Israel's right to exist

[rini]

http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp507.htm

A new critique of Israel proposes its elimination and replacement with a bi-national Palestinian-Jewish state. Israel's new detractors doubt the legitimacy of Jewish statehood, though they say nothing about the validity of dozens of new states that have emerged in the last half century, many of which lack any firmly rooted national identity.
The new attack on Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state is particularly ironic since Jewish nationhood preceded the emergence of most modern nation-states by thousands of years.
Israel is the only state created in the last century whose legitimacy was recognized by both the League of Nations and the United Nations. The League of Nations Mandate did not create the rights of the Jewish people to a national home in Palestine, but rather recognized a pre-existing right - for the links of the Jewish people to their historic land were well-known and accepted by world leaders in the previous century.

The new assault on Israel is partly based on a new anti-Semitic wave reflected in a public opinion poll by the European Commission showing Israel as the country most regarded by Europeans as a threat to world peace. The president of the European Commission, Roman Prodi - alluding to the anti-Semitic underpinnings that led to the poll's results - said, "to the extent that this may indicate a deeper, more general prejudice against the Jewish world, our repugnance is even more radical."

[edzontar]

1. I don't see the IDEA as such as anti-Semitic...

It all depends on how the parties would feel about a pluralistic state.

I imagine from this post and others that the Israeli-Jewish population fears a demographic that would marginlaize their interests, to say the least.

But since this plan is obviously something that could only be agreed upon by some sort of negotiated deal between the parties, I don't imagine it going anywhere.


More likely is a two-state solution with a more or less divided or shared government in Jerusalem.

The other main problems to be resolved are the Settlements and the Right to Return--the later is especially sticky--but I wish the talking would start up again.

What is needed is hope.

[DarkPhenyx]

2. The new wave is not anti-Semitic.

It is anti-Isreal. Big difference there people.

Isreal has a right to exist. They do not hae a right to be imperialistic and repressive when it comes to the non-Jewish portion of their population, particularly when those people live in portions of their territory which they have been ordered by the UN to return to that same non-Jewish population.

[Gimel]

3. Violent attacks

must be repressed. Suicide bombers who aim to destroy Israel and it's peace are imerialistic.

[bluesoul]

4. And the further

occupation and settlement and building a wall on Palestinian territory must also stop!

[Gimel]

16. Logical order

Civilization must proceed with a logical order. Peace prevails, and defenses are reduced. It's based on human instinct.

[Classical_Liberal]

28. Bull. Israel had peace from 96 through 99 and it

squandered it building more settlements.

[Gimel]

32. The settlements

were all founded by YESHA, and in response to attacks on Jews traveling in the area. You are absolutely wrong in your assumption of peace from 96 to 99. After the signing of Oslo accords, attacks continued. Although Barak followed the map of Oslo, attacks continued even as Israel withdrew from areas A and B of the Oslo map.

"From the signing of the Declaration of Principles between Israel and the PLO on September 13, 1993, until September 2000, 256 civilians and soldiers were killed in terrorist attacks in Israel."
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0cc40

Only 4 small communities were founded during the years '96 through'99, with a total of 580 residents.

Bull is in the other court.

[Classical_Liberal]

27. People who kick them off land need to be stopped as well

They are the ones destroying the peace and destroying Israel.

[xchrom]

5. the ''new'' israel was invented

it can -- and seriously thought about -- be un-invented.
the west made it's biggest ''post-colonial'' mistake with that answer to europes inability to deal with it's own anti-semitism.
you can't just take a huge population of folk and displace another huge population of folk and not expect something like this to happen.
i can't even see how this will ever end peacefully.

[bluesoul]

6. Well Israel

is a fact and that will stay. But they will have to eventually end the occupation, illegal settlements, bring down the wall, pull all those settlers back and enable the Palestinians to create a normal state without anyone interfering in their sovereign rights...

[Muddleoftheroad]

7. Not without a nasty war

That would involve nukes.

Israel does not WISH to be uninvented. Nations that feel that way can have a strong sense of survival.

Every nation is in an area that one time or another could be considered contested. They all exist. The secret is that their neighbors need to accept the fact.

[Classical_Liberal]

29. Israel will nuke itself? I doubt that

anyway the right to exist issue is just bogus. Israel is the biggest enemy to it's right exist. Will anyone give a fuck whether it exists when the transfer happens?

