When people argue that they don't support policies that discriminate based on religion or ethnicity, we are told that Arab and Jewish citizens in Israel have the same status. If this is true, then how can Israel be considered a "Jewish state"?

What happens if the Arab Israelis increase in number faster than the Jewish Israelis do?

I don't understand what people mean when they say that we should support Israel as a "Jewish state". Does that mean we should support policies that ensure that Jews are always in the majority in the country? What kind of policies would ensure that?

And finally - if I don't support any other country having an official state religion with laws and policies favouring people of that official religion (like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and I guess probably England, to name a few), then why should I support the idea of Israel being a Jewish state?

When you unpack the idea of "supporting a [fill in the religion here] state", what does that mean in reality? Doesn't it mean supporting a state where there is religious discrimination at some point in order to ensure that the majority of the population is of a certain religion?

If I don't support that kind of thing here, or in England, or in the US, or in Iran, why should I support that idea for Israel?

Am I a second class citizen in Canada?

I am Jewish. In Canada the Ontario Legislature starts each sitting day with the reciting of the Lord's Prayer as IIRC does the Senate and House of Commons of Canada.

Christian Holidays are statutory holidays ie Christmas, Good Friday and Thanksgiving. The New Year's that we celebrate nationally is not at Rosh Hashanah but rather December 31-Jan 1 based on a Christian Calendar.

Does any of this make me a second class Ontarian or Canadian citizen because I am not in the majority religion? The answer is no.

Do I complain about the lack of equality in faith based education in Ontario yes.

[ 18 August 2006: Message edited by: johnpauljones ]

The borders were drawn in 1948 to create Israel such that it had a large Jewish majority. This has never changed.

This leaves a wide open question of what would happen if natural demographic shift caused the percentage to plunge. Presumably the state would do something to stop it.

This is the heart of the Arab refugee problem, and why they won't be allowed to return. It would mean Israel would likely no longer be a Jewish state.

I think as long as these trappings remain in the senate, various legislatures, and other places people will be second class citizens. As an athiest, it makes me feel second class. Given our world views, (I don't know how observant a Jew you are, but I'm a practicing atheist) the two of us are way better off here than in Iran.

At least here we're moving in the right direction. The prayers at the opening of the legislature are clearly seen as non-binding given what transpires when everyone sits down. More and more people are getting float holidays, and many of my team mates take off Ramadan. There's a ways to go with all that, but still...

I'll feel a lot more at home when equality of faith based education systems is finally achieved by their elimination as tax funded institutions entirely.

I would argue that education is the cornerstone of any society and I would extrapolate from that proposition that any state which funds the education of one faith simultaneously denying it to all others has deFacto created a theocracy of sorts.

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Originally posted by johnpauljones:

Am I a second class citizen in Canada?

I am Jewish. In Canada the Ontario Legislature starts each sitting day with the reciting of the Lord's Prayer as IIRC does the Senate and House of Commons of Canada.

Christian Holidays are statutory holidays ie Christmas, Good Friday and Thanksgiving. The New Year's that we celebrate nationally is not at Rosh Hashanah but rather December 31-Jan 1 based on a Christian Calendar.

Does any of this make me a second class Ontarian or Canadian citizen because I am not in the majority religion? The answer is no.

[ 18 August 2006: Message edited by: johnpauljones ]

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Originally posted by josh:

Canada has not defined itself as a Christian state. Its flag is not the cross. It does not (de facto) exclude non-Christian parties from taking part in the formation of a government. Or restrict military and security positions to Christians only. So the comparison is really no comparison.

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To be fair Josh the National Flag was the Union Jack and more recently the Red Ensign both of which included the Cross of St. George and the Cross of St. Andrew.

Until 1945 the only "official" flag that Canada flew was the Union Jack. The Red Ensign was flown for Canada, at sea and at posts throughout the world, and in 1945 (with the addition of Royal Arms) it was established as the "temporary" Canadian flag, until a replacement was found. This of course was done in 1965.

Ontario, Manitoba and BC all still have a version of the Union Jack with its crosses on their provincial flag.

To me their is a cross on all of these flags. The Cross being one of the symbols if not the dominant symbol of Christianity.

[ 18 August 2006: Message edited by: johnpauljones ]

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Originally posted by johnpauljones:
The Red Ensign was flown for Canada, at sea and at posts throughout the world, and in 1945 (with the addition of Royal Arms) it was established as the "temporary" Canadian flag, until a replacement was found. This of course was done in 1965.

Ontario, Manitoba and BC all still have a version of the Union Jack with its crosses on their provincial flag.

To me there is a cross on all of these flags. The Cross being one of the symbols if not the dominant symbol of Christianity.

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Certainly our schools have dropped Christian prayers and readings, and our school board switched from the Lord's Prayer to a minute of silence back around 1975 or so, long before I became a trustee, partly at the initiative of the late Harriet Reisler, one of Port Hope's school trustees who happened to be Jewish.

I am against a Jewish state. I am against a Christian state. I against a Muslim state. I am against any state that defines itself in religious, ethnic, cultural, or lifestyle terms. A state is an apparatus for governing that should apply equally and provide indiscriminately to all who fall within its mandate, and defining itself by such qualities is a recipe for discrimination and prejudice. Heck, I'm not even fond of the geographical state, but what can you do?

