia today bears a pretty striking resemblance to the anti-semitism of 100 years ago.
“Anti-semitism exists for the same reason that white racism exists, misogyny exists, homophobia exists, and Islamophobia exists. ”
One single reason for all of those? Whatever the reasons were, I am quite prepared to believe that some of them, at least, contribute to anti-Semitism.
“You seem to think that in the case of Jews it’s something wrong with Jews, but why would you think this?”
The story we get is that everyone, everywhere, hates and persecutes the Jews. Now if someone tells me that he has had many different neighbours, in many different countries, and that they all hated him, I am inclined to doubt that the fault is solely with the neighbours.
“Islamophobia today bears a pretty striking resemblance to the anti-semitism of 100 years ago.”
And I suspect that at least one cause for it is that some Muslim immigrants try to maintain the customs and culture of their country of origin rather than adapting themselves to their new country. (Of course, the anti-Muslim propaganda spread by various interest groups is another cause.)
In general, there is little anti-Semitism in those countries in which Jews have integrated into society. Shmuel has more to say on this below.
I left this comment on Slater’s blog which turned into a synthesis of my preferred anti-Zionist arguments. Thought it would be a good idea to reproduce here.
I’m a little surprised at the offense taken to your “gentiles of goodwill” remark. My problem is that you take too much of Zionism’s own selling points at their own word. And the fact that most of your arguments boil down to legitimating the status quo created by the Zionist paramilitaries c.f. “However, so long as the Arab minority is not large enough to make Jewish sovereignty impossible, there is no necessary or inherent inconsistency between equal–or almost equal–civil, political, and economic rights for the Jews and Israeli Arabs.” Palestine has an Arab majority and that doesn’t change because half its population is in perpetual exile and disenfranchised by the Zionist regime.
Getting back to taking the internal claims of the movement at its own word, you give it too much credit for wanting to save Jews from persecution.
The first problem with the Zionist movement, historically, is that it posits Jews are one people with a certain interest and that it has their best interests at heart. Still, for all its pretensions at uniting Jews, Zionism has never actually done this, moreover, it deliberately inculcated ethnic and class divisions among Jews.
Second problem is that when the movement was gaining more ground, literally, in Palestine and the settlement building acquired a political and ideological leadership with the resources to implement their own abstract ideals acquired in the Kaiserreich, it had nothing to do with rescuing Jews from persecution. This was the goal talked about in Europe; much is made of Herzl’s wish to save the Jews from pogroms (See Howard Sachar for an illustrative example). Arthur Ruppin had something different in mind: Save the Jews from assimilation by moving the best specimens to their ancient soil, purify the race by combing the Semitic lice out of the Aryan cotton-fiber – Yes, he really saw Jews as a mixed Aryan-Semitic race with the Semitic component an impurity to be filtered out. His Palestine Office administration vetted potential olim for physical and mental prowess: Not only were people rejected, they could even be sent back once in the country. Here’s a block quote I posted with more details, and if that’s not enough find Etan Bloom’s thesis in pdf and read the rest of that section.
link to mondoweiss.net
Similarly, for good measure, no one cared about rescuing Mideastern/North African Jews from Islamic oppression. I think maybe Hibbat Zion might have wanted the Arab Jews included in the Zionist project, but the Labour Zionists did not speak of them except as a solution to the problem of employing Arabs on the one hand while Ashkenazim refused to do real work.
Next issue: Zionism was an alliance with antisemites. Winston Churchill wrote an article in 1920 called, “Zionism vs. Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of World Jewry.” I hesitate to find a link because it will be on a white supremacist site, however it’s quoted at length in ‘Churchill and the Jews’ by Martin Gilbert. In this article, Churchill slotted Jews into three categories: Zionists, socialists or regular citizens of their home countries, and advocated using the Zionists against the socialists. So he basically saw Jews as either potential carriers of revolution or proper nationalists. Although he qualifies himself, looking on Jews as potential socialist agitators is antisemitism of the vintage kind.
Lord Balfour as PM supported the 1905 Aliens Act which limited Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. According to Gilbert, he believed the Declaration would persuade Russian Jewry to keep Russia in the war.
Avi Shlaim also cites Tom Segev who believes David Lloyd George was the primary mover of the Balfour Declaration and was motivated by antisemitism (‘One Palestine Complete’ is a book I’m planning to read)
link to users.ox.ac.uk
Of course, Zionists overlooked these attitudes of their British patrons because they thought the same way. The most well-kept secret about this movement is that its founders agreed with antisemitism and wanted to fix European Jews of deserving it. As hinted above, Ruppin embraced eugenics and wanted to cure the Yiddish Jews of their mercantile instinct, which he associated with Semitic peoples. And the eventual leadership of Israel all hated socialism. Herzl never met a reactionary antisemite he did not pander to – flip to any given page of his complete diary, especially the letter to Otto von Bismarck in vol. I.
These attitudes are relevant because whatever the original intention was, Zionism turned a handful of Jews into a colonial elite off the backs of other Jews, to say nothing of the Palestinian refugees. As I learn more, I grow more weary of crediting this movement for its failure to succeed where the world failed the Jews. And I don’t award brownie points for blaming the British and Americans when it did nothing to challenge their own restrictions on Jewish entry. Because its energies were focused somewhere else.
You’ll probably argue whatever its past history, Israel today can not fail to take in any Jews persecuted elsewhere. However, it’s been tested on that since WWII, in Argentina in the late 70′s/early 80′s. Well, we have a working case study on how Israel behaves when Jews are persecuted by one of its own allies.
link to azvsas.blogspot.com
link to haaretz.com
That along with the collective snoring through John Vorster tells me Israel only cares about antisemitism if Arabs can take the blame.
Some other comments:
“Zionist ideology is not based on the belief that the Jews are superior to others–just more vulnerable, or potentially so.”
Actually, it’s based on the belief that Europe is superior to the Orient and Ashkenazim, instead of being excluded from the masters of the world, deserve their rightful place among them. An example from Weizmann according to a Soviet official: “Oh, don’t worry. The Arab is often called the son of the desert. It would be truer to call him the father of the desert. His laziness and primitivism turn a flourishing garden into a desert. Give me the land occupied by one milion Arabs, and I will easily settle five times that number of Jews on it.” (quot’d in Birth by Morris)
Although you may be right that a one-state solution won’t work, the idea is to call for the refugees’ right of return, because this right is unconditional and discounting it would green light more expulsions from Israel, plus it’s a basic demand of the BDS movement.
I’ll leave it at that for now.
Thank you for your thoughtful post, and thank you Phil for including it.
Thanks again for a thoughtful and thought-provoking post.
Two related paragraphs caught my eye. The first is this:
As Sternhell has put it, “Jewish nationalism was first of all a defensive reflex,” and an “existential necessity,” a consequence of “the rise of state anti-Semitism in the Russian Empire, which clearly sought to rid itself of its Jews.” In light of the often-murderous persecution of the Jewish people throughout history, culminating of course with the Holocaust, few if any other people have had a more powerful case for possession of a state of their own.
What of other responses to anti-Semitism? What of emigration and the various forms and degrees of integration into surrounding European societies, especially following Emancipation? Immigration – to the Americas, Australia, South Africa, etc. – has been incredibly successful from a Jewish perspective. The success of this mass immigration was also a product of the desire for integration and the various ideologies and strategies developed in Europe (full assimilation, religious Reform, neo-Orthodoxy, etc.). These processes continued in Europe, and there is no telling how successful they may or may not have been, say in Poland or Lithuania, had it not been for the Nazi invasion and genocide. Amos Oz, in his Tale of Love and Darkness, tells the story of his uncle, a university lecturer, who had remained in Lithuania to build a Jewish future there, as an integral part of the land and wider society in which he lived. Oz intimates that this uncle was proven wrong by the Holocaust, but was he really? Was integration in Lithuania an impossible dream? What exactly did the Holocaust prove with regard to the possibility of Jewish life in Europe, or even in Germany itself?
The necessity for a “homeland” following the Holocaust was of a different nature. It was the need of hundreds of thousands of deeply traumatised DPs to rebuild their lives – preferably away from the physical and social contexts of their suffering and horror. (Aside: At the time of the massacres in Yugoslavia, I wondered how Bosnian families could simply go back to their former homes and their Serbian neighbours, after everything that had happened.) But was a Jewish state really the only solution? The tried-and-true solution of immigration to “new” countries was no less valid, and was in fact the solution preferred by many of the DPs. There was a political decision however, on the part of the countries in question, to restrict and delay such immigration – at least partly as a result of the (admittedly convenient) Zionist position (expressed e.g. by Abba Hillel Silver to the United Nations) that resettlement in Palestine was the only possible solution to the DP crisis.
The argument that the restrictions on Jewish immigration demonstrated the need for a place in which such restrictions would not have been imposed (and indeed the newly-created State of Israel took in the largest number of Jewish DPs) may have some validity (although – as you explain, not at the expense of others), but the very creation of such a place was the result of a unique crisis and moral imperative that could have produced – and in fact did produce – other solutions, in terms of freer immigration, international humanitarian law, etc.
This brings me to the second paragraph that caught my eye:
But most importantly, it is the continuing failure of most Israelis to distinguish serious history from Zionist ideology that largely accounts for Israeli self-righteousness, rigidity, moral failures, and blindness to their own best interests.
I believe that continued recourse to the “defensive reflex” argument to justify the “need” for a Jewish state (with varying degrees of discrimination against non-Jewish citizens and migrants) is in itself a product of Zionist ideology, rather than of “serious history”, as is the notion that dispossession and discrimination are not inherent to political Zionism – even “post-Zionist” political Zionism.
The Nazi invasion and genocide didn’t happen “out of the blue,” and wasn’t facilitated by Germans only, but, even if we presume that assimilation could have somehow worked if only it had been tried again, or better, the people making that argument in Europe, both Jewish and non-Jewish, had been displaced and largely annihilated.
The three main strategies of Jewish defense inherited from the 19th Century were 1) Zionism, 2) Jewish political organizing in the interest of political integration at the national level, 3) organizing chiefly by non-Jews on behalf of the Jews (where they were excluded or separate).
By 1945, options two and three had gone up in smoke or had been buried in mass graves or had been scattered to the four winds. The Zionists, on the other hand, had survived the war with their leadership, base of operations, and organization intact, and with their strategy – in their eyes and in the eyes of “the world” – vindicated.
That’s also “serious history,” history at its most serious. In that sense, much of this discussion – not yours in particular, but the typical discussion of this subject – is merely pseudo-history, the imposition of abstract, unconsciously parochial theories of ideal justice on past events. Put simply, the world – which does not operate by “one-person, one-vote,” but ruthlessly according to the physics of power politics – accepted the Zionist claim through its competent entities, the great powers, most of the nations of the world, and the newly formed United Nations. Revising that decision would be no simple matter, and the attempt to revise it produces a counter-claim on the part of the Israelis who acted on its basis ever since.
very thoughtful and helpful CK, but a coupel issues with it:
the history you describe is 70 years old, also integrationism continued to work as a jewish defense strategy as you put it throughout that period in england and the u.s., indeed arguably in arab world. yes second class citizens, but historically integrated.
the massive work of changing the israeli understanding from the legal promise of ’47, yes it’s big work; and a jewish struggle. and our interest in it is jewish.
though actually, now, we are talking about a highly privileged community whose privilege is based on disfranchisement of another, not so different from what *we* experienced in europe.
this is where the history for me blends into spirituality. and to noam sheizaf’s formulation to me, that at the end of every sentence in hebrew sits an arab with a hookah. these experiences are now utterly wed in a power imbalance and resolving one destiny will require dealing with the affliction of the other people without placing our historical drama at center of consciousness
“also integrationism continued to work as a jewish defense strategy as you put it throughout that period in england and the u.s., indeed arguably in arab world. yes second class citizens, but historically integrated.”
The US experience is different than the European or the Israeli.
If you can articulate a feasible (rather than fantastic) healing, wonderful.
I haven’t heard it yet.
Just as the nakba continues in the minds of Palestinians (forgive me for presuming what it is in Palestinians’ minds). The holocaust continues in many Jews’ and Israelis’ minds.
Persecution, being hated for existence, for the space that Jews take on the planet (Palestine, Poland, Russia), expressed in brutality.
That terror resumes conveys to Israelis and sympathetic Jews and others, that Israel and Jewish Israelis will likely not be accepted. And, that leaves die or fight.
In contrast, acceptance yields negotiate and reconcile.
I see you still spreading falsehoods. first off jews were hated in palestine because they were trying to disposses the native population. the hatred of jews in poland was a result of their desire to remain sepearate and the way the came to dominate certain higher paying professions and the universities. before the Nazi invasion of poland I think their were more jewish lawyers in poland than polish you don’t see how things like this could create hatred. nope jews are perfectly innocent and any crimes they commit should be ignored.
because they refuse to come to terms with it and in ISrael have a vested interest in preventing the healing process from happening. look at how other victims of genocide react( non ongoing. sorry but you don’t get to compare to the p[alestinians) and how jews did. other moved on built lives for them selves and feel no need to enshrine what happened to them while jews refuse to let the holocausts go after 60 years treat it as if it is on going.
“the hatred of jews in poland was a result of their desire to remain sepearate and the way the came to dominate certain higher paying professions and the universities. before the Nazi invasion of poland I think their were more jewish lawyers in poland than polish you don’t see how things like this could create hatred. nope jews are perfectly innocent and any crimes they commit should be ignored.”
I have little knowledge of prewar Poland but supposing it was as you say, the punishment is so vastly in excess of the alleged crime it’s ridiculous to bring it up. There are often tensions and resentments between groups–there are in America, but it rarely leads to genocide.
PW: As I’ve said before, I think your vision is messianic in the good sense. The problem is that it also therefore stands for realizing eternal justice – “realizing eternity.” The further problem is that comprehending that expression as something other than oxymoronic has driven some of the greatest minds history has known into gibbering insanity, total irrelevance, and worse.
Resolving the destinies of the Israeli Jews and the Palestinian Muslims (and others) as one destiny isn’t just a big project, it corresponds to and in essence is the same as the project of human civilization.
Unifying the Muslims, the Jews, and the others – happily, peacefully, authentically as equal partners in the same destiny – would be hard enough, and significant enough, in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Doing it at the spiritual, historical, and geographical fulcrum of the world is a BFD. It could be the B-est, most F’d D of them all.
Jerry’s essay concentrates on the practical-political background and immediate realities. I think he’s persuasive on them. The requirements of the BFD exist on a much broader scale, because “our historical drama” is already at the center of human consciousness and human history as we really, concretely know it. It’s why MondoWeiss and millions and millions of other Mondos argue the livelong day about a tiny strip of land and the complaints of a relative mere handful of people. If history was one-person, one-vote, we’d be arguing like the dickens over the Congo or, better, the peasants of China and the poor of India, and so on, and so on.
