Earlier this year Brian Klug, a member of the philosophy faculty at Oxford, published an important book, Being Jewish and Doing Justice: Bringing Argument to Life. The paperback is about to be released; you can order it here or here or from Amazon. To mark its publication, Klug allowed us to publish a slimmed version of an essay in the book. As Jacqueline Rose, author of the Question of Zion, says, "What is brilliant about this essay is that it obliges us to think so deeply and carefully about what is involved in the insistence that all criticism of Israel should affirm the nation's right to exist - it does this not as part of a demand for its dissolution or delegitimisationm, indeed far from it, but in order to focus on what nationhood can and should be in the twenty first century." --Editor
‘Nobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its “right to exist”. It is disturbing to find so many people well-disposed to Israel giving currency to this contemptuous formulation.’ These were the opening sentences of ‘The Saudi Text’, an article that appeared in The New York Times on 18 November 1981. Given present Israeli policy, it might come as a surprise to know that the author was Abba Eban, Foreign Minister in Israel’s Labour government from 1966 to 1974. Labour was in opposition when Eban’s article was published, and perhaps even more surprising is the fact that his withering words were not aimed at Menachem Begin, leader of the right-wing Likud party (headed today by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), which had come to power four years earlier. Far from it: on this point, at least, the two adversaries were wholly in agreement. Presenting his newly-elected government to the Knesset in June 1977, Begin had made the following firm avowal: ‘… I wish to declare that the Government of Israel will not ask any nation, be it near or far, mighty or small, to recognize our right to exist.’
Neither Begin nor Eban, of course, meant to imply that Israel does not have a right to exist. Their point was that this right should be regarded as a given, as something taken for granted. It was precisely for this reason that they rejected the idea that Israel needs other people to bestow it or confirm it. ‘Israel’s right to exist,’ Eban continued, ‘like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved. Israel’s legitimacy is not suspended in midair awaiting acknowledgement by the royal house in Riyadh.’ In the same vein, Begin went on to say in his speech to the Knesset: ‘It would not enter the mind of any Briton or Frenchman, Belgian or Dutchman, Hungarian or Bulgarian, Russian or American, to request for his people recognition of its right to exist. Their existence per se is their right to exist. The same holds true for Israel.’
But today, the formulation that Eban called ‘contemptuous’ has become ubiquitous. It is the price of admission, the ticket to ride, in two different (though overlapping) arenas. One is the world of international diplomacy where, since Hamas’ victory in the January 2006 Palestinian elections, the Quartet (US, UN, European Union and Russia) have isolated the party until it passes three political tests, including ‘recognition of Israel’. Israel itself has set the same condition for any prospective ‘partner for peace’. As is evident from the discourse in diplomatic circles, ‘recognition of Israel’ means more than implicitly acknowledging the fact that the state exists. For one thing, it refers to the right – not just the ¬fact – of its existence, as George W. Bush (who was US President at the time) underlined: ‘The Hamas party has made it clear that they do not support the right of Israel to exist. And I have made it clear so long as that’s their policy, that we will not support a Palestinian government made up of Hamas.’ For another, in order to satisfy the condition, it is not enough for Hamas (or anyone else) to imply recognition: it has to be stated explicitly: it has to be said.
In the public square, many people ‘well-disposed to Israel’ (in Eban’s phrase) make a similar stipulation. Their unwritten law, which applies both to groups in civil society and to private individuals, is roughly as follows: ‘Criticize Israel as much as you like, provided you proclaim Israel’s right to exist.’ Thus, the rule of entry is the same in both arenas. If you are Hamas and you wish to receive aid from the Quartet; if you are an interested party and seek a place at the negotiating table; or if you are just a plain private person with a beef about Israel: then, like Ali Baba in the story, you must say the magic words if you want the door to open. If he were alive today, it would surprise Eban to know the extent to which his ‘contemptuous formulation’ has become the indispensable condition…
… When we look into this further, we find that the ‘indispensable condition’ deforms the whole shape of the debate about Palestine and Israel. Partly, this is because it tends to use up all the oxygen, emphasizing the ‘existential threat’ to Israel and deflecting attention away from the predicaments of the Palestinians (let alone the security anxieties of neighbouring states). Partly, it is because the content is a tissue of confusion: ‘Israel has a right to exist’ is, in each part and as a whole, as vague as a cloud (or as slippery as an eel)…
… In February 2007, a number of people living in Britain – all of us Jewish – launched an initiative called Independent Jewish Voices (IJV). Largely with an eye to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we drafted a statement, ‘A Time to Speak Out’, and invited fellow Jews in Britain to join us in signing it. The core of the statement is a set of five principles of (social) justice and human rights; principles that are either universal in themselves or in the spirit of universality. We held that these principles, rather than the principle of group or ethnic loyalty, should come first. We tested the draft statement in advance on a few trusted friends and acquaintances. The advice we received from one quarter was emphatic: ‘[Y]ou need to begin with an explicit declaration of support for Israel’s right to exist and flourish …’. Otherwise, he warned us, we would not ‘get a hearing’ in the British Jewish mainstream. He was reminding us of the ‘indispensable condition’.
His advice was given in a spirit of goodwill and, in a way, it was sound… But precisely to the extent that he was right, he was wrong; for if, in order to ‘get a hearing’, this is what we had to say, then our message would not have been heard. Our own words would have drowned it out. Taking his advice, we would have been in contradiction with ourselves. This is not because we were asserting that Israel does not have ‘a right to exist’: we were not asserting the negative any more than the positive. We were proclaiming universal principles that transcend partisan support for one side against another and calling for the debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be based on the premise that these principles must be applied, in an even-handed way, to all parties. Singling out Israel, declaring our support for its right to exist, would have conveyed a completely different message – or a muddled one...
…But suppose we would have complied with the advice and prefaced our statement by uttering the obligatory words: What would these words have said to the people who need us to say them before we get a hearing? To put it another way: What kind of a ‘hearing’ would they have given us? They hear us say ‘a right to exist’: Although it is unclear precisely what kind of right they take this to be, it must, as we have seen, be more than merely legal. Call it a moral right. But unless and until we know what they regard as the moral basis for this right, we do not really know what they are hearing us say (for they are hearing us affirm the source of moral authority that grounds this right). And before we can clarify this point, we need to know what they understand by the name ‘Israel’. What is Israel? What is the nature or identity of the bearer of this moral ‘right to exist’? Israel, to be sure, is a state; in other words, a sovereign political entity within a specified territory. And now there are two complications. The first is that this territory is not specified. For what are Israel’s – legally binding – borders? The matter has never been settled. What does it mean to say that a state has ‘a right to exist’ if we do not know the extent of the territory over which its right is exercised? And, since the question of borders is one of the burning issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this is not something that we can quietly gloss over. But perhaps all we are being asked to say (by the people who want us to say it) is this: ‘Israel has a right to exist somewhere between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan’, leaving it vague as to what its boundaries might be. Perhaps this is what they mean; perhaps not. But let it pass; for there is a deeper problem when we turn to the second complication with the name ‘Israel’. Israel is a state. But does the name ‘Israel’ denote the state as such or does it denote the state as Jewish? Does it (to take this one step further) denote the state as the state of the Jews? Saying ‘Israel has a right to exist’, what would be we saying? What would be heard to be saying by the people for whose benefit we were saying it? We would be speaking about Israel: but in which sense?
In his landmark foreign policy speech at Bar Ilan University on 14 June 2009, Prime Minister Netanyahu left his audience – the world – in no doubt about what he means when he says ‘Israel’. Over and again, he called the country ‘the state of the Jewish People’ or ‘the national homeland of the Jewish People’. Muddying the waters while rubbing salt into the wound, he persisted in referring to the West Bank as ‘Judea and Samaria’, the biblical names for the region (which is also official Israeli terminology), even as he placed the onus on the Palestinians and enunciated the ‘indispensable condition’. ‘[W]e need,’ he said, ‘the Palestinian leadership to rise and say, simply “We have had enough of the conflict. We recognize the right of the Jewish People to a state [of] its own in this land. We will live side by side in true peace.”'