It is a kind of affirmative action to ensure that past practices do not continue to ruin the lives of Jewish people.

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Originally posted by Proaxiom:
As I understand it, 'Jewish state' means a lot of things (eg. laws adapted from Judaism, welcoming of Jewish immigrants from all over the world, etc), but there is one overriding one: 77% of the population is Jewish.

The borders were drawn in 1948 to create Israel such that it had a large Jewish majority. This has never changed.

This leaves a wide open question of what would happen if natural demographic shift caused the percentage to plunge. Presumably the state would do something to stop it.

This is the heart of the Arab refugee problem, and why they won't be allowed to return. It would mean Israel would likely no longer be a Jewish state.

Whether the world needs a Jewish state is another question altogether.

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My understanding is that the primary reason that Israel is a "Jewish state" is because any jews can immigrate there and become instant citizens, while non-jews can never immigrate there. All of the other "jewish" things about Israel are merely icing on the cake (not that they don't matter to non-jews).

[ 18 August 2006: Message edited by: Left Turn ]

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Originally posted by venus_man:
We all know that France is a place where Frenchman lives, so it is a Frenchman state though there are citizens there who are not necessarily French by birth, yet with equal rights with others etc. Same in regards to Russia, England, Germany and some other countries. So is with Israel- it is a primarily Jewish (not necessarily orthodox or otherwise religious) state, where other nations have equal rights and responsibilities, in law at least.
Canada and USA are different in this regards, because to be American or Canadian is to be of any nationality or race.

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Originally posted by jeff house:
The reason for a Jewish state is that Jews were not well-treated in other nation states.

It is a kind of affirmative action to ensure that past practices do not continue to ruin the lives of Jewish people.

Demanding the scrupulous application of general principles concerning nationality in the case of Israel is analogous to demanding that there be no "special treatment" for women or black people, when that special treatment is intended to remedy inequitous practices of exclusion and discrimination.

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Kinda like a big concentration camp in middle east.

You have to admit the British really out did Hitler on this score. Not only did they come up with a plan to make Europe Judenrein, but they cleverly managed to get many Jewish people to co-operate and also work as the camp guards.

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Originally posted by josh:
But that analogy fails because in neither instance was a separate state set up for blacks or women. Although, with respect to the former, there was some discussion of that by both white segregationists and black separatists, such as the black Muslims. Separatism is not the answer for prejudice and persecution.

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As Malcolm X discovered near the end of his life before he was butchered.

But the real problem with Jeff's equity analogy is that equity programs do not work on the basis of the priviliged group thieving stuff from a disempowered group to give it to another disempowered group.

The principle of equity is based on balancing the inequity between the enfranchised and the disenfranchised. Very convenient for the Western powers to further disenfranchise one group in order to enfranchise another.

As the President of Iran recently pointed out, the crimes of the Holocause were European crimes, and should have been compensated by Europeans, not by ripping off the Arabs.

[ 18 August 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:

Kinda like a big concentration camp in middle east.

You have to admit the British really out did Hitler on this score. Not only did they come up with a plan to make Europe Judenrein, but they cleverly managed to get many Jewish people to co-operate and also work as the camp guards.

Zionist defeatism.

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You don't think the British plan was based in good old fashioned European anti-semetism. Just like the kind circulating in France around the Dreyfus Affair, and the kind that had such virulent effect in places like Germany and Hungary?

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Originally posted by ohara:
Cueball you have outdone yourself with this disgusting analogy. Congratulations. I truly hope no Concentration camp survivors ever read this filth. The pain it will cause would be too much.

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A Jewish Polish WW2 veteran, (and later also an anti-communist) he also made the point that the setlements in the West Bank are more or less "recreations" of the concentration camp experience. He theorizes that many Jews of the younger generation are drawn to them out of a desire the empathize with the victimization of the past generation.

"Where better" he muses to experience such, than by living in barbed wire enclosures among the "howling and stone throwing Palestinians?"

Zionism is defeatist because it accepts the European ethnic cleansing.

[ 19 August 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

The tragedy of Zionism is that it recreates the dynamics that led to the rise of fascism, the genocide committed against European Jews, and Europe's self-immolation. The major differences, of course, are that it recreates these dynamics within the Zionist community, whereas the dynamics originally appeared among European Christians and non-Jewish European romantic nationalists, and that the target of persecution is the Palestinian community rather than European Jews.

[ 19 August 2006: Message edited by: Michael Nenonen ]

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Originally posted by jeff house:
The reason for a Jewish state is that Jews were not well-treated in other nation states.

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Originally posted by Petsy:
Does the fact that the UK flag does have a cross mean anything in relation to this matter?

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No, the Union jack is not a representation of anything spiritual, it represent the 3 Kingdoms United.

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Originally posted by TemporalHominid:
Israel, Canada, Britain, France, and the United States are all secular states. I don't know why some people, like the Christian fundamentalist group 'Friends of Israel' insist Israel is a Jewish state.

I guess some religious types may want Bible prophecy to be fullfilled and they don;t find a problem with stirring things up by putting Israel in a "spiritual" context.