Our drama didn’t get staged all by itself, or by us alone, just as the Jewish state wasn’t a creation of the Jews alone, and, incidentally, the location wasn’t selected by the Jewish Zionists alone.
true but than again america isn’t the smoking ruin post war poland was either
Phil,
The quote you like is not by Sheizaf. It is from a Meir Ariel song. The full quote:
בסוף כל משפט שאתם אומרים בעברית יושב ערבי עם נרגילה, אפילו אם זה מתחיל בסיביר או בהוליווד עם הבה נגילה
My literal translation: At the end of each sentence that you (the plural you) say in Hebrew sits an Arab with a nargila (hookah pipe) even if it (presumably the sentence but not 100% clear) starts in Siberia or Hollywood with “Hava Nagila” (Israeli song, the words mean “let’s rejoice”) .
As for what it means, Ariel himself did not know, but it sounds good like perhaps: At the end of any sentence uttered by a European sits an empty synagogue.
Good thing we’re American!
“indeed arguably in arab world. yes second class citizens, but historically integrated.”
I’m not sure that “second-class” is quite the right terms. To my inexpert eye, Iraqi Jews seemed to be in a similar position in (pre-Israel) Iraqi society to British Jews of the same era, and I would hesitat to call that “second class”.
An expert assesment of the status of Jews in the various parts of the Arab world would be useful.
“Put simply, the world – which does not operate by “one-person, one-vote,” but ruthlessly according to the physics of power politics – accepted the Zionist claim through its competent entities, the great powers, most of the nations of the world, and the newly formed United Nations”
I tend to be mistrustful of tough-minded realism, because I think people switch back and forth between moral arguments and toughminded arguments depending on which version is convenient, or on whose ox is being gored. Toughmindedness is the privileged outlook of people who have power, IMO. (You can also find it in lefties who glorify terrorism–in that case it’s the fantasy of power that is appealing, I suppose.)
You don’t have to have deep thoughts about political “physics” to understand why a one state solution is a pretty remote eventuality at the moment. It’s remote because the Israelis have the power and the land, don’t want to share it, and wish the Palestinians would vanish. Palestinians presumably don’t have kind feelings about Israelis either.
Possibly the Israelis could be persuaded to allow Palestinians to have a state on whatever portion of the remaining land they are willing to give up, but they don’t want to live with them.
The problem is to change attitudes on both sides–it’s hard to see how even a two state solution could work when one side has so much power and holds the other in contempt. I don’t know how this should be done.
Quite true, but also a tough-minded rejection of tough-mindedness. In what I referred to as the “physics of power-politics,” the moral dimension would be a primary element. The switching-back-and-forth you describe corresponds to the dialectic of political power. Excesses in one direction or the other are sooner or later corrected, not always (usually?, ever?) happily for those concerned.
CKM,
The Nazi invasion and genocide didn’t happen out of the blue, but they were not initiated or instigated by the occupied Poles or Lithuanians, who responded in many different ways to challenges that would not have arisen without the German initiative. There were many different political and social processes going on in Eastern Europe that were interrupted by an external force.
I’m not sure exactly what 2 of your 3 strategies mean, but there were many different approaches to Jewish integration, from complete assimilation, to political and cultural (but not religious) assimilation, to cultural autonomy within a broader national or class identity, and so forth.
Far from going up in smoke (as Phil pointed out), these strategies served as the basis for the success of Jewish immigration to the Anglo world, and elsewhere, and for Jewish life in post-war and post-cold-war Europe. Zionists claim vindication, but they also take undue credit for the dramatic decrease in anti-Semitism around the world (something about respect and/or fear, I think). To claim that the fact that there is a prosperous Jewish community in Israel today somehow vindicates Zionism as the best answer to anti-Semitism is to argue that this is “the best of all possible worlds”.
I don’t understand your last paragraph either. What do you mean by “revising” the UN “decision”? Which decision? To favour the majority proposal of UNSCOP (partition)? To recognise the newly declared State of Israel and grant it membership? How does the struggle for equal rights in I/P (promoted by the UN itself) contradict those things or violate the “physics of power politics”?
I take CKM to mean the decision of the UN to recognize Israel, a decision which was meant to be contingent on a fair resolution of the refugee problem. Which, as we known, Israel repudiated.
The UN should have reversed its recognition at the time, but it isn’t too late to do it now.
Shmuel – I don’t know what you mean when you say you don’t know what “2 of [my] 3 strategies mean.” During the 19th Century, defense of Jewish rights in Europe took on the organizational forms typical of political life in modern nation-states. Typically, the German versions were very well-organized. You’re obviously somewhat familiar with the history of Zionism, and probably are familiar with the WZO. Two of the best-known assimilationist organizations in Germany were the Central Union (Central Verein or CV) of Jewish Citizens and the League of Jewish Front-Line Veterans (these are my off-the-cuff translations of their names). Both organizations were disbanded and ceased to exist in 1938. Some might argue that the leftwing revolutionary organizations of the period, given the disproportionate participation of Jews, amounted to another form of assimilationism. So, that would be Strategy #2. Strategy #3 typically relied on gentiles of good will in political parties and social organizations and clubs, in countries or social settings where Jews were excluded or where Jewish communities were already heavily segregated.
There were Jews all over the world, sure, but I think it was across Europe that Zionism’s historical vindication against assimilationism and against reliance on the good will of gentiles was perceived to have occurred, on the basis of very strong, if mostly negative evidence – not on the basis of the later prosperity of Jews in Israel or anywhere, though I wouldn’t dismiss this additional argument out of hand.
Shmuel and Potsherd2 – for clarification: The formal recognition of Israel and therefore favorable adjudication of the basic Zionist claim took place in several ways, including the ones you name, also including state to state recognition. Revising or adapting that recognition/validation in secondary ways would be normal and natural, but that’s a sword that cuts both ways. Revoking or annulling it would be something else again, and, as I suggested, entail the creation of a counter-claim on the part of Israelis who had accepted and built on the implicit guarantees. Threats to renege on those guarantees evoke certain bad memories, and may tend to reinforce the Zionist ideology of self-reliance (see above).
CK: Revoking or annulling it would be something else again, and, as I suggested, entail the creation of a counter-claim on the part of Israelis who had accepted and built on the implicit guarantees.
CK: the guarantees were conditional. Like a contract, Israel did not fulfill its obligations, thus rendering the contract void. It was Israel that did not fulfill its part of the contract and so its claim is void.
Furthermore, the UN has continued, throughout the decades, to pass resolutions confirming the original conditions, which Israel has refused to honor, so it can’t claim that the UN tacitly accepted Israel’s non-fulfillment.
Postherd2, of course, this isn’t a simple contract. Anyway, where is your evidence that the UN as a body or individual states considered their recognition of Israel absolutely conditional on fulfillment of subsidiary obligations associated with the “contract” – especially those obligations that Israelis and others would claim either never or no longer could be fulfilled without cooperation of the other parties? That the UN has passed diverse resolutions and did not as a body or through its members interpret them as a basis to “void the contract” argues against your proposition – even before we get to the actual language of key resolutions and diverse escape clauses.
“The Zionists, on the other hand, had survived the war with their leadership, base of operations, and organization intact, and with their strategy – in their eyes and in the eyes of “the world” – vindicated.”
Doesn’t this beg the question as to why Zionism was respected in the west while “an Iron Curtain has descended over Europe”? It’s a rhetorical question, natch.
About Shmuel’s “There was a political decision however, on the part of the countries in question, to restrict and delay such immigration – at least partly as a result of the (admittedly convenient) Zionist position (expressed e.g. by Abba Hillel Silver to the United Nations) that resettlement in Palestine was the only possible solution to the DP crisis.”
I would say “at least partly as a result of the criminal Zionist position.”
DPs didn’t want to go to a patch of desert, especially the urban ones. They wanted to go the US and Canada. US first. Had the Zionist groups engineering the creation of Palestine given the go-ahead to Roosevelt, the political decision would have changed in a heartbeat. Why is it so difficult to lay the blame at the feet of those Zionists who selfishly thought of their own interests first? God knows their puerile and cruel self-interest didn’t stop once they reached Palestine. Look at the mess they’ve created since.
One thing that I would recommend relative to Dr. Slater’s presence here, is to acknowledge that he has lived to see the historical events. He is an elder here, someone to learn from beyond the revision of either Zionist or anti-Zionist new mythologies.
One thing that I am particularly interested in is his sense of changes of tone/attitude towards the issues we are discussing over various historical periods.
Rather than respond individually to various criticisms, I will wait until all the comments are in and then post a general “Response to the Critics,” which I will post on my blog and perhaps, Phil willing, on Mondoweiss.
For the moment, I notice that with but one or two exceptions, so far all the comments have focused on the historical background sections, but hardly any on the second half, which essentially is: where do we go from here?” Where are the defenders of the one-state solution, and how do you meet the arguments that Avnery, Karmi, and I have made about its unreality and probable undesirability?
I see the status quo as unreal and undesirable. How is the Gaza situation supposed to evolve? How can Israel justify apartheid ?
I think that at the back of the mind of every Israeli Jew is the fear that Zionism is a fraud and that Israel was built on injustice and that it is only repeated doses of violence that can dispel this fear .
The idea that it is either Jewish hegemony or nothing has to be challenged. I see a great future for Jews in a binational state. They just need a new model.
link to youtube.com
What I have concentrated on is not historical background but the moral/logical issue of your unsupported claim that Israel is “necessary.” Without resolving this fundamental issue, all that follows is moot.
” how do you meet the arguments that Avnery, Karmi, and I have made about its unreality and probable undesirability?”
I think about like a financial crisis. The longer you leave the situation to fester, the fewer choices you have. An ordered default is far better than a disordered default. Israel still has a chance to have an ordered default of YESHA but time is not on its side.
no you still have the same amount of choices what happen is some choices reprurcussions become worse.
phil swilling, jerry
maybe we shd put up your solution portion, the two-state/one-state argument?
Phil; As far as I’m concerned, absolutely!
Yes, let’s forget about the logical flaws in the first section and pretend they don’t exist!
Why not? We can pick that apart just as readily as the rose-colored historical post-game analysis.
Probably even more easily, I suspect.
Where are the defenders of the one-state solution, and how do you meet the arguments that Avnery, Karmi, and I have made about its unreality and probable undesirability?
Because you reach a point, Jerry, where you don’t give a damn anymore, and like it or not, you guys are older and see the world through a 20th C prism that’s cloudy to the younger generation (although the pighead officials in Israel are making sure that their younger generation — no match for the US/Canadian/European/SouthAmerican/Asian generational numbers — are carrying the hatred forward.)
The world will change rapidly in the next five years. As soon as Eben Moglen’s Freedom Box takes off, communication isn’t going to be this ancien regime vat represented by FaceBook (and the other monster server farms) and the power of these kids to change things is going to swallow up all the quasi-potentates who think they can dictate that another people have to live in squalor or oppression because the potentates lay claim to their previous oppression being paramount and their existence superior.
Enjoy the luxury of thinking you have time to diddle with people’s lives not your own while you have it. Because that illusion is all you’ve got.
Well put, MRW! You’re right, I don’t like it that I’m getting older, and still less that my time is running out. Actually, I was misinformed, because it hadn’t occurred to me that my efforts to read, write and think in my lonely office in wintry Buffalo was diddling with people’s lives. Could you be more specific on how much time I do have left, because if it isn’t much then perhaps I should abandon my computer and get down to some serious diddling.
jnslater ,
Not referring to you (if you will reread). ;-) Referring to what is going to replace ALL OF US, ME INCLUDED…including Avnery, Karmi, whomever. There is a consciousness change marching down the road, and we’re not paying attention. The discussion of 2s or 1s is like all of us sitting around reminiscing about great jokes from the 70s, and thinking they count.
It’s going to be led by the tech change and not by Mr. Ancien Regime Zuckerberg, who is 20th C thinking in quasi-21st C technology with his ferkakta Facebook (largest group on FB is the 45+ crowd…us: like you and me). Check out Eben Moglen. (Don’t worry , he’s 50 but he is the under-21 crowd guru.) He gave a speech in Feb/2010 to the NYC Internet Society, and another in August 2010 at DefCon (hackers) held in Manhattan. Check both these talks out.
Once you do (and you think about it) you will realize that there’s a subterranean world that is going to pop up and overnight revolutionize the Millennial generation. Worldwide. These kids do not want the shit we peddle. Period. They want something else and they will get it as fast as the Egyptian revolution happened. In days and weeks.
So. Listen to Moglen (both talks). Then check out his Freedom Box. (What it’s currently called.) Then think about it.
P.S. About that Feb 2010 talk: don’t miss the Q&A afterward.
jnslater,
I am not normally a technology-is-going-to-change-things kind of person because what we can do should not supersede what we ought to do. Not if you think morally.
But the pervasiveness of Baby Boomers, of which I’m one, and our selfish inattention to the mess we’ve made of the world, also includes the destruction of privacy and possibilities that we have left as a legacy to those who follow us. It needs to be fixed. In this case, technology is going to do it.
As Moglen argues: technology is going to change politics.
>> … However, if the inevitable injustice to the Palestinians …
“inevitable injustice” – That’s a convenient bit of absolution.
>> Second, it is sometimes argued that the concept of a Jewish state assumes the superiority of the Jews …
It has been explained that a “Jewish state” Israel requires a legally-mandated, permanent-majority status for Jews. That is clearly an element of non-egalitarian supremacism.
The concept of a Jewish state is no more racist than an Irish state or a Norwegian state or a German state. Ireland and Germany indeed have citizenship provisions similar to the Israeli Law of Return giving preference to people of Irish and German extraction in obtaining citizenship should they choose to return to those countries.
Reuven, jesus we’ve been through this on this board more times than you know: The concept of a Jewish state is no more racist than an Irish state or a Norwegian state or a German state.
Ireland = Irish
Norway = Norwegian
Germany = German
Israel = Israeli ….. Not Jewish, Israeli. And Arab. And Druze. Etc.
Reuven March 26, 2011 at 3:29 pm
Israeli Arabs use Israeli license plates and drive on the same roads as do everyone else. [...] It is hard to have it both ways.
No shit, Sherlock. So quit trying.
yeah actual it is. because a german state is for all german’s the nationality
a jewish state is only for members of one religion the jewish religion.
>> The concept of a Jewish state is no more racist than an Irish state or a Norwegian state or a German state.
To the best of my knowledge, none of those countries has a legally-enshrined, permanent-majority status for any one group. A secular, democratic and egalitarian Israeli state would be no different than any of those nations. A “Jewish state” of Israel would be Jewish supremacist.
>> Ireland and Germany indeed have citizenship provisions similar to the Israeli Law of Return giving preference to people of Irish and German extraction in obtaining citizenship should they choose to return to those countries.
