Harry's Place

Both left wing and right wing Zionism was predicated on this “ingathering”. After 1948, Zionist spokespersons described Israel as the Jews’ “home” and Europe its “graveyard”. Yet today, while all Jews have the opportunity to determine themselves in Israel, they continue to choose the Diaspora.

This is a rather Eurocentric perspective.

What proportion of the Middle East’s historic Jewish population remain in their countries of familiar origin?

Europe was, in fact, a graveyard of Jews in 1948. The Middle East became a graveyard of Jews before, and significantly after, 1948.

There are a number of reasons one might not want to go to live in Israel. Two important ones are these:

- You don’t want to live in an ethnic state, and you are happy to live in a non-Jewish ethnic state which is a liberal democracy

- You think that it is more likely that you’ll be killed by people who are determined to exterminate Jews if you go live in the Middle East, than if you continue to live in Europe.

From the perspective of the Jews of the Middle East, the calculus was a rather different one.

Clearly there is a Hebrew-speaking branch of the Jewish people, born and brought up Israel, which has as much right to self-determination as every other people (on Scherer’s lines).

Could you please spell out what in your view this means in practice for Israel as presently constituted?

David’s post is most welcome, and perhaps shows a sign that Harry’s Place is becoming more open to the wider democratic leftt (a lot wider that is than the Euston Manifesto, hey, where’s that piece of misguided politics going now?). Just as HOPI itself is now supported by not just the CPS, but ASLEF and the Jewish Socialists’ Group.

I think the question David raises can be addresssed through the general angle of the issue of languages and cultures. There is a wonderful collection of langauges spoken in France, assembled under the name of ‘Occitan’. There is a vibrant ‘Oc’ culture. Some of its ‘nationalist’ elements have been in the past of the extreme right, in Provence. Others have been strongly left-wing, and still are (there was an Oc socialist presence in the French local elections, notably in Narbone, Narbona in Occitan). The contention here is that we need to oppose Abbe Gregoire’s position during the French Revolution about regional languages (la contre-revolution parle Breton) and cultures, and back them.

I will not comment on Israel. But I know that the Jewish cultural tradition is, as David says, far greater than that. Many of the most beautiful expressions of that culture are in Yiddish, and Jewish Socialist has published some of them.

There is a leftist tradition of supporting cultural autonomy, stemming from the Austo-Marxists as well as the Bund, without conceeding an inch to nationalism.

so first we redefine “self-determination” in a way that has nothing really to do with what the term actually means (seriously, most people in the world today can eat their ethnic/national food, join their e/n clubs, speak their e/n languages, etc, etc) then we show “jews” have it all over the world, thus there is no need for an israel.

there’s a lot i could say about this article, but let’s cut to the chase. if _israelis_ have a right to self-determination like other national (note: not religious) groups do, how does that jive with your anti-zionism? how and where are israelis supposed to practice their self-determination rights?

Rosenberg “The Zionist version of Jewish self-determination belittles the Jewish life of the majority of Jews in the world. Zionism holds that you have to live in Israel to be complete as a Jew.”

Utter nonsense. Zionism says that history proves that the Jews need a homeland. It does not belittle Diaspora Jews apart from in your own warped mind. Go and read some history.

What do you want to do with Israel – put it into a Federation with Palestine, in a Turkey-style ’secular’ ‘One State’? You and Norman Finkelstein. Dream on. Some of us live in the real world.

I ought to say, by the way, that I do not think that there is any significant need for “Jewish self-determination” in the United Kingdom, and I’m not even sure what it would mean in practice.

The United Kingdom is a liberal democracy. That is, it is a state which protects the following rights, not simply for Jews ‘individually and collectively’, but for members of any, no, or multiple cultural groups.

“the right to live freely and make choices as a Jew, both individually and collectively; the right to create and join Jewish institutions and organisations, speak Jewish languages, read Jewish newspapers and literature, eat Jewish food; the right to carry out Jewish religious practices, celebrate Jewish festivals, be buried in a Jewish cemetery. And, of course, to not be discriminated against on the grounds of Jewishness. “

You’re not even required, formally, to identify yourself in terms of your confessional allegiance in order to enjoy these rights. The State is, more or less, neutral on this question. Which is as things should be.

This was not so in the West until very recently. And it is not so at all in the Middle East.

Self determination, I think, only becomes a live issue if the State, or another person, is trying to deny these basic freedoms to you. These problems don’t arise in liberal democracies. They also don’t arise – at least for members of the majority cultural group – in states with a strong cultural or ethnic identity.

My preference, therefore, is that Israel, along with the rest of the Middle East moves towards liberal democracy, and away from states defined (in a strong sense at least) in religious or national terms. I’d favour any solution for the region which involved common and shared democratic and human rights standards, a commitment to equality, and so on: the sort of thing that has worked pretty well in Europe during the course of the last 60 years.

However, I’m very aware of two things:

1. I would hope that this outcome will be what the Middle East looks like in 50 years. However, I’m far from optimistic about it. I’d rate the prospects of a socialist Middle East as even worse. So, I’m not entirely sure why people are talking about it.

2. The Bundists, as David R points out, mostly died in the Holocaust. Their strategy of Jewish Socialism failed.

Nevertheless, Jewish socialism is obviously very attractive to some people. I’m not entirely sure why.

Isn’t this whole idea of “peoples” (in the abstract) having rights to self-determination a rather reactionary 19th century construct?

When we think of self-determination in a modern sense, it is considered more in terms of people in a particular geographical region having the right to democratically determine their future. You can make a perfectly good case for Israeli self-determination in these terms. The idea of specifically “Jewish self-determination” seems rather redundant.

Alex

Try telling that to the Bosniaks and Croats.

Or indeed, the Kurds.

Or any national minority which is subject to a policy of discrimination or worse.

Rosenberg is in the Jewish Socialist Group. You only have to see who they link to to see what kind of an organisation they are: UAF, StopTheWar, Enough!

It says it all

David has been bashing on about the Bund since he was a kid of at least 18 years old (30 years ago) when I had a spell with the JSG also as a kid. His article is pure nonsense but it at least provides us with an insight into the workings of the unchangeable mind and how this meme of his and his comrades still stalks the thinking of the “left”.

Nick Collins writes that Rosenberg’s article is “pure nonsense”. Maybe so, but it might be better to suggest in what way it is pure nonsense. Just because someone bangs on about something for 30 years does not make it wrong (or right).
But on a wider issue than the “unchangeable mind” of David Rosenberg… The problem with Zionism is… which Zionism? If Zionism means that ALL Jews should ship off to Israel (the line of some Zionists and many anti-Semites) then it seems pretty reactionary. If Zionism means a continuation of the occupation or the final takeover of the whole of “Judea and Sumaria” then it seems pretty reactionary. If Zionism means simply the recognition of Israel and its right to exist, well, even some members of Hamas would agree with that and the PLO/PNA signed up too. And what does Zionism (in any of its forms) have to say about Israeli Jews exercising their individual right to self-determination by leaving Israel in their tens of thousands?

And what does Zionism (in any of its forms) have to say about Israeli Jews exercising their individual right to self-determination by leaving Israel in their tens of thousands?

I wonder what sort of reception Israeli Jews would get in other countries, if they were to leave the region in their entireity: which is what would happen if – say – Hamas were to create a “One State” in the region.

It goes without saying that Jews of Middle Eastern origin wouldn’t return (and wouldn’t be welcomed) in their countries of familiar origin. I wouldn’t rate the chances of the Ethiopian Jews either. Similarly, I’d be surprised if Europe and the US opened its doors to the rapid resettlement of a few million Israelis – the track record of the relevant states hasn’t been particularly good.

(I do appreciate that if World Socialism were to reign, this would be no problem at all, because all men would be brothers ect ect ect. )

“Few Bundists survived the Holocaust”

Enough said.

What a load of self indulgent tosh this piece is.

Back in the real world…..

Well, has’t Zionism demonstrably failed, in as much as the vaunted Jewish stae is itself continually under existential threat, and rests as much upon the support of foreign powers as would simply campaigning for human rights in country X would?

Nationalism is an affront upon the self determination of people.

David,

The distinction I made was between a right of self-determination applied to a people in the abstract (Jewish self-determination or black self-determination, for example) and one that is democratically determined and geographically bounded (Israeli or indeed Croatian or Bosnian self-determination, for example). The Kurds could make a compelling case in terms of the latter.

I think that David’s point is that he has a very strong sense of Jewish identity, which is not religious, and is not Zionist, but cultural and political.

He thinks that the primary source of assault on this Jewish identity is Zionism. Specifically, he doesn’t like it when Zionists suggest that his cultural-political Jewish identity as an athiest anti-Zionist cultural Jew is in some way deficient.

I do understand how upsetting it must be. You get this sort of thing in all identity and cultural politics, though. Family arguments are always vicious. He also gets attacked, for that matter, by the Atzmonites. I’d also guess that religious Jews – whatever their position on Zionism – wouldn’t regard his identity as a particularly valuable one, either.

I think the reasons that David R’s identity is not more popular include the following:

- Nobody, apart from history buffs, really knows what Bundism is, apart from a sort of Jewish socialism whose adherents were largely slaughtered during WWII. I think people have some difficulty understanding precisely what sort of contribution to contemporary Middle Eastern politics Bundism is supposed to have. Its prospects don’t look particularly good.

- It is quite difficult to understand exactly what David R’s athiest anti-Zionist cultural judaism is about. I expect it is about ‘having a deep sense of our origins’ and using Yiddish and eating latkes, and listening to kletzmer music, and fighting for justice, as a jew, for all oppressed people etc.. I’m not denying that these are fun things to do. However, the relevant cultural identifiers are the product of Jews having lived as a community in the past. Engaging in historical re-enactment of this sort is akin to city dwellers who are keen on folk music.
These isn’t a forward looking identity, really. As a matter of fact, I’d expect that athiest anti-Zionist cultural Jews are unlikely to be particularly successful at cultural transmission to the next generation, or the one after that.
(That’s not a particularly bad thing, in my view. I think there are, in fact, more interesting things than thinking about Jewish identity)
By contrast, religious Jews and Jews living in Israel are probably going to me more successful at defining ‘Jewishness’ going forward than David R.

- A final reason that athiest anti-Zionist cultural Jews tend to have run ins with other Jews, is that they sometimes give the impression of not taking the genocidal intentions of Hamas or Hezbollah seriously.

Except for the bizarre premise of this post (I have no interest whatsoever in the way Mr. Rosenberg practice Judaism and certainly do not think diaspora jews are inferior – I believe most Israelis share my point of view) it contains an outright lie

“Palestinians within Israel are discriminated against, not least by land laws, which reserve nearly all land in Israel exclusively for Jews.”