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Israel is not and has never been a "secular state." In fact it is questionable even if Israel is a state at all, given that it has no constitution.

There is the founding document proclaiming the existance of the state, in the form of something absurdly called the "declaration of independence." Israeli jurists then tried for decades to sort out the issue of the states "secular" nature within its Jewish context.

This absurd and obviously oxymoronic effort resulted in what are called the "basic laws" none of which proclaim Israel's secular nature.

So, in fact the only foundational document defining the state, explicitly calls the state the Jewish state, and says nothing about the state being secular.

From the declaration:

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ERETZ-ISRAEL [(Hebrew) - the Land of Israel, Palestine] was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.

[SNIP]

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

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THE DECLARATION OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL

I defy you to find a foundational document or law in Israel that defines the state as secular. It simply does not exist.

What more do we need to know about the secular nature of the Israeli state than the fact introductory paragraph of its foundational document is about the "eternal Book of Books."

Hence, I think we can comfortably assert that Israel is a religous state. That is why it is called the "Jewish state."

See, Judaism is a relgion, just as the 1964 PLO charter so eloquently points out, when it asserted the PLO's desire to create a secular state joining all of the unique religous communities together.

[ 19 August 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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In fact it is questionable even if Israel is a state at all, given that it has no constitution.

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But the real problem with Jeff's equity analogy is that equity programs do not work on the basis of the priviliged group thieving stuff from a disempowered group to give it to another disempowered group.

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Well, that's debatable. Let's take the jobs which are expected by white males. When these jobs find their way to white females or blacks of either sex, there is one huge scream of anger.

So, I do think that the Arabs of the Middle East are roughly analogous to the white working class which is the "victim" of affirmative action.

Of course the analogy is not perfect in many ways. Land is finite in a way that jobs and prestige may not be.

But this way of understanding things allows us to contextualize the voices of those who think there is no reason for Israel to exist. They demand the abstract application of principles which, however correct, were not applied to the Jews by their forebears.

So, just as we now have people who think black people or native jobseekers should be judged on EXACTLY the same principles as white males, we have people who think that it is irrelevant that
Jews were not afforded a right to equality for most of the history of Europe, and eventually were slaughtered like cattle.

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Originally posted by Cueball:

Kinda like a big concentration camp in middle east.

You have to admit the British really out did Hitler on this score. Not only did they come up with a plan to make Europe Judenrein, but they cleverly managed to get many Jewish people to co-operate and also work as the camp guards.

Zionist defeatism.

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[ 20 August 2006: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]

Zygmunt Bauman:

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Bauman was born to non-practising Jewish parents in Poznań, Poland, in 1925. The familiy escaped into the Soviet zone of occupation, after Poland was invaded by Nazi-German troops in 1939 at the beginning of World War II. He later served in the Soviet-controlled Polish First Army, with which he participated in the battles of Kolberg (now Kołobrzeg) and Berlin and in which he also worked as a political education instructor.

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Zygmunt Bauman from wikipedia

In the afterward of his book "Modernity and the Holocaust" he quite clearly associates the desire of some Jewish people to intern themselves in West Bank settelments to a latent desire to recreate concentration-camp like living conditions as a way of appeasing personal guilt for not being the actual vicitms of the Holocaust.

Whether or not one accepts the principle that collective victimization is an essential and active psychological factor in the formulation of Zionist propoganda and the culture of Israel, and the relationship between the individual and state may be debatable, but it is certainly not gratuitous "trolling."

Nor is espousing the position that the British political motivation for bringing Israel into existance is inextricably linked to European antisemitism.

I suggest you read it. Or at least the afterward.

Of course the work of Bauman, among a great many others are part of the literature of non-Zionist Holocaust literature is actively burried by Zionists in their attempt to legitimize the imperial project of Israel, which makes Jewish people both tools and the victims of European ambitions in the Middle East. Notice the above plaint about "holocaust survivors" being deeply wounded by what I have said. However, it seems that the views and 'feelings' of some Holocaust survivors, but not others, are worthy of entering into the discourse, lest the whole ridiculous edifice of mealy mouthed justification for Israels "right to exist" come apart.

So far, other than shocked outrage there has been no rebutal to the essential thesis I have espoused, which is that Zionism, though apparently empowering because of its war-like nature, is in reality an tacit acceptance of European racism and therefore and ideological defeat.

Someone who used to post here called this shocked reaction "mannerizing consent."

[ 21 August 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by venus_man:
Zionist, shmayonist-words, words. Every modern country, Canada included, was founded or expended by means of violence and population misplacement.

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Excelent. At least we are admitting that what we are really talking about here, is not recognizing the right of Israel to live in peace and security, but the right of Jews to be assholes too. Let us be clear at least.

Honesty as part moral bankruptcy does not add moral legitimacy of course, but at least it is respectable at some level.

Don't forget though, that if one appeals to the law of the sword, it is wise to not complain when one finds out that this law cuts both ways, and whining about Arab attrocity and violence merely appears like hypocrisy.

[ 21 August 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

[ 21 August 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Proaxiom:

I suspect the British might take issue with that assertion.

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Originally posted by Proaxiom:
I suspect the British might take issue with that assertion.