You appear to be comparing the right of expatriates to return to their nation of origin with a preferential Israeli law granting immigration and citizenship status to non-Israelis ONLY if they are Jewish. You do realize that an apple is not an orange, yes?
And just in case the other replies are not enough, here is mine.
Ireland is not an Irish state. “Irish” (when referring to people) means “born/brought up in Ireland and being a citizen of Ireland.” Ireland was not born and holds no citizenship. It grants citizenship.
People who can show that their parents or grandparents were Irish citizens get preference in obtaining citizenship in Ireland.
The Israeli law of return makes no reference to parents or grandparents who were Israeli citizens.
People who cannot show a single relative born in or connected in any way to the territory are granted citizenship on the basis of being Jews.
People who were born and brought up in the territory, and/or who can show a line of ancestors who were born, brought up, and held citizenship in the territory, but who are not Jews, are denied citizenship if they were not present when the state was founded.
I think the fact that Zionism equates to “inevitable injustice” pretty much guarantees it is irreconcible with justice.
Seriously. How often are Zionists going to fiddle about this while the temple of Jewish moral integrity burns?
The question whether a Jewish state was necessary is interesting from an academic point of view, but in what sense does this discussion really matter? 5.5 million Jews in Israel, most of them second and third generation born in Israel, are not going to fold tent or go anywhere. They are not going to give up their “privilege” either. They are detached from the Nakba just as much as a Vietnamese immigrants to the US are detached from the first Thanksgiving.
Therefore, the second part of the essay is much more interesting, as it addresses the question, what should be done? However, the one state, two state debate is also irrelevant. Just as the Israelis cannot force a solution on the Palestinians, the Palestinians cannot force a solution on the Israelis. Therefore, only a negotiated solution will provide long term peace. And such a solution will be a two state solution.
The dream of the progressives is that somehow the power difference between Israel and the Palestinians will diminish thus improving the situation of the Palestinians in negotiations. So they dream the US will make the difference, or Europe, or BDS. But what if in fact the power difference only gets bigger with time as history has actually shown? Then the mantra becomes “Israel will self destruct”, and the stronger it gets the more likely it is to self destruct according to progressive philosophy. Oh well.
because showing the unneedness of Israel helps stop criminals like your self from denying palestinians their rights.
and just because they don’t want to go doesn’t mean they won’t. the palestinians didn’t want to go but you and yours made them the same can and to some extent should be done to the Israeli squatters in palestine. as much as I like to keep them all their it is simply impossible for all 5.5 million jews of ISrael to stay in their stolen land.
Eee,
Consequences. The one thing Israelis don’t understand. You can control your own actions. You can manipulate results. But you cannot control consequences because they are the interaction of the results in the world.
So. Consequences. No one gives a shit whether Israel gets stronger or weaker. There will, however, be consequences to what Israel does.
You need trade, don’t you? What if no one outside of Israel wants to buy your products? What if you piss Europe off so much that it says sayonara, keep your stuff. Brazil is doing it. Other countries in Latin America are doing it. Turkey is doing it. What if Africa says, thank you very much, but we’ll get the stuff we can’t produce from China, not you, Israel?
You think you can leech off the USA in perpetuity? How will you survive? By teaching the police forces in Nebraska (or Canadian border patrol) how to treat its citizens as enemy combatants? That’s a plan?
The question whether a Jewish state was necessary is interesting from an academic point of view, but in what sense does this discussion really matter?
It matters, because it is the basis for the Zionist claim that there can be no equality between Jews and non-Jews in I/P, the basis for rejection of Palestinian ROR, the basis for refusal to recognise the Nakba, the basis of the Zionist position of perpetual Jewish victimhood.
5.5 million Jews in Israel, most of them second and third generation born in Israel, are not going to fold tent or go anywhere.
This is a valid claim – also made by Sternhell. The only significant right that Israeli Jews have to be in Palestine is due to the fact that they are already there. That does not mean that they can continue to deny Palestinians their rights, but that they have certain rights (not privileges) as well.
Shmuel,
“It matters, because it is the basis for the Zionist claim that there can be no equality between Jews and non-Jews in I/P, the basis for rejection of Palestinian ROR, the basis for refusal to recognise the Nakba, the basis of the Zionist position of perpetual Jewish victimhood.”
The basis for the Zionist claim that the ROR cannot be allowed is much simpler than your portray it. The claim is the same one used by all Western states to limit immigration to them. Or if you want, the claim is even simpler. Israel rejects the ROR because a majority of the Israeli electorate rejects it. People really do not care about philosophical discussions, but they know that letting millions of Palestinians into Israel will trash the country and their standard of living.
People really do not care about philosophical discussions, but they know that letting millions of Palestinians into Israel will trash the country and their standard of living.
Which was the Palestinian argument pre-1948. And sure enough, it is precisely what the Zionists did. You trashed their country.
link to youtube.com
link to palestineremembered.com
And you replaced their Palestinian currency:
link to israelimages.com
So why should we repeat their mistakes?
Eee,
But you are.
Repeat whose mistakes, eee? Your mistakes? So now restitution for a crime is supposed to be crime itself? Funny.
it isn’t repeating their mistake its being a decent human being and give back what you stole
this here embodies my problem with Mr. Slater’s view. it seems to me to be no different than say witty’s in that is well Israel, Israelis, and Jews aren’t willing going to give you your rights so just give up on them. from my point of view he is saying let evil win.
No different from eee either, ultimately.
That’s one of the many problems with his false argument.
On the one hand he claims that a Palestinian right of return is, “in practice, unrealizable.” But, on the other hand he thinks that Zionism and the two state solution is actually “realizable” in this day and age.
Talk about intellectually corrupt arguments.
And reading Slater mentioning “serious” scholarship in this context is quite comical, to say the least.
my thing of course it is going to be unrealizable so long as people like him say such things and justify the blocking of it. it will be able to come to pass if people got off their asses and work for it.
I would put it: How little justice can Israel get away with?
I would like to see what percentage of Americans would agree with the following hypothetical survey question:
“Should the Israelis be required to withdraw from all territories occupied following the 1967 war as stipulated by international law as well as by official US policy?”
Jerry, you certainly are able to present the rosiest possible view of at least minimal Zionism. Overall, I would say your effort to defend your position starts with a preconceived conclusion and tries to find facts and arguments in support. I suppose we all do that to some extent, but to me, the strain in your presentation is obvious.
Regarding the need for a Jewish state, you dispatch quite thoroughly all but one of the arguments justifying Zionism, but subscribe to the Holocaust theory. Let’s examine that. According to this theory, there was no reasonable pre-WWII justification for creating a Jewish State, but following the Holocaust, it became a necessity. But the reasons that pre-war Zionism was inherently unfair to the indigenous population were just as valid after the Holocaust, and did not evaporate with the European slaughter of Jews. For decades, Zionist theory said to Palestinians, “We want your land for our State.” That did not become fair or palatable because of someone else’s crimes somewhere else.
You concede that if the brutal ethnic cleansing that did take place had been necessary for the creation of the Jewish State, it would not have been worth it. What difference does it make that you theorize hypothetical circumstances in which a Jewish State could have been achieved in a kinder gentler fashion? In fact, your prescription of compulsory removal with bribes softening the blow is not only irrelevant anti-historical speculation but gets perilously close to the actual facts you abhor. The most important feature of your scheme is the “compulsory” component; surely, many if not most would have rejected financial incentives to give up their ancestral homeland, and the force used to displace them in real life would have been necessary even in your dream plan. My view is a lot simpler. The founding generation of Zionists were realistic and practical in executing their plan. It required brutality and ruthlessness, and they were up to the task. I don’t think it could have been accomplished without inflicting so much human misery and that is why the whole project was morally flawed from the outset.
Jerry, you assume that there is an inherent connection between the need of worldwide Jewry for safety and the creation of a Jewish State. That is superficial and unconvincing, and was neither plausible nor proven with the past six decades of history. Creating a Jewish State where many hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish Arabs lived, especially surrounded by hundreds of millions of fellow Arabs who share a language and culture, was a prescription for eternal conflict. Can it be denied that Israel has been the most dangerous place on Earth for Jews? You acknowledge this argument but breezily dismiss it by saying that a “fair settlement” could make it a safe haven. But you acknowledge that Israel’s behavior since its founding, and even before, have been intolerably unfair to the Palestinians. Is there any reason to believe that some dramatic change of heart that would lead to what you consider a fair settlement is more probable than the difficulties you envision with the one-state solution?
Moreover, your prescription is not “fair” in any sense of the word. It may be less unfair than the present situation, but it still would involve painful compromises only for the Palestinians. (Sure, the Jewish lunatic fringe would have to give up their dream of a greater Israel, and they may “feel the pain” of that compromise, but it does not compare with the forced acknowledgment that the nightmare of theft and dispossession of the last 63 years will become permanent.)
My assessment of the future of a Jewish State is as pessimistic as yours of one state. I would never tolerate living in a “Christian State” or any designation which excludes me as a citizen of equal worth. Neither would you. So why would you expect that this situation would be tolerable to others? At what point in the future should Palestinian minority citizens of the Jewish State simply accept their fate and not demand equality? At what point would you?
As for South Africa, the comparisons cut both ways. The fact is that white South Africans were a much smaller percentage of the total population than Israel Jews. You see this in a different light than I do. While you claim that Israeli Jews would never give up their position of power and domination like SA whites were forced to do, I see that whites had more to fear than Israeli Jews from granting equality. Their fear of being swamped and overpowered by 85% of the population was more real than Israeli Jews’ fears regarding 50%. In any event, SA whites did not give up their elite status willingly and neither will Israeli Jews. A good dose of moral compulsion is needed.
Your catalog of reasons opposing the one-state solution is not invalid, but actually quite useful as a measure of difficulties to be overcome. Your assessment that these are more insurmountable obstacles than forcible removal of enough settlers to make a two-state solution feasible, and widespread Palestinian acceptance of the permanence of gross injustice forced upon them is, to say the lease, debatable. In the end, we just have a disagreement as to which of these two alternatives is more likely to bring much-needed relief to conditions we agree are intolerably oppressive.
Elsewhere, Shmuel talked about a rights-based, rather than solution-based approach. I didn’t quite understand it then but I think I do now. Demanding equality, freedom and security for all residents is not something that can be easily opposed. To which solution would such demands lead?
“Demanding equality, freedom and security for all residents is not something that can be easily opposed. To which solution would such demands lead?”
That’s supposed to be a rhetorical question, but hardly. Demanding equality etc for the Israelis and the Palestinians in their own state has a far greater chance of being realized than in one state. Demand it in the context of one-state, which soon would have a Palestinian majority, and it’s real easy to answer your question about which solution that would lead to: To a conflict-ridden state dominated by the Jews, in which the Palestinians would be unequal, unfree, and unsecure.
At the risk of repeating myself, unless you can address that argument, on just how the obvious obstacles and likely outcomes–as pointed out not by rightwingers, but by Avnery, Karmi, and countless others–you’re just spinning your wheels. Do you have a strategy, or just a “demand?” If so, tell us about it. Otherwise, you are merely saying “I prefer [demand] a binational state in which everyone is equal, free, and secure.”
Ok, I’ve got it: “Poof, here is a binational state, everyone is equal, free and secure.” While you’re at it, couldn’t we also have world peace?
you don’t get it do you. even if in a two state solution their was perfect equality it would still be unequal as one group state would have been founded on the theft of property and right from the other. so long as Israel exists their can be no equality because your saying their is a right to theft and that theft is a valid and a legit transfer of property. a two state is inherently unequal as it gives criminals more rights than the legalk residents. you wish to deny the palestinians their right of self determination so that those that ATTACKED THEM will be happy and that is reprehenisble.
Sure. But first one has to get to that mythical two-state solution for that wishful thinking to become reality.
So what’s more “realizable”, outside pressure on Israel to grant everyone equal rights or the application of pressure on Israel to remove 500,000 rabid colonists, many of whom now hold high ranking positions in the army?
Incidentally, how exactly does your view of a two state solution fit into the revelations concerning the Palestine Papers? I guess those are irrelevant, as well, right?
If you want a Jewish state no matter what, why not just come out and say so? Say, “I don’t give a hoot about anyone else. I just want my Jewish state”.
You would have the respect of more people than your current position earns you, one where you go through torturous bootcamp-like logical gymnastics to justify your views.
“To a conflict-ridden state dominated by the Jews, in which the Palestinians would be unequal, unfree, and unsecure. “
Gosh, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were anti-Semetic! You got one hell of a low opinion of Jews, and their ability to live with others, don’t you. Well, God forbid I should criticise you.
So what you are saying is, those damn Jews will be trouble wherever they go, let them stay here and exterminate the Palastinians, since they don’t matter much.
And whoever it was that said that forming a “Jewish State” was a cure for any of the problems of the Jews, you can tell him from me, he’s an idiot.
Good work, Mooser! You’ve penetrated all my obscure prose and smoked me out, revealing my true views that I’ve tried to conceal. Let the Israelis “exterminate the Palestinians, since they don’t matter much.” That’s EXACTLY what I really believe.
But don’t let my praise go to your head–a lot of others here have also penetrated to the heart of my argument, whatever my pathetic, illogical, and repulsive efforts to conceal it.
Jnslater
;-)
I suppose your going to cherry pick the info for your article so grossly, it’s no surprise that you cherry pick your replies to the ample rebuttals so that you can pretend like your arguments haven’t been trounced an order of magnitude over.
“whatever my pathetic, illogical, and repulsive efforts to conceal it.”
I hope you can set aside any hard feelings you have reading this thread and take seriously the criticism of your views. I used the word “repulsive” to describe your proposal that Palestinians might in the end have been forcibly expelled if necessary (and with generous compensation), because I think that idea is utopian (a word frequently used about one-staters, perhaps with justice) and in the real world would have probably ended up looking a lot like what happened in 1948. I recognize that you are a person of good will who has devoted years of your life to chronicling the human rights violations committed by Israelis against Palestinians. I just don’t think your hypothetical alternative would have worked out much better morally than what was actually done. As someone in this thread put it (I don’t recall who), the Zionists in real life who wanted a majority Jewish state had a pretty clear idea of how to go about achieving that and it involved a fair degree of ruthlessness. They recognized this.
If you wanted to imagine hypothetical alternatives then I suggested what I understand to be the Judah Magnes position–a Jewish state in the cultural sense and also as a guaranteed refuge for Jews, but not one that required expelling Palestinians. Would Palestinians have been willing to go along if it had been clear from the very beginning that this is what the Zionists wanted? I don’t know, but it seems less utopian than the notion that one could gently buy out or push out enough Palestinians to obtain a Jewish state. Some political goals simply aren’t achievable without massive human rights violations. That is what was wrong with the notion of a majority Jewish state in Arab land. I think you’re imagining a highly implausible and morally dubious counterfactual history to justify to yourself how a Jewish majority state could have come into existence in some way that you could morally stomach.
