Most of the time when Zionists discuss democracy, it’s from under a dark cloud’s pall. The words they issue are strained and a compressed desperation suffuses their arguments. Invariably, they become aggressive. Masada is rebuilt in their own heads and they wait for it to fall. They prepare.
A friend forwarded a conversation he had with a troupe of Zionists on Facebook. He made all the reasonable arguments that Americans understand: We are all equal irrespective of race; international law is inviolable; apartheid is a crime against humanity; and so on.
His arguments were met by two responses mainly: The Jews insist on their right to self-determination and will never give up control of the country (the Palestinians and democracy be damned); and, one state means war.
My friend was arguing exclusively with American Jewish Zionists, which always makes the first argument he encountered seem stupid – for lack of a better word. Perhaps American Jewish Zionists ought to argue that “The Jews insist on their right to an ironclad insurance policy.”
This site is partly dedicated to challenging the idea that Jews are exceptional in American life or that America will produce the next Hitler. So it’s worth talking about the second argument.
In combating my friend’s insistence that Palestinians and Israelis can share a single state, one American Zionist (who I had the pleasure of meeting in Beirut) openly stated that Arabs and Jews cannot live together. Presumably, that’s for the same reason that Germans and Jews cannot live together.
My friend then asked what that meant for the twenty percent of Israelis who are Palestinians. The American Zionist responded that second-class citizenship is an unavoidable reality. It springs from the reality of a Jewish state (like radiation from uranium).
I’m avoiding quotations for the sake of privacy (although Facebook is very, very public), but this young American argued that the “Arabs” had no choice but to accept the 3/5ths rule. The Jews must have their state, but over time, maybe, conditions would get better for Palestinian-Israelis (As an aside, what does this say about the quality of civics education in American schools?).
Also, they’re better off in Israel than they would be if they lived on the surface of Jupiter. But if Palestinians and Palestinian-Israelis demand full civil rights, it’s going to get very bloody.
The main argument that Zionists and their friends make for the maintenance of the status-quo (read: apartheid) is that the Jewish Israelis would never permit a democratic state to arise in Palestine/Israel. Allusions are made to catastrophic violence. Really, Zionists and their friends are threatening us with catastrophic violence. More and more, I’m convinced that it’s a threat they’re willing to follow through on.
On Nakba Day, members of the Israeli army murdered eleven unarmed refugees. They killed them, of course, because their existence threatens the existence of the Jewish state. This is precisely the kind of violence that we’re continuously warned about. Do we really want to incur the wrath of armed Zionists by threatening their illusions of racial supremacy and their real racial privilege in Palestine/Israel?
The question rests on a normal person’s conscience like an oil slick. Bashar Al Assad, the greatest mass murderer in the history of ophthalmology, is relying on the same calculus to maintain his despotic control in Syria. The question for those who oppose equal rights in Palestine/Israel because they portend violence is whether they’re prepared to reward racists for the havoc they threaten to wreak.
The one-state solution is a foregone conclusion; the end of the Jewish state is a foregone conclusion. Palestinians will not be cowed because of the threat of violence – we saw that on Nakba Day. So how far will the Zionists go? How long will their American friends insist that the Jewish state “has a right to exist?” How many more Palestinians will be exterminated in the fight for equal rights?
As Juan Cole already pointed out, the Israelis are perpetrating a slow genocide in Palestine/Israel. But the slowness of it is excruciating.
Getting rights for Palestinians may possibly require violence. After all, Israel is not interested in words, which suggests that it only “understands” violence. But the use of violence to acquire national rights for Palestinians is NOT foreordained.
By contrast, getting the territories of Israel (and Israel-Plus) for Zionists absolutely required and continues to require the very highest level of violence. That’s what the horror of Lebanon 1982, Lebanon 2006, Gaza 2008/2009 were all about. I see Israel as so wed to violence that it would feel terribly deprived by any circumstances which prevented it from making these generally un-justified periodic mini-Holocausts.
Bluntly put, American Jews, specifically Zionist Jews, can continue to support Israel’s fascist policies all they want, they can continue to masquerade as enlightened liberals when they want to be viewed as an integral part of the US, and shed their sheep’s skin when they discuss the Palestinians with such resentment and contempt.
That said, neither time, nor politics, nor economics are in their favor.
Recent events in the Middle East show that the next five years will drastically change the Israel that which everyone has come to know in the last 50 years.