For how many people in the Jewish mainstream does ‘Israel’ mean what it means for Netanyahu? It is hard to say. My impression is that a majority would accept the caveat that by ‘Israel’ they mean ‘a Jewish state’, but whether they are clear about what this means is another matter. For one thing, do they have an idea about who should count as ‘Jewish’? (The State of Israel itself does not seem to be sure. Thus, among the immigrants from the former Soviet Union who were awarded citizenship as Jews, hundreds of thousands ‘are considered non-Jewish’ by Israel’s rabbinic courts. Yet these courts are ‘an arm of the Israeli justice system’. ) For another, do they think (at one end of the spectrum of possibility) that ‘a Jewish state’ means a state whose public culture reflects the ethnic and religious identity of the majority of Israelis – who, as it happens, are Jewish? Or (at the other end) do they mean a state whose laws, institutions and official practices discriminate in favour of Jews? Furthermore, how many of them would distinguish the idea of ‘a Jewish state’ from Netanyahu’s full-blown notion of Israel as ‘the state of the Jewish People’? Or would they see this as a distinction without a difference? There would, I imagine, be a good deal of vagueness or uncertainty on this point; it might not be a point to which they have given any thought. But, if pressed, I suspect that a sizable number of Israel’s Jewish ‘supporters’ would endorse the view that Israel is ‘our state’. If this is what Israel is, then ‘Israel’ means ‘the state of the Jewish people’; in which case, saying ‘Israel has a right to exist’ is not just saying that this state has a certain right; it is saying that a certain people has a right to this state. This is a rather different matter. And it brings us, I believe, closer to the heart of what is driving the demand that is under discussion in this chapter. If this is what Israel is to the people who need us to say the obligatory words (‘Israel has a right to exist’), then (to get back to an earlier point that I left dangling), they will hear us saying something else implicitly: they will hear us affirming the source of moral authority that grounds this right. Once again, it is not altogether clear what they take this to be; nor do they all necessarily give the same grounds. And yet, by and large, the various reasons given are variations on certain themes. Netanyahu, in his speech in June 2009, struck a familiar chord when he said: ‘The right to establish our sovereign state here, in the Land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: Eretz Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish People.’ (This leaves the Palestinians where? According to Netanyahu, it places them ‘in the heart of our Jewish Homeland’.) Treating Genesis as a historical document, he spoke of the ‘connection of the Jewish People to the Land’ going back ‘more than 3,500 years’ and referred to ‘Judea and Samaria’ as ‘the places where our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob walked …’. This is hiding the divine light under a bushel: citing the bible without invoking God. Begin was more direct: ‘We were granted our right to exist by the God of our fathers, at the glimmer of the dawn of human civilization, nearly four thousand years ago.’
Examples could be multiplied and there are other themes that could be exemplified. But, for the purposes of this chapter, it is beside the point to go further into the stock of arguments. The point is this: Suppose we would have complied with the advice we were given and had prefaced the IJV statement with the words: ‘Israel has a right to exist’: given the way these words are likely to be heard by the audience for whom we would have been saying it, we would, in effect, have been signing on to a whole political ideology, the ideology of Jewish nationalism centred on Palestine. But we would not have known it in advance.
To put it another way: On the one hand, declaring support for Israel’s ‘right to exist’ is like signing a blank cheque; for it is a form of words, the content of which is intrinsically unclear. On the other hand, the likelihood is that the cheque will be cashed in favour of some version or other of a fully-fledged theory about the state: a theory that is not merely about its existence but its essence. It then becomes impossible to say, for example, ‘I support Israel’s right to exist but I propose that it redefine itself as “the state of the Israelis” rather than “the state of the Jews”’. You cannot say this if ‘belonging to the Jewish people’ is written into the very concept of the state and if you have underwritten this concept – as you will have done, whether you meant to or not, in signing the blank cheque. Your proposal might be intended to secure the future of the state, but you will stand accused – by many ‘supporters’ of Israel – of seeking its ‘destruction’. (Proposing, say, a bi-national state would put you further beyond the pale.) The precise meaning of ‘Israel’ determines what counts as ‘exists’, and therefore what satisfies its ‘right to exist’.
Thus, if you fall in with the demand to proclaim Israel’s ‘right to exist’, you may find yourself more restricted than you would like when you enter into a debate about the future. Furthermore, the continual focus on the right to its existence insinuates that Israel faces a continual threat to its existence – either from the Palestinians or from other states in the region. This tends to reinforce a whole outlook – ‘us against the world’ – and the militaristic approach that naturally accompanies it. It suggests that no other issue in the conflict matters as much as this does; that the conflict might come to an end if only the enemies of Israel would take their collective boot off Israel’s throat; and that this constant ‘existential threat’ justifies every illegal act that Israel performs and every controversial policy that it adopts…
…Perhaps the deepest confusion of all in this entire debate is the failure to distinguish clearly between a state and an individual. I do not know whether, or in what sense, a sovereign state has ‘a right to exist’. But, if it does, this right is neither inherent nor absolute. An individual, on the other hand, does have an inherent, absolute right to exist; it is called ‘a right to life’ and, as I read the UN Declaration of Human Rights, it is grounded in ‘the dignity and worth of the human person’. The state belongs to ‘human persons’ but it is not itself a living, breathing human being. It is not endowed with dignity purely by virtue of being a state. And whatever worth it has is purely a function of how valuable it is to the people to whom it belongs. I long to hear the ‘supporters’ of Israel switch their emphasis from Israel’s ‘right to exist’ to its ‘duty of care’: a duty it owes all its citizens equally – and to everyone under its sway.
Certainly, it would not be prudent for any state to ignore the aggressive language of another state, even if this turns out to be mere sabre-rattling. I am alluding to the hostile speeches of President Ahmadinejad of Iran. But prudence is not the same as paranoia; and reality is the realm of differences. If Israel cannot alter its posture of warrior, if the mentality of perpetual war where every border skirmish is a battle for the survival of the Jewish people persists, then the consequences will be as fatal for Israel as they are lethal for others. Israel’s rhetoric of ‘existence’, which is part of its posture of warrior, puts its very existence at risk.
In order to secure its future, Israel does not need anyone – not Hamas, nor you nor I – to recognise its ‘right to exist’. UN Security Council Resolution 242, passed shortly after the June war of 1967, speaks of ‘a just and lasting peace’ that is based, inter alia, on the principle that every state in the area has a ‘right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force …’. The same wording occurs again in ‘Frameworks for Peace’, signed jointly by Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin at the Camp David Summit in 1978. Similar language is used in the peace treaties between Israel and Jordan (1994). In other words, specific rights are what states require in reality. The ‘right to exist’ either speaks for itself – or says nothing useful.
It is time to end this preoccupation – if not obsession – with Israel’s ‘right to exist’. Israel should be treated like any other country. It has the rights that (all other things being equal) every existing state possesses. But no state is exempt from challenges to its constitutional arrangements, whether those challenges are made by its citizens or by others. This extends to the question of whether the state should break up or, conversely, enter into a union with another state. These are perfectly legitimate and proper issues that people ought to be free to discuss, having an eye to what is best for every ‘human person’ affected by the question; for it is people that matter, not states, not in themselves. But it is impossible to conduct the kind of open discussion that is urgently needed for the sake of all inhabitants of the region if first – as a sine qua non – you have to say, ‘Israel has a right to exist’.
Footnotes:
[1] Abba Eban, ‘The Saudi Text’, New York Times, 18 November 1981. link to www.nytimes.com. Eban was responding to ‘the Fahd Plan’, put forward by Saudi Crown Prince Fahd ibn Abd al-Aziz, August 7 1981.
[1] ‘Statement to the Knesset by Prime Minster Begin upon the presentation of his government, 20 June 1977’. Available at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs: link to www.mfa.gov.il.
[1] Eban, ‘The Saudi text’. There are now 192 states belonging to the United Nations.
[1] Begin, ‘Statement to the Knesset’.
[1] This was the phrase used by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan when he read out the Quartet’s statement (‘Hamas rejects unfair aid demand’, BBC News, 31 January 2006. link to news.bbc.co.uk). The other two tests are: ‘non-violence’ and ‘acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, including the roadmap’.
[1] ‘President Bush Remarks on Hamas Election Victory’, 30 January 2006. Available at Jewish Virtual Library: link to www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
[1] The text of the IJV statement is available on the IJV website at http://www.ijv.org.uk/.
[1] John V. Whitbeck, ‘What “Israel’s right to exist” means to Palestinians’, Christian Science Monitor, 2 February 2007. link to www.csmonitor.com.