Now if you want to jump to the present and argue that achieving a one state solution that is fair to both is unachievable and would lead to violence and/or oppression, maybe you’re right. But I’m content to see you debate Shmuel and/or David Samel on that, as I think they can make the case for a one state solution better than I can.
I think you’re imagining a highly implausible and morally dubious counterfactual history to justify to yourself how a Jewish majority state could have come into existence in some way that you could morally stomach.
this is my impression also. i think what we have here is a decent human being who really wants to be on the side of good but cannot quite reconcile w/the idea zionism in palestine isn’t moral no matter how you wrangle it. it’s a grab bag of if’s and or’s and maybes that really only serve as a distraction. there’s no way around it, at it’s core it’s always been immoral. in thought maybe not but zionism is not just thought, it’s action and always has been. this factoid basically makes zionists culpable and that is something very hard to reconcile for a good person who never ever wanted to hurt anybody. he just can’t let go of his zionism. he’s a zionist who just wants to be a good person but zionism that has never been ‘good’ for anybody but jews (and only some of them at that..and even that is debatable).
just sad. zionism (the real one not the imagined) is indefensible. taking the pain of the holocaust and using it to punish another people in the name of self determination, ultimately ugly and a perpetuation…an extension of the genocide.. the only way zionism isn’t painful is by separating it from palestine or any other place already populated or transforming it’s meaning to exclude a majority requirement.
Donald:
Thank you for this courteous and cogent reply, and argument. The problem is not that I have not taken seriously the criticisms of my argument–well, at least those “criticisms” that deserve to be taken seriously, such as yours–but rather that I have not been convinced by them; I’ve explained why a number of times.
The Judah Magnes/Martin Buber dream of a binational state was certainly an attractive one, but it also might have been utopian and unworkable, acceptable to neither side. I admit that I agree with David Ben-Gurion and Ilan Pappe–coming, of course, from opposite directions–that a stable Jewish state could not have been created in a state in which the Jews had only a small majority. This doesn’t concern those who think that there was no reason to create a Jewish state in the first place, but as you know that is not my position.
Admittedly, the most vulnerable part of my argument concerns my claim that with some imagination decent Zionists might have come up with ways to increase the Jewish majority without resorting to mass murder and ethnic cleansing. I tried to make an honest argument, admitting that in the end, no matter what the financial incentives, some degree of compulsion might have been necessary. But the methods of compulsion, the numbers involved, the willingness to compensate, and so on matter a great deal. I stand by my central argument: if Israel had been founded with an appreciation of its consequences for the Palestinians, and if from 1948 onward its policy was that it would do everything it could to make up for the injustice–short of abandoning a Jewish state–the conflict would have been resolved long ago.
In that sense, the weakest part of your argument is your joining with so many others in an apparent unwillingness to make distinctions. The essence of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict is tragedy and dilemma: each side had good arguments (though, as I said, the Zionists also had bad arguments) for their positions, creating a moral dilemma which admitted of no clean solution, only actions that mitigated them dilemma. That the Zionists had no interest in mitigation or in recognizing the justice of the Palestinian position is obvious; indeed I have been writing about it for years.
So, we simply disagree about whether there were alternatives, to be sure alternatives that privileged Jewish rights over Palestinian rights, but orders of magnitude short of what the Zionists actually did.
If Israel had tried to minimize the damage would the conflict exist today? Maybe not. It still does not make it right – or acceptable.
In part though, this is fantasy. Israel is how it came to be, and it will be tomorrow, what how it operates today. The ends do not justify the means – the ends are the means. If Israel is to become some sort of fair and equitable place, it must do so by becoming fair and equitable. Half measures and pretending isn’t going to cut it. Fair and equitable means Jews can’t be privileged. (There is a special word for when we provide affirmative action to those who have power and control – it’s called discrimination.)
A democratic Jewish state will always require half measures and pretending at best.
If you really believe that a Jewish state must exist, then you need to place it honestly – a theocracy of some form or other. At it’s best it will continually be struggling with the contradictions of equality and the requirement for Jewishness. At the worst, it will be – well pretty much what we have – a state moving towards genocide.
As for the Palestinian state – I like that we need to make sure that it isn’t allowed to protect itself. What do the Palestinians have to fear from Israel anyway? Telling countries that they aren’t allowed to protect themselves has worked quite well in Germany if I remember my history.
…it’s real easy to answer your question about which solution that would lead to: To a conflict-ridden state dominated by the Jews, in which the Palestinians would be unequal, unfree, and unsecure. …
You are describing exactly what Israel is NOW. No one is “leading” Israel to that “solution”. It is current, and past, reality.
Demanding equality etc for the Israelis and the Palestinians in their own state has a far greater chance of being realized than in one state.
Establish the principle of equality and work on (relatively) achievable goals that do not depend on a protracted process and an unlikely outcome (1 or 2 states) – goals such such as safeguarding Palestinian rights under the Geneva Convention, moving the wall onto Israeli territory, repealing laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel, etc. It’s nice to say that the Geneva Convention will be moot once the occupation is over, but when, how and whether that will come about are extremely unclear, and human rights are being trampled now, with no indication of change any time in the foreseeable future.
Equality is a principle, a trajectory, not a solution, and not an all-or-nothing proposition.
Shmuel:; I entirely agree, but why must we choose between these two courses? In what way are they in conflict with each other? We should work toward all the things you advocate–and much more–while at same time refusing to give up on the better solution: for the Palestinians to have full political and human rights in their own state, rather than having to depend on Israeli good will–presently and into the foreseeable future in very short supply–within the state they control.
I entirely agree, but why must we choose between these two courses?
Jerry,
They may or not be in conflict. If issues of human rights and international law and the principle of equality itself are swept under the rug either because they will be realised once a solution is reached, or because they may undermine efforts to achieve an unequal and partial solution (simply because it may be the more feasible) – then they are in conflict.
so again why do you feel that ISraelis have a right to theft? you keep saying the palestinians have full political rights in their own states. so why in your opinion do they not have their legall mandated right to return to their property and their right to choose the political status of palestine from river to sea?
what you want apartently is ISrael to be allowed to continue to exist on stolen land. if you think a two state solution somehow gets the palestinians their right to self determination than you sir do not understand the concept.
I agree with Shmuel. It’s like pole-vaulting. You say “the bar is HERE.” “Not here below your crotch.”
Demand it in the context of one-state, which soon would have a Palestinian majority, and it’s real easy to answer your question about which solution that would lead to: To a conflict-ridden state dominated by the Jews, in which the Palestinians would be unequal, unfree, and unsecure.
A very telling comment. In any just and democratic state, if you asked the question: if you have two groups within a state and one has a majority, what does it lead to? the answer would have to be, rule by the majority. That is, a government in which Palestinians have a ruling majority.
Instead, you propose a conflict-ridden state dominated by the Jews. This tells me that the Jews in question would reject the notion of a just and democratic state and prefer instead to establish hegomony over the majority by force.
Why, then, should such a population be privileged? Why should its desires be catered to by the rest of the world, when it is clear they are the problem.
My God, don’t you people realise what is at stake here? At one time there were plenty of anti-semitic non-Jews to make sure that Jews stayed in their “Jewish Community” or ghetto and were not exposed, except through the meditations of their community, to others. Well, in a burst of what I can only consider an insidious form of mega-meta-anti-semitism, non-Jews no longer make us live in ghettos. And Jews are exposed to other communities, and then look what happens (I’m looking at you, Phil!)
Of course Israel is necessary, how the hell else can we keep the young folks from running out on us?
The moral ghetto – we can’t trust you because you’re Jewish – is the worst, I suppose. It’s been said that Israel is necessary because Jewish people are uniquely vulnerable but this really means ‘Jewish people can’t trust others, not ever’ and that it is recreating the moral ghetto with walls of double height.
Of course you have become a large ungulate and so have reduced your vulnerability by other means.
From the longer article: “In short, the Palestinian right of return can only be realized in a Palestinian state, not in Israel. Not only is that a fact of life, but in the context of a two-state settlement it does not seem unreasonable or unjust for both sides, the Jewish and Palestinian peoples alike, to have the same right of return to, but only to, their own state.”
All I can say to this really is how dare you? It doesn’t seem unreasonable or unjust to you to say that a Palestinian man who still possesses the keys and deed to his house has less of a right to it than an American Jew born and raised in Brooklyn for 3 generations? Is this a joke?
You seem to subscribe to the ridiculous idea that the ROR is about ethnic nationalism. It isn’t. Have you ever been to an Al-Awda seminar? Do you talk to many refugees? Have you read “My Father Was A Freedom Fighter” by any chance? The assertion that the ROR should be satisfied by unlimited immigration into a Palestinian state is just as morally repugnant as the hasbarist claim that “Arabs have 22 states they can go to.” It’s about houses, farms, towns, villages, being as close to your former life that was wrongfully and forcefully taken from you. That is why one of the strongest symbols for ROR is a key. That’s why deeds are passed down from fathers to sons.
Furthermore, putting the Law of Return on the same moral or even practical ground as the Right of Return plays into the completely ahistorical notion of competing yet equally valid land claims to Palestinian territory, a notion you even discredit yourself. Israelis have no legitimate territorial claims to Palestine. You know this. I know this. This is why the ROR and the LOR are two completely different things. To say “we have a law of return and you have a right of return,” wring your hands and call it a day is simply absurd. One conception facilitates the privilege of one religious group over all others, the other facilitates the returning of property and citizenship to those it was taken from. Palestinians have real, legitimate rights to what they demand, buttressed by international law and the recent, physical loss of their property. Jews have mythology and a persecution complex. To even justify the Law of Return itself is a difficult task, let alone to put it on par with the Right of Return.
Also…What exactly is a “Jewish” state? Can you please define what you mean by this, since I’m a little confused. Does it mean a Jewish theocracy? Does it mean that only Jews can occupy positions of power? De jure privilege for Jews? Just the Law of Return?
Or does it simply mean a state with a Jewish majority? If so, then what policies are you willing to undertake to preserve that majority when/if the non-Jewish birth rate outpaces the Jewish one? Will ethnic cleansing be justified then? Perhaps your idea of forceful but compensated transfer (a less violent form of ethnic cleansing)? Will you redraw borders to force citizens out of their country? What just and fair solution can you come up with?
Well put, Maggie.
It’s about houses, farms, towns, villages …
Danny Rubinstein makes a similar point in The Fig Tree Embrace. The prospect of “return” to a Palestinian state on some part of Palestine thus doesn’t even begin to address the refugee issue, from a Palestinian perspective, and Palestinian independence in and of itself is an inadequate response to Palestinian perceptions of the conflict and its possible resolution.
(Yehouda Shenhav [The Time of the Green Line] identifies a similar feeling among some right-wing and especially religious Israelis – that is an attachment to physical space rather than a more general political nationalism.)
You say, Maggie, that ‘Israelis have no legitimate territorial claims to Palestine’. No claims based on the mistaken idea of sovereign rights especially invested in people who are Jewish, I agree. This is very much the heart of the matter and I sympathise with your ‘How dare you?’ as a response to all this bland, calm academic rigmarole.
On the other hand the new Palestine when it comes ought to be based on equal rights for all who are there, leaving the years of subordination and supremacy behind for ever.
in that sentence MR. slater shows is colors has an Israel supporter and supports the notions that jews have a right to steal and wants to take from the palestinians the right of self determination.
How dare I? The consequences of your kind of moral absolutism are almost always disastrous for the causes you claim to support. According to UN figures, there are currently five million Palestinian refugees, and less than six million Jews in Israel. There is zero, zero, zero chance that the Israelis would allow them to return, so the consequence of insisting that they do is to absolutely ensure that there will be neither a binational nor a two-state settlement.
Moreover, it would hardly be a perfectly just solution if, somehow, the refugees were allowed to return to their “houses, farms, towns, villages.” Even leaving aside the fact that most of them no longer exist–yes, yes, I know why–there could be no such return without dispossessing large numbers of Israelis who bear no responsibility for the actions of the early Zionists. That is why I wrote that “there is no perfectly just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even in principle, let alone in practice.”
Fortunately, the moderate and sensible Palestinian leadership, including Yasir Arafat, understand these facts of life and have made it plain that they will drop the idea of a large scale Palestinian “return” in the context of a two-state settlement that meets their minimal and legitimate demands for a viable state. When and if that happens, will you and other moral naifs bitterly condemn them? Or don’t you care about consequences–after all, it is they, not you, that are suffering from the absence of any solution, however theoretically imperfect.
A final word, I realize that in my responses I am increasingly going beyond my usual “calm, bland academic rigamarole”–though my preferred description is “reasoned analysis.” I’m only human, you know–read the barrage of insults that accompany some of the responses here. Some of you have chastised me, saying that I’m much too sensitive to “criticism.” Maybe so, but then you can’t object when my rhetoric becomes a little less calm, bland, and academic.
“Academic” would require that your analysis have any sort of integrity or relevance to reality.
jnslater: There is zero, zero, zero chance that the Israelis would allow them to return
Your error is to concentrate on what Israel will “allow.” If we allow this to be the criterion, there will never be justice. The first thing is to establish that Israel doesn’t have the choice in the matter. It is not what Israel will allow, but what Israel will be allowed.
exactly. he as all pro Israel people do push well the Israelis don’t want it. well what they want is irrelevant. the palestinians have a legal right to return or should they choose resettle and accept compensation though by and large they want to return to their property and be left alone. It funny that mr. slater seems to be upset that Israelis would be “disspossed” of land any one with passing understanding of property law would know is not thiers legally but couldn’t care less that the legal owners the palestinians were brutally removed from it in clear violation of international law and basic human decency and than threatened with being shot if they tried to return. the simple fact is that mr slater doesn’t want to be true is that modern Israelis due in fact bear responsibility for the crimes of Israel founding as they have materially benefitted from those crimes and the refusal to do what is legally required from them. everytime an Israel inherits his stolen property and does not endeavor to return it to its legal owners he is recommiting the intial crime.
“I’m only human, you know–read the barrage of insults that accompany some of the responses here. Some of you have chastised me, saying that I’m much too sensitive to “criticism.”
That’s understandable, but as I said in a more longwinded way above (before seeing this), try and make a distinction between criticism of your views and the personal insults. I said something harsh about your proposed alternative in 1948 (which I think would have ended up much like the real 1948), but think very highly of all the work you’ve done on the I/P conflict. Some of us regularly cite some of your blog entries (for instance, on what led to the Gaza War.)
Potsherd: Good Lord Above. I didn’t “propose” an unequal state dominated by the Jews, I PREDICTED that it would be the consequence of binationalism. Scientists predict that if things continue on the present path there will be an environmental disaster; do you suppose that means they favor it?
um actually no Israeli would be dispossed as you can’t disposses a person of something they do not legfally own
figures a person who is clearly biased against the rule of law and arabs would call sellouts willing to give up their legal rights to criminals as moderate and sensible.