The state indeed owns 93% of the land, but it leases (for long terms) it to both Jews and Arabs. Rosenberg joins the guardian’s Chris McGreal with this lie – a fine company indeed. Here is a better source on Israeli land policy

http://www.meforum.org/article/370

“They are keen to silence or marginalise the views of those who assert that the Jews, as well as the Palestinians, need liberating from Zionism.”

Oh god, the shadow of the international Jewish conspiracy again. Of course they are keen to silence or marginalise the views of those they disagree with. We all are. That is why we argue for what we believe, so that our opponents will be silenced by the force of our arguments or will be marginalised because we will have made it clear that their objections are not serious. The point is simply whether this is done in legitimate ways.

Why are we agonising about this issue. Are not the perameters of the matter absolutely clear?

Isreal exists as the only Jewish majority nation state. The majority of Jewish people live outside Isareal but are overwhelmingly sympathetic to that state – and it would frankly be astonishing in the circumstances if they were not. Israel does not “dominate” Jewish existence other than that the same majority of diaspora Jews empathise with its plight. It is perhaps the ultimate irony of pieces like this that insofar as they appear, if in weasel like fashion, to question Israel’s existence, they probably have the effect of strengthening that solidarity.

If there was any consiousness or Israel “crowding out” other aspects of Judaosim it would be apparent from for example

a) antipathy to prayers for Israel said as part of normal synagogue services
b) howls of protest at the singing the Hatikvah (Israeli national anthem) at simchas (Jewish weddings etc).

I am aware of no evidence for such antipathy. I have never yet heard a proud barmitzmah Mum or Dad say “how dare that Zionitst dirge invade the purity of our Michael’s big day” – never – and nor I suspect has the writer. The fact that it is necessary to set up the really rather obscure fact of Bundist anti Zionism as the main intellectual antagonist here proves the shalllowness of the writer’s argument.

There are no doubt good argumemnts for Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians for peace. there are none for Israel to commit national suicide to please those very few Jews who find its existence inconvenient or embarrassing.

Engaging in historical re-enactment of this sort is akin to city dwellers who are keen on folk music.

Precisely. The use of Yiddishisms by JSG has always seemed to me folkloric. Does David R speak Yiddish? Do his sons? Maybe they do, in which case I stand corrected. Am still waiting for his answer as to what self determination Israel “on Scherer’s lines” implies in practice.

And what does his Yiddishist enclave have to say to Jews of Ladino origins, in the absence of a melting pot or mosaic like Israel where there is a better chance of commonality for them to interact in time? If the folkloric aspect is the main glue, it seems to me more likely to perpetuate these insular enclaves.

If people post, it would be nice if they hung around to answer queries which arise from their post, or else to put a note that they are not in a position to do so/will be around later to do so.

These isn’t a forward looking identity, really. As a matter of fact, I’d expect that athiest anti-Zionist cultural Jews are unlikely to be particularly successful at cultural transmission to the next generation, or the one after that.

Well, they’re living ‘Jewish’ off the accumulated cultural capital of their elders, and their atheism, because it alienates them from direct access to the ’source’ of their identity, means that the renewal of that cultural capital becomes virtually immpossible.

Red Deathy, let’s dissect your comment:
“Well, has’t Zionism demonstrably failed, in as much as the vaunted Jewish stae is itself continually under existential threat”
1) Zionism has succeeded in creating a state for the Jews against adverse odds. This already makes it a success.
2) I don’t know what “vaunted” is. Are there any other “vaunted” states in the world, or do you reserve it for Israel only?
3) Regarding existential threat – so if enough people around you decide you should be killed, I guess that’s justifiable…? Didn’t think so

“…and rests as much upon the support of foreign powers…”
4) Many small countries depend on foreign powers, it’s part of international relationships and diplomacy. Of course, removing that “existential threat” would help to reduce the dependency.
5) BTW, Israel is doing fine economically, without any oil, mind you. Look at the economy of it’s neighbours.

“..as would simply campaigning for human rights in country X would?”
6) What about countries where campaining is not possible or not effective?

“Nationalism is an affront upon the self determination of people.”
8) Talk about turning stuff on it’s head. I guess Palestinian nationalism is an exception in your book.

The point of Israel is to make a place where Jews can collectively decide on their fate ON THEIR OWN. Safety by itself is never guaranteed anywhere in the world.

liamalpha,

No, I consider Palestinean nationalism to be a bane, a curse and a miserable distraction from the real issues of the living standards and freedoms of the workers in those territories – much as Zionism has been a bane, a curse and a miserable distraction, etc.

You state: “The point of Israel is to make a place where Jews can collectively decide on their fate ON THEIR OWN. Safety by itself is never guaranteed anywhere in the world.” but before that you accept that no state decides such things ON THEIR OWN, even the greatest states on Earth do not have that power, the very idea of society means being conditioned by others, so *poof* goes another illusion.

As for vaunting – lets not go there, its a dirty habit, and it should be stopped.

Regarding my last comment, I had a no. 7 point that got cut-pasted out..

Regarding the article itself:

“The USA has the world’s largest Jewish population, and more than 2 million Jews practise their self-determination in more than 40 states of that “graveyard” of Europe.”

This is wrong on several levels. First of all, I believe that *Israel* has the largest Jewish population. The USA may be second in that respect. Additionally, I believe the Jewish population of the USA is not increasing, and may be even decreasing due to inter-faith marriages. That’s of course OK from a personal POV, but in a generation or two there may be very few Jews left in the US.

“Clearly there is a Hebrew-speaking branch of the Jewish people, born and brought up Israel, which has as much right to self-determination as every other people (on Scherer’s lines)”

Yep, I’m one of those Hebrew-speakers. Israel is my home. Sorry, but I don’t appreciate people telling me I should ditch it. I don’t like where this country is heading, but it is still my only home.
It’s interesting to see people trying to impose their views on others in the guise of self-determintation. The author of the article may not want to live in Israel, and it’s fine by me. But if he acknowledges people’s right to self-determination, why is he stepping on mine?
Lastly, according to the author’s definition of self-determination, what is the point of having states at all? Maybe the British government should resign and give the keys to the UN.

“And whereas Jews once comprised a significant proportion of the world’s refugees, Palestinians, today, are even more massively represented than the Jews were after the Holocaust. They cannot return to their homes in what is claimed as “the only democracy in the Middle East”.

Are they really refugees? you think? three generations later. And just how many generations can thay go on being called refugees? And by that reckoning, I guess we are all refugees of some sort. The so-called “Palestinian refugees” are no more refugees than any other group that lost a war in history. Time to move on I think. I guess they are simply a political construct created in order to fight the Jews. Do you think Palestine as a country would exist and the Palestinian people would exist if the Arabs had “Driven the Jews into the sea”? Didn’t think so . .

Red Deathy,

Thanks for your polite response. The Internet being what it is and given your nickname, I was quite afraid of something much more vicious. I’m glad to see there’s a civil person behind the nick.

BTW, I consider Palestinian Nationalism legitimate, so far as it doesn’t negate the legitimacy of Israel. Unfortunately, this is not usually the case.
You’re right that no state determines it’s fate completely on it’s own. But between no control over my fate and some control over it, I’ll take the latter option.

I wondered whether or not posters have considered the anomaly at play here?

some are essentially arguing for the “deconstruction”, “dissolvement” (whatever you like to call it) of particular States in the world, and they are often doing it from the comfort of other nation States.

to ask other people to suddenly become Stateless whilst living in a comfortable nation state themselves seems a bit incongruous, doesn’t it?

I am not accusing those people of bad faith, merely that it seems strange, and if they were, as a matter of principle, embedded to the idea of no States then surely they should give up their passports and make themselves stateless?

or would that be one step too far?

David Roseberg says that the USA has the world’s largest Jewish poipulation. The old saw that there are more Jews in New York than Israel has not been true for many years.

I am not up to date with the latest figures for the USA, but the Jewish population of Israel, which is growing, is now 6.2 million, and apparently Tel Aviv now has the largest number of Jews in any metropolitan area in the world. Hillel Schenker, co-editor of the Palestine Israel Journal, who is on top of the demographics, told me that within a decade, the majority of Jews under the age of 18 would be Israeli.

Linda, what did you think of the Sex and the City film? My view was that it dragged a bit – I was convinced for the last hour that it was about to end any second soon – and that for a fairly restrained quantity of pick & mix six quid was a bit of an outrage.

Rosenberg doesn’t live in the real world. After the implosion of the Soviet Union about o n e m i l l i o n Jews emigrated to Israel.
Speaking about equality of Jews while living in a country where a trade union (UCU) is singling out the Jewish state and thus helping to whip up antisemitic emotions is absurd.
I cannot understand, why all those like Rosenberg advocation one state instead of Israel, do not start to realize that in Europe. After all they could start where there was one state (Yougoslavia) and convince Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Slowenes, Macedonians, Monte Negro people, Kosovo people to unite and live in one state.
The propagation of one state instead of Israel is the propagation of liquidating the Jewish state and has nothing to do with socialism.

The opportiunity to see it was cruelly snatched away from me at the last moment and now I’m waiting for later this week.

“I cannot understand, why all those like Rosenberg advocation one state instead of Israel, do not start to realize that in Europe. ”

Yes, I suppose they could call it something like, oooh, I dunno, the European union. Has a certain ring to it…

I mean, Scots and English can’t exist in one state, and those Walloons and the Flemish, never co-exist…

“Jewish self-determination took on a new dimension in 1948 when Israel proclaimed itself the “homeland of the Jewish people”, where Jews exercised political sovereignty.”

Wow, how utterly wrong. Its as if there was never such a thing as a Jewish nation before 1948. What’s obvious is that what this guy romanticizes is the era between periods Jewish sovereignty. And it appears that this is because its what “feels” best or most authentic to him because, well, that how he was raised. Very fluffy, hollow stuff. And then he throws in:

“Zionism holds that you have to live in Israel to be complete as a Jew.”

…to make his personal insecurities that further motivate his POV totally explicit. I don’t feel like “less” of a Jew for not living in Israel, because I’m not a baby.

“Zionism holds that you have to live in Israel to be complete as a Jew.”

I have spent quite a bit of time in Israel and no-one has ever said this to me.

Well it drags a bit if you ask me. The goodies win, if you don’t mind a spoiler.

I believe that SJP alone has 80 changes of frock. How on earth can it drag?

Ironically, those who claim that the Jewish right to self-determination is under attack simultaneously deplore individual Jewish self-determination. They are keen to silence or marginalise the views of those who assert that the Jews, as well as the Palestinians, need liberating from Zionism.

This a weird paragraph too (really they all are). What he seems to be saying is that his Jewishness is fundamentally grounded in his anti-Zionism and his support for Palestinian nationalism. While I think this kind of “individual Jewish self-determination” is rather negative and naive…and I might “deplore” it as such I suppose…I think most Jews have no problem maintaining that people like this guy, have every right to hold such opinions. And it doesn’t make him less of a Jew in my eyes at all. It merely makes him a stupid Jew. (So I’m all for challenging stereotypes you see.)