[1] ‘Full text of Netanyahu’s foreign policy speech at Bar Ilan’, Haaretz, 14 June 2009. link to www.haaretz.com.
[1] Anshel Pfeffer, ‘This conversion row could hit us all’, Jewish Chronicle, 30 May 2008, p. 27.
[1] Gershom Gorenberg, ‘How Do You Prove You’re a Jew?’, New York Times (Magazine), 2 March 2008. link to www.nytimes.com.
[1] ‘Full text of Netanyahu’s foreign policy speech ’. ‘Eretz Israel’ means ‘the Land of Israel’
[1] Ibid.
[1] Statement to the Knesset’.
[1] ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), in P. R. Ghandhi, Blackstone’s International Human Rights Documents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 22.
[1] Walter Laqueur & Barry Rubin, The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict (London: Penguin Books, 2001), p. 116.
[1] Ibid., p. 223
[1] Ibid., p. 478.
A particularly interesting comment from Noam Sheizaf at Promised Land
link to promisedlandblog.com
“for me and for many of my friends on the left—most of them third and fourth generation Israelis —we are always more “Israeli” than “Jewish,” whether we like it or not. While we accept the need for a radical transformation of the political system – one which must change what “Israeli” means and possibly replace this term altogether, we are Israelis now. Not “Jews.” “
Built in is the assumption that all other countries have the responsibility to maintain Israel’s existence. Imagine Americans assuming that it the responsibility of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, etc., to maintain the existence of the US.
“Imagine Americans assuming that it the responsibility of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, etc., to maintain the existence of the US.”
I thought that was the basis of our foreign policy! And you can’t say they don’t help; just look at how many Americans those countries provide a living for.
My understanding and the Palestinian (diplomatic) understanding of the demand that “Israel has a right to exist” is that it is a demand that Palestinians relinquish the right of Palestinian refugees who fled Israel to return to their homes.
I don’t think that either Begin or Eban in the 1980′s could have predicted that the day will come when Israel will be negotiating with the representatives of the refugees, who will be both unwilling and unable to relinquish the right of return for Palestinian refugees even at the price of getting 93% of the West Bank and an underground tunnel to al-Aqsa.
If one insists on the Palestinians permanently relinquishing the right of their refugees to return to Haifa and Jaffa, then the demand for Palestinians to recognize Israel’s right to exist becomes coherent and paramount.
There is no distinction at all between demanding that Palestinians relinquish the rights of their refugees to return to their homes in Israel
and demanding that Palestinians recognize Israel’s right to exist.
Of course, no Palestinian negotiator will ever relinquish those rights of Palestinian refugees. That puts some strategic meat on the bone, as it were, regarding the notion of recognizing “Israel’s right to exist”.
You live in a dream world, and generations of Palestinians will continue to suffer because of your unattainable dream.
a dream world dbg?
There is no distinction at all between demanding that Palestinians relinquish the rights of their refugees to return to their homes in Israel
and demanding that Palestinians recognize Israel’s right to exist.
Of course, no Palestinian negotiator will ever relinquish those rights of Palestinian refugees. That puts some strategic meat on the bone, as it were, regarding the notion of recognizing “Israel’s right to exist”.
the people living in a dream world are those, like yourself, who, for whatever reason, imagine the will of jews to live in their homeland supercedes the will of others people with exactly the same drive and determination, if not more because who’s to judge?
in fact, it is doubly stupefying for several reasons the most glaring being the history of the 2 peoples we are discussing. clearly by sheer numbers those who have demonstrated the most steadfastness and continued determination thru out history have been…the ones whose ancestors remained on the land in vastly greater proportions.
but somehow we are led to invision the will of the jews is stronger? crazy. makes no sense.
sheer numbers? how do you figure? also, the Palestinians are stateless, the Israelis aren’t so your argument is pretty stupefied.
how do i figure sheer numbers throughout history? dbg, how many years in the last few thousand have jews been a majority on that land?
we’ve heard this ‘continuous presents’ line a zillion times. as if a miniscule percentage of jews can hold some place in line in the holy land for centuries.
annie you change your argument so much during a single debate it makes it impossible try to legitimately discuss anything with you.
there is a state of Israel, there has never been a state of Palestine. Replacing the state of Israel, with the state of Palestine is a dream. Having two states next to each other is less of a dream, but is still very much up in the air.
Read the truth, DBG. Read reality before 1948. annie is right.
link to avalon.law.yale.edu
Or better, since I know you won’t read it, here is the legal language (once again…jesus, I’ve published this so many time here)
Read the rest: link to avalon.law.yale.edu
“sheer numbers,” you claim
From the link above as well
The Command Paper of 1922 notes “During the last two or three generations the Jews have recreated in Palestine a community now numbering 80,000.”
BTW, those Jews had Palestine passports. (Google it)
The population of Arabs and Christians in Palestine in 1922: 660,641
Bedouin: 103,000
Annie is right.
I remember when people said the African National Congress lived in a dream world.
Simone, in other words, the right of return negates Israel’s existence. That’s your own logic.
jon s, pls explain your logical sequence.
Citizen, Simone says:
“There is no distinction at all between demanding that Palestinians relinquish the rights of their refugees to return to their homes in Israel
and demanding that Palestinians recognize Israel’s right to exist.”
If relinquishing the ror is tantamount to recognizing Israel’s right to exist, then the flip side is that insisting on the ror contradicts that right, which is what Israel has been saying for the past 60 years..
I thank Simone for his honesty.
Simpleton logic lives! Once again!
If A = B
Then B = A
Right, jon s?
Let’s use an easy example:
If a Fetus = Child
Then a Child = Fetus
Which is not true. This example is missing duration and causation, just as yours is.
It sounds like jon is scared to death of living with Arabs. I guess that’s Israeli culture for you.
The clown dancers are out.
Our resident clowns have apparently failed to understand a single word of a well-argued and detailed article, which they possibly didn’t bother to read anyway. Just turn up, chuck in some cliches, and don’t engage at all with the topic. Desperate.
If you mean it negates Israel’s existence as a JEWISH STATE….well, um, gee…..YES! This is the point. A Jewish state is a racist state.
The goal is to transform Palestine into a pluralist democracy that provides equal rights to all, for heaven’s sakes, why is this so hard for you brainwashed Zionists to understand this?
No, it negates ethnicetric supremacy. Israel would still exist.
Simone,
I think that relinquishing the ROR is definitely a part of the Israeli demand that Palestinian negotiators recognise its “right to exist” – which implies maintaining the “demographic balance” (to use the Israeli euphemism), as well as the refusal to grant Palestinian Israelis equal rights. In broader terms it is the recognition of Israel’s right to remain a Jewish ethnocracy.
The demand is, in essence, a reiteration of the Jewish Israeli approach (across virtually the entire Zionist spectrum) to the 2ss, whereby only Palestinian demands regarding the territories occupied in 1967 may be acknowledged. It thus comes as no surprise that supporters of this view (such as the US administration) see nothing wrong with it – even in its most explicit and ostensibly problematic form: “as the state of the Jewish people”.
Simone, I agree that it is connected with the ROR.
But still, the argument of Brian Klug (klug, by the way means wise in German) is very important for several reasons, and I think it would leave space for your idea:
But no state is exempt from challenges to its constitutional arrangements, whether those challenges are made by its citizens or by others. This extends to the question of whether the state should break up or, conversely, enter into a union with another state.
What I like very, very much about his article is this:
Singling out Israel, declaring our support for its right to exist, would have conveyed a completely different message – or a muddled one…
On the one hand singling out Israel is a sign of antisemitism; on the other hand it is a necessity legitimatized by the Holocaust. Something about this feels circular, no?
Simone writes:
I’m not sure if the Israelis have ever made that particular connection explicit, but in a New York Times op-end on October 13, 2010, Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., did draw out the implications of Netanyahu’s new demand “for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people”. He writes:
>> Israel should be treated like any other country. It has the rights that (all other things being equal) every existing state possesses. But no state is exempt from challenges to its constitutional arrangements, whether those challenges are made by its citizens or by others. This extends to the question of whether the state should break up or, conversely, enter into a union with another state. These are perfectly legitimate and proper issues that people ought to be free to discuss, having an eye to what is best for every ‘human person’ affected by the question; for it is people that matter, not states, not in themselves.