I ask you yet again why in your mind do the palestinians have to give up property that is legally theirs, land that politcally is legally theirs to decide the poltical status of and their basic rights?
As much as you like to paint your self as a critic of Israel you justify their crimes against humanity and demand the palestinian give up their rights. IT is not for you, the Israelis or anyone else to say the palestinians can not return to their country as it is their legal right and you and all the other pro Israel people out their are just going to have to learn to suck it up and deal with it.
“There is zero, zero, zero chance that the Israelis would allow them to return, so the consequence of insisting that they do is to absolutely ensure that there will be neither a binational nor a two-state settlement.”
Translation: Israel has created a problem and that problem is now too messy to clean up. Because those who have benefited from the original crime find it too inconvenient to deal with the consequences, those who have suffered from it must continue to suffer.
“Moreover, it would hardly be a perfectly just solution if, somehow, the refugees were allowed to return to their “houses, farms, towns, villages.” Even leaving aside the fact that most of them no longer exist–yes, yes, I know why–there could be no such return without dispossessing large numbers of Israelis who bear no responsibility for the actions of the early Zionists.”
A few points.
1) Those who are living in houses that were ethnically cleansed of their former inhabitants, regardless of their innocence, are benefiting from stolen property. They have no legal right to do so. Their government should compensate them for their losses once that property is returned to its rightful owners, but it is insulting to suggest that because it would be difficult for those who have benefited from dispossession to give up their privileges, refugees should bear the ultimate consequences. I’m not necessarily saying that we should be kicking children to the curb or making them homeless, but the primacy of Palestinian property rights needs to be respected. There are ways to do this, to get as close to a proper return as possible even if it means that not every single person can go back to their village. Israel simply doesn’t want to. The difference between my “absolutist” position and yours in this sense is that I would prefer Israel to get as close to full realization of the ROR, making such situations the exception, whereas you would rather they be the rule.
2) There are caveats within the ROR which preclude the repatriation of all diaspora Palestinians. I’m not sure about the numbers here, but others on the blog know them and can provide them. If I must, I can look this up, but I know that the ROR as codified in international law is limited in scope. Resolution 194 also offers other criteria, such as the necessity of those returning to live at peace with their neighbors. What’s more, it’s not as if all Palestinians would choose to exercise such a right and can instead be compensated monetarily.
There are ways to implement ROR that don’t translate to 7 million people storming Israel’s borders (where are they again anyway?) and barging into every livingroom. Israel can repatriate Palestinians at an economically feasible rate based on a lottery system, or by any other measured means.
Also, I find it a bit ironic that Israel markets itself as the ONLY safe haven for ALL Jews in the event of an upsurge in anti-semetism (aren’t there millions) yet can’t devise of a way to accept the refugees it created. Israel has managed to sustain various large waves of immigration in the past, and still advocates large-scale Jewish immigration. So which is it? Can they handle refugees or can’t they? Or is it only the Jewish ones they care to accommodate? If you suggest that Jewish immigration is not on par with ROR, I say again that it would not be a full 7 million people by any stretch of the imagination, and it could indeed be measured over a period of years so as to facilitate.
3) As for your “I know, I know” clearly you understand that it is not the fault of refugees that their villages were dynamited, bulldozed, covered with forests, etc. You cannot penalize them for it or abridge their rights because of it. The fact that Israel has done such a damn good job of destroying Palestinian identity should not be rewarded.
Essentially, you’re saying that because Israel has dragged out the issue long enough to create facts on the ground, refugees need to suffer the consequences. This is utterly unacceptable, and does nothing but reward Israeli intransigence. People wonder why I’m not excited about the peace process -this is exactly why. Israel simply stalls to its heart’s content, forever altering the situation to its benefit while those who have been most harmed by its actions wait for what will soon be too inconvenient to implement as the nakba becomes a distant memory, and the settlements expand.
“When and if that happens, will you and other moral naifs bitterly condemn them? Or don’t you care about consequences–after all, it is they, not you, that are suffering from the absence of any solution”
Indeed I will condemn them on behalf of the refugees who condemn them in the same way I condemn the PA for what was revealed in the Palestine Papers. I suggest you watch Diana Buttu’s talk at the last Al-Awda conference (link to youtube.com). I know it’s long, but it summarizes my point. If, upon referendum, Palestinian refugees find the negation of ROR to be a necessary sacrifice, then I will shut my mouth. Until they do so, it’s something that should be sought after.
Lastly, the idea that Palestinian statehood is the end-all be-all solution to the I/P conflict is an illusion. Unless that statehood secures the rights of Palestinians, the majority of Palestinians that is and not their weak, conciliatory leadership, they won’t be satisfied, nor should they be. As far as the majority of the diaspora community is concerned, it seems to me as though it would be a severe injustice to take the ROR off the table.
Don’t see what you’re doing? Aren’t you a little ashamed at your “realism”? Palestinians bare all of the consequences, suffer all of the injustices, make all of the compromises, and should be satisfied with such? Israelis make every “concession” seem “painful” simply because they object to the cessation of their profiteering. Doesn’t that bother you?
maggielorraine,
Clearly you’re not engaging in a “serious” discussion. So, please stop the insults you’re hurling at Slater. He expects to put forth morally bankrupt arguments and receive praise and admiration in return. So, how dare you speak of such issues as the Right of Return?
In all seriousness, though, Slater’s responses remind me of the expression Shooting and Crying. Or as Golda Meir once said (paraphrased): ‘I really hate the Palestinians for they force us to kill their children.’
as a person demanding they be denied their legal rights you have zero right to question anyone on how much they support the palestinians or care about them.
read the barrage of insults that accompany some of the responses here. Some of you have chastised me, saying that I’m much too sensitive to “criticism.” Maybe so, but then you can’t object when my rhetoric becomes a little less calm, bland, and academic.
you have no one but yourself to blame mr slater circa 8:42 pm.
this is you circa 4:46 pm. pure unadulterated ad hominem, you set the bar early on very near the top of the thread.
you can’t object when my rhetoric becomes a little less calm, bland, and academic.
less calm than this?
now who’s sounding a tad juvenile? it’s hard to sound a little less calm, bland, and academic after previously unloading that bunch of vitriol.
i criticized your argument (albeit w/sarcasm), you took it to another level.
Annie. Well, perhaps I overreacted a bit. Nonetheless, in that comment and in many others, you misrepresent or fail to understand a complex argument and reduce it to a caricature, so that you can then sarcastically dismiss it. Sarcasm implies a greater wisdom than its target; you’ll forgive me–or maybe you won’t–for saying that you haven’t earned the right to be sarcastic, at any rate not at my expense.
you haven’t earned the right to be sarcastic
i’m going to have to do some research on sarcasm rights, this is the first i’ve heard of them.
perhaps I overreacted a bit
no biggie. just pointing out the barrage of insults started w/you. i reduced part of your argument to a caricature to demonstrate how absurd that segment sounded to me. the casualness with which you utilized certain common trumps belies a blinding lack of sensitivity you don’t even recognize because it is so ingrained in your thinking. i exaggerated it so you could see it, but i don’t think it’s something you are willing (or perhaps able) to see. you think the most vulnerable part of my argument concerns my claim that with some imagination decent Zionists might have come up with ways to increase the Jewish majority without resorting to mass murder and ethnic cleansing but i disagree. i think the most vulnerable part of your argument is that it builds on foundations and assumptions you take for granted and you expect others to take them for granted too.
you think your argument (about decent zionists) sounds reasonable. so if that idea is so decent then what’s so crazy about asking you what price jews would take to leave israel? why is one idea considered a valid part of a complex argument and the other so absurd as to be deemed highly insulting? if the suggestion seems insulting to you then why can’t you comprehend the insult of your argument? what’s the reasoning behind not understanding the absurdity of paying people off for their homeland?
and my other objection is your insistence about the locale. the reality is if zionism is merely what you say it is then it didn’t have to materialize in palestine. you take that as a given and accept we should take it as a given too. feasibly the only reason zionism had to manifest inside palestine is because the definition of it is more aligned w/WJ’s description (irredentism). but for some reason you can’t seem to accept that, claiming israel had to be in palestine for practical reasons. it wasn’t practical then anymore than it is practical now. it could only be construed as practical if you discount the needs and aspirations of 1/2 the people. when zionists talk of practicality in palestine they are almost always talking about what’s practical for jews.
there’s something inherently dishonest about building an argument around ideas you require others to accept. they’re non negotiable to you the same way zionist claims about what the future will hold are non negotiable. this is where your vulnerability lies, in the segments of your argument that are rigid.
imho if you really want to be practical you have to start with looking at the goi’s unwillingness and ability to tackle this settler issue. there’s thousands of criminals there, some hardcore. this is a huge problem for the future of the region and i am not seeing any will on the part of the government to reel them in. nothing. i think practical thinking requires we acknowledge the unwillingness of the jewish community to deal with this issue leaves the future of israel completely up in the air with no guarantees whatsoever. even if you make two states, the fanatics are not slowing their pace. who’s going to stop them?
There is zero, zero, zero chance that the Israelis would allow them to return … Moreover, it would hardly be a perfectly just solution if, somehow, the refugees were allowed to return to their “houses, farms, towns, villages.” Even leaving aside the fact that most of them no longer exist–yes, yes, I know why–there could be no such return without dispossessing large numbers of Israelis who bear no responsibility for the actions of the early Zionists. That is why I wrote that “there is no perfectly just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even in principle, let alone in practice.”
You are right that there is no chance that Israelis would allow them to return, but I don’t believe there is any chance that Israelis would allow a viable Palestinian state either, although the would appear to be a far less difficult proposition.
As for the ROR itself, no one seriously advocates turning the clock back, and Palestinians are well aware of what has been lost and can never be restored, and “serious” proponents of ROR are not suggesting that one humanitarian disaster be replaced with another. See the work of Abu Sitta, for example, on the feasibility of ROR, or the work of Mazen Qumsiyeh on Palestinian positions regarding its considered, negotiated and reasonable implementation. According to Abu Sitta, most formerly Palestinian land remains uninhabited, and where it is inhabited, other solutions can be found, that respect the connection of former residents to a particular area.
Arafat’s position on ROR was extremely problematic. He didn’t actually renounce it on behalf of the refugees, but merely told the Israelis everything would be ok. The discrepancy between Arafat’s reassurances and the real views of Palestinians (not to mention Arafat’s outright dishonesty) was among the causes of the 2nd intifada – following the complete and final exclusion of ROR from Barak’s “generous proposal” at Camp David.
Real negotiations, aimed at reaching a viable solution acceptable to Palestinians must include some form of ROR (recognised principle, negotiated implementation). The Palestinians may be the weaker party, but they also have a few “zero, zero chance” issues, that will certainly derail agreements, before or after they are signed.
The right to sovereignty over a place arises from permanent residence, other than as an invader or marauder, in that place. On this basis social contracts, international treaties, agreements to admit refugees and the whole rule of law are built. This is the fundamental basis of moral life and therefore cannot be conditional or relative to particular events, not even the events of WW2.
A displaced person has a right of return (because rights once violated should be restored) or a right to become a refugee, and a refugee who contributes loyally to a new society should have a path to full citizenship in a new country, which may be what many DPs, though not the Palestinians, would want in preference to Return. But in no circumstances can the preference to move somewhere else create a right to set aside the laws and basic social contract of that other place, since these are fundamental, still less to claim that place as your own. There can’t be a right to have something because you desire and long for it. That would destroy all morality.
Suffering and injustice create a right to restitution and compensation and cannot in logic create more.
MHughes, from where are you drawing this “permanent residence”-based theory of sovereignty and the “fundamental basis of moral life”?
My reply seems to have jumped to a few places down the list. Sorry.
MHughes. You have several problems in this argument. First, as implied by CK’s comment, it will come as news to every political philosopher in the history of mankind that “the whole rule of law” and “the fundamental basis of moral life” are based on “permanent residence”–even supposing you could define “permanent residence.”
Suppose, for example, that you should discover that your home is on land that once belonged to native Americans, who were driven off it a couple of hundred years ago. Would you consider it a legitimate demand that you “return” the land to him/her? And what are chances that you would actually do so, even if your ideology of the fundamental basis of moral life required you to do so?
And here’s yet another problem. How would you know whether the Native American who your ancestors dispossessed had himself dispossessed someone before him? And so on, ad infinitum. These are rather serious problems for moral philosophies based on “permanent”–but past–residence. That’s why in my essay I suggest that there has to be a time limit for such “rights.”
And that’s precisely why the Zionist argument that previous residence gave them permanent rights to Palestine is so absurd. To be sure, the Palestinian claim, since it is only 60 years rather than 2000 years old, has much more validity. The problem, though, is that it is unrealizable in practice, and that in any case, if it were implemented the outcome would not be an unmixed moral good.
The problem, though, is that it is unrealizable in practice
no it isn’t. it is just unimaginable to you at this time.
I’m curious, how old is Slater? I’m trying to place his ideological views into a generational bracket. Something that might explain his worldview.
I’d suggest you’re confusing disputes over who owns what piece of property with who has the right to be a citizen. It was the latter I was talking about. All who reside permanently under the control of a government – natives, not so natives, people with a hundred years of ancestry, people with a thousand years of ancestry, recently accepted immigrants – deserve to be enfranchised. The native American and the white American can both be accommodated here, and should be accommodated – have been accommodated, I think – within a 1-state solution leading to a legitimate government. Property disputes then have to be settled by the legitimate government in whatever way it thinks fairest.
You haven’t said what your theory of citizenship and the right to be enfranchised is.
To say that Palestinians can’t in fact have their rights because the Israelis refuse is true ‘at this time’, as annie says. To say that they don’t deserve their rights because the Israelis refuse is to say that might is right. But you don’t think that, do you?
I must keep saying how much I admire your demolition of the ancient history based arguments.
equating the american theft of land from the native american with the ISraeli theft of palestinian land is dishonest. for the first their was no legal prohibition of doing so nor any legal mechanism for dealing with such an act when Israel did it their was on both accounts. both are morally reprehensible but in only one do the victims have a legal recourse. also it should be noted that the US however badly have tried to rectify are crime Israel has not, steadfastly refuses to, says it will never, and you support them in doing so. so please until you stop support the heinious thing that is Israel please refrain from questioning other morals
Well, I was primarily thinking of Locke’s Second Treatise, though this work has set the tone for much else. There is a distinction (para.122) between temporary and permanent, between ‘abiding for some time’ and being one of the citizens who have a full commitment to the society of the territory. Mind you, this is only the articulation of common sense. Locke’s basic argument is, as you know, that all those who exist in the society, of course excluding invaders and those with temporary status, have the right to be enfranchised on the basis that that is where they have worked and paid taxes. (You may say that he permits the disfranchisement of those who cannot afford to pay tax – this is controversial but not really relevant here.) This is a right of all – but all – concerned (clearly the permanent residents) and is the basis of the legitimacy of the society, so has exactly the fundamentality that I mentioned. Locke excludes forcing one’s way – and to my mind refutes many Zionist arguments 250 years before they became current – in the discussion of conquest in chapter 16. Again I think he gives a convincing articulation to common sense.
