Israel and Palestine

[ag]

Then again, as a vegetarian, I say no to gefilte fish too

That is true sacrilege. I do not know about God or gods, but gefilte fish is real. You cannot be a Jew and a vegetarian at the same time.

[ag]

On a more serious note, the Old Jew vs. New Jew thing has always been utterly silly (even if it has empowered us in critical times, when it was arguably necessary). Jews are both Yehuda HaMaccabi and the Torah scholar in the ghetto. Anyone who persuades themselves into believing either the thinking Jew or the fighting Jew isn't really Jewish is wrong and historically illiterate.

Our disagreement is not historical, but definitional. We have differences on what the word "Jew" means

Jewishness, like any other identity, is a matter of self-identification.  I choose my definition

[ag]

Zionism didn't start in Europe -- it started in Egypt and has always lived on in the soul of every Jew.

You want a list of Jews who would object?

If you claim to believe in rational choice, please be careful with logical quantifiers

[DavidB.]

I never said that Europeans do not do this because of their personal interest. But they understand, that their personal interest requires agreement and limitations. Their notion of self-interest is based on the understanding that it is very hard to prevent those sorts of conflagrations that nearly destroyed Europe in the first half of the 20th century.

You are talking about some European politicians. I am talking about ordinary Europeans when I say the situation for Jews hasn't changed as much as one would hope.
 
As for:

You want a list of Jews who would object?

and

Jewishness, like any other identity, is a matter of self-identification.  I choose my definition

This is obviously another difference between us: I am an essentialist. I think what Judaism is (as opposed to what Judaism is for me) is not a matter of self-identification, just like I think what Zionism is (as opposed to what Zionism is for me) is not a matter of self-identification. Obviously some Jews have different, non-essentialist understandings of these concepts, but who cares?

Anyway, you're back to cherry picking I see. That's a game I'm not willing to play with you.

[Zinneke]

Do you believe Palestinian identity is - as per your interpretation of Zionism - essentialist, or a made up community, DavidB?

[ag]

Anyway, you're back to cherry picking I see. That's a game I'm not willing to play with you.

I did not know there were any cherries to pick here, frankly.

We know each other's lines. You consider me a horrid sinner, I consider you an apostate (or the other way around, or, likely, both ways). What is there to discuss?

[DavidB.]

Do you believe Palestinian identity is - as per your interpretation of Zionism - essentialist, or a made up community, DavidB?

It's not relevant whether Palestinian identity is "essentialist" or made up. I'd say it's "made up", like almost all national identities, but it really does not matter: just as the Dutch should be able to live in the Netherlands regardless of whether Dutch national identity is "made up", so should Palestinians be able to live in Israel. Zionism isn't a zero-sum game, as, by the way, many early modern Zionists actually understood, and Jews' eternal bond with the Land of Israel can exist in combination with a large non-Jewish presence in the Land. Peaceful coexistence is possible.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Jews' eternal bond with the Land of Israel can exist in combination with a large non-Jewish presence in the Land. Peaceful coexistence is possible.

As long as the non-Jews accept their permanent second-class status, that is.  Yet if people can willingly accept such a status for themselves and their posterity, that negates the primary raison d'etre for the State of Israel.

I realize you've deluded yourself into thinking that the State of Israel acts a safeguard for the continued existence of the Jewish people, but history doesn't jive with that. Quite the contrary, as what has safeguarded the existence of Judaism is the very diaspora that you seek to undo, combined with the devotion of the Jews to their God and culture while within that diaspora, a devotion first shown during the Babylonian Exile. The diaspora ensured that even as Jews were persecuted in one place, they could survive and even thrive in another. The State of Israel is stronger than its neighbors today, but that will not always be the case. No state remains permanently the top dog, yet the Israeli people have managed to outlast the Pharoahs, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Caesars. That is a major accomplishment that few other peoples can claim, and I think setting it aside for the temporary illusion of security by the force of arms is a major mistake.

[DavidB.]

Noted antisemitic Christian Ernest going off on a tangent on why he likes his Jews dependent, oppressed, and in diaspora. Top kek. Love the goysplaining!

[Zinneke]

Seems to me like he is praising the diaspora you belong to (far more than any state of Israel that you occasionally visit). I wouldn't go so hard on him. I think Ernest needs to realise though that post-war Europe is not exactly home for Jews and their diaspora who were ratted out by their neighbours in a time of structural antisemitism. The absurd idea that they'd walk back into their old homes after their stay in the concentration camps is partly why European powers ensured the state of Israel's existence. The diaspora that currently resides in our countries though should feel safe by now.