Beautifully put. Of course, Zio-supremacists will disagree with this because, to them, “Jewish person” matters more than “human person”. But, well, what else can you expect from Zio-supremacists?
“But no state is exempt from challenges to its constitutional arrangements”
Oy, Israel has a constitution? I never knew that.
Sure, Israel’s solid constitution firmly fits into its clear boundaries.
Eljay,
What about the non-Americans that were denied places in the choppers evacuating Saigon at the end of the Vietnam war to make room for American citizens? Can’t Americans see people as a “human person”? Why do they always ask what is good for American citizens? Are they Ameri-supremacists?
Only when Jews act this way you have a problem. I wonder why is that?
>> eee September 14, 2011 at 12:14 pm
1. You’re babbling again. I guess you got your bag of “common sense” back from LLI.
2. The discussion is about the state of Israel, not “the Jews”. And what applies to the discussion about the state of Israel applies to discussions about any state.
I realize that your reading or comprehension skills aren’t very good, but here – once again – is the key part of the paragraph I originally commented on:
… no state is exempt from challenges to its constitutional arrangements, whether those challenges are made by its citizens or by others. This extends to the question of whether the state should break up or, conversely, enter into a union with another state. These are perfectly legitimate and proper issues that people ought to be free to discuss, having an eye to what is best for every ‘human person’ affected by the question; for it is people that matter, not states, not in themselves.
Eljay,
You just choose not to address the question. States take care of their citizens first, but only in Israel and the Jewish context this is “supremacist”.
>> eee September 14, 2011 at 1:24 pm
1. The question had nothing to do with the discussion at hand.
2. Israel taking care of its Israeli citizens is not supremacist. I have never said that it is.
“States take care of their citizens first, but only in Israel and the Jewish context this is “supremacist”.”
Apparently, Israel does not take care of its citizens, be they Jewish or not. Some 400 000 protesters, most of them Jewish Israelis, just drove home that point. Why not provide affordable housing in Israel, rather than the OPT? You’re dancing fearful circles around obvious facts while screaming: “Anti-semitism is the problem”. Keep singing in your basement.
That’s ridiculous eee.
States do and should take of their citizens first…in most circumstances. That’s not the debate or the point.
The point is zionist Israel has proven it doesn’t ‘just protect’ it’s citizens (and it doesn’t protect it Arab citizens) it’s proven it is hostile and dangerous to all other living non Jewish and even non zionist Jewish beings.
You are supremacist and narcissist, it shows in a lot what you say. That’s why you (zionism) have little chance of lasting in the big bad world unless you learn a little humility and to live without oppressing and threatening others.
You just choose not to address the question. States take care of their citizens first, but only in Israel and the Jewish context this is “supremacist”.
ee, snookums, you just can’t continue to conflate ‘jewish’ and ‘israeli’. it simply doesn’t work, factually, legally, logically. israel does not take care of its ‘citizens first’, just a certain brand of citizen.
Yes, states take care of their citizens, but the problem is that Israel is the only country that I know of which differentiates between “citizenship” and “nationality.”
What does this mean? Well, Palestinians who are “citizens” of Israel are not considered “nationals” of Israel, which means they have a basic set of civic/social rights, but the state itself does not belong to them; the state belongs to the Jewish “nation.” This literally means that a Jew in Argentina who has never been to Israel, does not speak Hebrew, and does not identify with Israeli culture in any way, has more rights than a Palestinian born and raised there. Now this is based on religious-ethnic supremacy; there is no way around it.
If you think that is fair, then you not only lack logic, you lack moral compass.
The first rule of a state is that it belongs to….drum roll….its citizens!
Now go on and tell us about how Palestinians have more rights in Israel than other Arab countries (protocol Zionist response to my point)….
As usual you guys are confused. Eljay calls me a “supremacist” because I care about Israelis (Jewish and other) more than I care about Palestinians (those that were cleansed). I just showed you that this is common in every country. Every country puts its citizens first. That is not supremacist or whatever. So you change the subject and talk about Arab Israelis. How is that even relevant?
The question at hand is the following: As an Israeli, I care more about Israelis than I care about Palestinian refugees. Does that make me a “supremacist”? Of course not. That is common in every country.
I just showed you that this is common in every country. Every country puts its citizens first.
I’d argue that the majority of Americans here put the Palestinians and Arabs before they put their own country.
“The question at hand is the following: As an Israeli, I care more about Israelis than I care about Palestinian refugees. Does that make me a “supremacist”? ”
LOL. Nice framing.
The issue should be framed, “As a human being, you can more about Israelis than you care about Palestinian refugees. Does that make you a ‘supremacist’?”
And the correct answer is, “yes, it does.”
DBG,
Hmmm, I think by putting the legitimate rights of Palestinians high on our agenda we care deeply for the US and its citizens… US historical bias on the issue of Israel/Palestine is DEADLY dangerous. But also, our principled stand also takes into concern the safety and basic rights of Arabs, Palestinians, Israelis, and world Jewry. But note we do not align with the goals of right wing expansionist Zionists. And if you do not see how our current policies are injurious to American citizens, just study Islamic terrorism and our quickly decreasing respect in the entire world…. The “blame” for US bias and immorality is spread wide and multifaceted, but Jewish and Christian Zionist lobbies are key. Truth is all we want out.
We seek change from a desire for peace and a semblance of justice, but the wealth, safety, morality and future of the US is PRIMARY for many of us as well.
Why do you care so little for Israelis, as you indicate utter inaction while the rev Zionists and settler fringe put you on the path to hell? Maybe you covet the land of greater Israel, or for some infantile reason you take criticism of Israel personally and connect it with the Jews writ large hence can offer nothing but exasperating “defense” (when your focus should be on your crumbling house itself).
Can you explain to me why it’s in the US’ interests to pay Israel billions of dollars to slaughter Arab children, DBG? Go ahead, be persuasive.
You already know the answer, tripE: anti-semitism.
Another Ivory tower fool who thinks Utopia is a place you cam visit.
We have been told for centuries, in either cajoling terms or threatening ones. “Just drop this crazy being Jewish thing, your life will be so much better.” On this site just a few days ago, someone said, why this Jewish thing, just be American. Of course. if someone suggested to Muslims that they stop thinking of themselves as such and consider themselves American, or Canadian or Indonesian, anything but Muslim, that person would be branded a racist and Islamophobe.
When Hamas murders people in a market in Israel, do they ask them if they identify as Jews or Israelis? Did someone ask Leonard Klinghofer before they threw him and his wheelchair overboard if he identified himself as a Jew?
My grandson was watching ETV when he was about four years old… a series on Liberty and early history of USA… when he came running to me to say that they were ‘lynching’ people… he was hysterical. I explained to him that yes, things like that used to happen to people in this country. (He never noticed the color of the skin of the hanged person… we are white.) Later when he was about five, we were returning from a visit to my mother, when he reached up and asked about my earrings. (They were Navajo, from the SW) Are those hatches Grandma? We used to kill Indians, but we don’t anymore. Please don’t wear those. (I have never worn them again.) Later, when he was about nine, he invited me to his school’s field day… there was a particular friend he wanted me to meet because he had the same surname as my maiden name. The boy’s father was coming also and Chris said “I know you are related, Grandma.” I met the young boy and his father, who was from Kenya. We had a lovely conversation about jazz and children, and a chuckle over the grandson’s blindness to the difference in skin color. Grandson is now fifteen. A couple of weeks ago, he attended Pridefest with his friend who has come out as gay (grandson is straight). He told me he had a wonderful time and showed me pictures of the event, exclaiming how proud he was of his friend for being true to himself.
My grandson identifies with ‘nothing’ – he simply is.
The only time I have ever been speechless in my life was when someone asked who I was…
No one is asking any one to not be jewish. The question is of course, are you human. Can one put aside the many facets of self to consider the humanity of the ‘other’…?
children are colorblind. i had a few very similar conversations with my son. perhaps later i will share them.
He is a human being. That’s beautiful.
Wonderful response, crone (though I don’t like to call you that)
Great story, crone. I had a similar experience when I was four when I was read a story about something done to a black kid. (Details not important.) I remember being shocked then livid, deeply; the experience was etched in me for life. I grew up despising racism, no matter what I was told or what others around me said or thought. Really despising racism.