And when that time comes, and those Zionists in the US start publicly panicking, then every peace-loving person on this planet can finally rejoice, secure in the thought that they are neither smugly smiling anymore, nor do they have the same influence or power they may have had in decades past.
Have you ever seen power and privilege quickly slip from one’s hands? It’s an ugly sight. The powerful and privileged sink so fast and so deep, that they end up hanging themselves like Bernard Madoff’s son did.
No person, no nation, and no people in recorded human history has ever put up with such fascism, hatred and oppression for very long. That day of reckoning is near.
Avi: “Have you ever seen power and privilege quickly slip from one’s hands? It’s an ugly sight.”
Just look at the face of the-once-unstoppable Dominique Strauss-Kahn at his arraignment – is that what you meant?
Picture perfect of old, well-worn arrogance caught flat-footed in a swirl of events no longer under his control. There was one particular photo I’m thinking of (which, a usual, I failed to save) which said it all – is it my nightmare I am stuck in? don’t they know who they are dealing with? how could ‘they” do this to me?
Yes. That’s exactly what I had in mind, Danaa.
‘Bathos’ = A fall from the sublime to the ridiculous.
… Say, folk, don’t that Dominique Strauss-Khan look a tad like Natanyahu in handcuffs? Could they perhaps share the same hairdresser, tailor AND stylist?
Yes, bathos, as opposed to pathos. Good point.
Wow,that post pulled no punches Avi.
Bluntly put, American Jews, specifically Zionist Jews, can continue to support Israel’s fascist policies all they want, they can continue to masquerade as enlightened liberals when they want to be viewed as an integral part of the US, and shed their sheep’s skin when they discuss the Palestinians with such resentment and contempt.
Some American Jews are liberal on some issue, but then become complete fascists on issues affecting the Palestinians. Makes one wonder about whether their liberalism is real or simply a ruse.
• So much for the wishful thinking in the treacherous era of universal deceit. Driven by the untouchables tyranny rule as successive regime change executions were accomplished to the detriment deceived masses. In fact, the insatiable psychopaths who never gave-up their crusade for the greater eretz Israel while striving to restore slavery along the way, appear to be normal and therefore not easily recognisable as deviant or disturbed.
Although only a trained professional can make a diagnosis, the clinical indicators associated with this personality type included classic dispositions such as: glibness or superficial charm; a grandiose sense of self; a lack of any remorse, shame or guilt; callousness or a lack of empathy; and a failure to perceive that anything is wrong with them.
Sociopaths are described as authoritarian, secretive, manipulative, paranoid, and pathological liars at the time when psychopaths are utterly evil. Who must have their never-ending-resource of prey to manipulate the controllable for their own ends. These people literally have no conscience, akin to the serial killers. Who enjoy playing mind games and get thus immense joy and satisfaction out of someone else’s pain and suffering. Miserable life of the tormented is a playground to them.
Psychopaths are tremendously good actors!
Despite the fact that they have absolutely no conscience and no concept of empathy or remorse to speak of, they are very good at faking it. This is where their devious charm and charisma comes to the fore as they monopolise every conversation, boast and exaggerate about their life accomplishments and always having the last word. A kind of go drunk with power, extolling their virtues while denigrating any accomplishment of the others.
“The main argument that Zionists and their friends make for the maintenance of the status-quo (read: apartheid) is that the Jewish Israelis would never permit a democratic state to arise in Palestine/Israel. Allusions are made to catastrophic violence. Really, Zionists and their friends are threatening us with catastrophic violence. More and more, I’m convinced that it’s a threat they’re willing to follow through on.”
Sometimes I think they don’t mean it as a threat, but as a genuine fear it could be like Iraq or Lebanon in the 70′s and 80′s. But I also think you’re right that there is an implicit or not so implicit threat in many cases. We’ve got a “liberal Zionist” here who talks about the right of self-determination, which means no demographically threatening number of Palestinians, and he also has said that ethnic cleansing is not currently necessary.
So yeah, if Palestinians ever decide to do mass nonviolent demonstrations in favor of one man, one vote, don’t count on any better reaction than one sees in Syria or Libya. And any stone-throwing will be labeled “terrorism” and will be used to justify lethal force.
Is there any record of what Palestinian FaceBook sites Zuckerberg has shut down?
• Israeli minister joins call for removal of pro-palestinian facebook pages! Are Palestinians the only group so blocked from making facebook pages?