[Jack Rabbit]

8. This piece doesn't hack it for me

There is nothing in this piece by Gold and Helmreich that puts forward one positive idea that would work as a peace proposal. It reads like a boilerplate canard from the Israeli right.

The piece rejects a binational one-state solution that is occasionally put forward by well-meaning people. The authors of this piece would replace that one-state proposal with one of their own: a single Jewish state west of the Jordan. They go through the boilerplate arguments about the Balfour declaration this and Jordan is Palestine that, etc., etc. The stubborn fact that people like Gold and Helmreich do not wish to deal is simply that Israel's borders were finally determined by the 1949 armistice and that the West Bank and Gaza lay beyond those borders. They do everything they can to obfuscate the simple fact that the West Bank and Gaza are populated by three and a half million Palestinian Arabs who have no desire to live under Israeli jurisdiction. Those three and a half million people are facts on the ground that not even General Sharon can alter.

Frankly, I am not in favor of any one-state solution, whether its all-Palestinian, all-Jewish or binational. There will be two states west of the Jordan, one Palestinian and one Jewish. Any serious ideas about peace between the Israel and Palestine must start there. This piece fails that test.

[bluesoul]

9. Bingo!

"The stubborn fact that people like Gold and Helmreich do not wish to deal is simply that Israel's borders were finally determined by the 1949 armistice and that the West Bank and Gaza lay beyond those borders. They do everything they can to obfuscate the simple fact that the West Bank and Gaza are populated by three and a half million Palestinian Arabs who have no desire to live under Israeli jurisdiction. Those three and a half million people are facts on the ground that not even General Sharon can alter."

Can I say AMEN! ;-)

[The Magistrate]

10. Well Said, Mr. Rabbit...!!

[BushCutters]

11. Just read; here's the first paragraph w/comments:

A new critique of Israel proposes its elimination and replacement with a bi-national Palestinian-Jewish state. RIGHT.

Israel's new detractors doubt the legitimacy of Jewish statehood, though they say nothing about the validity of dozens of new states that have emerged in the last half century, many of which lack any firmly rooted national identity. CAN THE MAJORITY ON THIS BOARD ADMIT TO THIS PARTICULAR DOUBLE STANDARD?

The new attack on Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state is particularly ironic since Jewish nationhood preceded the emergence of most modern nation-states by thousands of years. IS ANYONE ELSE ON THIS FORUM AWARE OF THAT?

[bluesoul]

12. So this

"The new attack on Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state is particularly ironic since Jewish nationhood preceded the emergence of most modern nation-states by thousands of years"

gives them the right to the land that Palestinians lived on(West Bank, Gaza etc) and the Palestinians should simply accept it and go live somewhere else? Or am I missing something?

[Gimel]

13. Most are, but...

They don't particularly care for a Jewish nation anyway. The fact that a Jewish state existed before European nations is just Pooh Pooh to them.

There are pro-Israelis here. We sometimes show ourselves, and can put up a good fight now and then.

[bluesoul]

14. Jewish state

is not the same as Israel mind you Gimel...

[The Magistrate]

17. They Are The Same, Sir

And will remain so.

[bluesoul]

18. It is simply

an anachronism. I know Israel is a Jewish state. But claiming you have a right to some land because people of the same religion once lived there and now there happen to be many of another religion living is just beyond me. I am not talking about what is clearly defined as Israel today, but Palestinian land even recognized by the UN to which some here claim is "disputed" to many others simply occupied. And then using this as an excuse to drive people from their homes is even more terrifying...

[The Magistrate]

19. As Is Often The Case, Sir

Our disagreement is less than meets the eye.

Israel certainly ought not to expand beyond what we both agree to be Israel proper. Indeed, doing so confronts Israel with the choice of either ceasing to be a Jewish and democratic state, or committing a grave crime of cold-blooded expulsion. In short, an expansive policy is self-destructive.

Everything is an anachronism, Sir. We are all survivors out of time, preserving what is past into the present. That is true of all human arrangements.

[bluesoul]

20. Very

true ;-)

[Gimel]

33. "Just because"

"Just because" is too simplistic. In this case, the "religion" is also a people of a culture with a very long history, a people that has been scattered by unjust actions and prejudices throughout the world. The culmination in persecution with the Holocaust in Europe is, dear bluesoul, is the essence of European modern history. The horrific force of that horror forced the Jews to return to the homeland to create a nation, the thrive once again as a people, a nation and a religion.