What theory of sovereignty do you prefer?
As it gains confidence this rising tide of ME revolution will keep its promise not to forget the Palestinian people. Using access to oil as the great motivator, presto, the threat of an oil embargo is back on the table where it belongs. What is uncle sam going to do? Stick with Israel? As in –
“Hey uncle sam, looks like we’re in serious trouble, what with gas now at ten plus dollars a gallon & rising”
“What do you mean, we, Israeli occupier?”
Bingo!
this rising tide of ME revolution will keep its promise not to forget the Palestinian people
That particular point was just raised, reported on BBC World Service two hours ago by a guy on the ground in Gaza. He said the people there are asking Why all this massive attention by the world on Libya Egypt and Syria? When will the world look at what we’e going through?
Jerry, Let’s use your own logic and take it from there. You said above “There is zero, zero, zero chance that the Israelis would allow them to return, so the consequence of insisting that they do is to absolutely ensure that there will be neither a binational nor a two-state settlement.”
The logic being that since there is no chance for something (A) to happen, we should drop the premise that it could (B) because otherwise it would preclude other (presumably reasonable) solution (C). In other words, if A is true, B is necessary (drop the idea) or else C (solution, whatever it is) is precluded.
The fallacy in this logic is in the hidden assumption that B (forget ROR) is a necessary condition to achieve some set C (set of any possible ‘solution”). Presented this way, I think it’s clear that the problem lies not only with the original assumption, but that it more often than not leads to conflation of “necessary” and “sufficient”. Which quite a few people are guilty of (not necessarily you).
But, how about a slightly different exercise, using your logic? I say that it is highly unlikely that Israel, on its current insane trajectory propelled by jewish demographics, will be willing to make any compromise at all (that’s my A). Therefore, by your logic, we should drop the pretense that bringing Israel around is possible (B) because to do otherwise (ie, to continue pretending), will preclude the possibility that some solution (C – can be any of yours) will actually come to pass.
So there you have it, in a nutshell. The likelihood that israel can be nudged into a settlement of sorts (no matter how disadvantageous to the Palestinians) is even more remote than them accepting ROR (or some version of it). The interesting thing taking this to its logical conclusion is that your A and my A are related. The very same blind and arrogant obstinacy that precludes any kind of ROR also precludes any kind of solution.
That leaves the question that interests you, namely, what else, or what period can be done?
You won’t like the answer, so I won’t attempt to answer my own question. However, history may not be so demure.
OTOH, the conversation is interesting and is the kind of soul searching that will ultimately lead to a new zion. It just won’t be in Israel, where they have little use for such, being that what soul there was, it has already departed, so no use searching for it .
Danaa:
My argument is not an exercise in abstract logic: if not A, then not B or maybe C, etc. Rather it is a specific argument based on my reading of the facts. If you disagree with my contention that the Israelis will never agree to an unlimited right of return, and therefore an insistence on it will make a two-state settlement impossible, you have to deal with specifics of the argument and show why I am wrong, as opposed to being “illogical,” whatever that means in this context.
If you disagree with my contention that the Israelis will never agree to an unlimited right of return
i think it’s been pointed out to you previously in this thread the future doesn’t necessarily solely revolve around what israelis agree to. you take that as a given. out here in the real world the rest of us understand sometimes events occur where results are determined by international bodies.
Jerry,
OK, forget logic. All I was trying to point out is that the Israelis are simply not interested in ANY solution that disadvantages them (or they think it does) in the slightest amount. The only thing they’ll go for is those limited batustans we’ve been reading about, effectively reservations for the natives, nothing like a state.
You may be well meaning and see plenty of acceptable alternatives, full ROR or not. But I think you haven’t processed yet that the Israel that is – as opposed to the one you hoped for or thought it could exist some day – is your adversary, not your friend. The vast majority of israelis care not a hoot about your welfare or your dreams or any great idea you may have for them or for Judaism, or the future of Jewish americans, or, for that matter, the future of mankind. They simply don’t care and don’t think your opinions matter, however well considered and aptly stated.
I hope the day is not far off that good and smart people of America who are of jewish descent, will wake up and accept the reality that they have hardly any commonality with Israel, other than an abstract history that is rapidly receding. Israelis never heard of people like Brandeis, or Howard Zinn or Tony Judt or Amy Goodman or any of the many many great Jewish activists, thinkers, writers, intellectuals etc. Like it or not, the diaspora and Israel are in the process of diverging on every level, a process that is accelerating; and the sooner people come to the realization that Israel is NOT on their side, not in any way that counts, the better.
If security and the assurance of a place of refuge is what you care about then one is far better off looking to our good friends and the valued allies we acquired through our own efforts – be they Jewish and not (and I am certain you have quite a few of those). Our security is in those whose concern and respect we earned, right here at our one and true home, not in some arbitrary tribal connection which offers elusive comfort, always at a price. When push come to shove that is who will really care about us, our friends and family here and across the world, of whatever denomination they may be. I feel that, as individuals and as members of whatever collective we belong to, a true sense of security ultimately derives from the people who share our values and concerns and who care about us, as we care about them. Not from some generic Israelites mired in their own toxic mix of biblical entitlement, military bravura, medieval ghetto culture and premium on ethnic conformity. Of course, I know there’s more to Israel and Israeli than that, but the good that is there is fading, falling to the margins, victim to rapidly rising orthodox demographics, militarization of the society, endemic corrption and lousy educational system that take dim view of humanity at large- among other factors.
I don’t mean to discourage you from seeking good solutions. There’s all of a about 100,000 Israelis you probably have on your side. Maybe that’s enough. Somehow I just doubt it.
Danaa,
This a terrific statement, wise and eloquent and almost entirely persuasive. I share your pessimism, your characterization of Israel today, and the unlikelihood of any fair settlement, one state or two.
So why continue knocking my head against these impenetrable walls? An excellent question–I ask it of myself nearly every day.
This is the best that I can up with:
1. I can’t remain silent when these bastards make a mockery of every good reason to have ever been Jewish, by which I mean the commitment to the best values of Western–or maybe I should say, universal civilization. Dylan Thomas said it best: Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
2. Pessimistic as we both are, we must also recognize that sometimes things do change (see: Middle East today), and opportunities that previously seemed closed suddenly open up. As I have argued, it is a lot easier to imagine how changes could suddenly make the two-state settlement a viable one, rather than the truly utopian one-state solution.
In light of that possibility, dim as it is, we must keep the candle burning against the dark. Which in my case, doing my thing, writing, thinking, arguing, and with an occasional smite of mine enemies, admittedly a small pleasure in itself.
3. Finally, though I share your gloom about the prospects, what are we to do: resign from the Jewish race and tend to my own knitting? Not that I haven’t toyed with that idea.
Great post, Danaa. The paragraph: “I hope the day is not far off …the better.” Smart and true. Same with this: “Our security … always at a price.” And I love the phrase “medieval ghetto culture.”
No, why bother? Keep it at “Western” so that shiknozim like you can flaunt their ethnic supremacy.
As I have argued, it is a lot easier to imagine how changes could suddenly make the two-state settlement a viable one, rather than the truly utopian one-state solution.
First of all – one-state is not utopian. It may not be practical at this time, it may be difficult to pull off, or even impossible in today’s political climate – but it is not utopian. I live in a bi-national state. It has lots of problems, but utopian is not one of them.
When women first started the fight for the right to vote in the US they understood that it would take more than one life time to do it. It’s a good thing that they had a very different attitude.
The two state solution is not democratic. Separate but equal is never equal. The two state solution will always provide tension and problems. Always. Forever that it exists. It will be a sore that is picked at and not allowed to heal. Perhaps it is something that the Palestinians can learn to live with – but accept without resentment and bitterness? – but with the state-lite that you propose – I wonder who is really being utopian.
What is the nature of the Jew that requires such unfairness to others?
Just for kicks as long as it is fantasy land here – here’s something: Offer a single democratic state admittance to the EU with borders on Palestine and all other territories returned. Start negotiations with the Palestinians to allow them admittance. Put some further pressure and say while there will be no attempt to enforce it, the EU will recognize 1948 borders. Set it up for – say 15 years in advance and offer them veto over Israel being admitted after they are admitted. If Israel is not interested in being admitted to the EU as a single state on these terms, fine, admit Palestine, who would almost certainly overjoyed at the prospect.
It is a learning experience to see how Slater is ridiculed and castigated, and for what? The radicalism evident on this blog is amazing. And ironically, the essence of the criticism and its form just strengthen Slater’s view about the necessity of a Jewish state.
Exactly. And it’s for that very reason that I find it peculiar that Israel continues to maintain its internet connections with the outside world.
Otherwise, how does Israel propose to protect its citizens from cyber-criticism?
The best method to shield Israel from such criticism is by severing all electronic communications with the world around it.
Then if the evening breeze blowing from a westerly direction still irritates Israelis as the air first passes over a few Arab countries before it reaches Israel, the government can then either build a wall high enough to block that Arab breeze or bomb everyone on the planet so as to keep the planet Jew-friendly.
Consult your psychiatrist as to which medication is best suited for the pathologically paranoid ethnocentric people.
The best method to shield Israel from such criticism is by severing all electronic communications with the world around it.
except for fox news
Thanks for the support, eee. However, the problem is that most of the kind of criticism we both deplore is coming, I think, from Jews. So, yes, my view of the necessity of a Jewish state has been strengthened, but only so long as I get to pick the Jews. (A few Righteous Gentiles may also apply)
“Thanks for the support, eee. However, the problem is that most of the kind of criticism we both deplore is coming, I think, from Jews. So, yes, my view of the necessity of a Jewish state has been strengthened, but only so long as I get to pick the Jews. (A few Righteous Gentiles may also apply)”
The criticism is coming from many gentiles also on this site. And yes, there is criticism from Jews. But so what? There was strong Jewish criticism against the Weimar Republic, that it was not democratic and liberal enough and in fact some historians argue that this helped the Nazis rise to power. My answer to Jewish criticism of the kind you encounter is not to deplore it but acknowledge that it always existed and always will exist. It seems a small percentage of humanity as well as the Jewish people are incorrigible idealists that seek perfect “justice” and believe that utopia exists. That does not mean that Jews do not need a state or that we should pick which Jews should live in it. All are invited.
All are invited
Mighty white of you, 3e.
“Mighty white of you, 3e.”
Yeah right, like any other country would have taken in so many Ethiopians.
Like any other country would have put them into the broom closet so as not to contaminate the nice white Jewish kids in their school.
3e,
It is an expression. It means thanks for the condescension. Your response is doubly patronising – toward the Beta Yisrael (Ethiopian Jews) and toward the far more equitable immigration policies of most western countries.
Jerry Slater is NOT ridiculed and castigated here, eee. He is revered and admired. You, eee, haven’t been here long enough to know this. What Slater represents is an intellect that allows some of us to engage in Wimbledon-grade mental tennis with him because he has cajones. Slater changed his POV with respect to Israel seriously three times so far, revolutionary change. This is a guy who thinks, and thinks deeply. We just don’t advertise that we know it with every post.
[We enjoy keeping him sharp. ;-) Because he never disappoints.]
I do but only because I feel his argument can ( and I believe he knoiws this which is why he frames it in the ways he does) be used to provide cover for Israeli crimes. I view my self as a strong pro palestinian person any one who makes arguments or takes actions that deny palestinians their legal rights is opposite to me and pro Israel. and I wouldn’t say he has cajones his argument is the safe one.
Seconded, MRW. Just look at the level of engagement here. I think Jerry does us all a great service by precipitating an important discussion. Like all good debates, things get heated at times. Not everyone can be properly polite and impassioned at all times – not when the matters discussed are of great import to them personally.
In any case, this is a very Jewish, very “left” debate, with much turning things over and no small amount of navel gazing. I keep wondering what do palestinians, now sitting in say, Hebron, think about this great back and forth? even as they must brave a throng of hateful settlers as they make their way about their everyday life. Such wonderings help keep me centered (though only in writing. In real life I just want to bite and smite, and sometimes I do…).
Sorry, MRW, I can’t say I hold Slater in particular respect. It’s not a good sign when the resident “liberal Zionist” troll bows down in adultation of his views.
Which are no more than the typical “liberal Zionist” platitudes, exceptionalist to the core.
Slater wants to see the minimum amount of justice done in order that LZs worldwide can quiet their consciences with the lie that a solution finally exists.
But perfect justice is of course impossible, because it would be imposed on Jews.
If injustice must be suffered (which it will) it will not be suffered by Jews.
If innocent children must be punished, it must be the children of the innocent who suffer, not the guilty Jews.
If anyone must live in a refugee camp, it must not be the Jews.
If anyone gets to determine whether refugees will be repatriated, it must only be the Jews.
If there must be a choice between a Jewish and a democratic state (which there must), it must be Jewish and undemocratic.
Sorry, MRW, but he disappoints. Bigtime.
Perfect justice defines the impossible. In politics, it defines the insane and irrelevant, except when it defines the catastrophically destructive. Otherwise, it may not even be imaginable, but whatever you think “perfect justice” would look like in the area of historical Palestine, because it could not be walled off from the rest of humanity in space and time, it would not be achievable without perfect justice everywhere.
But maybe you can relieve me of my burdens of misunderstanding by kindly pointing to a real existing example of “perfect justice” for the Israelis to emulate.
Incidentally, do you honestly believe that the imperfect solution that Jerry points to would be worse than every other, or even than most other, or even than many other governmental set-ups on Earth? Why exactly is this situation such a transfixing obscenity and crime against humanity for you, but not, say, Tibet, the Congo, the plight of non-Muslims in Islamic Republics, the underclasses of the US of A and Europe, or the factory workers of Asia going blind building our beautiful HD screens?
So we can put you down in favor of Jewish suffering?
So we can put you down in favor of the suffering of innocent Jewish children?
So your more-final-than-Jerry’s -solution would involve putting the Jews in refugee camps?
So your more-final-than-Jerry’s-solution would be the suspension or termination of political rights for Jews?
What is it about Judaism as opposed to Catholicism, Protestantism, Sunni Islam, Shi’a Islam, Buddhism, communism, socialism, libertarianism, anarchism, capitalism, atheism, or any other belief system that makes it, in your estimation, as the basis for a system of laws and governance, inalienably and disqualifyingly undemocratic, and enough more so than all real existing human governments to justify disproportionate attention?