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My understanding is that the United Kingdom is widely considered to have a constitution, even though there is no single written document called "The Constitution". For example,
here we read, "The British Constitution is unwritten, unlike the constitution in America or the proposed European Constitution, and as such, is referred to as an uncodified constitution in the sense that there is no single document that can be classed as Britain's constitution. The British Constitution can be found in a variety of documents. Supporters of our constitution believe that the current way allows for flexibility and change to occur without too many problems. Those who want a written constitution believe that it should be codified so that the public as a whole has access to it – as opposed to just constitutional experts who know where to look and how to interpret it."

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Originally posted by jeff house:
Back to reality:
Well, that's debatable. Let's take the jobs which are expected by white males. When these jobs find their way to white females or blacks of either sex, there is one huge scream of anger.

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It is amazing how you always end up defending positions of equity, wherein white North Americans become the brokers of equities that never impinge on the privilege of our position to adjudicate what is good for them, oe where our relative position is even part of the equation.

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Originally posted by Cueball:

Excelent. At least we are admitting that what we are really talking about here, is not recognizing the right of Israel to live in peace and security, but the right of Jews to be assholes too. Let us be clear at least.

[ 21 August 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:
Can you have a corporation without articles of incorporation? No.

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Can you have a corporation without articles of incorporation? No.

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Since when is a state a corporation?

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My understanding is that the United Kingdom is widely considered to have a constitution, even though there is no single written document called "The Constitution".

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True, but there is no one written document, nor is it clear exactly what set of documents comprise their 'unwritten Constitution.' The point there is that the British state has a set of laws and traditions that define how it works just fine, and they've never seen fit to formally codify it.

A state is any sovereign authority over a piece of land and its inhabitants. It's a little odd to suggest that there was no such thing as a state before written constitutions existed, which wasn't all that long ago.

This is thread drift. Sorry for contributing to it.

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Originally posted by Petsy:
Firstly I would think you should be referencing Israeli policies as opposed to calling "Jews" assholes.

Secondly while it is true that there are a few so-called "non-Zionist" Holocaust writers, the vast majority of Jewish Holocuast survivors who have written about the Holocaust are Zionists and proud ones at that. From Elie Wiesel to Dr. Victor Frankel, from Simon Wiesenthal to Dr. Yehuda Bauer, from Dr. Felicia Carmelli to Marvin Mermelstein, all have written elegantly and passionately about their experiences during the Holocaust and all are proud Zionists. There are exceptions to every rule. To speak only of the minor exceptions negates the volume of those on the other side.

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I remember Frankl saying that the "best of us didn't return." I also recall he spent his entire life rebuilding his life in Vienna. I don't remember him being particulary outspoken about his support for Zionism.

I thought I would check. I just googled Frankl (and your spelling Frankel) on Israel and Zionism, and came up with no really notable quotes.

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Originally posted by Cueball:

I remember Frankl saying that the "best of us didn't return." I also recall he spent his entire life rebuilding his life in Vienna. I don't remember him being particulary outspoken about his support for Zionism.

I thought I would check. I just googled Frankl (and your spelling Frankel) on Israel and Zionism, and came up with no really notable quotes.

I know he is often referenced as part of the Zionist Canon, but his interestes seemed primarily in the area of psychology. Nonetheless, one would think that a really committed Holocaust survivor and Zionist would have set up his "Logotherapy" institute in Tel Aviv, not Vienna.

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Originally posted by Martha (but not Stewart):

But you can have a state without a written constitution. How many countries had written constitutions before the late 18th century?

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An excelent point. So we can dispense with any of the silly arguements about Palestinian rights not being legally actionable in reference to their "national" interests regarding the territory in question prior to the 19th century, simply because there was no official state structure in place, as is argued by some Zionists ala "a land without a people, a people without a land."

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Originally posted by Petsy:
In the same way that Simon Wiesenthal and Elie Wiesel set up their practices in Vienna and Boston? Please you are really stretching here.

As for Dr. Frankel (sorry for the sp earlier leave it to you to point out a spelling error ...so inappropriate!!) I heard him speak, once in London and once at the University of Ottawa. He spoke glowingly both times of Israel as an antidote for survivors and expressed his strong feelings for the Jewish state. And yes he is primarily a logotherapist so it would make sense that he would primarily write about logotherapy.

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The fact that there is a whole state edifice errected to enshrining the pro-Zionist Holocaust Canon, and that serves an entrenched political clique may have something to do with the impression you have that the great majority of Holocaust survivors have unqualified support for Israel.

Some of that is just badly written teen Hardy Boys type dogma, like in the "Mouth of the Wolf." I had an autographed copy of that sitting in my room for a while, barely finished it before returning it.

[ 21 August 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

So very simply Cueball, why should I believe you over Petsy?

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Maybe I am wrong, but wouldn't a truly Jewish state be one modeled on the teachings, the moral code, and doctrines of faith as opposed to one based upon the superiority of one's lineage?