As I read this, I was sure the writer was a graduate student trying out his newly-minted knowledge on Jewish history and politics. How sad to discover that he is actually Madonna’s age and still going on about the “Bund.” The Bund, certainly a fine organization in its time, was successful – and nominally so – in interwar Poland. But even there it only had 35,000 members at its peak (among 3.5 million Polish Jews), and never managed to elect a candidate to the Sejm. Poland’s Zionist parties were far more successful than the Bund in Polish politics. Not that it helped anyone in the end….

Fascinated by this “Jewish self-determination” that doesn’t include any right of territorial integrity.

Is this just a Jewish thing? Or do Palestinians also only have this “special” right of self-determination? It would really make life a lot easier if we could all agree that they do not have a right to territorial integrity.

The abiding impression Jewish anti-Zionists give is that they are embarrassed by Israel and accept that the acts of Israel personally reflect on them. Of course they don’t. End of. But hang on, I have a real problem, which is that the Jewish anti-Zionists make me feel Jewish against my inclination. Ever since I can remember, I have kind of thought that, in the absence of a religious conviction or, perhaps, a community of other Jews (I’m East Anglian), the Holocaust would have been the only other thing to pin an identity on. Since I was never going to go along with that, identifying as a Jew was always going to be a bit contrived for me. So I let it recede into the far background.

But now here are all these ever-so-busy secular Jews indulging themselves politically as Jews, ostentatiously criticising Israel and setting themselves up as the good ones versus the bad Zionist ones – it’s like some kind of Jewish identity orgy. And I realise that these people get under my skin and piss me off as much as Israel pisses them off. Bam! My background is back in the foreground. And how does my new Jewish identity make its presence felt? Oh God, it’s completely sterile. Only antipathy. Antipathy to the Jewish Socialist Group. Antipathy to Independent Jewish Voices. Antipathy to JBIG, JAZ, &tc. It’s quite dismaying to find myself the sole member of Secular Jew Against Secular Jewish Identity Groups. My only solace is that I’m at least wise to the phoniness of it. In fact I try not to think about it too much. It’s sad enough defining oneself in relation to the Holocaust – but to define yourself in relation to Jewish anti-Zionists is positively morbid.

“Fascinated by this “Jewish self-determination” that doesn’t include any right of territorial integrity.

Is this just a Jewish thing? Or do Palestinians also only have this “special” right of self-determination? It would really make life a lot easier if we could all agree that they do not have a right to territorial integrity.”

Right on Jonathan.

David Rosenberg asks why Jews need a state to practise self determination in the first place. This is a good point. Most Jews that post here don’t live in Israel, yet I’m sure you would not claim that you are oppressed and unable to control your own lives. And that’s the same for any religious or ethnic minority living in the west – are they not truly free unless they live in a majority state?

I can see why it was thought that Israel was a good idea at the time, but in this day and age the idea of a democratic state having a policy of ensuring it’s demographic make up is increasingly out-dated and at odds with modern democratic values. That’s one reason why Israel’s policies are increasingly attracting the support of far right groups who want a Zionism for whites in the west.

Israel also has the effect of pissing off other minority groups who believe Jews have special rights.

Let us all join together today in condemning Israel’s demographic policies and call for them to end.

We can all agree.

Er, Mike, what demographic policies?

The ones that provide insurance for Jews against the statelessness and disenfranchisement they experienced in Germany in the ’30s and ’40s and in Egypt and Poland in the ’50s – to name a few instances? Isn’t it a little too early to start thinking about withdrawing them, particularly considering the rise of the three H’s – Hamas, Hesbollah and Hizb ut Tahrir?

So no, I don’t really agree, although I’d like to indulge in a bit of utopianism.

Once Jewish Socialists like David Rosenberg start demonstrating that they really care – practically – about minority rights instead of the rights of only one minority beginning with P, maybe we can start thinking about a single state Levant.

Flesh Everywhere – that’s kind of how I feel as well.

Mike:

David Rosenberg asks why Jews need a state to practise self determination in the first place. This is a good point. Most Jews that post here don’t live in Israel, yet I’m sure you would not claim that you are oppressed and unable to control your own lives. And that’s the same for any religious or ethnic minority living in the west – are they not truly free unless they live in a majority state?

I’d agree, up to a point.

This correctly describes Western Europe since 1945.

It is not an accurate depiction of Eastern Europe since 1945. Not by any means.

It also bears no relation to the position of Jews in the Middle East, at present, or at pretty much any time in the last 100 years, at all.

I think it very unlikely that, in the absence of Israel, any other state or states would have absorbed all Jewish refugees from Europe and the Middle East. Think about the Hong Kong Chinese, or the Kenyan/Ugandan asians – and they were British citizens!

I can see why it was thought that Israel was a good idea at the time, but in this day and age the idea of a democratic state having a policy of ensuring it’s demographic make up is increasingly out-dated and at odds with modern democratic values. That’s one reason why Israel’s policies are increasingly attracting the support of far right groups who want a Zionism for whites in the west.

The last time I looked, the United Kingdom operated an immigration policy which gives preferential treatment to the descendents of British people. It also doesn’t operate an open borders policy: except in relation to EU Citizens, who also have preferential immigration status.

Israel also has the effect of pissing off other minority groups who believe Jews have special rights.

No, it pisses you off, Mike!

The same might be said about Greece, or any other former part of the Ottoman Empire which has become a national state. The level of ethnic cleaning of Greece, in particular – by which I mean slaughter as well as deportation – was spectacular.

I think that Kurds in particular have a right to feel aggrieved: although things do seem to have got better for them recently. That has pissed off a lot of people in the region as well….

Let us all join together today in condemning Israel’s demographic policies and call for them to end.

My view is that Israel and its neighbours should embrace a liberal pluralism premised upon the protection of human rights standards, as conventionally understood, equality, and democracy. I’d favour the region federating, consensually: and pooling sovereignty by lowering trade barriers, providing for common social rights, and ultimately a common citizenship.

I don’t think that this will be achieved by Israel simply removing border posts.

Do you?

Well, if you are that worried about them then why don’t you come to the UK and practise self determination here? We are very welcoming – we let everybody in.

The majority of Jews don’t even live in Israel and they do fine.

In 1932 in Germany a large number of Jews were assimilated citizens in the mainstream of society who considered themselves German first and Jewish second. A year later, suddenly they weren’t.

It might be worth considering the impact of that transition on Jewish understanding of the vissisitudes of history.

The last time I looked, the United Kingdom operated an immigration policy which gives preferential treatment to the descendents of British people.

No it doesn’t. You have to have been a British citizen to begin with. It’s true that the system has toughened up a little bit recently with a points system for workers, but this is not to do with demographics and was only introduced to counter balance the new open door policy to the rest of Europe. Nine out of ten immigrants are still from non-European countries and there is clearly no national policy to protect one ethnic group’s dominance over another.

“The same might be said about Greece, or any other former part of the Ottoman Empire which has become a national state. The level of ethnic cleaning of Greece, in particular – by which I mean slaughter as well as deportation – was spectacular.”

How long ago was that?

I think that Kurds in particular have a right to feel aggrieved: although things do seem to have got better for them recently. That has pissed off a lot of people in the region as well….

I fail to see the relevance of this. The Kurds are not a settlement community and do not have backward immigration laws as far as I know. They don’t really need a state either in my view. Just human rights.

I don’t think that this will be achieved by Israel simply removing border posts. Do you?

No I don’t. I think they should abolish their demographic policies and discriminatory laws if they want to be a modern democracy. Jews don’t need Israel for determiniation as I note you didn’t deny.

Mike:

The UK welcomes Jews and Israelis like Ilan Pappe, to come and teach in its universities although their professional history includes admitting to distort history if it suits his political beliefs and encouraging his students to write papers that have been found to libel members of the IDF. I’m not sure the rest of us are quite so welcome, especially if we happen to be university profs from Israel who may have distinguished themselves considerably in their field, but have the temerity to believe that a state created by the United Nations has a right to exist within secure boundaries. As far as the prevailing powers of the UCU are concerned the later are fair game for “grey listing”.

Historically, the UK’s treatment of Jews has been rather varied, and includes expulsions, discrimination, and now, the targets of hate crimes by persons who think that’s a legitimate expression of opposition to Israel’s response to Hamas and Hezbollah. So, thanks for the invitation, but I’ll stay here in Canada until the antisemitism here gets as nasty as it has become in the UK. What choices I’ll have by then, outside of Israel, remains to be seen.

Linda Grant, as I said, I can see why that was the thinking after the holocaust, but today it’s becoming increasingly unrealistic. Jews are leading members of society in the modern world and are but one of dozens of minority groups – very different to the 1930s Europe when Jews were a natural scapegoat due to being the only minority group.

You may as well ask: well what if we go back to slavery in the US? That’s the type of crap the National of Islam comes out with as a reason why they should have a few states in America just for blacks.

Can you imagine the west supporting all black states for American blacks on the basis or segregation and slavery in the past?

It’s like Islamists saying the west has gone back to the crusades.

Lynne T, there’s a bit of vicious circle here since most of what you describe as anti semitism is actually criticism of Israel, despite the fact most Jews don’t live in Israel. It’s an ongoing paradox.

This anti semitism is said to come mostly from the left, so it’s nothing to do with religion anymore. Indeed, the centre right is probably the biggest supporters of Israel today in the west.

I just can’t see these lefties setting up concentration camps.

Lynne T, to hear you describe Britain and Canada as oppressive places for Jews is very similar to the paronia we see from many Muslims, like the guff on Islamophobia watch.

It’s very surprising to me that more people here can’t see that hypocrisy of this, or fathom how it looks to Muslims who you (rightly in many respects) criticise for the same thing.

I believe that SJP alone has 80 changes of frock. How on earth can it drag?

I’m actually much more interested in this conversation than in the one the thread’s supposed to be about, whatever that its. Here’s a surprise: Miranda Gets Them Out.

Hi David

Two Questions:

1. Where did you get the following from: “Zionism holds that you have to live in Israel to be complete as a Jew”? I would concur with Linda who has said, “I have spent quite a bit of time in Israel and no-one has ever said this to me.” I would also add that I cannot recall reading this in Zionist literature. I would like to give you the benefit of doubt and assume for a moment that you have not made it up so can you provide a source for this claim.

2. What would you say to those that argue that having a separate Jewish socialist group is a deviation from the working class struggle, that peasant and working class Jews and Gentiles should all work together in one party and there is simply no need for a separate group?