I know I’ve asked a lot of questions of you here, but your version of idealism is typical, and you seem more capable than some of providing rational answers.
Potsherd2,
Slater may disappoint, as you say, but never once in the time he has posted here (over the years of Phil’s blog) has he come with offhand, arch, or backhanded attempts to wipe anyone else’s opinion off the table. He doesn’t stand here with his hands on his hips pontificating (as I sometimes do). Slater’s posts are cri de coeur‘s (or cris du coeur) in an effort to wrangle what he thinks in a public forum. I can’t locate the link now, but he gave a talk in NYC about 18 months ago (longer? shorter?) that was really heartfelt about this doubts and his passage from an uber-Zionist in the 1950s to his position today. I loved the plain talking of the man; but he’s no Hasbara Henry, he’s aching about it.
If you scroll up, you will see that I aimed my beebee gun at him. I fired between his front teeth, and I think I’m right about the marriage of technological progress and human justice coming together to define the moral responsibility that will define what a backward country like Israel can no longer figure out because their officials are too old, uneducated, and unsophisticated to get (Danaa called it medieval ghetto culture and she’s right). It’s going to be a wave of awareness that will engulf that country and environs like a tsunami and it will either change or destroy them. (I believe it will come out of the blue like the Tunisian revolution.)
But that does not obviate the value of Slater here. I’m talking about his value. Every quarter has a head and a tail.
CK – What is it about Judaism …
First, it’s not Judaism-the-religion but Jews-the-people that we’re talking about here.
And it’s not about Jews, it’s about exceptionalism. I object to Slater’s “solution” because it’s saturated with exceptionalism in favor of Jews. To flip your rhetorical questions, it’s not that I favor the suffering of Jews over non-Jews, but that Slater invariably and consistently favors the suffering of non-Jews over Jews, just like every other “liberal Zionist.”
I don’t consider my position idealist. I don’t consider “perfect justice” obtainable. I do object strenuously when someone mounts the podium of exceptionalism and declares, “Well, the Jews* reject this suffering, so the Arabs must suffer it all.”
*In Slater’s case, it is the Israel Jews under discussion; not all exceptionalism is Jewish.
I take particular exception to the position that Jewish Israeli children must not suffer dispossession because they are “innocent” even though their parents were guilty of dispossessing others. When the alternative is that Palestinian children, just as innocent, must continue to suffer dispossession when their parents were the innocent victims. When one set of children must suffer, exceptionism says, “not MY children! Let those other children suffer!”
Maybe the Jews of Israel could do some of the suffering. Maybe it could be more equally distributed. Maybe the suffering could be distributed on the principle of guilt/innocence instead of the principle of “I’m in the position of power, I get to decide who suffers.”
But you won’t hear this from the typical “liberal Zionist” and I don’t hear it from Slater.
MRW,
I used to have a Holocaust survivor friend who took a Palestinian family from East Jerusalem under her wing, so to speak. She funded one or two of their children’s college education. Nonetheless, from her conversations with me about them, she never appeared to see them as equals. Her views of them were always patronizing, as though she was the enlightened European and they were the primitive natives. This was clearly apparent from her little remarks and quips here and there.
And she talked about them a lot. She mentioned them to many of her Jewish friends, including me, of course. At the same time her Jewish friends were familiar with her political and ideological views. Time and again she made it clear that Israel’s actions, both military and legislative, were somehow justified. It took me a few years, but eventually I realized that she had taken that family under her proverbial wing so as to clear her conscience given her support for Israel’s policies.
Her parents were of course murdered in the Nazi camps, and she understood the injustice that which Zionism inflicted onto the Palestinians. But, from her viewpoint, it was an unfortunate but a necessary injustice.
So why am I sharing this with you?
I’m doing so because in this particular post, you come across as a person whose views can be easily swayed by what appears to be an open and ‘above-board’ discussion. In the absence of a similar word that conveys the same message, I find your views to be rather naive in this instance. And I say that because despite Slater’s conduct, appearing to be transparent and open-minded, I can’t help but notice patterns — or layers — of disingenuous argumentation. In other words, he consistently refuses to address certain aspects of his faulty logic no matter how polite or gentle those who interact with him happen to be. So, I’ll conclude by saying, take your time. Don’t let facades fool you. Look deeper. While we’re on the subject, I honestly do not consider changing one’s political views over the course of 50 years to be a notable achievement of any kind.
Hi again, Potsherd2,
I guess you separate yourself from a certain type of judgmental idealist after all, but I don’t think you fairly characterize Jerry’s position. I suspect he, on his own account, would be ready to accept a very great degree of compensatory “suffering” for the “guilty Jews,” but that would be easy for him to say, wouldn’t it, since he’s merely a sympathetic observer.
In another way, however, I think that the position you call for is explicit throughout his writing – that the Israelis and their friends should recognize they have a major moral debt to pay. But you can believe that and not believe that shame and mortification for the sake of shame and mortification is the way to go. You can also believe that the moral judgment is much more complex than “the guilty Jews,” and that insisting on any partial judgement is presumptuous and counterproductive, and itself a moral wrong or the beginning of one. Maybe it’s more practical to seek non-zero sum alternatives – measure that would ameliorate, perhaps greatly ameliorate, the suffering of all concerned, beginning with those suffering the most. The Israeli moral self-interest in expiation and redemption also might at some point become important, a retrieval of ideal Judaism as a matter of fact, but, if we’re going to talk about moral self-interest, then maybe we should also talk about the moral-self interest of anti-Zionists, too.
“the essence of the criticism and its form just strengthen Slater’s view about the necessity of a Jewish state.”
yes yes yes. because everyone over at mondoweiss is a raging anti-semite, even the jews, and the ones married to jews, the ones with jewish friends, the ones who used to be jews, the ones who work in jewish organizations, the ones categorically opposed to racism, the ones who have dedicated their lives to human rights and activism, the ones who talk about democracy and equal rights. you’re right eee, i’ve seen the light.
aren’t there a few bedouin villages that need razing in response to our overt hatred of jews? why don’t you stop wasting your time here and get on that, considering what a “necessity” it is.
“the essence of the criticism and its form just strengthen Slater’s view about the necessity of a Jewish state.”
I know it just doesn’t occur to them — that it’s just not “rational” anymore. It amazes to me just how entrenched they are to the idea they have a god given right to plonk their “tribe (or whatever?)?” in the middle of somebody else’s turf. And if ethnic cleansing is the way to do it — OK — they’re not happy about it — but they’re damned sure they’ll do nothing about it (also goes for J-Street too).
And ironically, the essence of the criticism and its form just strengthen Slater’s view about the necessity of a Jewish state.
Yes, eee, it strengthens his comittment to the one totally indefensible part of his argument. What it doesn’t do is cause him to examine it critically, lest he see it fall apart.
The Two-State Solution is dead; give it up. Concentrate on protecting the human rights and civil rights of the Palestinians in the One-State.
The Jewish State of Israel will die in time, but Palestine will remain the originally-promised homeland for those chastened Jews who still want to live there.
“…The Two-State Solution is dead; give it up…”
I agree — It’s over. Also, can you imagine the ‘continued’ sucking sound of US taxpayers $$$ having to maintain and secure this Jewish only Shangri-La State.
In today’s world — it’s not obtainable, sustainable, or justifiable.
“Who, then, are the “rightful” claimants? In the absence of a persuasive religious claim accepted by everyone (“the Promised Land”), including those of different nationalities and religions, the stopping of the clock as it marches backward in time to twenty centuries ago, neither earlier nor later, must be completely arbitrary and self-serving.”
Only one group persuasively argues that while wondering through a desert they met a chap who actually PROMISED them the land, with the right (nay, duty!) to slaughter current inhabitants, in exchange for future attempts of sticking to some 600+ rules, like avoiding shrimp. Surely, nobody would offer such a deal without having a valid deed to the property! Surely it was a valid contract. One could quibble, like: was there ever a third person present when the contract was sealed, as a witness? or, isn’t it a bit suspicious if one’s benefactor stipulates to NEVER spell his name?
Some people claim that the story is bogus, as archaeological record suggests that Jews never conquered Cana’an but instead are descendant of local peasant, who invented glorious tales of conquest (perhaps imitating Assyrians who were culturally dominant at that time and who were decisively imperialistic, encouraged by their god Ashur; tall tales about David reaching Euphrates resemble stories of King Arthur conquering France, apparently the Welch, dealing with Germanic conquerors, invented a past that was at least as victorious. Imagine a humungous Welch diaspora coming back in 20th century and driving the English out, leaving some enclaves in Northumbria and East Anglia, and scattered English towns in Midlands).
Many countries were formed through conquest and the national consensus, when not denying it, views it as a Damn Good Thing. The question is, what do they do now with the conquered people? Israel is absolutely unique with ideology that demands slaughter of the natives, and barring that, vigilant control of the “enemy population”. Or perhaps they are not native after all, and that allows to let them live without breaking the religious duty, but the faked natives should be forbidden from making any claims that they are supposedly native (like “Nakba commemoration”).
My question is if Israel can divorce itself from its formative myths to such a degree that surviving natives, be it in Israel proper or a neighboring state, were not ipso facto enemies that have to be treated as obnoxiously as one can get away with it. If not, then Israel is an unfortunate and temporary experiment. I would hope otherwise, but I have no empirical evidence to back me up.
I am an English person of (as you can see from my name) of Welsh descent. Many of my ancestors must have entertained strong racist hostility to each other. But we have made our peace and vote in the same General Elections – a 1ss. This means that people of Welsh descent don’t have the right to take back England. The medieval processes of dynastic conquest and intermarriage did achieve things of some importance, I agree – and certainly produced some fun legends.
Jerome Slater’s views seem to revolve around the point that Israel exists and is not going away, that the past is the past and that the best we can do is optimize justice in the present.
Further, that there is no way to know who comprises a community of permanent residence, or how that permanent residence came to be, or in what time frame.
He willingly acknowledges “I don’t know”. He commits the crime of assuming that because he does not know that the committed here do know, a generalization based on his own personal experience, the generalization “noone can know with certainty”.
And from that not knowing, he seems to be stating, “I am unwilling to harm others”.
In contrast, the solidarity here assume that they do know, and that there is no moral risk of harming civilians in that.
Some flirt with, or overtly express, the willingness to consider forcefully removing 5 million Jews on the basis of new laws, that don’t name Jews as the only ones to be dispossessed, but do give a national based exclusion to the great grandchildren of someone that was Palestinian once in their history. (East Bank, West Bank, Israel, no distinction).
Substantively, but not in the language used, the limited right of return is similar to the proposals by liberal Zionists, with the exception of the political form.
Liberal Zionists assume that in a single state, either Jews or Palestinians will end up subordinated and oppressed in some overt or hidden and sanctioned manner. Solidarity assume that in a dual state that Palestinians will get the short end of the stick and it will violate their claims to justice. (No acknowledgment that justice incorporates the political, personal and property rights of ALL, not just of a focus group. Incorporating the human rights of all is a more complex question than the simplistic “I am an advocate of human rights. My conclusions are therefore reliable, and yours based on less than holy ‘realism’ or inclusive of my enemy’s human rights are unrealiable.”)
Nationalism and democracy exist in a dynamic tension. Fascists describe that tension as irrenconcilable, that they exist only at the expense of the other. Progressives describe that tension as enervating, that their exercise enhances the other.
In a two-state solution, nationalisms enervated and enervating democracy within.
>> RW: In a two-state solution, nationalisms enervated and enervating democracy within.
———-
Enervate: To weaken or destroy the strength or vitality of; to deprive of strength, debilitate.
———-
So…”In a two-state solution, nationalisms weakened and weakening democracy within.”
Huh?
Eljay,
You are right. I used the wrong term. I meant “energize”. That nationalism and democracy reciprocally can and do enhance each other, substantively.
A healthy nation, a healthy democracy.
Sounds more like a Freudian slip to me. What did nationalism do for German democracy in the early 20th century?
“And from that not knowing, he seems to be stating, “I am unwilling to harm others”.
In contrast, the solidarity here assume that they do know, and that there is no moral risk of harming civilians in that.”
Richard, anyone reading the thread above can see people on “solidarity’s” side admitting to uncertainty and also see Jerry being willing to hurt a certain number of people ( his imagined more humane way of achieving a Jewish state would still involve force but he thinks less than what was actually used) and also see his own claim of certainty. Jerry claims that the 2ss is practical and the 1ss isn’t and then in response to Danaa admits the 2ss is a long shot–Danaa pointed out that the same factors which make the 2ss a long shot are also what is standing in the way of a 1ss. I said something like that too. So have others.
Also, if you are honest with yourself you’ll see quite a gap between Slater’s views and your own. Slater is in agreement with most of the people around here on the actual history of Zionism. He agrees that the actual events in 1948 and since show that the leading Israelis had no regard for Palestinian rights. We regularly cite his articles around here on Israeli crimes. You could learn a lot from him.
Your statement of knowing the “actual” events in 1948 support my point.
I doubt that you were alive, there, (and everywhere there, in private rooms, in multiple communities) in 1948. The selections of history that you quote repeatedly are incomplete. (More true than entirely untrue, less true than fully true.)
And then conflate that to “actual” events.
The facts that have to be assessed conflict with one another. What is needed is then an open and respectful interpretation of facts, and without the revisionist recalibration of political correctness.
Judgments about past events are interesting, but ultimately academic. Noone writing here (maybe Dr. Slater is an exception), but not Phil, not Adam, not you, not North, none of the writers here can say with any moral or factual clarity that they know that the Zionist urge to survive, or even to emerge from holocaust and destitute refugee status, in 1948 was evil. None of you. It is only revision, only the formation of an alternative mythology that doesn’t acknowledge tension, that does not mediate, instead judging and punishing harshly.
I’ve read a lot of the same books that you’ve read, and come up lacking certainty, that you derive certainty from.
Jerome and I differ on some conclusions about the past, which is why I ask him to share his sense of changes of Israeli political consciousness over time. He was alive in 1948. I wasn’t. He’s seen more than I. And, others that have seen much more than him, differ with him.
We agree on the implausibility and likely harms within the single-state approach. We agree that present Israelis have present human, citizenship, property and international law rights. We agree that the assertions of certainty of what occurred, and its current moral significance is open to discussion, NOT simplistic conclusion and forceful remedy.
All education is gradual. I really did not know of the nakba with any understanding until the early 90′s. I learn more of it from some discussions here. And, frankly, from those that adopt the Pappian dogmas, I unlearn, I learn less. I learn less because less is studied, less is questioned, less is discussed with a goal towards actual understanding.
Richard, I have long understood that for you, when discussing Israeli actions one must forever suspend judgment (unless the blame can be pinned on the far right), speak in glittering generalities, and on no account ever reach a conclusion that some mainstream Zionist might have done something wrong that couldn’t be blamed on someone else.