[Didn't stop me from making jokes about it, tho'.]
This is so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes. I wish more people were like your grandson. You must be very proud of him.
“I wish more people were like your grandson. ”
There are actually a lot of them.
My son’s school is full of them. There are children from a wide variety of racial and religious backgrounds. There are plenty of children of mixed ancestry. And as far as I can tell, they don’t give a toss about it. They pick their friends on the basis of character.
And you will find the same sort of attitude in a lot of other places as well.
>> longliveisrael September 14, 2011 at 10:50 am
Sounds like you’ve been huffing from eee’s bag of “common sense”.
>> if someone suggested to Muslims that they stop thinking of themselves as such and consider themselves American, or Canadian or Indonesian, anything but Muslim, that person would be branded a racist and Islamophobe.
Why would anyone suggest that Muslims or Jews living in America or Canada or Indonesia should stop thinking of themselves as Muslims or Jews? Those are their religions.
Their nationalities are those of the states they live in. So, for example, a Muslim in America is an American. A Jew in Canada is Canadian. A Muslim or a Jew in Israel is an Israeli.
Freedom to practice one’s religion is protected by constitutional law in the USA. Whatever are you talking about longliveisrael? Further, one cannot be an atheist or agnostic and be a Muslim. But all three can be fully American
“We have been told for centuries, in either cajoling terms or threatening ones. “Just drop this crazy being Jewish thing, your life will be so much better.” On this site just a few days ago, someone said, why this Jewish thing, just be American. Of course. if someone suggested to Muslims that they stop thinking of themselves as such and consider themselves American, or Canadian or Indonesian, anything but Muslim, that person would be branded a racist and Islamophobe.”
As usual LLI you are comparing apples to oranges. You can be Jewish(religion) and American and Muslim(religion) and American.
You know very well that isn’t the issue….the issue is Jews or anyone else living on the priviliages of America while acting for the interest of another country or single group.
Quit playing stupid.
Another Ivory tower fool who thinks Utopia is a place you cam visit.
actually the ‘fool’ is asking some important questions, the answers to which could help lead to a just resolution of the i/p problem. ‘utopia’ is claiming a biblical mandate to a plot of land. ‘utopia’ is exepcting dispossesed palestinians to sit down, shut up and take it, because jewish israelis’ ancestors suffered persecution. ‘utopia’ is expecting to be able to survive as a nation surrounded by neighbors that you assault at random, treating a lebanese life, for example, as something less important than an israeli orange tree.
“someone said, why this Jewish thing, just be American.”
That would be me.
“if someone suggested to Muslims that they stop thinking of themselves as such and consider themselves American”
Not the same. I am not saying that Jews or Muslims should give up their religions.
I am suggesting that Jews give up the idea of being members of some special ethnic/cultural group. I say the same thing to people who think of themselves as “Arabs”, “Irish”, “[fill in the blank]” even though they are US citizens who were born and brought up in the USA.
I don’t see the point of this “identity” stuff. When has it ever done anyone any good?
I don’t know that Israel or any nations “have a right” to exist in all circumstances. Right to exist to me applies more to humans not states.
My feeling on Israel is that is was a mistake for Jews and others, a bad idea from the beginning, but now that it does exist it should continue. “If’ it can do so in it’s original land allowance and as a law abiding and not dangerous to others country. And because it is now the home of a large enough group of people that it’s dissolution is impractical and would cause chaos.
But everything about Israel goes back to my conviction that anyone’s rights ‘end’ where they begin to threaten someone else’s..
I remember the inception of Independent Jewish Voices. It has always seemed to me that these voices are remarkably halting and strangulated.
Krug makes heavy weather of his topic. The name ‘Israel’ denotes what has been (in theoretical intention and in very, very brute fact) created on Zionist principles and the proposition ‘Israel has a right to exist’ means – what else? – that these principles are and always have been justified. That this formulation seemed insufficiently aggressive to the monstrous Eban is not very significant.
This leaves the Palestinians where? asks Krug. The Zionist premise implies the conclusion that the Palestinians are not the rightful heirs to Palestine – no birthright – so they are left in two places. The first of these is the territory that Jewish grace and generosity concedes to them, the second is all the world where they can fit in, become subjects of new sovereigns and forget their origin. (Remember that Christians in particular might well feel at home in Christian majority countries and, more important, that it is a Zionist principle that Jewish people should be as generous as they can possibly afford to be towards people who are not Jewish.)
The problem with the proposition that Israel has a right to exist is not that we can’t easily understand it or that it may be, as Krug ends by suggesting, rather trivial – allowing us to accept it and then question Israel’s ‘constitutional arrangements’. It is all too easy to understand – moreover it contains an affirmation of Zionism that absolutely forbids the questions at which Krug hints. The problem is that it’s false. It may have arisen for some understandable reasons, as falsehoods often do, but it’s false. Krug, I think, really wants to say this, but can’t bring himself to do it.
Krug hit the nail on the head of the tension: Rights never are alone; they always carry obligations too because by definition a society/community/citizenry never lives alone on an island like Tom Hanks did in a movie. To ignore either undermines good citizenship and good government, undermines the state. This is a fundamental taught in US law schools practically on the first day of class. Rights are viewed as a bundle that also includes duties.
“This is a fundamental taught in US law schools practically on the first day of class. Rights are viewed as a bundle that also includes duties.”
Absolutely right. Brilliant point citizen. This is so well established in law I don’t know no one has emphasised it before.
“The problem with the proposition that Israel has a right to exist is not that we can’t easily understand it … It is all too easy to understand … The problem is that it’s false … Krug, I think, really wants to say this, but can’t bring himself to do it.”
Thanks, MHughes.
Krug rightly argues that the so-called rights of groups or of institutions exist only if they are implied by the rights of the individuals who form them.
Citizen and American are people whose observations I much trust, but I don’t see in Krug (not here, anyway) the argument attributed to him by them, that rights are linked with duties. He actually speaks of the right to life as absolute – doesn’t that mean that it isn’t dependent on the performance of any duty? The Lockean tradition, emerging in the Universal Declaration of HR, does tend to make some individual rights absolute on the strength of arguments about the human condition to which Krug alludes.
Not that I’d deny that Whole Palestine is subject to people who exercise power based on conquest and claim the rights of sovereignty but fail in the duty of sovereigns to enfranchise all those subject to their power, making their claims spurious.
And not, of course, that you have to read long philosophical treatises to see the truth of ME matters.
Thanks to PTJ for kind words! – Martin
It’s time to challenge the notion that any state has an inherent “right to exist.” Why should we believe this? States rise and fall, they disintegrate, they merge, and they have regions secede (I write from the new secessionist nation of South Sudan).
Perhaps many good folks have internalized and accepted the totalitarian concept that the people are the state and the state is the people. Thus a desire to do away with a particular state is seen as a desire to do away with the unfortunate souls who happen to be its citizens.
No, the State of Israel does not have an inherent right to exist. Nor does the State of Palestine or any other State. Could we re-frame the discussion, starting from there?
I get mad sometimes when I read arguments over things that are “self evident” – Israel, like any other state, has NO right to exist – and if you consider yourself to be a “child of the enlightenment” you wouldnt even entertain the idea that it does. Yes, Israel has NO RIGHT TO EXIST.
Ever read this before?:
………That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security………..
- Declaration of MF’ing Independence
Translation: Not even the government we look to create here in (at the time) colonies HAS A “RIGHT” TO EXIST.
Thats all that needs to be said. Period.
Yep, but there’s a lot influential Americans that haven’t got your memo Dan; that’s why we’re talking about it here on MW, and you don’t see the subject discussed in the NY Times or halls of US Congress.
Great point Dan Crowther. But Israel hasn’t got to the constitution portion yet. And they don’t have their hasbara points ready yet that will include Indians, the Vietnam War, something that happened in 1640, a Rabbi who declared life as it shall be in 2011 back in 250 BC, and whatever other straw men get dragged through the threads here.
i swore a sacred oath on the bible to protect israel. noam sheizaf and simone daud and phil weiss and brian klug can wax poetic about israel changing its colors all day every day, me and about 5 milion israeli jews will never give up on our homeland, you will have to take our corpses out of the adama like a darwish poem.
“i swore a sacred oath on the bible to protect israel.”