May I ask what your interpretation of a Jewish state is, in order to answer Ernests misgivings? Do you support a secular one-state solution state or a more confederal 2 state solution that allows such a Jewish state?

[DavidB.]

You may not know, but Ernest has quite the posting record on Jewish and Israeli issues, e.g. by calling the creation of Israel a mistake, so I am not at all inclined to give him the benefit on this subject, like, ever. I do not discuss such issues with him anymore.

I do not think you know how often I, someone from the internet you don't know, go to Israel, but my visits are not merely "occassional". Regardless, it is exactly because I do not live in Israel that I understand the value of the existence of a Jewish state, and I know my future lies there. The notion that my people should do without a state in our own land is not only insulting, it is colonialist: it assumes Europeans (should) have the authority to tell Jews where and where not to live. I do not want to commit the Justin Trudeau fallacy, but fortunately those days are over.

I did not really intend to expound on my views on "the solution" once again, since I am rather tired of discussing this subject in general, but as mentioned elsewhere on this forum I support a consociational one-state solution, with a state governed on a non-territorial, communal basis, and with autonomy for both national communities on nearly all issues.

[Comrade Funk]

http://www.timesofisrael.com/likud-politician-calls-to-strip-btselem-heads-citizenship/

Israeli politics are going in a very McCarthyist direction. Do they think the status quo can honestly last? Scary stuff. Israel definitely becoming more irrational (not saying Palestinians are angels, you can be against both which some people seem to forget).

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Rogier, the diaspora has been in various places over the centuries.  There's nothing special about Europe or any other location. Indeed, over the centuries, pretty much every area in Europe has at various times been hospitable or hostile or even downright homicidal to the Jews. Given what happened in World War II, it was entirely reasonable and understandable why many Jewish survivors of the Nazis and their confederates were reluctant to remain. However, it has been the broad dispersal of the diaspora that ensured the survival of Jews as a nation even when some areas were not survivable for Jews as individuals.
David, I don't deny the right of Jews or any other nation to have a state of their own. Nor do I think Europeans or any other people have a right to tell the Jews where they can live. However, neither do I think the Jews have a right to tell the Palestinians where they can live.  The Zionist call for establishing a State of Israel was based in part upon the belief that Jews had an intrinsic right to return to the land that the Jewish nation once called home, no matter what the current inhabitants of that area might think. However, if such a right of return exists, then it surely exists just as much for the Palestinians as it does the Jews, yet the State of Israel could not possibly remain a Jewish majority state within its current claimed borders if a Palestinian right of return were allowed for.

Israel is a land of many paradoxes, paradoxes that someday will be resolved tho how that will happen is not something anyone can predict with certainty. Hopefully peacefully, but I'm cynical about the possibility. I certainly don't see peace being established in my lifetime. Maybe by the end of this century, but it will take a considerable change in both Israeli and Palestinian sentiment for that to happen, and it will be up to them both to make it, not any outsiders such as myself. Your stated desired outcome is potentially one way to resolve the situation, but I just don't see it happening because I don't see having the Jewish and Arabic communities being coequal in most, but not all, areas of governance of a single state as being a stable resolution.

What is inevitable that at some future date there will be a resurgence in Arabic power. (Israel should be thankful that the oil wealth of the Arab states has to date been largely squandered. Buying weapons without having the ability to build or maintain them on their own is largely a waste of money. Unlike the Israelis, the Saudis are dependent upon the continued good will of the US to keep their military operational.) When that resurgence happens and Israel is no longer the dominant military power in the region, then unless Israel has changed its ways by then it is unlikely to survive. (And if it changes its ways to those of the ultranationalists, then it certainly won't survive wen that happens.)

Last but not least, my views on Jews and on the State of Israel are not based upon my Christian beliefs.  I don't think the Jews are any more guilty than the rest of sinful humanity for what happened to Jesus, and I don't think that either the establishment, nor my predicted disestablishment, of the State of Israel, has anything to do with the return of Christ. (Tho I do think reconstruction of the Temple would make inevitable the destruction of both said Temple and the State of Israel, but not because of any apocalyptic literature.)
Comrade Funk, it's not that they think the status quo can last, it's that they think the status quo is the best they can hope for right now. In the short term, they are right about that, and it's true of politicians everywhere that they think in the short term.  Rarely do they consider anything beyond the next election, and usually that happens only if they feel secure they'll win in.  The fractious nature of Israeli politics these days means that they can't possibly feel secure.  Even if their political viewpoint is likely to win continued mandates, they can't count on personally winning a continued mandate.  Besides, even if the Israelis had statesmen in charge rather than politicians, there are currently no equivalent Palestinian statement to be in charge of the other side. That's why it'll be at least a generation before peace can even be a possibility again.