“David Rosenberg asks why Jews need a state to practise self determination in the first place. This is a good point. Most Jews that post here don’t live in Israel, yet I’m sure you would not claim that you are oppressed and unable to control your own lives. And that’s the same for any religious or ethnic minority living in the west – are they not truly free unless they live in a majority state?”

1. The Balfour declaration was a response to empirical proof that European Jews did need their own state to practice even Rosenberg’s limited self-determination (lets call it “soft” self-determination).

2. This may no longer be the case, but it was then. If we are going to revoke sovereignty everywhere that territorial integrity is no longer absolutely essential for an ethnic group to practice soft self-determination, there is a long list of ethnic groups who’s soft self-determination is a lot less threatened than that of Jews.

3. Pretty much every ethnic group in the world can currently find a place somewhere in the world where they can practice soft self-determination. If Rosenberg wants to make the argument that territorial integrity should no longer be a requirement for self-determination, he has to make it consistently.

That should read “The Balfour declaration AND THE UN PARTION PLAN were…”

Mike

No it doesn’t. You have to have been a British citizen to begin with. It’s true that the system has toughened up a little bit recently with a points system for workers, but this is not to do with demographics and was only introduced to counter balance the new open door policy to the rest of Europe. Nine out of ten immigrants are still from non-European countries and there is clearly no national policy to protect one ethnic group’s dominance over another.

Nope

As I understand it, Brett is here because he has a British grandparent.

And are you seriously telling me that a French person has an unfettered right to live in the UK (and vote in municipal elections) because they’re actually British?

Or that it is easier for (say) a Brazilian to come and live in the UK than (say) a Belgian?

Do you want to scrap this? Is there any party recommending that this country open it borders, and allow nationals of all countries, irrespective of familiar ties to the UK, to enter at will?

How long ago was that?

How long ago does it have to be for it not to be an issue?

The cleansing of ethnic Germans from one part of Eastern Europe to another is of similar vintage to the dispersal of some of the Palestinian Arabs from Israel. The displacement of the Konigsberg/Kaliningrad Germans, for example, was complete.

This isn’t a live issue, of course, because there is already a national state for Germans. And nobody is seriously suggesting that Greece be re-absorbed into the Ottoman Empire.

I fail to see the relevance of this. The Kurds are not a settlement community and do not have backward immigration laws as far as I know. They don’t really need a state either in my view. Just human rights.

How far do people need to move in order to become colonists?

Remember that the majority of Israeli jews, shortly after its creation, came from countries like Turkey, Iraq, Morocco, Yemen and so on: all of which are in the region.

Is Pakistan a “settlement community”? An awful lot of present day Pakistanis are descended from people who came from India, at partition after all.

A better way to describe all these comunities are as ‘decolonisation communities”: as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, and Great Britain withdraw, nation states were formed, during a process which in some cases involved the movement of populations from one part of the region to another.

No I don’t. I think they should abolish their demographic policies and discriminatory laws if they want to be a modern democracy. Jews don’t need Israel for determiniation as I note you didn’t deny.

Similarly, the United Kingdom should, in my view, should abandon its own demographic policies.

Unfortunately for both of us, the British electorate is unlikely to vote for this policy. In particular, they’re unlikely to support the unfettered free movement of persons if:

- Great Britain is the only country in the region which is pursuing this policy; and

- no other country in the region permits the British to enter.

That’s pretty much analogous the position that citizens of Israel finds themselves in. It explains why it is less likely to be voted for.

Mike

Jews are leading members of society in the modern world and are but one of dozens of minority groups – very different to the 1930s Europe when Jews were a natural scapegoat due to being the only minority group.

You’re talking here about Western Europe since 1945.

You’re not describing Eastern Europe, or the Middle East.

Interesting answers, David.

But don’t think there’s a problem when the likes of Pat Buchanan are citing Israel’s immigration and cultural policies as a model that he wants for America?

http://jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/105622.html

My neighbours from a bit of the former British Empire got their visas because one of them had a Scottish grandpa. It’s called a Heritage Visa.

Mike though, what about trust and confidence? That’s what I’m worried about.

Linda is right to mention the suddeness with which assimilated post-Enlightenment Jews were excised from German society, Austrian Jews were also stunned by the rapidity with which their rights were repealed. Ruth Kluger’s Landscapes of Memory (autobiog) is illuminating on this.

Mike, you say there’s a bit of vicious circle here since most of what you describe as anti semitism is actually criticism of Israel, despite the fact most Jews don’t live in Israel. It’s an ongoing paradox.

How very irresponsible of you. When I see rather well-regarded human rights journalists like Janine Roberts actually counting Jews in government in an article titled ‘The Influence of Israel in Westminster’, and when I hear of campaigns of <a href=”http://peterfainton.typepad.com/peter_faintons_blog/2008/02/email-to-the-co.html”letters to the Committee on Standards in Public Life about a certain ‘ethnic group’ bankrolling our political parties, I feel a bit more perched in England than I did before and I think to myself with a little shudder of impotence, “Ah, so that’s what Israel’s was set up for”.

Mike please bear in mind that as David T said, socialism failed Jews in the run-up to and – this is the crucial part – after WW2. So when Ernest Mandel was banging on about the psychosis of despair and demoralization that is Zionism and the imminent striking victories of the international revolutionary proletariat it was neither here nor there Truth is, nobody wanted those displaced Jews in the mid ’40s so the UN arranged Israel.

Now, none of this is a very nice way to think about Israel, and Israel is so much more than war and survivors – in fact it’s a considerable success all things considered. Nor does any of this history stuff justify a shred of discrimination against Israel’s Arab citizens, or any missed opportunities for liberating the Palestinians, or any settlement building when the peace plan you signed up to says no settlement building.

My question to Jewish Socialists is what are doing to make sure that Jews here – Jews like me – don’t come to view Israel as insurance? What are you doing to build confidence in the ongoing prosperity of Jews outside a national home? I can’t think of anything at all. Very quiet on the things which worry most Jews. That’s why I find Jewish Socialists counterproductive. Maybe its just a temporary aberration – I hope so.

are you seriously telling me that a French person has an unfettered right to live in the UK (and vote in municipal elections) because they’re actually British?

If they want to become a British citizen they do. If they are not Jewish, however, they cannot be a citiizen as I understand it – accept under special and rare circumstances.

Clearly there is a difference.

No country that I know of in the west has an open demographic policy of keeping one ethnic group in charge.

The antizionists remind me, of the old anecdote. A Jewish boy asked another boy, why he is not playing with him anymore. The boy replies: because you people have crucified Jesus. The Jewish boy indignant: No, you are wrong, not we did it but the Cohns from the other street.
So Israel is the Cohns from the other street.
But I am amazed at the description of UK society as a perfect one, where antisemitism is not possible. The reports – including the one prepared by British parliament – shows a different picture. Of course if you reduce antisemitism to racial antisemitism as practiced by the Nazis, then you can say, the problem does not exist.

Linda. Are you aware that CI(F) is pre-moderating pro Israel posters without explanation or posting that a post was deleted????

CI(F) because ‘FREE” is a word that it cannot use anymore.

You’re talking here about Western Europe since 1945.
You’re not describing Eastern Europe, or the Middle East.

You are right to keep on keeping on plugging the message, David T: It is very striking, if baffling, how your repeatedly making this point has been met with utter blindness/deafness- highlighting just how entrenched the eurocentricity is with some, and especially with these socialist types who, you would think, would be more other conscious.

Mike, you are incorrect that non-Jews cannot become citizens of Israel except under very rare circumstances. The woman who runs the gift shop at the American Colony hotel in East Jerusalem came to Israel with her husband, as tourists, and emigrated there. My Israeli friend Thomas O’Dwyer was offered a job on an Israeli newspaper, and after five years got citizenship. Israel has taken in refugees from Vietnam and Bosnia, and given them citizenship.

Firstly – apologies to Ami – I posted this first thing yesterday without knowing exactly when it would go up. It went up mid-morning today and I’ve just come in form work where I have not had access to a computer. Anyway glad it has sparked some debate on zionism/Jewishness/self-determination away from the sterile debates about boycotts…

Some serious points were made, which were worth making and need addressing. Some rather predictable, puerile ones were made which were not worth making but probably satisfied some strange psychological needs.

Some bizarre ones – I have no recollection of anyone called Nick Collins ever around the JSG. You obviously made a real impression on us.

Some strange assumptions – that the Palestinians are the only minority group that the JSG stands up for – when a consistent area of the JSG’s work since it was formed in the mid ’70s has been its anti-racist campaigning work supporting a range of minorities (including Jews) here and in other countries (Asian, Afro-Caribbean, Irish, Kurdish, Turkish, Romani…)

The points of substance were about Jews in Arab/”Middle Eastern” countries, historically and at present; the distinction between Jewish self-determination and Israeli/Hebrew self-determination, and whether an anti-Zionist Jewish identity/interest in Bundism in the 21st century must necessarily be backward looking.

There’s no short or simple answer to the first point and a range of competing narratives. Clearly Zionism was very weak historically among Jews in Arab countries and among Jews in other non-European societies from Morocco to India. Many Jews particularly in Iraq and Egypt were prominent in left wing movements that were also anti-Zionist. The circumstances in which a large number of Jews from Arab countries ended up living in Israel were, to say the least controversial, and their treatment by the Ashkenazic establishment within Israel has not been edifying. If you want to go into that argument more look at the chapter called ‘diasporic dimensions’ in Mike Marqusee’s recent book “If I am not for myself”, or Abbas Shiblak’s “the Lure of Zion”. the situation of Jews in Arab countries today is no doubt impacted on by the unresolved conflicts in the Middle East, but interesting that Iranian Jewish representatives have made statements recently that they don’t want to be “rescued” by Israel. On cultural matters – has Ladino been treated any better than Yiddish in Israel? There was appalling discrimination against Yiddish especially in the 1950s and 60s. Has the status of Jews form Arab counties who came to Israel raised much in recent years? How many of them still live out their lives in impoverished “development towns”. Interesting that one of the regular Israeli cultural experiences that young (and not so young) Jews in Britain indulge in – going to a felafel bar -is dependent on a stream of ex-Israeli Jews from Arab-Jewish origins who left behind racism and poverty in israel.

On Israeli/Hebrew self-determination – This is an argument that has been developed over many years by the veteran Israeli marxist Moshe Machover, who for a long time was involved with the Khamsin collective of Middle Eastern socialists, and remains active in several anti-zionist and socialist circles today. The status quo in Israel/Palestine is obviously untenable to any egalitarian and anti-racist but any proposed solutions that do not recognise the continued existence of millions of Hebrew speaking Jews with a distinct Israeli culture, are not real solutions. At the same time for israeli jews to rely for their future on how jewish their state is demographically or in policies that maintain Jewish privilege, is also not a real solution.There are examples around the world of societies which truly recognise and empower more than one language and culture without disempowering and discriminating against each other. Unfortunately because of the stereotyping of anti-zionist positions (we’re all one-staters who want to push the Jews in the sea etc) there is little debate on what this means in practice. I’m personally heartened by the fact that within Israel the ranks of those who simultaneously demand an end to the occupation and that Israel becomes a state for all it’s citizens appears to be growing, and are found in the kinds of groups that have recently coalesced within “Another Israel”.