When and how? Really. I’m interested. You see when Lieberman wanted to introduce a loyalty oath for Arabs of Israel, it became quickly apparent to us that the best approach is that the loyalty oath be imposed on observant Jews too. We’ll do it if the Rabbis permit their congregation to take “a sacred oath on the bible” for Israel. Of course, that can never happen for a huge number of reasons.
if the Rabbis permit their congregation to take “a sacred oath on the bible” for Israel. Of course, that can never happen for a huge number of reasons.
in fact we have a post here discussing that if you recall. i should try digging it up.
Upon completing basic training, Israeli soldiers take part in a swearing-in ceremony (“tekes hashba’ah”), including the presentation of a copy of the Bible, published by the Ministry of Defence. Most soldiers use the formula “ani nishba” (I swear), although many observant soldiers say “ani matzhir” (I declare), in order not to violate religious injunctions against oath-taking. Similar dispensation is afforded to Orthodox ministers and members of Knesset with regard to the oath of office.
Rafi,
It sounds like your rooting for that to happen. I take it you would agree with this then?:
“We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: ‘Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.’ I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”[20]
Dan,
Where is Rafi saying that?
And as for the mad dog doctrine, do you really want to say that the US, China and Russia do not have this doctrine? Do you really believe China or Russia or the US will be willing to go down without bringing the world down? What does Mutual Assured Destruction mean if not that?
So why the double standards?
eee,
The Samson option holds regardless of any military aggression. They claim the right to destroy the world if they are “threatened” with conventional war by a non nuclear power – to say nothing of the fact that it is illegal for Israel to have nuclear weapons.
China and Russia have signed “no first use” statements – and say that the only time they would use nukes is if they are invaded by a nuclear power.
The US has obviously already used nuclear weapons, but maintains it will only use them again in the face of invasion by a nuclear power, or a nuclear power invading a NATO member.
And for the record, the populations of the US, China and Russia are upwards of 2 BILLION, thats BILLION people. Equating Israel with the most powerful countries and two of the most populous countries in the world shows what a heightened sense of self Israelis suffer from. Your not that important to the world, and I think sometime in the future this will become clear.
M.A.D. was, again, between two nuclear armed countries – the Israelis on the other hand, believe they have the right to use nukes against countries that dont have any – this is a very important distinction.
I would say, objectively speaking – the one sure way to guarantee the end of Israel, and maybe even Judaism would be for Israel to use its (illegal) nukes. First, because I think most Jews would just plain stop going to temple etc. and secondly the societal pressures on Jews to renounce at every level what Israel had done would be overwhelming, and I dont think people would want to live with stigma. You’d probably see alot more “Greenes” becoming “Green.” If you know what I mean.
Mutual Assured Destruction has nothing to do with bringing the world down like the Samson Option. MAD means that for example if Russia nukes the entire US, a surviving second strike will nuke Russia. NOT THE WORLD like the Samson option.
The Samson Option will take out as much of the world as possible for not helping Israel. This is policy and everybody should really be concerned with disarming Israel’s nukes because of it. I have a feeling these nukes are a part of the problem in the last 45 or so years and the reason Israel has been unstoppable.
Sorry Dan, I must have missed your post. I basically said the same thing as you.
Samson Option is pretty scary stuff, born out of “Never Again! How could you let them do this?” paranoia. Sure, that much of the world was aware of the Holocaust and did nothing was bad. This is typical of the world though. Nobody cares about people slaughtered in Liberia. Millions more died under the Stalin regime and it is a footnote in history. Then of course, the Palestinian situation which would be worse than the Holocaust if Israel came up with a genocidal final solution. It isn’t that people don’t care either it is that people don’t know. The leaders know and they don’t want to risk getting involved or they are bribed into silence. The Rothschild family famously funded the Aliyahs and the JNF. They pressured for the Balfour Declaration and bribed nations into accepting partition. Nobody seems to care that they also funded all sides including the Nazis during WWII. They must have known about the holocaust too but money was more important then helping the tribe. Of course, they are allegedly from a different tribe altogether but that’s another story.
Israel’s nukes are in range of all major European cities and can also reach Moscow and perhaps NYC. Their submarines armed with nukes are constantly in motion and their positions are never revealed. Make no mistake, they are prepared and paranoid every single day for such a scenario and I pray it never happens. Maybe all those anti-missile defenses and US bases with Naval craft in the Gulf and the Mediterranean will really save the world someday. I hope they have kill switches in that military tech they sell.
Dan,
We are not important to the world, true. But we are important to ourselves. Israel does not say anything different than what the US, China and Russia say. Israel has always said that it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons. What Dayan said, even if true, is dated.
eee,
No, no they havent- they havent even been forced to say that they do in fact possess them. They are in violation of the NPT and have been found handing out nuclear secrets to a host of countries, including at the time Apartheid South Africa.
So, nonsense.
Dan,
Nonsense is what you write since Israel never signed the NPT.
Israel allegedly worked with SA. There is no proof and I never heard of any allegations for working with other countries.
And Israel when asked if it holds nuclear weapons always says that it will not be the first to introduce them to the middle east.
eee, Israel maintained a close working relationship with apartheid S Africa longer than any state, including trade of yellow cake uranium to Israel, if memory serves. Although there is at this point, no “smoking gun” proving Israel has nuclear warheads/bombs, S Africa has released documentation that arguably points to that “smoking gun.” In short, there is proof, although it is not viewed by some as clear and convincing proof in terms of documentation–although we have the Israeli Mr V’s oral testimony as witness. Israel does not say whether or not it has nukes, and Uncle Sam goes along with Israel’s “diplomatic” policy of ambiguity to gain the advantage of both affirmation and denial. By Israel’s evasive response it won’t be the first to introduce nukes to the ME, no outsider knows if Israel “holds” nukes or not, but the outsider is supposed to be mollified by Israel’s promise it won’t the the first to “introduce” them to the region, even if Israel is holding them in its closet, like a secret dress for the prom.
link to guardian.co.uk
Another shift change at Hasbara Central.
absolutely james.
on an unrelated note, did you get my email the other day? i notice some i have sent you have been returned. please email me.
Exactly.
We are also willing to compromise and live with a Palestinian state based on the lines that Carter describes in the NY times. But we would rather die than give up the idea of a Jewish state.
Where’s the evidence of the slightest compromise? There is none, rather the opposite – the continual dispossession, land theft, displacement and violence with impunity. You are dishonest implying that you are willing to live together whilst approving of the vile cruelty to people who have simply existed for centuries in the place you want.
eee, if you want to call it a Jewish homeland or Jewish state unofficially, that is fine. Officially there never can be a Jewish state. It is a dangerous concept. There are hardly any Jewish people in the world. Should the Mormons have a state? There are more Mormons than Jews. Don’t say Utah either.
The Holy Land is important to three religions. Two of those religions are technically Jews. During the second temple era there was no distinction between a Jew and a Christian. Christians were called Jews for over two centuries. Jews refer to citizens of Judah. The old religion of Judah evolved into Christianity and Rabbinic Talmudic Judaism. Both believe they are the ‘proper’ faith although in modern times the latter is accepted as the older of the two for some reason. Israel deserves to be a Christian state far more than a Jewish one and because the majority of the population was Muslim for 1,400+ years they have more say too.
Israel as Jewish state is dangerous for Jews. It makes all Jews guilty by association and here in the USA an awful lot of Jews, especially the younger generation, want nothing to do with Israel or Zionism. Other than that, you got the rapturous Christians who want it to be a Jewish state too and they do not like Jews. Then you have the Zionists themselves, the real ones. The Sabbateans and Atheists who probably want Israel to self-destruct because they want to get rid of Jews. 345 years of not getting along with normal Jews and believing they are the real Israelites.
Charon,
Rafi, I and 5 million other Jews living in Israel believe that a Jewish state is important and deserving. We really don’t care that the Mormons or the Kurds don’t have a state of their own. We also believe it should be in Israel. And of course a Jewish state is a viable possibility because it already exists. And we are prepared to fight to the death to maintain it against the BS people like you have been spouting for centuries.
As for American Jews, they can speak for themselves.
eee-> “We are also willing to compromise and live with a Palestinian state based on the lines that Carter describes in the NY times.”
Compromise?
After how many more decades of “negotiations”?
“But we would rather die than give up the idea of a Jewish state.”