• link to jilliancyork.com
• link to prrnblog.wordpress.com
• link to thestudentroom.co.uk
• link to warincontext.org
• link to guardian.co.uk
• link to nzherald.co.nz
• link to sabbah.biz
• link to defamer.com.au
• link to gawker.com
• link to mediaite.com
• link to advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org
• link to newser.com
• link to agonist.org
Freedom is a vital organ. No one has the right to extract it from your body by force – impossible to extract it out of your being, that’s for sure.
Except evidently zionists with delusions of supremism dispute this inherent human quality. They think that oppression, humiliation, imprisonment, torture and the spilling of civilian blood of all ages and genders, is an acceptable, indeed a positive national lifestyle. They’re ready and prepared to kill with no remorse in the name of this collective prejudice and inequality.
Distilled down, the conflict comes down to: Freedom Lover versus Freedom Killer.
Man! It’s so Disney-clear who the bad guys are in this unwholesome and dismal saga.
Taxi writes,
“Except evidently zionists with delusions of supremism dispute this inherent human quality. They think that oppression, humiliation, imprisonment, torture and the spilling of civilian blood of all ages and genders, is an acceptable, indeed a positive national lifestyle. They’re ready and prepared to kill with no remorse in the name of this collective prejudice and inequality.”
Substitute the word “Nazis” for “Zionists” in this passage. Doesn’t that describe Nazism to a T? And doesn’t it equally well describe Zionism? The parallels are horrifying.
Modern political Zionism, in its most virulent form prevailing today, is largely an offspring of Nazism. As the civilized world condemned and eliminated Nazism, shouldn’t it condemn and eliminate Zionism? If the world chooses not to condemn and eliminate hard-core Zionism that aims to exterminate Palestinians through violence, then why did it condemn and eliminate Nazism?
What has changed? If the descendants/relatives of the victims are granted impunity to revisit the murder of their forebears upon an innocent and defenseless people, what has changed? Murder of a people is allowed to go unpunished now. If such murder is allowed now, why wasn’t it allowed then?
Something has changed. The world was ultimately a better place then. When it was necessary in the name of human dignity and compassion to confront evil and destroy it, it was done.
“This site is partly dedicated to challenging the idea that Jews are exceptional in American life or that America will produce the next Hitler. So it’s worth talking about the second argument.”
It’s worth talking about a third argument: that Israel will produce the next Hitler.
Mondoweiss:“This site is partly dedicated to challenging the idea that Jews are exceptional in American life or that America will produce the next Hitler. So it’s worth talking about the second argument.”
Rutherford “It’s worth talking about a third argument: that Israel will produce the next Hitler.”
Well then, if that’s what you think, I wash my hands of the entire project. And somebody else can feed that stupid Blondi.
Geez, a guy works and slaves with single-minded dedication and unwavering energy, and first Mondoweiss and then Rutherford offhandedly disparage all my efforts. Okay then, I quit, Germany will just have to find its destiny elsewhere.
Oh sorry, Thomson, I was so upset that you though I had no chance (after all, any boy can grow up to be President) I neglected to read your comment about Nazism and Zionism. Leaves me with one question, which WW2 are you talking about? Is it the same one I’ve read about?
Really sort of doesn’t seem like it.
But really, Thomson, look, I don’t know how to put this discreetly, look, let’s just walk over here where nobody else can hear us. Look Thomson, if you’ve got me pretty much convinced that some type of anti-Semitism is pretty much at the bottom of your anti-Zionism, you’re in trouble.
“Look Thomson, if you’ve got me pretty much convinced that some type of anti-Semitism is pretty much at the bottom of your anti-Zionism, you’re in trouble.”
And what kind of trouble do you have in mind for me, oh horned quadruped? That could be taken as a threat. No need to whisper.
Anti-Jewish feeling is not at the heart of my anti-Zionism, Mooser. What gives you that idea? Do you imagine that I am anti-Jewish because some Jews produced and now support a fascist political ideology, Zionism? Similarly, would you imagine that I am anti-German because some of those people produced Nazism and Hitler? You would be wrong on both counts. Just as I admire German culture, so do I admire Jewish culture (if I am permitted to refer to such).
Do I oppose the Jewish Power Structure that supports the Israel Zionist Lobby in America? Yes, but not for reasons of antipathy toward Jews or Judaism. I oppose it politically because the concentration of such excessive political power in the hands of so few, ethnically-centered people devoted to a foreign entity is antithetical to basic principles of American democracy. The disastrous results of such concentration of power are there for anyone with eyes and ears to behold.