On the identity question. Anti-zionism is one of my political positions not my identity. But I can see how those who have been so desperate to make Zionism a tenet of Jewishness, rather than admitting that it is no more and no less than a political idea, may find this concept challenging.

I’m a cultural Jew within a multicultural humanity, with no existential crisis, happy to draw on Jewish cultural experience and thought whether it is the Bund or the Jewish prophets from the past or the thinkers and creators of today. I don’t need an extra country or a god to make me a real Jew. My children have their own Jewish identity, no doubt different from mine, and their children no doubt will have a different one too…

woman who runs the gift shop at the American Colony hotel in East Jerusalem came to Israel with her husband, as tourists, and emigrated there. My Israeli friend Thomas O’Dwyer was offered a job on an Israeli newspaper, and after five years got citizenship.

That’s two then.

Were they Jewish? And if they weren’t Jewish, is it true that they are not allowed to marry a Jewish person?

No, they are not Jewish and it is not true that they are not allowed to marry a a Jew. Thomas subsequently married a Jewish Israeli. There is no civil marriage in Israel so they have to go abroad for the ceremony, but that’s also true of Jews who wish to have a non religious ceremony. There are plenty of non-Jews who came to the kibbutzim as volunteers, were accpted as full members into the kibbutz and became Israeli citizens. I know, I’ve met them.

Yeah, but you know why Buchanan has chosen Israel as his model? It is because he’s an obsessive Jew hater, who thinks that he’ll be able to deflect criticism of his anti-immigrant agenda, by creating a parallel with Israel nationality policies.

There are a number of obvious reasons that his parallel is not apposite. They include the following:

1. The creation of Israel was proposed because Jews in Europe and the Middle East were subject, generally, to extreme forms of racism and discrimination. Not in all places and at all times, but consistently. In Europe, these trends ultimately led to the most spectacular European genocide of modern history. In the Middle East, it culminated in the explusion or flight of most the Middle East’s Jewish population.

America by contrast, was not founded as a national home for European religious dissenters, facing persecution: whatever the Pilgrim Fathers narrative may suggest. Rather, it was a country whose founding myth is closely tied to immigration of many nationalities from an “old world” to a “new”: where people leave behind national ties, feuds and concerns, and embrace an American identity.

2. What made Jews particularly vulnerable was, not simply that they were the only visible minority in an otherwise homogenous society, but that in Christian Europe, they were deicides, and in the Muslim Middle East, they were breakers of oaths and killers of prophets. The only other national minority in even a vaguely a comparable historic position in Europe have been the Roma, whose present plight is absolutely dismal.

However, other vaguely similar regional minorities include – well, pretty much any citizen of any state which emerged after the end of any empire: be it the British, Soviet or Ottoman ones.

As I’ve said, I favour Israel and the whole of the Middle East moving towards a European Union like solution. But in order for that to happen, the region will need to embrace a set of liberal political values which are incompatible not only with Zionism in its strong form, but also with Islamism and Arabism.

Such a solution would need to be reached gradually, consensually, and reciprocally.

Anyone can become Jewish, ergo anyone can become Israeli.

David, in a series of rather crude and dated sterotypes of Sephardi, asks how many Sephardi Jews live outside the development towns. This antiquated view of Israel is dated from around 20 years ago and longer. When I went to Sderot just over two years ago, the Sephardi population had dropped to around half; the rest were Russians.

There has been considerable ‘internmarriage’ between Adshkenazi and Sephardi so as to make these distinctions increasingly blurred anyway. w The difficulty with developing a political perspective of the country from the basis of a couple of thousand miles away is that you have little idea of the real developments which are taking place inside the country and the resulting analysis is a parrotting of things once read and assumed not to have changed.

Flesh wrote, “It’s quite dismaying to find myself the sole member of Secular Jew Against Secular Jewish Identity Groups.”

You’re not alone. I suspect there are millions of Jews like you, who may not want to live in Israel but instinctively and correctly defend the rights of the majority of Jews to have that option.

Linda Grant and Petra MB are a credit to their professions. It’s a shame Comment-Is-Not-Free’s ideology will not allow more like them to add a more balanced tone to CiF.

Unfortunately because of the stereotyping of anti-zionist positions (we’re all one-staters who want to push the Jews in the sea etc) there is little debate on what this means in practice

I don’t know what anti-Zionists are in favour of.

I mean, I’m an anti-Zionist, and I can tell you what I’m in favour of. It certainly doesn’t involve forcing mutally antagonistic regional minorities to live in a single state, against their will. I’d regard One Statism as being an ultra-Arabist, ultra-Islamist or ultra-Zionist position.

I haven’t really followed what Bundists believed or still believe, because I don’t need to know what they think, because nothing they might say has any particular relevance to anything which is likely to happen. They seem amiable, and generally nice, for what that’s worth.

I have heard an awful lot from the likes of Tony Greenstein, and that strange woman who sings Christmas carols about Jews killing the Baby Jesus, though. I think they’re anti-Zionist Jews of some sort, and they strike me as lunatics of the first order.

Rosenberg: “but interesting that Iranian Jewish representatives have made statements recently that they don’t want to be “rescued” by Israel.”

We have seen similar declarations of Jews in the Soviet Union. When you live in a authoritarian system as a Jew, you better do what the government is telling you.

Eli: quite.Disingenous observation of David R re Iranian Jews. Similar statements from the Zimbabweans driven back to Zim by the pogroms in SA- their convoys being under the supervision of Mugabe’s special forces men, hardly surprising that they told the journalist they were supremely happy to be going back.

Hi! Most commenters have argued one pole of the issue, which in Zionist thought is called “the safe refuge”.
About the other pole, the so-called “cultural center” nobody has said a word. Israel is a cultural center of production of new Jewish and Hebraic culture. People here live what you may experience only as a CD received as a gift by an Israeli or a Jew who has come artza (to the Land).
I am sorry for those people who don’t know anything about Israel except its politics. They are like tourists who have bought tickets to Ireland but who never actually dared boarding the plane. They have read some books and think they know all about the I.R.A. and that it is all there is to know, but they know nothing of celtic music, nothing of fairies, nothing of James Joyce and nothing of Irish beer. David R saddens me a lot.

BTW, both poles were developed already by Theodor Herzl in “The Jewish State”.

But you see, this is one of the reasons that people think that anti-Zionist Socialist Jews aren’t offering a particularly appealing alternative to Zionism is precisely this.

I think that David R genuinely believes that Iranian Jews are doing well in Iran. He might possibly qualify that: to the extent that they’re not, it is probably the fault of Israel, and in any case other national minorities have it hard in Iran too etc etc etc. But he genuinely doesn’t believe that there’s anything even vaguely suspect about the rump of what was once a large Jewish community making ritual declarations of loyalty to a State which recently punished some of its members as Israeli spies, when they were nothing of the sort.

I don’t think I need to develop further this, but the idea of the “cultural center” was that only in our own land we can freely develop Jewish culture and make it THE culture of our society.
That is the positive reason why Israel exists (not why it should exist, I leave that decision to the Israelis themselves). If Israel were just England in the Middle East, English culture, English symbols, English past and myths, people would probably think that they are living in the periphery of their own country. Why would they stay there when the real thing is further northwards?
But Israel is the real thing for Jews. That is why it exists.

I would like to quote from Yoram Hazony’s essay, “The Guardian of the Jews”.

Rousseau himself came to this same conclusion, arguing that only a Jewish state would bring about a truly free development of the Jewish perspective in intellectual matters. As he concluded in the passage quoted above: “I shall never believe I have heard the arguments of the Jews until they have a free state, schools, and universities, where they can speak and dispute without risk. Only then will we know what they have to say.”

The essay is very good. Read it online.

Well, once again, a little first-hand experience. I went to Iran for the Guardian in 1996 and talked to the remnants of two Jewish communities. One man was guarding what was believed to be the tomb of Queen Esther in Hamadam. The once large community had progressively left for Israel, leaving only a remnant behind. He had been a professor of physics, and when the revolution came, was demoted to high school maths teacher. I asked him why he stayed, he said that as long as there was a community the authorities would not dare destroy the tomb. But, he told me, all the young people had gone to Israel and there was no long term future for the site.

‘Ironically, those who claim that the Jewish right to self-determination is under attack simultaneously deplore individual Jewish self-determination. They are keen to silence or marginalise the views of those who assert that the Jews, as well as the Palestinians, need liberating from Zionism.’

Isn’t this a straw man/woman/person?

Isn’t it truer to say that, ironically, David Rosenberg promulgates a very much minority form of Jewish self-determination that excludes that of 41% of world Jewry, the second, or largest, Jewish community in the world?

The Jewish state of Israel comprises 41% of the Jewish people, and may be the largest Jewish community in the world because, in the 19th and 20th centuries, most European, North African and Asian Jewry were murdered or driven out as alien Judeans, before 1914 mostly to America, after mostly to Palestine or what became Israel.

David Rosenberg confuses cause with effect.

David Rosenberg is able to pursue his Jewish identity in dissolution precisely because he has a freedom, in a liberal, democratic state that most Jews who became Israelis (or, indeed, American or British), lacked.

It is a very Euro-, nay, Anglo-centric point of view.

“In the period of mass Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century, only a small minority supported the Zionist version of Jewish self-determination.”

This is a mis-statement. The majority may well have preferred to live in a Jewish state in Palestine, but given that it didn’t exist, they made what they thought was the next-best choice.

Not enough Yiddish in this thread. Anyone for some (non Kosher) matzo ball soup at Harry Morgan?

I don’t imagine that life for the Iranian Jews or for the mass of Iranians in general, or for secular Iranians in particular, is a bed of roses at the moment. As Andrew Coates pointed out near the beginning of this thread, the JSG is affiliated to Hand Off the People of Iran – which supports those campaigning against oppression by the Iranian regime, as well as campaigning against American military threats to Iran.

I have not been to Iran and the discussions I have had with Iranian jews are with Iranian jews based here, but whatever personal decisions led them to leave (some were deeply involved politically) they have stressed to me the resilience of that community that has been there for such a long period of history and its determination to stay in Iran for better times and not be told by Israelis what to do.