We jews? All jews?
All jews are willing to die for the racist idea of a Jewish state?
Compromise?
Is that when all Arabs live on Mars?
PLO Official: Palestine should be free of Jews:
link to ynetnews.com
A Nazi, sorry, A zionist that links to a a nazionist paper to prove that the enemy is bad, is a zionist.
“PLO Official: Palestine should be free of Jews:”
Wow, an Israeli news site mischaracterizing a PLO official’s statement, on eve of UN vote, including a naked attempt to slander, yet again, the Palestinian people. Who would have thought it!?!?!!? Interesting quote by Israeli official Elliott Abrams, repeating the Nazi libel.
Because what he is quoted as saying is “After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated.”
And if all you pro-Israelis disagree with that statement, then why the hell aren’t you pushing for the one-state solution, where all of the people, from the Jordan to the Med, will be integrated, into one unit, with equality for all?!?!
Or is it only a problem when a non-Jew states it?
Pathetic, DBG.
What was the immediate Palestinian response?
“Later Wednesday, Palestinian Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud al-Habash dismissed Areikat’s statements, saying that the Palestinian state is to welcome members of all faiths. He asserted that any media attempts to manipulate [such into] anti-Jewish statements are politically motivated. “
Eee, does your “we” include the 30%+ Jewish Israelis who weren’t born in Israel? I hear a significant number of them have been leaving Israel for quite a while know. I imagine they took their idea of a Jewish state with them when they came, and they take it with them when they leave, likely a little worse for wear…
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
Oscar Wilde
You see, rafi, a lot of people on this site, and certainly the ones you mentioned by name, would much rather not deal with hauling corpses. So you swore a sacred oath to protect Israel. Fine. HOW are you going to do it? That’s the question. I also see a bit of a difference between the concept of ‘Israel’ and ‘our homeland’
Rafi, if I swore an oath on the Bible (which would mean nothing because I’m agnostic, but I’ll play along) to protect my country and watched my country go down a path of self-destruction, I would try to prevent this from happening. Because I swore an oath to protect it.
It is clear Israeli leaders, especially the Revisionist Zionists, never intended to make peace with the Palestinians. They sterilize African Jews and kidnapped or killed Yemen Jewish babies. They treat the non-Jews like lesser citizens. They advocate pathological lying, propaganda, domestic and international terrorism. They lie to their own people and make them into sociopaths and useful idiots. They betray their allies. They make preemptive threats based on interpretation. They violate international laws and UN resolutions. They encourage citizens to settle in an occupied territory and make the cost of living so high the middle class cannot afford it.
So I ask you, if you swore an oath to protect Israel then DO SOMETHING TO PROTECT ISRAEL. Israel is killing itself. You want to take their side and go down on a sinking ship, be our guests. If you’re okay with all that criminal stuff I said above then you deserve that fate anyways. Being loyal to your country when your leaders are psychopaths even to its own people is ridiculous. Get some new leaders.
Ron Paul defines a “patriot” as a citizen who stands up against his or hero own country’s government when it is wrong. Americans generally are told he’s an old passe white male quack, and they believe it.
>> … me and about 5 milion israeli jews will never give up on our homeland …
What about all the non-Jewish Israelis? Are you suggesting that they WILL give up on their homeland? If so, do you know this for a fact, or are you just being racist?
Simone Daud is an Israeli citizen, you should ask him his opinion.
dbg, simone already addressed that upthread. instead of playing tag team and quarterback for your teammates why don’t you say something useful.
Oh, annie, that’s just not fair! You can’t expect DBG to do something he’s fundamentally and structurally incapable of!
>> Simone Daud is an Israeli citizen, you should ask him his opinion.
I’m interested in Rafi’s opinion.
me too.
And why should Palestinians give up THEIR homeland for the likes of you? Why are your desires superior to their real links to the land?
When will you understand that for Palestinians their own desires are superior to mine and for me, my desires are superior to theirs. The Palestinians should not give up anything they do not want to, and neither will I. The way out of this kind of impasse is an historical compromise. Or war. We tried war and that does not work for either side. So how about an historical compromise?
So basically you’re a social Darwinist? If Hitler had been able to make his desires superior to those of your immediate ancestors, would you consider that “business as usual” in exactly the same fashion as you consider your ethnic cleansing and outright slaughter of Palestinians (children included)?
“you will have to take our corpses out of the adama like a darwish poem.”
Hummm…..you sound somewhat young ..maybe when the world matures you, you will become familiar with the saying– ‘famous last words”.
I like that Brian stated that Israel’s right to exist is implicit. It need not be said.
The reason that the issue comes up is because of the breadth and intensity of those that declare that Israel does not have a right to exist, that it was born in original sin, and all of its actions are part of a continuum of that original sin.
So, what should be implicit, isn’t.
Many otherwise thoughtful people extend their criticism of Israel’s policies and application, to the fetish of “Israel doesn’t have a right to exist”.
Netanyahu’s approach is a risk-averse fetish as well. The need to ask others to grovel to that reiteration, is just silly. He should be confident enough to regard it also as implicit.
The statement that recognizing that Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, also does not compel the right of return to be a dead letter.
Both exagerations of what should be implicit are unnecessary.
The assertion of Palestinians’ day in court, is an affirmation of law. Certainly, Israel would describe itself also as a nation of law.
Try, again, Richard. You did your best “to balance” your response but unfortunately only up to a certain point – yes, sure it’s all only the bad people’s fault who indeed do deny Israel’s right to exist.
But could you please edit this in a slightly more coherent way. If you can’t do the job, ask Avi for help.
Witty, what state on this planet does not describe itself through its governmental spokesfolks and official documents as a nation of law? Has there been one since the dawn of the modern age? Silly man.
The right of return to a single state, negates Israel’s existence.
Palestinians right to their day in a color-blind court in Israel, and in Palestine, accompanied by unlimited right of return to Palestine, doesn’t negate Israel’s existence.
The national formulation of right of return, and articulation of a single Palestinian state does.
Witty, does the Israeli formulation of right of return, and articulation of itself as a single state (“The State Of The Jewish People”) negate Israel’s existence?
So what you’re saying is, that Israel only exists because of discrimination against non-Jews?
In other words…. Zionism = racism. Thanks, Witty, you’re a big help!
“The right of return to a single state, negates Israel’s existence.”
A subject clause should not be followed by a comma, so that should be
“The right of return to a single state negates Israel’s existence.”
If you can’t handle something as simple as the grammar of English, your first language, you are clearly not capable of thinking your way through the I/P problem.
The right of return affirms Palestine’s existence.
Israel has no right to exist. There is very little – if any – evidence that a kingdom of Israel existed in antiquity. The Merneptah Stele refers to a North African people, not a kingdom. It also takes a huge stretch of the imagination to believe it is referring to Israel or Hebrews at all and other archaeologists show the glyphs were deliberately mistranslated from the chalk to make the discovery sound more important than it is. Judah existed, Samaria maybe existed. Kingdom of Israel, probably not and even if it did it literally only lasted 70 years. Scripture does not count because the majority of the world doesn’t believe in it.
The Palestinian Jews did not get along with the Zionist colonists. This is an undisputed historical fact. They were Levantine Arabs and they sided with their Levantine Christian and Muslim brothers and sisters. The different tribes were nearly indistinguishable religiously and culturally despite different faiths (from their tribes). There were certain rules and customs for holy places in Jerusalem,but otherwise they were all one people. It was the Zionist European colonists who caused trouble for well over a century now. This is recent history, there are many still alive who lived in British Palestine.
Israel is called Israel to make people believe it is the same Israel as in scripture. It’s like Infogrames buying the Atari name and IPs and changing their name to Atari. They aren’t Atari, they’re Infogrames. Israelis are European colonists of recent migration, many within the past few decades after the collapse of the USSR.
Israel has NO RIGHT TO EXIST because the British had no rights in Palestine and the world, who has rejected the Palestinian’s right to exist as a nation state for decades, accepted Israel with much less effort very unfairly. Only own 5% of the land? No problem let’s partition it and give the Europeans the most. Of course the partition had bribes and threats and blackmail behind it. Oh and it was never implemented AND the US pulled support for it. They made up by being the first to recognized and independent Israel of no borders. It still has no borders.