The “evil” that I referred to in my comment above is the evil of murderous fascist ideologies like Nazism and Zionism – it was not a reference to Jews as human beings.
But I do seem to have struck a sensitive nerve with you. Do you identify personally with the Zionist project? If so, I would like to clarify something. I do not want to see Israel “wiped off the map” or “pushed into the sea”. I would like to see a multi-racial, multi-religion, democratic society there where all people (including lots of Jews) live in peace with equal rights for all, and where Jerusalem is maintained as an “international city”. I don’t think those preferences make me unusual or sinister.
But the dark tone of my comment above has a straightforward explanation: I foresee a bad end for the Jewish State of Israel.
“Substitute the word “Nazis” for “Zionists” in this passage. Doesn’t that describe Nazism to a T?”
And “T” rhymes with “P” and that stands for pool! Yes folks, we surely got trouble, with a capital Z and that rhymes with N…..
What do you do Ahmed, to convey confidence that Jews and Muslims, or Israeli Jews and Arabs if you prefer that polarity, can live together peacefully.
Your reference to resentments about what selected Zionists say do not make that more possible.
What are you acting FOR?
Richard Witty said, ‘Ahmed, until you can reassure every single Israeli, plus all the diaspora Jews, that a settlement will not inconvenience any of them in any real way, you are being obstructionist and not acting genuinely FOR peace and reconciliation.’
Some effort, some comment would be helpful.
I must be the star center, that North is dedicating so much attention to.
Or, maybe he’s succeeded in general and scared away all dissenting thinking from the site.
You are working as a human shield these days, North.
RW
No, North just translates your verbose waffle and puts it succinctly. Sometimes before you’ve actually said it, admittedly, but that saves you time and us confusion!
Yes Witty, it is true that liars, racists and Hasbara trolls do tend to run away when they get smacked down and exposed for what they are.
You’re a special case, seeing as you’ve become the token village idiot who doesn’t realize what an object of ridicule he’s become.
“You are working as a human shield these days, North.”
Richard, you always know just what to say to convince people of both your good will and your clear, temperate thinking.
star center? really I always so you of more of a Kieth Bogins like character.
“Richard, you always know just what to say to convince people of both your good will and your clear, temperate thinking.”
Well, darn it, why doesn’t he say it then?
>> Mooser: Richard, you always know just what to say to convince people of both your good will and your clear, temperate thinking.
>> Donald: Well, darn it, why doesn’t he say it then?
He does.
1. RW on ethnic cleansing:
- I cannot consistently say that “ethnic cleansing is never necessary”.
- If I was an adult in 1948, I probably would have supported whatever it took to create the state of Israel, and held my nose at actions that I could not possibly do myself.
2. RW on Israel as a supremacist “Jewish state”:
- I am a Zionist in the sense that I assertively support the right of Israelis to self-govern, and by Israelis I do mean a Jewish majority, comprising a site of self-governance for the Jewish people.
- I personally don’t see a conflict with intentionally adjusting boundaries if the demographics change considerably to create a smaller Israel that is Jewish majority.
3. RW disparaging universal human rights and the pursuit of justice:
- There is a strong statement of advocacy for universal human rights, presented as “THE” primary reference of good/bad.
- Those that merely advocate for justice, should be concerned.
Israelis are losing their cool over the Nakba and it’s going viral:
link to 972mag.com
Heck I remember not too long ago (I mean maybe even up to a year ago) when the ceiling for the I/P discussion was 1967 borders and all the limited neologisms within that frame of reference. You would easily (and wrongfully) be called an anti-semite just for making reference to the Nakba – that was the norm in them bad old suffocating days of ignorance.
Finally, Sisyphus breaks the chains of his curse.
This year it seems that the Nakba has risen like a phoenix out of the ashes. Way cool to witness – thank you internet and all honorable revolutionaries for freedom, peace and justice.
Hey didn’t the einstein-architects of zionism know that you can’t hide the truth forever? That sooner or later telling lies will bite you back big and bad right in the jaxi?
re: video
the fact that that officer was aggressively asserting his power as a male, as a white man, as an Israeli, as an officer is striking.
the manner in which he chooses violence, slapping a woman, is also striking. makes me wonder how he treats his mother? if he has a wife and how he treats her, a sister how he treats her?