There a strange Alice in Wonderland quality about some of the comments. It is as if me raising questions about the form that Jewish self-determination takes in a majoritarian Jewish nation state somehow deprives Israelis of this. Let’s remember that Israel does exist. The thousands of Palestinians languishing in Israeli prisons and the thousands of families who have had their houses demolished know Israel does exist and Palestine doesn’t exist. When Israel’s Jews exercise their self-determination they are backed up by a powerful state. I’m questioning the claim that that is the only form that Jewish self-determination need take, suggesting that a framework of Israeli self-determination is more appropriate within any solution that is to be found to the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. I’m saying that calling a challenge to the Zionist form of Jewish self-determination “antisemitism” is both dishonest and wrong.

Linda – you’ve been in Israel much more recently and no doubt many more times than me. I went a few times in the 1970s (the first couple of times as a Zionist) and was last there on kibbutz in 1979 before most of the kibbutzim were privatised. I try to keep informed through Israeli and Palestinian friends and English language literature produced by Israelis and Palestinians. of course it is a very different country to the 1970s. What is your sketch of the class structure of Israel (excluding the Occupied Territories) at present and, in broad strokes, the relative positions of Jewish ethnic groups – Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Jews from pre-Sephardic communities in Arab countries, Russian, Morrocan, Ethiopian etc within that structure, and where do you see non-Jewish groups in that structure – Palestinian, migrant workers from China, Philipines, Rumania etc.? And coming back to a point in my original piece does the opinion poll (cited in a report by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute BTW) that found a majority of Israelis did not regard themselves as belonging to the Jewish people at large, surprise you?

David T – I’m glad that you find Bundists cuddly but can you say more about what your anti-Zionism consists of? What do you dislike/disagree with/reject about Zionism?

Kudos to David T, ami and Linda Grant for exposing David R’s Eurocentricism. He seems to have bought into every propaganda lie going about why the Jews were forced out of Arab countries. The truth is that Arab antisemitism was already making the Jews’ position precarious, and as David T says, it is doubtful whether these Mizrahi refugees would have found a haven outside Israel. I find it extraordinary how David R can claim that Zionism has failed because it has ONLY half the Jews living in Israel. It’s a spectacular success! Compare, for instance, with the number of Armenians living in Armenia – 3 percent.

Mikey, boychik,
Here’s a verse from a Yiddish song written by Sh. Ansky (who later wrote “the Dybbuk”)

Di gvirishe kinder, maskilim, rabonim
Zey rufnin tsiyen dem yid
A lidl an alte fun undzerer sonim
a geto dem eybekn zhid

It means: The sons of the rich, the enlightened ones and the rabbis call the Jew to Zion. it is an old song of our enemies – a ghetto for the eternal Jew

It’s rather voyl un simpatish, no?

And Armenia has those terrible laws that Mike hates so much in Israel. Armenia prefers ethnic Armenians from her Diaspora. The horror! Mike, bring 10 million Turks ASAP to Armenia’s borders and we will teach the Armenians a (another) lesson in equality.

David

The opinion poll did not surprise me at all. Israelis have an identity which is that of being Israeli. It resides in their language, their literature, their culture, their food, their education system, and of course the army. But the Jewishness is of course inherent in much of that, it’s taken for granted. Holidays like Chanukah and Pesach for example are seen as Israeli holidays.

If you want to understand the Israeli class structure, I’d read Orly Castel-Bloom’s novel, Human Parts, which deals with the effect of the second intifada on various sectors of Israeli society, including the poorest.

I spent four months studying the people who live and work on one block of a Tel Aviv street, including Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Ethiopian and even the Black Hebrews. I talked to people from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Salonica, Turkey. I spent a lot of time each day in cafe run by a young man with a Syrian Jewish father and Polish Jewish mother. What I always did was ask people to tell me their story, where their family came from and how and why they came to Israel. And I also asked a lot of them what thought a Jew was and what they thought an Israeli was. By listening to what ordinary Israelis tell you about themselves, you get a far more nuanced and sophisticated picture of a society rather than a political ideology. And that, frankly, is all I’m personally interested in.

There’s a good interview with Orly here, which takes apart with some sophistication and precision the questions of the Sephardi writing in Hebrew. Orly comes from an Egyptian family. I’ve met her several times, interviewed her and chaired her session at Hay. I know that she would emphatically reject the kind of black and white world you are depicting in your analysis of Israeli class relations

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/894462.html

Linda, I’ll look out for that novel. I’m presuming though that there are some conclusions and generalisations that come out of the sum of people’s individual stories, that tell us something about the fault-lines in Israeli society. The impression I get from Israelis who write to me is certainly that it is not a happy rainbow nation.

“The impression I get from Israelis who write to me is certainly that it is not a happy rainbow nation.”

Of course, the UK is, that is why David R lives there. He could never stand a country that is not a happy rainbow nation.

Of course it isn’t a happy rainbow nation. Is South Africa? Is Britain? I still find it bizarre that the Scots and the Welsh have such a strong sense of national identity 400 years after the Union. Israel is a country which, as I’ve written before, is the place where the Diaspora re-meets itself for the first time in 2000 years and largely does not recognise itself or each other. It has to come to terms with huge differences: in language of origin, food, customs, even the pratise opf the religion. And to merge all this into a nation is not the work of an instant. But to propose that the entire project was based on a faulty premise because of this (rather than other political reasons) is simply silly.

Incidentally, the one Israeli party which had the greatest ethnic mix was Likud, pre Sharon’s departure. A Yemenite friend told me that he had a hard time voting Labour or Meretz, though that’s where he stood politically, because it was an Ashkenazi elite party and Likud, which he wouldn’t vote for because of its politics, was where he felt most comfortable.

In Sderot the immigrants from Russia came from the easten Soviet states, the Stans, and had lived amongst Muslims, to whom they had a pre-existing hostility, greater, the Moroccan mayor told me, than many of the North Africans. Though he in turn told me that in Morocco the Jews were tolerated, but tolerated is not equality.

I would suggest that the Israelis who write to you are pretty much in your own political ballpark. If you want to understand Israel, you need to listen to what people who have to say who don’t share your opinions. I spent a lot of time talking to the Moroccans and Tunisians in the Gaza settlements, a few months before they were dismantled. Their perspective was something you will never hear from Ashkenazim, left or right.

Linda Grant wrote:
“I spent four months studying the people who live and work on one block of a Tel Aviv street, including Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Ethiopian and even the Black Hebrews. I talked to people from Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Salonica, Turkey. I spent a lot of time each day in cafe run by a young man with a Syrian Jewish father and Polish Jewish mother. What I always did was ask people to tell me their story, where their family came from and how and why they came to Israel. And I also asked a lot of them what thought a Jew was and what they thought an Israeli was. By listening to what ordinary Israelis tell you about themselves, you get a far more nuanced and sophisticated picture of a society rather than a political ideology. And that, frankly, is all I’m personally interested in.”

I wonder if you could unpack one or two things from this passage?

You got a nuanced picture of a ’society’ and yet all the people you mention are Jews. Occasionally in the passage above, you talk of people rather than Jews or words that also signify Jew. Simple question: in order to get a nuanced view of Israel, you interviewed Jews? Or did you interview any non-Jewish members of this ’society’? Or do the words ’society’ and ‘people’ in the Israeli context signify ‘people’ and there is no other ’society’ or ‘people’ outside of Jews? I concede utterly that the above passage is a very compressed summary of what you must have done in four months work, and I may have jumped to conclusions whereas in fact, you did interview all ‘people’ in this ’society’ in order to get your ‘nuanced’ view. In which case, I’m quite happy for my queries to be regarded as garbage.

“Or do the words ’society’ and ‘people’ in the Israeli context signify ‘people’ and there is no other ’society’ or ‘people’ outside of Jews?”

should read:

“Or do the words ’society’ and ‘people’ in the Israeli context signify ‘Jews’ and there is no other ’society’ or ‘people’ outside of Jews?

Israeli society, Michael, is indeed considerably more than one Jewish block in Tel Aviv. And more than the small orbit of the foreign correspondent’s Jerusalem, largely focusing on the bar of the American Colony Hotel and its charming fountain.

I always like to head out for terra incognita.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jan/06/comment.lindagrant

One such conversation, here.

That’s a very interesting point, Linda, but doesn’t actually address what I was saying. You’ll see that I was looking at your use of two words, ‘people’ and ’society’. You seemed to be using these words to signify ‘Jews’, which perhaps you’ll agree, does rather make a point, even if you didn’t intend it. You went on to say that your interviewing gave you a ‘nuanced’ view of this ’society’. As far as I know, Israel (which I assumed you were referring to when you used the word ’society’ – correct me if I’m wrong), is inhabited by a good few non-Jews. And yet you don’t seem to have interviewed any of them to get this nuanced view of ’society’. And yes, I did realise that ‘Israeli society’ is indeed wider and larger than one Tel Aviv block. I’m sure you’ve always known that there was stuff going on beyond this block. It’s what your attitude to it, (as expressed through your use of language) that is significant, no?

Thanks for the link. Yes, indeed, a very interesting interview. So, why, in your list of ‘people’ that you gave above, didn’t you include non-Jews? Or did I miss that? As I said, if you intended to include them, or indeed you did, but I missed it, then what i’ve written is garbage and I’ll withdraw from this debate immediately.

David T – I’m glad that you find Bundists cuddly but can you say more about what your anti-Zionism consists of? What do you dislike/disagree with/reject about Zionism?

I’m simply not an enthusiast for states which are defined in terms of ethnicity. I think it is for the people to define the culture in which they live: not the state. The state should be limited to neutral constitutional functions. I prefer regional federations, in which the opportunities for individuals to move around and choose the sort of society they prefer, is maximised.

The problem with dogmas – and dogmas are often espoused by nice, decent people – is that inevitably they subordinate facts to ideology, rather than the other way around.

David Rosenberg wishes to exercise his Jewishness in a particular form, which does not include a “territorial dimension”. Fine, it is his right. It is not “self determination” in the sense that we popularly understand, an attribute reserved to ethnic groups, but this is semantics. He certainly has the right and it doesn’t make him into a lesser Jew, less loyal to Jewish heritage (whatever it might be). Whether Jews or not, we are all individuals, sovereign in the manner we define and negotiate our many identities and reconcile them with the wider human ecosphere. David Rosenberg has a solution for himself and we should respect it. This is not a problem. The problem is that David is unwilling to respect the rights of those who believe in a “territorial dimension” or are (whatever the definition) Zionists to negotiate their identity differently to himself.

There is an interesting fact about Jewish emigration, first to mandate Palestine and subsequently to Israel. Whether from Eastern or Central Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, Soviet Union, Ethiopia, …, it was overwhelmingly not an ideological emigration. People didn’t come (with relatively few exceptions) because the fire of Zion was burning in their hearts. They fled. They escaped antisemitism, persecution, discrimination, often existential danger, often expulsion, and this seems to be a constant story until this very day. This, actually, is a well-guarded secret, because neither side to this debate has an interest in emphasizing it. Zionists don’t talk about it because it somehow “diminishes” Jewish yearnings for Zion. Anti-Zionists keep shtum for a better reason: because it actually affirms and confirms, day in day out, the raison d’etre of Israel’s existence, as the ultimate insurance policy of every Jew. Unless you take it on board, David, your understanding of what Israel is all about and how Israelis understand themselves will be sadly lacking.