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That seems to be a distinction with Judaism. While Islamic states can be set up (seemingly) and impose Sharia law, this can't be done for a Jewish State. Before the state-application of biblical law on the Jewish people, a few conditions would have to be met, principally the arrival of the messiah. Within Jewish law as demonstrated in Numbers and Deuteronomy for example there are some seeming miracles required for administration of proper justice (i.e. to know if a person is lying about adultery), and these miracles cannot take place in this era. So technically, religion cannot be properly state-imposed in Israel.

So, Israel is not a truly biblical jewish state in the ummm, biblical sense of the term.

[ 21 August 2006: Message edited by: 500_Apples ]

I'm just staying, that a theologically jewish state after the destruction of the second temple but before the messianic era is an oxymoron.

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Originally posted by Petsy:
Again and I reiterate, the VAST majority of survivor/writers are Zionists. The exceptions in my mind prove the rule.

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The political opinions of victims of the Holocaust are of no more or less interest to me than those of any other group in the society. The fact that my mother was the only one of her brothers, sisters, parents, and (then-born) children who survived Hitler's Nazis, did not give her any profound political insights.

What troubles me more is how Holocaust survivors are treated by the Zionist state of Israel, where some 90,000 of them (1/3 of the total) are living in poverty and can't afford to pay their medical bills:

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I'm just staying, that a theologically jewish state after the destruction of the second temple but before the messianic era is an oxymoron.

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
Unionist, your link didn't work for me.

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It works for me, just tried it again.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:

So you are saying there is not and cannot be a Jewish state until such time as the ring is thrown into the fire?

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What I don't understand is why anyone would want to sully their religious and spirtual beliefs by contextualizing them in the such messy practicalities, such as the organizaing of a social order through statehood.

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I argue the opposite the Jewish Communities are safer today because we have a State of Israel.

Their always has been anti-semetism unfortunatly. Israel can neither be a cause for racism nor can it be expected to root it out

I think that it is important to remember that while not all of those who are anti-zionist are anti-semetic, those who are anti-semetic are also anti-zionist

[ 22 August 2006: Message edited by: johnpauljones ]

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Originally posted by Cueball:

... such as the organizaing of a social order through statehood.

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I argue the opposite the Jewish Communities are safer today because we have a State of Israel.

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One of the more unsettling aspects of the broad support in Washington for the use of Israel as U.S. proxy in the Middle East is how closely it corresponds to historic anti-Semitism. In past centuries, the ruling elite of European countries would, in return for granting limited religious and cultural autonomy, established certain individuals in the Jewish community as the visible agents of the oppressive social order, such as tax collectors and moneylenders. When the population threatened to rise up against the ruling elite, the rulers could then blame the Jews, channeling the wrath of an exploited people against convenient scapegoats. The resulting pogroms and waves of repression took place throughout the Jewish Diaspora.

Zionists hoped to break this cycle by creating a Jewish nation-state where Jews would no longer be dependent on the ruling elite of a given country. The tragic irony is that, by using Israel to wage proxy war to promote U.S. hegemony in the region, this cycle is being perpetuated on a global scale. This latest orgy of American-inspired Israeli violence has led to a dangerous upsurge in anti-Semitism in the Middle East and throughout the world. In the United States, many critics of U.S. policy are blaming “the Zionist lobby” for U.S. support for Israel's attacks on Lebanon rather than the Bush administration and its bipartisan congressional allies who encouraged Israel to wage war on Lebanon in the first place.

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How Washington goaded Israel.

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Originally posted by venus_man:

why don't you go and live on a street then. Why have a home?

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Oh I see. So you believe that statehood must be fundamentally linked to ones spirtual and religious beliefs, and that all this nattering about secular state structures is so much chaff?

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Originally posted by johnpauljones:
Cueball are you insinuating that if their was no State of Israel then the Jewish Communities world wide would be safer because the hatred towards Jewish people is because of Israel?

I argue the opposite the Jewish Communities are safer today because we have a State of Israel.

Their always has been anti-semetism unfortunatly. Israel can neither be a cause for racism nor can it be expected to root it out

I think that it is important to remember that while not all of those who are anti-zionist are anti-semetic, those who are anti-semetic are also anti-zionist

[ 22 August 2006: Message edited by: johnpauljones ]

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I can see why you would feel this way, but just in terms of practical facts on the ground, I would say that Israel has made Jewish communities less safe. And while I agree that some antisemites make Israel's existance a Causus Beli, and that Israel's existance is not a justification for anti-semitism, this does not mean that it does not inflame latent prejudice, and give power and credibility to those who are antismitic.

I also don't agree that all anti-semites are anti-Zionist, as I thought my position would be clear when I said that British support for the Zionist cause was largely born of European anti-semitism, and their desire to resolve the "Jewish problem."

However, we probably agree, and disagree variously on the subtlies of the thess points.

But I am little confused by your saying on one hand that Israel can not "be expected to root it (antisemitism) out" and then on the other say that Israel makes Jewish communities safer. This seems contradictory, in that you seem to be claiming on the one hand that Israel is an inert factor in regard to antisemitism, and then, on the other, that it has an positive impact, (presumably in fighting antisemitism.)

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Originally posted by Cueball:

Oh I see. So you believe that statehood must be fundamentally linked to ones spirtual and religious beliefs, and that all this nattering about secular state structures is so much chaff?

Or am I missing your point. I know you are missing mine.