[bluesoul]

34. And what

about the people of the other religion (Palestinians)? They are not important and their rights are second to Israeli's/Jews on this planet?

[Gimel]

35. The other religion

The people have a right to practice their religion, they don't have a right to attack Jews.

As you know, this is the crux of the problem. Let's hope the region does pray. It's still being worked out. It's getting hot for Arafat.

[drdon326]

21. Well....

at least you didnt call it a "ZIONIST ENTITY".

[The Magistrate]

15. A Potage Of Semantic Subterfuge, Sir

Two of your points depend on blurring the meaning of nationality and nation-state.

The term nation was once used to indicate a people, in essence a sizeable tribe or related confederation of tribes. Jews are identifiable as a nation in that antique sense, as are just about all the various ethnic differentiations among humankind, from Inca to Han through Frank and Greek and Scythian and Hun. The nation-state is a different and much more modern construct, distinct from tribal identity and dynastic rule. My own inclination is to date its beginnings near the end of the seventeenth century, at least in embryonic form: more rigorous students of the subject restrict its genuine appearance to the nineteenth century, and make sound argument in that cause.

It is thus rather pointless to argue some millenial length existance of a Jewish nation-state, in contrast with those still emerging in various places where tribal identity dominated political arrangements well into the twentieth century.

The "single-state" idea in Levant is not new, but was a subject of much agitation even during the period of the Palestine Mandate. It had few takers on either side then, and will have few takers now. It is not a serious proposal, and will never come to pass.

[xchrom]

22. you are always instructive

and i often find myself on the other side of the fence from your well thought arguments.
in this as well -- all i can tell you is that where ever ''israel'' exists in the middle east{put it where ever you want} it means that someone has to give up their home, living, cemetaries, places of worship, etc to accomodate that arrangement.
there are old people{palestinians} who are still wandering around with keys, deeds, pictures of houses land, businesses reminding them of what they lost when the world dropped a bomb on them in 1948.
now a person can be as pro-israeli or zionist or anything else they want to be -- that won't make that moment in time RIGHT. and palestinians{just every day folk} don't look like they are going to ''get over it''. and there is no rational argument to make it right.
they are simply dishing back what they -- in all honesty -- believe has been dished out to them.
btw -- it's a waste of rhetorical breath to me to talk about israel's ''historical'' right to exist. the world has given up the ghost on whole civilizations in the kind of time frame we are talking about -- and for me is absurd.

[hossdiddy]

24. and there were more

Jews kicked out of Arab countries in 1948, yet their plight is rarely brought up. Why? Because they have been allowed to assimilate into a new country instead of cynically left to fester in camps as permanent refugees and have their dignity taken away and their grudges (often manufactured) festering. Many of these people with deeds to a house/land sold their house/land to an Israeli, and then were told by their Arab brethren in 1948 that they should leave Israel, let the Arab armies destroy the nascent state, and then they can reclaim the house/land and keep the money. Didn't work out that way.

Also, the Arab bloc at the UN defined Palestinian refugees in a unique way meant to maximize their number. Did you know that Palestinian refugees are the only refugees where the descendants of the people who became refugees are also refugees.

Also, Pal propogandists always "claim" that the Pal refugees have a deep tie to their land going back for centuries. Then why did the Arab bloc need to define Pal refugees as those "whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict"? Once again, to maximize their number. Let's face it. Many of these refugees had recently immigrated there as a result of the job opportunities brought about by the development going on in the area, largely at the efforts of the Jews.

[xchrom]

25. top down thinking

let palestinians define what is best for palestinians and interpret their own history.
no one needs to ''apologise'' for the palestinians -- whether it's arab complicity in a european problem or a lack of european good sense not to go along with a benjamin disraeli fantasy -- it didn't work. and why? because of simple wholesale relocation very badly done.
most palestinians sold their land to exactly
NO ONE and got refugeed anyway -- there is just no way to argue a successful occupation by the current israeli people.
perhaps a few more ka-booms will convince you -- and you can be sure there are more coming. just sad.

[xchrom]

23. and i say again

i really do think you are brilliant, magistrate. i'm just in awe of the way you construct your thoughts.

[The Magistrate]

36. Thank You, Mr. Chrom

Such a compliment, coming from you, is a real honor, and very much appreciated. This issue is one on which persons of good heart and sound intellect may well find themselves coming to opposite conclusions.