There is a huge deal to criticise about Israel, its policies and Zeitgeist. And this criticism is urgent. The problem, though, is that this criticism is worse than useless when it is based on fanciful “facts”, distorted by blinkers of outdated, retro ideology. When you criticise, your facts must be right (and I don’t even propose subjecting David’s post to line-by-line factual analysis, life is short). Once anything is wrong or dodgy, this will be an immediate excuse the reject the criticism in toto. Shroud waving and wild statements are precisely not the way to go about if you really want to change minds.

I did interview non-Jews. The link to a Palestinina-Israeli couple is above, and also a Bedouin Israeli and a non-Jewish Russian in a series for the Guardian to represent various facets of Israeli society.

But in talking about the block of a Tel Avi street I was directly answering David’s point why Israeli Jews regard themselves as Israeli, not Jewish. Which would not really lead one to talk about the views of non-Jews, or at least not in a short comment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/mar/17/israel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/mar/03/israel1

Jews have been determined nationally, as a nation dispossessed, by Christians and Muslims for most of Christian and Islamic history. Thus, even the 19th and 29th centuries, they were murdered or driven out, before 1914 mostly to America, after to Palestine or what became Israel. Today’s Anglo-Jewish community mainly derives from such identification and persecution.

Jews not only determined themselves, they were determined by others. Which is why must ‘Islamic’ Jews became Israeli.

It strikes me that Rosenberg and Rosen cheerfully re-write the history of the societies in which diaspora Jewry lived to suit themselves, which is odd, given how much they they pride themselves on their assimilation into them.

Micahael Rosen’s comment of 11.21 epitomises a particularly annoying modus disputandi (if that is a word) he employs: censoriousness heavily wrapped in unctuous civility: “That’s a very interesting point, Linda..perhaps you’ll agree..correct me if I’m wrong..significant no? “Which is cut across briskly by Linda’s response, which highlights the fact that in his eagerness to tiptoe onto the moral high ground, Michael has altogether missed what the discussion between David R and Linda has been about.

None of which precludes Rosen and Rosenberg determining themselves (since they have the privilege of the liberty) as they please.

It is they who which to make this an exclusive self-determination, that excludes that of 41% of Jews in the world, as well as those who sympathise, have affinity or are simply familiar with.

It is the latter that Rosen and Rosenberg continually seek to label as ‘Zionist’ in such a way as to bring their assimilation into Anglo (or American?) culture into question.

Ami,

Michael is a Poet Laureate. He has powers you and I can only dream of.

Ami: ”Micahael Rosen’s comment of 11.21 epitomises a particularly annoying modus disputandi (if that is a word) he employs: censoriousness heavily wrapped in unctuous civility”

Can i add that a typical Rosen comment generally includes pithy comment and patronisation. He often seems to forget that he’s left the classroom….

there’s always something that I miss when I read the crude anti-Zionist narrative: social forces

it is as if 19th century pogroms are erased from history, or if the anti-Jewish Tsarist laws had not been passed, nor had there been mass migration from Eastern Europe, instead what comes over, in these rather vulgar accounts, is almost demoniac Zionists cunningly planning to conquer the Middle East, aided and abetted by top-hatted arch imperialists, complete with frock coats

So no longer are wider social forces seen as important rather, according to this unsophisticated view, everything becomes ideology and an evil one at that: Zionism

Which is strange because in few other instances would, those articulating this type of narrative, try to reduce the history of the movement of millions to a mere ideological momentum: Zionism

I suspect that this reductionist approach to history tends to colour and spark many of the debates, when it comes to Jewish self-determination, as people rightly reject it as far too simplistic, incomplete and ultimately insulting.

And Armenia has those terrible laws that Mike hates so much in Israel. Armenia prefers ethnic Armenians from her Diaspora. The horror! Mike, bring 10 million Turks ASAP to Armenia’s borders and we will teach the Armenians a (another) lesson in equality.

Well here’s how Mike sees it.

I suppose for me it’s the hypocrisy of it more than anything. There’s something strange about people on the liberal left being big Zionists at the same time as touting themselves as universalist, human rights motivated type people who criticise all other forms of identity politics. I’ve never really understood that. With a few of these people – not most by any means – I have to ponder whether it’s the chicken or the egg that motivates them.

Then there’s the hypocrisy where they can attack (rightly) the victimhood ideology of Muslims who believe the world is out to get them and see discrimination everywhere, but at the same time don’t see any problem at all with claiming Britain and other leading nations are very oppressive to Jews. Apart from being no worse than the racism any other group receives – certainly not as bad a whites receive according to the National Crime Survey Data – we all know the controversy with Jews these days mainly springs from the debate about Israel itself, not anything to do with Jesus getting bumped off – there’s as much chance of there being another holocaust in the UK or US as there is of slavery coming back to America, or Britain launching a crusade against Muslims. And if any other country outside of the west tried it, they would be obliterated within a few seconds.

It goes the other way as well. I have no idea how people on the far left can be so ultra sensitive to any criticism of Muslims or Islamists, immediately shouting racism at the mere mention of any problem in the Muslim community, but have no understanding whatsoever about the cultural sensitives of Jews due to well known historical events, and work that into their critique of Israel. How does work? I can only assume that they feel so similar to Jews (who would even know who was Jewish these days if they didn’t tell you?) that they don’t feel the need to couch their language in sensitive terms, whereas most Muslims are ‘the other’, therefore they lapse into ultra PC mode when dealing with them.

Then there’s the third issue, which is linked with the others, where it’s declared anti semitic to state the mere fact that AIPAC is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, whereas we have no problem at all talking about Labour MPs bend over backwards to appease Muslims due to having high Muslim populations in their constituencies. Did Ken Livingstone suck up to the Muslim vote in London? Oh well but of course – no problem with saying that.

Anyway, I think it was very good of whomever decided to allow this post. I’ve certainly learnt a few things from David T and others, and it shows the blog isn’t scared of any argument.

For so much of the time it just seems like people talk past each other. Any criticism of Palestinian terror groups is declared racist by the far left, but any criticism of Israel is claimed as anti semitic (racist) by the other side.

It’s absolutely astonishing to me that both sides can’t see that something is amiss here and that maybe the other team isn’t motivated by racism after all – maybe continually refering to racism is just a method to close down debate and doesn’t solve anything.

And about the ‘refuge’ point.

Isn’t it basic logic that putting one group of people all in one place is actually not a good way to protect a people?

Ah yes, those poor suffering imprisoned dispossed Palestinians, all oppressed under the horrible genocidal Zionist American supplied ironheel. The Palestinians, the first victims of an alleged genocide to increase their numbers. The first permanent refugees made so by their Arab brothers refusal to re-settle them in their own countries so that unlike all the other millions of refugees from the conflicts of the 20th Century that have long ago been re-settled in new lands, the Palestinians still live in the refugee camps even into the third and fourth generations. It is not as if there was not room for them in the Arab countries, the Palestinians could have just moved into the former Jewish neighborhoods, whose residents even before 1948 were persecuted and after the establishment of Israel driven out and resettled at great cost in newly independent Israel.

David All is precisely the type of person I am talking about. Look at his comtempt for the Palestinians, mocking how many of them there are if they are really so oppressed.

Well, that maybe, but imagine if someone on the right made a joke about how many Jews there are in the world if there was really a holocaust?

You see, tou’ve got to reassess how you’re coming across. Sounding like a nasty old racist bastard is going to gain any new supporters for Israel.

I’ve only read this as a result of seeing it flagged up over at Socialist Unity. My eyes kind of glazed over previously. That’s Leftist language for you.

I am not a Jew, not that it matters, but I would hardly recgnise this description of “Zionism”. What a pile of crap. It’s a shame to see this kind of bollocks posted here.

“Their (diaspora Jews) vibrant cultures and languages have been undermined and money they need for their communities’ social and cultural needs is siphoned off by Zionist charities.”

I don’t want to say it…I’m struggling. But, really. I ask you.

There was supposed to be a question mark at the end of my last sentence.

No, Mike, what I am mocking are the Arab countries who have turned the Palestinians into first permanent refugees along with the Useful Fools like yourself who have obediently mouthed their propaganda lines about how oppressed the poor Palestinians and how it really the fault of the dirty Zionists that the Palestinians have not no other choice but to go around blowing up buses full of Israeli civilians etec.

If it was the horribleness of oppression that determined things like suicide bombing, how come the people of Darfut who are being massacred in a for real genocide, instead of a pretended one, are not doing the same thing in Khartoum for example. Could it be that they know the Sudanese govt will go back to their home villages and slaughter everybody they can find? Could it be that the Darfurans have not been indoctrinated by their Imans to regard the Sudanese People as inferior scum that they should kill whenever they get the chance?

Naw, cannot be so to the Mikes of the world since for them the dirty Zionists scum and the Imperialistic American backers are the largest genocidal mass murderers since the Nazis. A good tip off of the extreme anti-Zionists who often out to be anti-Semitic as well is when they make cracks like Mike did comparing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi murder of six million Jews.

Ben, I agree with you, the BS level in some of the comments threatens to drown us all!

I would suggest that if we had to explore the Bund-descendants’ views on this period and Zionism, especially from a Polish perspective*, we would have to suggest that they identify Zionism in the light of Jabotinsky’s positions i.e. “Iron Wall” and that they still perceive Zionism in this light.

Remember that when Jabotinsky was doing his tour of Poland encouraging aliyah, the Bundists argued that he was anti-semitic and wrong, that “where we live, is our homeland”, Jewish self-determination can be cultural etc was the better position.

This must be particularly bitter in light of what happened during the war (Shoah)- especially with some Polish collaboration with the Nazi’s and the Bund leadership being shafted by the USSR (eg. Alter).

What is really strange is that the Bund, which was the major player in Polish Jewry in the late 30’s (against Jabotinsky) ended up irrelevant, while Jabotinsky’s views became the dominant one in Israel (Likud) and to a certain extent the broader diaspora.

*Written as a descendant of Polish Jews who actually shares (somewhat) the writer’s views.

David All,

I agree with you about suicide bombings; clearly there is an ideological reason to do with Islam for why Palestinians blow themselves up, just as there is in Iraq. Nevertheless, they are in very shitty conditions and have been for many years now.

Of course, I didn’t say it was all the fault of Israel that the Palestinians are in the state they are in. I was making a point about hypocrisy; you use extreme language about Palestinians and then accuse me of being a covert Nazi.