Israel has lied to the world and used violence and terror to eliminate Palestinian identity for 70 years. They violate international law and UN resolutions yet expect others to obey them. They betray their allies. They built settlements on occupied land. Whatever they blame the Palestinians for, it’s all Israel’s fault. The longer they draw out the status quo the worse it gets and they’ll use it as an excuse. We’re sick of it.
Again, Israel has no right to exist. Not at the expense of others. I realize they exist and aren’t going away, but when push comes to shove this is not going to end very well for Zionism. Demographically, the Jews will be a minority. In a few decades there will be no Israel. There might be the crazy odd Ultra Orthodox illegal settler and all the Jews might call it Israel, but it won’t be Israel. I would bet on it.
Scripture doesn’t count, fine. Where are you getting your information? can you please point us in the right direction?
Whether it has a right or not, it does exist. The majority of Israelis were born in Israel, it isn’t something you’ll be able to simply negate because you don’t like it.
Here ya’ go, DBG:
link to historykb.com
The majority of the Algerian pieds noirs were born in Algeria but they were unwilling to live on terms of mutual respect and equality with the native population in one country.
The pieds noirs left. It is time for the Zionist conglomeration also to leave, and by the conglomeration’s standards it should be okay to forceably remove it because the vast majority of the members think it was and continues to be okay to steal Palestinian land and to ethnically cleanse or to kill Palestinians.
“Scripture doesn’t lie”
Well, I would say that myths don’t lie in that they tell us something about the psychological truth of the mythmakers. But if you are talking about ontology, you’re on really shaky ground. Judaism, like Christianity, is based on the myths of earlier civilisations. Unless, of course, you wish to hold to a literal interpretation of the bible?
“Israel has NO RIGHT TO EXIST because the British had no rights in Palestine and the world”
I can agree with that mostly– because the British had no right and the US had no right and the Jews had no right and the UN had no “right” to take or give anything of anothers. Neither did the Turks, the Roman, the French soon and so forth.
But now it exist and we have to find a solution. If I were the Supreme Decider of this FUBAR I would say this:
Cease all US support and aid for Israel. All of it, UN coverage, the whole deal. (not just because I begrudge them our money, which I do , but for a larger reason)
To make Israel’s continued existance dependent on What they and they alone do.
If they are smart enough to change to survive or thrive, fine—it they aren’t , then that’s too bad.
And if they step out of line just one more time while they are soul searching their way forward to survival then they would be toast…all get out of jail free tickets already used up.
>> Israel has no right to exist.
Israel exists. However:
- It *was* “born in original sin”. That Zio-supremacists consider the sin “necessary” and “primarily celebrate” its occurrence doesn’t change that fact.
- It’s ON-GOING campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder *is* “part of a continuum of that original sin”.
- It is not a “homeland of the Jewish people”, it is the nation-state and the homeland of all Israelis.
If you focus, for one biblical example, on Deuteronomy 6:10-12, and pretend it states facts as reliable as, say, an uncorrupted DNA sample, or if you have faith in that passage as inspired by God, we have Moses telling the Jewish people their God wants them to plunder, rob, and steal everything in sight in the Land Of Milk and Honey. Presumably Moses was channeling God’s will, so how can it be an original sin to do what Jews have done, and are doing in the former Palestine Mandate land? Given the premises, everything Israel has and is doing is not only fulfilling holy prophecy, but expresses the morality and ethics of the true believers.
Current rights don’t come from ancient history, of course, but I rather cherish the idea that ancient Palestine was a place where many groups with many kings of different religions lived together in reasonable harmony.
Where does your interpretation of the Stela come from, Charon? I’ve no ideological objection to its being true but it looks to me like a minority view among Egyptologists.
There is enough Assyrian evidence for a reasonably powerful kingdom based in Samaria, or so I understand. And there was the Hasmonean/Herodian kingdom based in Jerusalem, though I think that the Herods, for all their faults, practised a form of multiculturalism.
“I like that Brian stated that Israel’s right to exist is implicit. It need not be said.” (Richard Witty)
Just because someone brought something into his possession doesn’t mean it is implicite that he had a right to acquire or to own it. And there’s no right of a minority to split up a territory against the will of a majority or to become this majority by expulsion of the real majority.
“The right of return to a single state, negates Israel’s existence.” (Richard Witty)
I value human rights more than the existence of states which according to their state ideology can only come into existence or survive, if they expell and denationalize humans because of their religion. And I’m not only talking about the third Reich but about all regimes or states which state ideology or existence implicitely negates fundamental human rights like the right to citizenship, the right to return, the right to live, the right to housing, the right to property and so on.
Do you think that these rights should only count for Jews?
(Rhetorical question, I allready know the answer.)
Klug makes a good point. The ancient Jewish watchamacallit, it wasn’t a state by any stretch, was made up of believers. Can the present frankenstate say the same?
Brian Klug, if you are reading this thread: wonderful piece!
I doubt seriously that any of my neighbors are plotting to murder me or enslave me or whatever comes next. I am fortunate it would appear. It’s really quite simple. If you or your government abuses people their going to be motivated to get your attention. Their here because the Empire is there. Choose wisely.
Goodbye.
This is an excellent essay, not without its flaws and, dare I say it, a certain liberal wavering, as over whether states have a general or fundamental right to exist, but it is nonetheless very well constructed.
A few comments.
I’m pleased that the founders of IJV resisted the temptation to inscribe recognition of Israel in its founding statement of principles, because I know that I and many others would and could not have signed up.
Of course the waving of the ‘right to exist as a Jewish state’ now is a bogus pretext for refusing to discuss Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and justifying the settlements. But what is really being asked is for the Palestinians to recognise the rightfulness of Zionism i.e. the rightfulness of their own dispossession, because that is what a Jewish state means in practice. Even a lemming doesn’t rationalise its own suicide.
But a sharp differentiation must be made between the rights of individuals and states. No state has any ‘right’ to exist, not the British or the US or the Colombian states. States are, in the last analysis, bodies of armed men. (Marx) A precondition of change in this society is the destruction of states.
Individuals on the other hand do have the right to life and liberty and therefore the right to exist. That is a fundamental axiom of being a human being. But for Zionism the rights of Jews count for little when compared to the ‘right’ of the State. That is why historically Zionism has always collaborated with anti-Semitism and NEVER fought it. The number of Zionists, from Herzl onwards, who said that there was something good and productive and useful about anti-Semitism, because it made Jews emigrate to Palestine (although 98% of them wanted to go to the USA). Which is little different from that good Israel supporter, John Hagee, who stated that Hitler was god’s messenger boy, come to drive the Jews to Palestine.
But of course it is a bogus demand for the reasons Brian gives at the beginning. Israel exists – unfortunately – as an apartheid state. The question is how to change or overthrow it. The demand itself focuses on something which is therefore meaningless since no one who exists demands the ‘right to exist’ so why should a state? It is really a call for the Palestinians to surrender, in which case they won’t be wanting to return anyway!
‘It would not enter the mind of any Briton or Frenchman, Belgian or Dutchman, Hungarian or Bulgarian, Russian or American, to request for his people recognition of its right to exist. Their existence per se is their right to exist. The same holds true for Israel.”
And this is the sort of shifty argument the Zionists love to use. The existence of the Bulgarian people (interpreted either as (a) an aggregate of individuals or (b) some sort of collective entity) may be sufficient to give them(a) or it(b) a “right to exist”, but that does not give a Bulgarian state a right to exist.
(Which is one of the points Klug wishes to make.)
‘The right to establish our sovereign state here, in the Land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: Eretz Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish People.’
Another example of a bad Zionist argument.
How does “Eretz Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish People” imply “the Jewish People” have a right to establish a sovereign state there?
“Birthplace” cannot be taken literally. (I was born in Sale Cottage Hospital. Do I have a right to establish a sovereign state in the hospital?) A “people” is not born in the literal sense. I would have to interpret “birthplace” as “formed a tribe and labelled themselves there”.
Is there a general principle to the effect that “If a group formed a tribe and labelled themselves in a particular territory, members of that group thereafter have a perpetual right to establish a sovereign state in that territory”?
I have never heard of such a principle, and it has the obivous difficulty that several groups could form tribes, etc., on the same territory, and thus claim conflicting rights to the same territory.
A further difficulty is that such a principle denies the rights of the current inhabitants to establish a sovereign state in the territory.