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Researching my book, which covered all 462 suicide bombings around the globe, I had colleagues scour Lebanese sources to collect martyr videos, pictures and testimonials and biographies of the Hizbollah bombers. Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. We were shocked to find that only eight were Islamic fundamentalists; 27 were from leftist political groups such as the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union; three were Christians, including a female secondary school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon.

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What we still don't understand about Hizbollah

[ 23 August 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Nazis were socialists too, at a beginning I think...

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Prior to Hitler, Germany was a thriving, progressive country - in some ways comparable to progessive nations today.

When the world turned their backs on the Jews during the holocaust, the "None are too many" immigration policies evidenced that there was no safe place for Jews when being persecuted.

The creation of Israel changed that. Israel would not turn its back on Jews like the world did in the 1930s and 1940s (or the other innumerable times in history...)

All I did was point to the fact that Hitler's party had the name "Socialist" in it and that might have been what venus_man was referring.

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Originally posted by venus_man:
I wasn't speaking of numbers that is rather your job, for you clearly take some people's accounts as ultimate truth. But I spoke of the fact of justification of suicide missions and the so called holly war by means of religion. And one thing you seem not to understand about Hiz-h is that they are essentially Nazis, and that is clearly shown even on a photo i provided on another thread. Nazis were socialists too, at a beginning I think, for that is the best way to get into the hearts of people and recruit them into the organization. And the translation of Hiz-h IS a “party of god”

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Sure fine, take your cherry pie and call ir an omlette now. What you said was (facist or no

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Hiz-h is one of those organizations who would connect spirituality (that they know nothing about) with suicide missions and silly revenge while promising some lucrative after-life reward for the mindless behaviour.

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It is just bad CNN pop sociology. Utter crap.

It turns out that of the 41 sucide bombers ever in Lebanese history, only 7 were Muslim fundamentalists. It is that simple. Your statement is in error.

I can't really be expected to take any claim that you make about Hebollah seriously when you are repeatedly wrong on fact. It adds no credibility to your thesis. Being wrong on fact is ok once and a while, but if you are consitently so, there must be a problem with the basic premise.

Try making an anlysis that doesn't catergorize everything and everyon Arab into cookie cutter histrionic pastiche.

[ 23 August 2006: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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We all know that France is a place where Frenchman lives, so it is a Frenchman state...

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it can be difficult to sustain a complex argument, errors and all.

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Originally posted by Robert MacBain:
No reason to get so upset, mersh. Venus_man said: "Nazis were socialists too, at a beginning I think, for that is the best way to get into the hearts of people and recruit them into the organization."

All I did was point to the fact that Hitler's party had the name "Socialist" in it and that might have been what venus_man was referring.

No need to declare all-out thermonuclear war over it.

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I agree. We're all mature adults, we shouldn't get uptight about offhand comments linking Nazis with Socialists.

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Originally posted by Joey Kay:
Many Jews consider their religion their nationality as well. Just as much as one person could be a "German" or a "Ukranian", for many "Jewish" is their national lineage.

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And being of Jewish ethnicity is not at all INconsistent with being of Canadian (or American, British, French, etc.) nationality. If they saw themselves as a nationalit most would move to Israel. Obviously this isn't the case.

[ 23 August 2006: Message edited by: Lord Palmerston ]

[ 23 August 2006: Message edited by: Lord Palmerston ]

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Originally posted by unionist:
Are you saying there are Canadian citizens in Canada who don't consider "Canadian" to be their "nationality", but rather "Jewish"?

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That's just ridiculous. Clearly, the comparison I was making was on the basis of ethnic background.

Obviously I should have used the term "ethnicity" as opposed to "nationality" as it muddied the intent of my post, so appreciate the intent if not the accuracy of the term.

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Originally posted by Robert MacBain:

You’re damned right there’s a reason to get worked up. Why bring my evil twin brother into this? I haven’t spoken a word to him since he made that stupid picture.

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Originally posted by Robert MacBain:
[QB]No reason to get so upset, mersh. Venus_man said: "Nazis were socialists too, at a beginning I think, for that is the best way to get into the hearts of people and recruit them into the organization."

All I did was point to the fact that Hitler's party had the name "Socialist" in it and that might have been what venus_man was referring.

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Yeah, but you're both wrong. Venus_man didn't refer to their title, but to thier ideology and recruiting practices. I won't get into the numerous specific ideological and political differences (both discursive and structural) between Nazism and Socialism here, but on the question of the Nazi party's name, we all know the old lesson about judging a book by it's cover...

Funny though, it's discursively impermissable (or at least "impolite") to mention Nazis and Jews or Israelis in the same breath except as part of the standard dogma about Jews suffering the most and the State of Israel being a dividend of that suffering. But here, it's okay to besmirch a long list of people who were/have been/remain the staunchist opponents of Nazism and that's okay...

Some have traced this tendency to conflate the two to Arendt's concept of Totalitarianism. It has become commonplace to speak of the ideologies of "Far" Left and "Far" Right as having the same end result. This concept is usually deployed by defenders of "liberal-democracy" - the unspoken "Centre", or consensus to which we all supposedly gravitate given the chance. You might call this the "We're all American on the Inside" argument. This ideological edifice (some, like Zizek, have argued) is used to defend the liberal-democratic status-quo from the REAL threat it feels from revolutionary socialism.