Very good observation. But I’d guess he treats his mother fine; she’s a Jew.
i’m growing weary of those who say Palestinians and Israelis/ Jews and Arabs can’t live together. people who believe this are nuts and this sentiment has racist undertones. are the people who spread these LIES involved in bringing people together to break down the barriers and build up reconciliation? i would venture to say they are not.
those with a generous spirit believe in others, so that others will believe in themselves.
Jews and Muslims have lived together in the past and will live together in the future. But how to go from the present tense to this future is somehow crystal clear to Ahmed Moor, but totally opaque to me. Certainly Benjamin Netanyahu is doing his utmost to alienate the world and maybe that is the linchpin of the dynamic that will lead to Ahmed Moor’s predicted future. I don’t see such a smooth path. The zionists view their role as historic turning the unarmed Jews into the armed Jews and how is it that you plan to disarm them? Or is your one state going to allow a Jewish militia?
“Jews and Muslims have lived together in the past and will live together in the future. But how to go from the present tense to this future is somehow crystal clear to Ahmed Moor, but totally opaque to me. “
Well, in that case, why don’t you shut up and listen, instead of blathering all the time? I mean, if the subject is at all important to you, apart from keeping what you got.
In any case, thanks for admitting your blindness outright, in short and (for you) unequivocal sentences.
“The zionists view their role as historic turning the unarmed Jews into the armed Jews”
Gosh, thanks for basically describing Israel as a gangster nation. So that’s the historic acheivment of Zionism. And the settlers, natch, are the whole heart and soul of Zionism.
wondering jew: “I don’t see such a smooth path. The zionists view their role as historic turning the unarmed Jews into the armed Jews and how is it that you plan to disarm them?”
Mooser, wj has made a highly significant “historical” point, not about the settlers but about the attitude of Zionists toward the relationship between the State of Israel and the “Jewish people”. All buffoonery and calumny aside, do you have a serious answer for it? Does anyone?
“Or is your one state going to allow a Jewish militia?”
Oh yeah, I can see that now, with Hophmi leading the troops, white shoes gleaming. “To the WASP lawfirms, brethren!”
Ah, when Israel comes apart, it gonna be a mess! All the guilty feats will pitter-patter back to the Western countries, and the Hophmis hop-a-long to the US, and leave all those poor other Israelis there to face the consequences.
I could be wrong, it’s always possible that Hophmi will, like Hemmingway’s bell toll taker guy, go back to Israel to fight with a Jewish militia.
Palestinians and Israelis certainly can (and do) live peacefully together.
However idea of Palestinian refugees returning home to territories within Israel border and eventually becoming majority is totally fictional – it simply would not happen.
Nobody here – including Arab population – is not interested.
“Nobody here – including Arab population – is not interested.”
You said it, Lighbringer. You said it. By the way, will you come over and show my slides? Projection like that (“Nobody here is not interested”) is crystal-clear.
“Nobody here – including Arab population – is not interested.”
So says the Jewish spokesman for all Arabs…
It won’t happen, meaning Israeli Jews refuse to give back what they stole and will never accept the rule of law above their own petty and selfish whims.
do you really think we’re going to line up to move in with racists? we just want our rights. we’ll decide. not you. not anyone else decides for us. we just want our full rights, not 3/5, okay? do get what this is about?
“However idea of Palestinian refugees returning home to territories within Israel border and eventually becoming majority is totally fictional – it simply would not happen.
Nobody here – including Arab population – is not interested.”
Then why make such a fuss of rejecting the Right of Return? It is a major obstacle to any sort of negotiated settlement because Israel refuses to even contemplate it. And yet, you say, if it were granted, all that would happen would be a handful of old men and women would totter back to where their home villages used to be, look around at the cherry-tomato farms that have replaced their old homes, and drop dead of despair. Surely Israel could put up with that.
“second-class citizenship is an unavoidable reality. It springs from the reality of a Jewish state ”
And that tells us why the conception of a Jewish state is evil.
“The Jews insist on their right to self-determination”
O.K.
That’s it.
You are going to get the works.
I am going to give MW and all my multitudinous, adoring, fans five arguments against the idea that Jews in general and Israeli Jews in particular have a right of self-determination qua Jews.
All MW posters can repeat them (with suitable attribution) every time we hear this line from a Harbarist, and mock, mercilessly, the Hasbarist if he/she/it cannot produce an adequate reply.