I would ask you something specific about what you are claiming, but it’s all fog and obfuscation. You don’t come right out and deny that Zionists in 1948 committed massacres and drove hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and didn’t let them back in. There’s nothing substantive to refute–you just don’t want anyone to ever reach any sort of harsh conclusion about people who held your views and committed crimes against humanity. That’s understandable.
Now you brought up the Holocaust. That’s fine–obviously it is one reason why people thought they needed a Jewish state. One should respect this whether one agrees or not. It doesn’t justify the atrocities. And you know this–it’s why you don’t come out and type in a very clear forthright way that because of the Holocaust, you think the massacres and the forced expulsions were justified.
You don’t employ this principle of non-judgmentalism when you discuss Palestinian acts of terror. The reason is obvious. Palestinians also have their traumas, their past. But it doesn’t justify terrorist attacks on civilians. You condemn crimes on a regular basis when Palestinians are at fault. Here, once again, you refuse to condemn Zionists.
That’s the gap between you and Jerome Slater.
In the present, I seek a healthy Palestine and a healthy Israel, including healthy Israelis and healthy Palestinians (and by healthy I mean economically viable, free, culturally vibrant).
Simple.
I find it literally wierd that you are stuck on my academic comment about what I might have thought had I been born long ago enough to be an adult in 1948, so much so that you utterly refrain from entering any conversation about actual present remedy, improvement in condition and peace (peace actually coming first).
If you didn’t hear or read of my acknowledgment of Palestinian traumas then you’ve been reading yourself, and not my comments.
I think if you actually read my comments on Palestinian terror, I do distinguish between an effort that is intentionally directed at only civilians, whether rationalized as deterrence, retribution, or overtly as terror and justifiable military actions. (I do regard most of the Israeli military actions that I’ve read about as justifiable.)
I do hold Hamas responsible for what it affects, and it affects a lot, mostly in the form of blocking concensus, making good things impossible.
Its rude and dismissive of you to describe my commentary as generalities. Yes, there are principles that I refer to. Thats what thinking is, putting details into some coherent and representative understanding.
In looking at the events leading up to, in, and following 1948, the only representative descriptive term that I can honestly use is “conflict”. NOT oppression (though I think that occurs recently).
In my primary blog, I wrote about my study of the history.
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It is a description of conflict. One can only conclude, “Israel is right always” or “Israel is wrong always” or “Israel is entitled” or “Israel is interloper” ONLY from prejudice.
” you utterly refrain from entering any conversation about actual present remedy, improvement in condition and peace (peace actually coming first).”
I’ve talked about that elsewhere. Sometimes even with you.
“If you didn’t hear or read of my acknowledgment of Palestinian traumas…”
Here’s the rub, Richard, and you’re about to demonstrate the problem yet again. It’s the easiest thing in the world for the more dishonest sort of liberal Zionist (Slater is the honest kind) to acknowledge Palestinian trauma. What you don’t do is acknowledge the moral guilt of people who hold views like yours in causing that trauma. You heap moral blame on Palestinian actors and not on mainstream Israeli actors (with the exception of the far right, who function as scapegoats in your political theodicy.)
So here’s your position–
“I think if you actually read my comments on Palestinian terror, I do distinguish between an effort that is intentionally directed at only civilians, whether rationalized as deterrence, retribution, or overtly as terror and justifiable military actions. (I do regard most of the Israeli military actions that I’ve read about as justifiable.)”
Yep. Just what I said. Palestinian terror is bad, but most of the Israeli military actions you’ve read about were justifiable. That’s your problem, Richard. Well, it’s also the problem of the Palestinians to the extent that they have to deal with self-described “liberals” like yourself. They’d be far far better off if Jerry Slater were more typical.
I expect that if Dr Slater were prime minister and Israeli civilian towns were being shelled, that he would feel obliged to undertake military action.
Ask him, honestly.
And, I would ask him if he thought that he felt that terror directed at civilians was ever justifiable.
And, I would read back to Dr Slater’s comments here to determine if he thought that “ethnic cleansing was never necessary”.
If he is honest about his comments of the need in struggle for Israel following WW2, and the need for Israel to comprise a Jewish majority to survive as Israel, then he would have to cross that chasm.
He struggles to find other alternatives, retroactively. It doesn’t really matter, if you are motivated by the goal of improving the lot of Palestinians. If by improving the lot of Palestinians, you mean a revisionist “we were right”, and that does not come to be, honestly, then you are not an advocate for Palestinians.
in other words his argument is yours so what we committed some of the worst crimes imaginable just get over it. I’d like to see you tell a rape victim to get over it.
if only their was a record of who was in the territory of palestine and what property they owned you know like a census oh wait their was.
no he commits the crime is saying we should let a crime go un punished simply for the sake its gone unpunished
you mean not “harm” jews. because his position most definitely harms the palestinians as it denies them their honest to god legal rights as I have asked him and you why is it ok to demand that the palestinians give up their legal rights for jewish wants?
you do like to lie. My willingnuess to remove the illegal jewish population is not based on your messed up notion of a magical new law but british common law and how it pertains to property and that dates back to the middle ages. and your right I don’t make any distinction between the different palestinian groups as they are different. and I believe Israeli palestinians licving on stolen land should be removed too its a moot issue of the nature. sorry witty it not bigotry to remove people from stolen property in palestine when only one”people” is living on stolen property. why should people who legally own their property be removed to make it ok to remove jews who don’t in your mind?
again that is not what the law requires. the law requires a refugee given the choice between returning to his or her property or resettleing and accepting compensation their choice not the choice of a bigoted jew who lives in the US witty. they have choose they want to return.
so in your opinion removing stolen property from a jew is a violation of property rights? please explain that?
making up definitions and meanings to support your purposes again I see. nationalism and democracy don’t have to be in tension. they are only in tension in cases like Israel( which is more religionalism because they aren’t a nation) where the group excersising it believes only they should be in the territory
only to a bigot like yourself who believes a certain chosen group is allowed to steal if they want something. a two state solution denies the palestinians the right to self determination not to mention billions of dollars worth of property. it protects thieves over their victims.
Everybody’s an opportunist.
Your remedy would be equally stealing of others’ land and property and lead to a similar pendulum swing of animosity.
You speak with certainty about things that you are in fact uncertain, and that creates wars if applied.
To stay stuck is just to stay stuck. There is no justice to it.
A rape victim counseled to be only angry, to not get on with their life until… the rape is undone (how), is BAD counsel. Good counsel is “know that you are still whole inside your person, and that you have a life of love, joy, and compassion ahead of you.”
You are sick.
You have no credibility, like all other Zionists.
You got your State – racist, discriminatory and criminal.
You are still stealing land and resources. To do so you subjugate the Native people of that land.
And finally you lecture others on morality when YOU have NONE.
You have stated that you would have tacitly accepted the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 48′ and done nothing to stop it – opportunist.
You have ignored IHL when it suits you and have ignored the UN. Then you cry about the showing of a movie from the Palestinian point of view at the UN. During this time, Israel is expanding settlements but you care more about this movie.
You post your verbiage on this blog where you are regularly shot down and refuted and reminded of your history of racism and hypocrisy while doing nothing to advance your agenda in more meaningful blogs.
Anything I missed?
“Anything I missed?”
You missed the potential reality check of rejecting anger as sole driver of political agenda.
You ignore the UN when it suits you as well, no? (I don’t know what IHL is, that you are referring to.)
And, you grossly miss and have missed for a very long time, the sympathy of many Jews to the condition of Palestinians, but who also sympathize with Israelis, you know terror directed at civilians.
“you grossly miss and have missed for a very long time, the sympathy of many Jews to the condition of Palestinians, but who also sympathize with Israelis, you know terror directed at civilians.”
By itself this one sentence wouldn’t prove anything, but when you follow the I/P discussion in general or Richard’s writing in particular you pick up on a certain theme that he shows here. That is, Palestinians suffer in a condition, but Israelis suffer from terror aimed at them.
Two things. First, “terror” sounds much worse than a condition, much more violent. You’d never know which side loses more children to violence from this phrasing.
Second, the terror is “aimed”, whereas the Palestinians just suffer in some way that doesn’t involve direct aiming by anyone.
If it was just one sentence it wouldn’t mean much, but it’s a consistent pattern with Richard and with many self-described liberal Zionists. It’s reflective once again of the gap between people like RW on the one hand and Slater on the other.
In other words, to summarize Witty:
#4) Everybody sucks.
mere equivication
no witty it wouldn’t be theft. they don’t legally own it. returning stolen property is not theft. for you to call it such is dishonest. while yes the victims of justice most likely would be upset that doesn’t change the fact the legal owners have a right to their property.
you might be uncertain about the palestinians legal rights I’m not.
they aren’t staying stuck they are working toward justice in getting their property back. what you want the validation of theft is not justice.
true but they are also counsoled to testify against their atatcker in court what you demand of the palestinian to continue the use of the rape analogy is one where you tell the victim we know who raped you but were not going to prosecute and you should just get over it.
The severance of the U.S.-Israeli alliance is what’s going to bring about the dissolution of the Zionist entity (not its people). That’s why alarm bells go off in Zionist headquarters in both nations whenever there’s even a hint of a rift developing between them (see presidencies of both Bushes as well as recent statements by General David Petreaus and others about Israeli intransigence vis-a-vis ME peace negotiations endangering U.S. troops in Afghanistan). And what’s going to break said alliance is this rising tide of ME revolutions, because for the people of the ME until Palestine is free their revolutions will remain unfinished. What’they’ll use to force the U.S. to switch sides in the ME conflict will be the threat of another oil embargo, which will send the price of gas soaring, queues* at gas stations backing up for blocks and the populace yelling “down with Israel.”
*as happened during the ’73 oil embargo
Which will certainly occur if BYahoo gets his wish to bomb Iran.
Potsherd2,
If Netanyahu bombs Iran, Israel is finished. If Netanyahu gets the US to bomb Iran by proxy, both countries are finished. The Arabs don’t need the US to sell oil to: they have China, which is hungry for oil and rich. Latin America has had it up to here with both Israel and the US. Canada knows the US is a stricken friend. Israel has become a real national security and diplomatic threat to the US.
For what it’s worth, I would like to see a serious reduction in the level of pesonal hostility being expressed about this article. Mr. Slater may hold views that are anathema to some of us, but if we believe that he needs to be “educated,” let’s try to use common courtesy. Sure, he has responded in some instances in kind, but many of us have ganged up on him in a pretty provocative way. (Given similar circumstances, which of you would not have reacted the same way?) His credentials as a proponent of a fair and just peace settlement have been securely established for many years, IMO. I would like him to remain willing to share his articles on Mondoweiss and to be able say what he thinks without fear of personal attacks. He is not the enemy!
Let’s review the evidence about the applicability of the right of return.
In 1949, when Israel had less than a million people, and was a very poor and weak country, and with the refugee problem completely fresh, the world could not force Israel to accept them back.
So now, 6 decades after the fact with most original refugees already dead, with the world accepting the Clinton Parameters as the solution, with Israel being a regional economic and military power, with even Uri Avnery saying Jews will never accept it, now there is any chance for the right of return?
And when you say “international pressure” what do you mean? Since Europe and the US accept the Clinton Parameters, why will they ever pressure Israel to accept the right of return or a one state solution?
Slater just states the obvious and you jump him.
“And when you say “international pressure” what do you mean? Since Europe and the US accept the Clinton Parameters, why will they ever pressure Israel to accept the right of return or a one state solution?”
eee, to whom are you directing these questions? “International pressure” was mentioned initially by Slater as a potential force for peace in the article we’re discussing here.
Lobewyper,
I am directing these questions at all those that keep saying that what Israeli Jews want doesn’t matter because international pressure will be put on them by some unspecified international bodies.
the world could not force Israel to accept them back.
Of course it could have. It would not, out of a combination of Holocaust guilt and Zionist pressure. A serious error on the part of the UN, a first step in the course that has rendered it impotent.
“Of course it could have. It would not, out of a combination of Holocaust guilt and Zionist pressure. A serious error on the part of the UN, a first step in the course that has rendered it impotent.”
The world could not because it was not willing to take responsibility for the safety of the Jews and Palestinians after the return. Any organization forcing such a drastic measure would have had to also be responsible for the safety of the people after the measure was enforced.
eee, the world stood by and let 2 million die during the India/Pakistan partition, without taking a bit of responsibility to stop it. That’s more people than all the Jews and Arabs put together in Palestine at the time.
Exactly, if you try to impose a solution, you “own” it. Nobody in the world, neither the US nor Europe would want to “own” the issue of security after the right of return. That is why also no one interfered in the Indian civil war or tried to impose a solution.
“the world could not force Israel to accept them back.”
You make it sound like Israel had all the cards. In fact, no one tried to force Israel to take the refugees back because the western (and eastern) powers did not care about them. Britain and France were soon using Israel as a proxy to invade Egypt and later the USA was juggling arms sales to Israel and the Gulf states and using Israel as a waystation for weapons to other regimes.
It’s pretty childish how you keep asserting Israel is just getting stronger, like it was the Soviet Union or something. Hey, speaking of which…
Ok Andrew, what “cards” can be used against Israel to implement the right of return? Under what scenario do you envision that happening?
Are you denying that Israel is much stronger now than 60 years ago? Are you denying that Israel has a high tech based economy with robust growth? Are you denying that Israel has a very advanced weapon industry? Are you denying that Israel is a regional power?
no one is denying that but it had noithing to do with the awesome jews were and everything to do with years of billion dollars of aid. guess what if you would have let the palestinians have their country instead of people like you stealing it and gave them the aid Israel got they would be equal to what Israel is now.
I doubt any outside power can demand Israel take back the refugees at this point (It would have worked in 1949, but then there wouldn’t have been a refugee problem, a state of Israel or even a Zionist movement if the Brits, French and Americans were magnanimous enough to help people dispossessed as a byproduct of their own policy). What can happen is a weakening of the Zionist state from the outside; if the Egyptians can prevent another attack on Gaza, if Hezbollah can prevent another invasion of Lebanon, which did happen, even that is a weakening of Israel. Americans can weaken Israel through starving the defense industry. If Egyptians can gather in the millions and overthrow Mubarak, there’ s no reason USians can’t oppose policies that are making them poorer and getting their (expendable) people killed. Israel will be in trouble as a result.
The last blow will come when the ’48, ’67 and diaspora Palestinians take back their country and the IDF is incapable of killing them all. I can’t think of another scenario where the right of return is possible. What will make the IDF incapable I don’t know. Israel can be an international pariah but it will still have the hardware and manpower to do the job.
When it says that Christianity bears a heavy burden for antisemitism, is it talking about Christianity as a belief system, or is it talking about the leaders and institutions of Christian communities? Obviously, many Christians, including myself, would say that those institutions were acting against the belief system of Christianity.