[ 23 August 2006: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

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Originally posted by venus_man:
Zionist, shmayonist-words, words. Every modern country, Canada included, was founded or expended by means of violence and population misplacement.

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By this reasoning, I suppose the Holocaust was just a little housecleaning? So why all the fuss?

Typically, by the end of your post, you've come around to contradict yourself, yet again:

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Now Jews have their home-Israel and still people think they have right to tell them to get out of their. Get a life-my advice to all those people and take care of your own backyard.

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According to your logic, apparently they do. Why can't "Greater Lebanon" do their own housecleaning, just as the Zionists did?

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Originally posted by B.L. Zeebub LLD:

Funny though, it's discursively impermissable (or at least "impolite") to mention Nazis and Jews or Israelis in the same breath except as part of the standard dogma about Jews suffering the most and the State of Israel being a dividend of that suffering. But here, it's okay to besmirch a long list of people who were/have been/remain the staunchist opponents of Nazism and that's okay...

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[ 23 August 2006: Message edited by: Vanessa S ]

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Roman Catholics and Anglicans have not been historically racialized and persecuted the way Jews have.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Roman Catholics and Anglicans have not been historically racialized and persecuted the way Jews have.

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You're right Michelle. But I think today in the western democracies anti-semitism is no longer a major issue. The Zionist ideology unfortunately leads to the belief that Jews, being the same ethnic group or nationality, "belong" in Israel.

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Originally posted by Vanessa S:

Obviously Jewish culture is alive and well in Canada and while most Canadians are no longer religious most Jews are. It's Canadian multiculturalism in practice, a policy I support.

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
It's also more than a religion.

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Which gives me the opportunity to quote the lyrics of an incredible song about one Jewish tradition, as written by Leon Rosselson
(I'm quoting the whole thing because, from what I can tell, the lyrics do not appear on the net.)

Copyright 2003 Leon Rosselson

MY FATHER'S JEWISH WORLD

1)My father came here as a boy from Tsarist Russia,
From Vilkaviski in the Pale, those reservations for the Jews.
His schooling was the Talmud and the Torah,
The writings of the rabbis and their laws.
Music was his door to freedom Yiddish was his mother tongue,
And home was just a dreamland in a song.

He told us stories of his gentle rabbi father
And of his mother who was fearless and the hardships that they faced
And when the drunken peasants got together
And yelled "Let's kill the Jews for killing Christ",
His mother grabbed the rolling pin she used to make the Sabbath bread
And ran to crack their skulls, my father said.

CHORUS:

It's not a nation, not a religion,
This Jewish spirit Is still unbroken
It's like the candle That mocks the darkness
It's like the song that Shatters the silence
It's like the fool who laughs at the dragon
It's like the spark that Signals rebellion
It's like the dance that Circles unending.

2)He lived in England, half belonging, half a stranger
Always feeling, much as I do, on the outside looking in
In time he grew to be an unbeliever
Religion had become a mental chain
Abandoned God, became a Jewish athiest and then with pride
A Communist until the day he died

So no more Bible but instead the Daily Worker
And people came and people argued asking questions, how and why
Revolution, Stalin, Trotsky, Soviet Russia
Two Jews, three opinions so they say
God loves the poor and helps the rich, the Jewish father tells his son
And so you've got to choose which side you're on.

3)He read the books of Jewish rebels like Spinoza
And he sang songs that mocked the rabbis in a language that's not mine
He loved the Yiddish stories and their humour
The humour born of poverty and pain
Sleep faster for we need the pillows-how else could the Jews survive
And keep their tattered hopes and dreams alive.

But now my father's Jewish world has gone forever
Burned in the flames of hatred nothing left but ash and dust
And Yiddish lingers on out of nostalgia.
How can I make some meaning from what's past?
And the state they say is Jewish carved from stolen land brings only shame by torturing and killing in our name

4)Now it's my father's face that greets me in the mirror
And I wonder what to me his Jewish heritage has been
The state of always being an outsider
Of asking why they asking why again
That precious strand of Jewishness that challenges authority
And dares to stand against the powers that be.

Emma Goldman, Rosa Luxemburg, Bar Kochba,
The Jewish anarchists and socialists who fought to free the poor
The ones who meet injustices with anger
And will not let their dreams drown in despair
Who speak up for the refugees, defend the weak against the strong
It's for these rebel Jews I sing my song.

(sorry for taking up this much space, but every word in the song was important.)

[ 25 August 2006: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

It's true the term "Jewish State" can mean a lot of things. But it's clear to me that given the structure and conduct of the Israeli government, it has a very traditionally autocratic meaning: that the state is legally and coercively tied to a particular religious doctrine and therefore gives legal preference to that religion and those loyal to it over others, both within its jurisdiction and around it.

Why is that so bad? Because history has taught us all over and over again that when the state and institutional religion are not kept separate, the result is always repression, discrimination and at worst human catastrophe.

More people have been killed, over-run and enslaved in the name of one religion or another than for any other justification.