Self Determination – the moral right of a group to jointly decide on the political arrangements they will live under, and especially the right for a group to establish and unrepented state for themselves.
PT – the principle that that this is a right of all the inhabitants of a territory.
PP – the principle that that this is a right of “peoples”.
(Note: I am not concerned wiht legal rights here.)
Argument 1. Against PP, ForPT.
1. The fundamental concept behind the right to self-determination is that persons are entitled to make the decisions – or at least have a say in the decisions – which affect them.
2. The right to self-determination means (in the I/P context) the right to establish a state.
3. A state is normally established on a territory.*
4. The establishment of a state on a territory seriously affects all the people living in that territory.**
5. By 1 + 4, then, all the people living in that territory have the right to self-determination. That is, they all have the right to decide whether a state will be established on the territory.
6. And, by 1 + 4, the right derives from residence in the territory, not from being a member of any specific group.
* I do not know of any other way of establishing a state.
** The affect on people in surrounding states should also be taken into account, and this might give a right of veto.
Argument 2.
Let us accept the principle (PP) that “peoples” have the right of self determination. And now let us take some imaginary territory (say, Tasmania) and suppose it to be populated by two “peoples” – the Marmites and the Vegemites. The two groups are evenly distributed throughout the territory, and there is no intercommunal strife. The relationships between the two groups is so amicable that there are a number of mixed marriages. (Sometimes rather hasty ones!)
Then the UN declares it is time for them to exercise their rights of self determination.
The Marmites choose that the entire territory be an independent Marmite state.
The Vegemites choose that the entire territory become part of the neighbouring country.
Clearly in this case the appeal to PP does not help with the decision. Either the right of the Marmites or the right of the Vegemites can be exercised, but not both. PP give no reason for preferring the one over the other.
Some other basis for decision will have to be found, and if that basis includes the general agreement of all the people in the territory, then it is an appeal to PT.
If not, then there is no self determination involved at all.
PP is no help for making decisions in cases where there is a territory shared by two or more “peoples”.
When might it be helpful?
First, if the territory is inhabited by a single “people”, then there would be no conflict of rights.
But in such a case PP reduces to PT.
Second, if there is a “people” which does not inhabit a single territory, but is widely spread over a number of territories. This is, of course, the type of case which the Jews in general are alleged to have a right of self determination. Arguments 3 and 4 apply to such cases.
And now let us take some imaginary territory (say, Tasmania) and suppose it to be populated by two “peoples” – the Marmites and the Vegemites. The two groups are evenly distributed throughout the territory
Shouldn’t that be evenly spread? ;-)
Argument 3.
Let us accept the principle (derived from PP) that the Jewish people have a right of self determination. Under that principle, we find that Australian Jews partake in that right. Australian Gentiles do not. But in all other respects they have equal rights.
Thus, Australian Jews have more rights than Australian Gentiles. This seems, on the face of it, inequitable.
A principle that leads to inequity has little claim to be a moral principle.
Argument 4.
Let us accept PP. In order to accept it, we need a set of conditions which must be fulfilled for a group to classed as a “people”
One set of conditions that has been offered is (a) that the member have something in common and (b) they regard themselves as a “people”. This raises the possibility that (a) is fulfilled by (b), and that (b) leads to an infinite regress, but I will ignore those issues, and simply point out that this set of conditions makes it possible for a bewildering variety of groups to claim “peoplehood”
Jews,
Stamp collectors,
Left-handed lesbian spokeshavers’ assistants,
Left-handed assistants to lesbian spokeshavers,
Lesbian assistants to left-handed spokeshavers,
And any other permutations of those,
could all end up demanding a state.
Furthermore, after we have divided the earth’s territory into Israel, Philatelia, and the United States of Assorted Spokeshavers’ Assistants, other groups (say, people who reject principle PP) could well pop up and demand their share. And then other groups after them.
We would have to set up a highly paid committee to oversee the various redistributions of territory, and the sadly necessary ethnic cleansing that would accompany it.
Now the grotesque impracticality of such a situation does not worry me. I am, after all, a philosopher. Even if I could not get a sinecure on the committee, I would perhaps be able to make a bit of money by offering philosophical counselling to help Australian Jews who are left-handed lesbian assistants to left-handed lesbian spokeshavers, and who collect stamps as well, in deciding where their loyalties lie.