Telling me it would be a waste of rhetorical effort to attempt to convince you of the rightness of my view, as you may expect, has a little of the quality of a red rag to a bull, rather like telling a mechanic there is a sort of car he just could never fix is more likely to get him busy with his tools and manuals than anything else you could say, if he takes pride in his skill. Though you are doubtless correct, perhaps a small clarafication could remove some possible points of conflict.

My view in this matter has little to do with concerns of right and wrong, and is more engaged in concerns of necessity and pragmatism, which for me rise to something near moral principle. The Zionist enterprise was, from the point of view of European Jewry, a matter of grim necessity. Events subsequent to its inception demonstrate amply that what was at the time generally refered to as "the Jewish problem" could not have been settled by ordinary means. The Zionist founders attempted to solve their people's plight in light of the generally accepted political thought and mores of their day, which held that a people required nationhood on its own land for political, social, and even mental and moral health, and made no bones about its being a law of nature that the strong flourished and the weak went to the wall. These concepts may have largely gone out of fashion, but were certainly current through the inception and first fruition of the project, and to criticize an enterprise of the late ninteenth and early twentieth century for being formed by them can have no more point to it than to criticize an eighteenth century physician for treating patients in accord with the theory of Four Houmors.

The thing having been pressed, and established as a national entity, it now is a fact of the world, that must be dealt with. It is not going to go away, or be destroyed, or even signifigantly altered in its basic character as a nation of Jews. Whether its founding was just, or a crime, or any other thing, is beside the point of its existance.

[xchrom]

37. ah i actually wasn't refering to you

specifically when making my point about ancient history and israel's existence. some stretch the credibility of historys weight and current events. however i have never known you to make an unconscious remark -- me on the other hand -- i've been asleep at some pretty important moments.
yes the victorian revival of ''israel'' is watershed -- it provided the intellectual impetus for what happened there after.
however -- two things aggravate me about all that first is the conceit that somehow the jewish return wouldn't be viewed differently by the people already living there.
second there was already a mature development in europe and elsewhere that wholesale relocations cause problems on a massive scale and more than a little recognition with europes problem with anti-semitism.
people historically knew they were behaving badly -- they were aware. some actions delay maturity and israel is one of those actions. now israel gets to behave remarkably like their european oppressors to gain a what? a national identity?
we can't even establish israel's viability since it needs life support from outside agencies.

[The Magistrate]

38. Thank You For The Clarafication, Mr. Chrom

The historical tie does, to my view, have some signifigance, if only as a motivating factor, and because for many of the people directly involved, it takes on a sacred lineament.

The final act of establishment in '48, that the two sides necessarily view in starkly different light, occured in rather a gloaming dawn of some of the developments you refer to. Transfer of population was a practical fact of Europe in the several years after World War Two, after all, and in various guises was occuring in several other locals around the world. In many eyes it still seemed a legitimate, if unpleasant, tool. The understanding you speak of may have been formulated, but had hardly jelled. It is also true that in many instances the founding Zionists did comfort themselves with some illusions about the place they meant to restore their nation on, not fully appreciating its presence, or feeling it could be easily disregarded.

[xchrom]

40. again, magistrate, you have excellent eyesight

your last sentence is extremely perceptive and i think gets to the heart of the problem that we are left with today.
the relocating of that population of what we then called ''european jews'' and now call ''israelis'' was badly thought ought. it's always been difficult for me to believe that an era that also gave us einstein left us bereft of people unable to see the difficulties that would lie ahead for this migration.
europe never had to deal with it's racism and the palestinians are still suffering the results of their{european} ''immaturity''.
the relocation in this instance was/is immature -- and leaves us with peace along way off. once the screws were applied to the people aready living there -- options for reacting to that were few.
could people react less violenty? i suppose -- but if i walked around a neighborhod looking at a house where several generations of my family had lived and died and that i had rather unceremoniously been booted out of -- i might not feel too peaceful.

[Classical_Liberal]

26. This person is a crack pot

if he thinks objection to Israel's settlements is antisemitism. How can responsible papers publish these right wing nuts?

[bluesoul]

30. Jcpa.org

is not responsible or reasonable to start with...

[Classical_Liberal]

31. You see this stuff in mainstream papers too.

.

[dudeness]

39. I honestly reject this type of drivel

Israel must accept that a large number of peope worldwide abhor the treatment of palestinians . Israelis and palestinians have a right to live in peace in defined boundaries..sharon must accept this solution or depart the scene..