This has been the story since the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Crusades, the institutionalization of Judaism and the rise of Islam as a war ideology. The mass genocide of colonialism (i.e., mercantile capitalism of the 1500s to the Industrial Revolution), the Spanish Inquisition, British Restoration, the slave trade, feudalism and the rise of various forms of industrial capitalism and corporations all have some religious justification attached to them.

Even in the supposedly non-religious Soviet government, the Stalinists, in consolidating their state capitalist rule, basically took over the Russian Orthodox church and used it as a patriotic weapon to justify whatever (Stalin, I have read, was actually an apprentice priest before going into the military). And the Nazis, of course, were creating their own twisted version of Christianity in their minds as well.

It doesn't matter whether the state is a "Jewish State," an "Islamic Republic" or a "Christian Country," any time you put the two together in a legally binding way, it spells trouble.

This is especially true for these three religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism. All three are based on the Biblical Old Testament, righteously claiming adherence to things like the Golden Rule, Ten Commandments and rejecting the Seven Deadly Sins. Yet each one provides all sorts of sanctified excuses for breaking these at the convenience of the power institutions that rule in their name.

That's why these three, more than any other religion it seems, have lent their blessings to capitalism, feudalism, slavery, war, tyranny of various kinds, crime and corruption, bigotry, and all sorts of violence and intolerance.

For Israel's rulers to call it a "Jewish State" gives them, at least in their minds, a green light to oppress and hammer down Palestinians and other non-Jewish people because they are supposedly God's "chosen" and it is their "God-given land"--and no one can oppose them since, to them, a swipe at the Israeli government is a swipe at the Jewish faith, since they have been legally linked. Some of these types see this as even giving them a green light to crack down on other Jewish people who don't agree with what they do as traitors.

These are similar excuses that the "Islamic" regimes use to justify their totalitarian rule and vicious treatment of their citizens in so many ways, as well as their often violent foreign policy.

And for the "Christian" governments of the West...well...I think everybody knows the endless list of atrocities.

Don't get me wrong. I am by no means blaming or faulting the average working class faithful of any of these religions. I am well aware, and strongly supportive of, the great number of very progressive and socialistic activists and movements that are believers in these faiths.

But the fact remains that affiliating an institutional religion with the coercive power of a political state and its economic ruling classes is and has always been a recipe for disaster.

That's why freedom-fighters, and free-thinkers and socialist and labour and other pro-democracy movements, including many faithful of these religions, throughout history have sacrificed so much to win that quaint little concept of the separation of church and state.

I think we should continue that struggle.

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
It's also more than a religion.

Judaism has had and continues to have its own languages (Ladino, Yiddish, Hebrew), and has its own ethnicity. Yes, even though Ethiopean jews and east european Jews don't look alike, they share genetic identifiers. Those things together make a culture and a nation.

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No, they don't. But modern industrial nationalist ideology does. One virulent strain of this ideology views genetics as a force beyond reason and reckoning, binding people together by the physics or metaphysics of blood and genes. This is nothing more than the utilisation of a neutral scientific fact to further a story about common descent and a common destiny. You and I also share significant amounts of common genetic material with chimpanzees and yet, we are not trumpeting the wonders of the Primate Nation just yet.

On the side of linguistics, there is nothing more immutable or timeless. Modern Hebrew was created by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda in the 19th Century, at a time when Biblical Hebrew had all but vanished from use outside of liturgical circles. Its' "revival" was part of the 19th Century upsurge of romantic nationalisms (spec. Zionism) and is an example par excellance of the role of nationalist ideology in the creation of modern ethnonationalism. Thus we had the phenomenon of hundreds of thousands of Jews moving to newborn Israel without knowledge of conversational Hebrew.

You also refer to a shared "ethnicity" without really defining it. When we look people of Jewish faith at the time of the first Zionist writings in the 19th Century, we find a group that was as heterogeneous in its customs as it was homogeneous. Religious observance seems to have been mostly the same from one community to the next, however cultural artifacts like dress, economic activity, food, lay-music, etc. were dictated as much or more by the areas where Jews found themselves as by any common tradition. As an example, in Israel today so much of what passes as "Israeli" cuisine is borrowed from Arabs. Much pop music in Israel has a heavily Arabic flavour in rhythms, melodic content, etc. Sephardic Jews have at many junctures felt as though they were considered culturally inferior by their European-bred Ashkenazic neighbours. It has been the force of living together in the same place, being educated in the same schools, and exposed to the same media that has shaped the modern "Israeli" identity. Moreover, there has been a conscious propaganda effort by Zionist founders and leaders to focus on what is the same over the rather considerable differences that exist, and were even more evident at the time of Israel's creation.

Your primary arithmatic that language + genetics = ethnonation is belied by the fact that there are many "nations" on the planet who share a great amount of their linguistic and genetic history with others who consider themselves of different nation: Serbs and Croatians are a poignant example. There are also many who consider themselves "a nation" in spite of the great genetic and linguistic divides that seperate them as in India. French nationalism is a wonderful example of how provincialist divides were overcome by a nationalist ideology of "sameness" supported by the use of a common language for press, media, education, etc. as are so many others, including modern Jewish/Israeli nationalism.

[ 25 August 2006: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]