I am worried about the continual disruption, the ethnic cleansing, and the denial of common humanity that would result. Such a situation does not seem an improvement of the world we have now. (I would further say that PP is not going to make the world a better place even on a more restricted definition of “a people” .) But if adoption of PP (in almost any form) as a general principle would not make the world better, then it can hardly be a moral principle, and its consequences suggest that it is actually immoral.
Argument 4 reveals that, without a restricted definition of “a people”, PP is wildly impractical and has no claim to be moral.
Argument 5:
Those who do worry about practicality may well want to set up a more stringent set of conditions for “peoplehood”, so as to restrict the number of groups who can claim to be “a people”.
We cannot simply set up an arbitrary collection of conditions that will admit Jews and perhaps one or two other groups to “peoplehood”. That would be tantamount to simply asserting that Jews are “a people”.
Each of the proposed conditions will have to be justified on moral grounds. Until that is done, we can reject PP as meaningless, since there is no clear concept of “a people” for it to be applied to.
‘peoplehoods’ do not have rights to self determination under international law. rather than assuming they do just request whoever it is that ‘insist’ this alleged ‘right’ to show us where it exists in international law. hostage explains and there is a long discussion preceding that’s informative.
here’s more
lots more at the link.
I recall that discussion, and I’ll leave the legal stuff to Hostage. He clearly spends all his time reading and memorising every single document relevant to whole I/P issue (Hostage, get a life, man!) and can do it far better than I can.
I’ll stick to discussions of moral issues.
I’ll stick to discussions of moral issues.
well, you are very good at that. international law is grounded in morals tho, isn’t it? it’s a reflection of morals.
RoHa, thanks for a thought-provoking contribution.
Wonderfully done, RoHa. :-)
Jiminy, RoHa, you make philosophy look like such fun, it’s a wonder it’s not more popular. After all you can create your own categories and then juxtapose Jews and stamp collectors and lesbians and they’re all valid, cuz you constructed the categories.
History is never quite as neat as philosophy constructed on a bagel hole. In fact the Jews have been recognized as something akin to a “people” (i’m sorry categories are for philosophers and I’m just a shmo) by the United Nations, by the League of Nations, by the Czar of Russia, by Napoleon and stretching back every few hundreds of years or so, some power play focused on a Jewish alliance and a promise of sovereignty or a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem.
“In fact the Jews have been recognized as something akin to a “people””
I didn’t deny that. I just denied that the Jewish people had a right of self-determination.
Roha,
Thought-provoking, however. The world does not fit either of any boxes you define. There are some nations that are of the residents of a jurisdiction. There are some similar in which the jurisdiction is chosen to afford majorities (partitions). There are some that are defined socially or tribally.
There is no rule to the basis of self-governance.
There is however a tension between any national state and democratic features. That is that EVERY state has that tension between its stated basis of formation and the rights of minorities, all to equal due process.
States formed on perfectly consistent and “just” bases devolve if the urge to support the rights of minorities are neglected.
There is no success at achieving it, as all liberations also include some suppressions. In fact, achieving equality, is itself a suppression, a dogma.
I find myself wishing for some political form to result in permanent peace, permanent justice, but that is not the nature of reality.
In your mind, let there be a Jewish national state. Don’t require it to die/dissolve, in order for your sense of consistency. Even if confusing to you.
“In fact, achieving equality, is itself a suppression, a dogma.’
One thing that is consistent about you Richard is this–you are deeply opposed to any solution based on the principle that Palestinians and Israeli Jews should have equal rights. It scares you because you know it is inconsistent with the form of Zionism that established Israel as a Jewish state (though probably not with the Judah Magnes form of Zionism, if I understand that version correctly.)
“There is no rule to the basis of self-governance.”
My arguments concern self-determination in the sense of establishing political arrangements. Self-governance can be arranged through democratic forms of government.
Nearly everything else you write is incoherent waffle. I’m not going to try to extract any meaning from it. I will simply take it that you cannot meet my arguments or provide any counter arguments
“In your mind, let there be a Jewish national state.”
Why on earth should I want such an evil entity either in my mind or in reality?
“Don’t require it to die/dissolve, in order for your sense of consistency”
It is my sense of justice and decency that prompt me to call for its dissolution.
The posters here who claim that Jews and Palestinians cannot live together sound just like the white South Africans during the time of apartheid, and also just like the racist white southerners in the U.S. during the fight for civil rights for black Americans in the 60′s.