There’s something a miss here. If you don’t like being called a racist for slagging off the Palestinians, why is it then okay to call other people Nazis if they criticise Israel? I have no idea how that works. At what in your thought process did you forget that you are doing exactly what you hate when other people say it about you?

Have you never been called an Islamophobe? What do you think about the people who use this term?

Linda G. wrote:

“I was directly answering David’s point why Israeli Jews regard themselves as Israeli, not Jewish.”

Yes, I realised that. However, ‘Israeli Jews’ weren’t the words you used. You used the words ‘people’ and ’society’ when referring,yes, to ‘Israeli Jews’. It rather confirms my point.

By the way, I’m not the Poet Laureate. In the UK, that post is held by Andrew Motion. Fascinating subject, but a bit off-piste here, don’t you think?

There’s an interesting bit of political logic repeating itself on this thread which goes something like this: the people who believed that there was an alternative to zionism were wrong because they got wiped out. What a weird bit of might-is-right way of arguing! Throughout history, people holding ideas inimical to the status quo have been massacred. Did that prove the ideas wrong? At various times, people holding ideas about how to run society have triumphed. Did that make the ideas right? Sometimes, these have lasted much longer than the Israeli state (as constituted now) eg the Roman Empire.

Even so, the narrative that says the Jews were wiped out in the holocaust is just a little over the top, isn’t it? Consider the fate of the French Jews. Off the top of my head, it’s something like this, isn’t it? 250,000 before the invasion of the Nazis, 76,000 deported, most of whom were killed. The rest suffered in many ways I wouldn’t want to minimise, but very few of them were killed because they were Jews. Some were killed because they were in the Resistance, usually fighting under disguised non-Jewish names. Of the 76,000 deported most were Jews not born in France. Either the instruments of the French state (Vichy or the direct collaborators in the two forms of occupied France ie before Vichy and after it was dissolved) handed immigrant Jews over to the Nazis. However, mostly it did not hand over French-born Jews.

Now, you can interpret this in many ways, but you can’t say that the Holocaust wiped out the French Jews. My own view is that the crumbled, feeble remains of Republican France protected a large proportion of the French Jews. Of course, it completely failed to protect the Jews it regarded as non-French. However, in amongst those crumbled, feeble remains, I detect some ideals that I would want to celebrate and expand on. They were fought for all over the world from the end of the eighteenth century onwards and as people above are saying (seemingly with some resentment) that this leaves people like me and Dave Rosenberg saying, we’re OK here, thanks. And yet, (I won’t speak for Dave here), but I work on the assumption that I’m not free if someone else around isn’t free. In other words, there’s something wrong with the freedom I’m enjoying if the society I’m in is making some people unfree – through oppression, discrimination or worse. Some of the people above seem to be working from a different assumption: I’m free if I’m free.

Some of the stats suggest 300,000 Jews in France at the outbreak of war. On the matter of who the French state wasn’t able to protect, this includes at least two hundred thousand people with French nationality who were shipped eastwards to do slave labour.

David Rosenberg:

IMO, You’re missing the whole point of self-determination (what it is and why it is). In Diaspora, without Israel, Jewish identity is something that happens to the Jews. The Jews are defined by the “host society” and to a large extent “internalize” that definition. Not to get religious on you or anything but the first time Jews are called a “people” in the Torah, is (if I remember rightly) when Pharaoh says it. (Those better versed in the Torah, please correct me.)

But when a people (any people–Jews, Egyptians, Palestinians, English) have their own nation, their own state they can look at that entity–which is more than a piece of land with people in it but a moral contract–and can see their own definition of themselves. In Israel, Jews everywhere see Jews enacting a Jewish political, moral, and cultural history. In Israel, Jews everywhere see distinctly Jewish mistakes and distinctly Jewish achievements. In Israel, Jews everywhere see a Jewish people in a strong sense. Not in the sense defined by someone else.

IMO, this is also why the existence of the State of Israel makes Europeans so nervous. Europeans are accustomed to defining the Jew; they are not accustomed to the Jew defining himself. The same incidentally can be said of Arab States. They too are in no hurry to see a Palestinian State established–or for a Palestinian people to define themselves.

Regards,

Inna

Inna, when you describe Jews as a people, is that a racial or religious theory? What makes Jews a people for you?

I am genuinely interested in what you mean by this.

And why do other people want to define these Jewish people, in your view?

@Michael Rosen

The Holocaust effectively wiped out Polish Jewry (95%+ death rate). It’s pretty feeble when you have to resort to saying well only 30% of French Jews were killed (your figures) so the “wiped out” aspects of the Holocaust narrative isn’t very solid…

As to the Bund opposition to Zionism etc bit. The Polish Bund were the major political party (Jewish) in Poland before the war. They had a greater organisation than the Zionists and had effectively seen off Jabotinsky – they were not in opposition to the status quo – they were the status quo.

As to the relevance of the Bund today – can you point out their influence in the lives of Lithuanian, Polish and Russian Jews – the communities they set themselves up to represent?

David,

I know you would not read the magazine in your normal course given its political output but there was a short story published in the March issue of Commentary by Joseph Epstein entitled “Beyond the Pale.” It is a fictional story about a journalist who spoke Yiddish and upon discovering a novel by a reputedly great but not so well known Yiddish novelist felt compelled to translate the novel into English. There is of course more to this story and it is not political. I would guess that you would enjoy the story.

We may have our political differences and I highly doubt either of us are going to change opinions after this thread but I guess you would like the story and if you provide your email address, I shall email it to you. It is only nine pages long and therefore not too long a short story.

I am sure you would agree that whatever one may think of the political stance of Commentary that the articles are generally well written. Given this is a non political story about a man with a love for the Yiddish language, I see no reason why you would not enjoy it as much as I did.

Mike

Your analysis is pretty much where I am, and I mostly agree with it: except for one thing.

Your description of the position of Jews is a description of them in Western Europe and the USA. It is not an accurate description of the situation in Eastern Europe or in the Arab world. You can see for yourself that this is so: because Jews in those areas have been persecuted, expelled, or have fled.

Now, my view is that the world ought to be like the West: that is, the best countries to live in are pluralist liberal democracies. I don’t think that these are the best countries “for Jews”. They’re the best countries, full stop. They’re the countries which are the most free and the most prosperous. They’re the countries which people want to live in.

Israel should be more like a liberal democracy. So should its neighbouring states: the states which made its Jewish population refugees. Israel has a way to go, but less far than any country in the region. However, making Israel more of a liberal democratic state won’t make the Arab world more liberal and democratic, or remove the reason that essentially all its Jews now live next door in Israel

PS: what makes a person a Jew (or anything else) is self-identification, and identification by others. Jews mostly share a religion and a common gene pool, but it is identification which is the important factor.

Mike–

I think sociologically speaking, Jews are a nation rather than a people. But in common parlance, the term people is usually used to mean “nation”. As for what that means–I think the best answer was provided by Yael Tamir and, as I don’t think I can improve upon it, I shall quote it (at length):

“.. a nation can be said to exist when a ’significant number of people in a community consider themselves to form a nation, or behave as if they formed one’

“At this point, it is important to distinguish between two closely related terms: nation and people. Although in the literature they often appear interchangeably [Note: I disagree; IMO, it is "people" that is usually used as a catch-all], a nation is a community conscious ot its particular existence, whereas the concept of ‘people’ belongs to the same social category as ‘family’ or ‘tribe,’ that is, a people is one of those social units whose existence is independent of their members’ consciousness. It follows then that there must be some objective fact, such as relations of blood, race, a defined territory, or the like which will allow an outsider to define a people without reference to the awareness of its members. The endurance of peoples, unlike that of nations, does not depend on the presence of national consciousness or on the will of individuals to determine themselves as members.

“In the present work, a group is defined as a nation if it exhibits both a sufficient number of shared, objective characteristics–such as history, anguage, or territory–and self-awareness of its distinctiveness. An occasional group of individuals lacking any shared characteristics cannot, merely by the power of its will, turn into a nation, and hence the importance of the first part of the definition. ….

“The Jewish nation provides an interesting example. Jews from israel, Russia, Ethiopia, and the United States share few objective characteristics, including race or skin color, although they claim to share a religion and a history. My Judaism is very different from that of an Ethiopian Jew, or that of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, or that of the newcomer from latvia who never practiced her Judaism and was not even conscious of it until recently. It is in fact doubtfu whether an outsider could ever define the Jews as one nation on the basis of objective features. The Palestinian nation offers a diametrically opposed example. Palestinians share many objective features with other Arabs, and it might well be the case that from a historical, linguistic, and religious point of view, Palestinians have more in common with Jordanians or Syrians than a native Israeli with an Ethiopian Jew. Yet, Palestinians feel they belong to a distinct nation, while Ethiopian Jews and native Israelis feel they belong to the same national group. … Nations exist only as long as their members share a feeling of communal membership, and in this sense, Renan’s metaphor of a nationhood as an ‘everyday plebiscite’ accurately captures the important role of ‘the will to belong’ in the definition of a nation.” (Liberal Nationalism by Yael Tamir, pp.65-66)

As for why other peoples define what Jews are–there are probably any number of ways to answer that question. Perhaps the best way (I am Jewish after all!) is with a question: Why do the Irish define the English? Why do the Britons define the Asian peoples (from different parts of the world and having different religions) as Pakistanis?

Regards,

Inna

I don’t think it proves your point at all, Michael, since it entirely removes the context of the discussion which was the van Leer poll and David’s points about the position of the Sephardi. But since you are determined to know what I think, and since you believe you do know what I think, including assuming that I have never interviewed non-Jewish Israelis, I can see that it’s a hiding to nothing to argue with someone who has the bit between his teeth and is determined to make a point so he can go and have a giggle about it with his mates.

I agree with Mike about some of the hypocrisy on show here. It amused me earlier in the comments to be accused of Eurocentrism by people who stereotype all Arabs filled with hatred of all Jews.

Muffin made an important point about the reasons that Jews came to the Zionist state and how few actually came for ideological reasons. He could have added that the Jews for the Arab countries were a complete afterthought for the Zionists who centred their ideological work on East European Jews (and failed to convince them).

The “Insurance policy” Zionism that Muffin refers to is an immediate solution for people in that same way that it is for any refugees reaching a country of safety. But as an ideology how credible is it in the long term. As the French writer Richard Marienstrasse wrote “all Zionist and communitarian propaganda seeks to rally Jews around Israel , arguing basically from the dangers that surround her, and thus from this very precariousness…in the age of tactical and other atomic weaponry, states far larger and more populous than israel are no more assured of their survival. To claim that Israel alone, by some divine or historic grace, can escape from the common situation of all is the profession of a mystic faith.” (Jews of the diaspora or the vocation of a minority).

Marienstrasse agrees with Scherer, whom I quoted earlier in the post, that Zionism buys in wholesale and uncritically to Nation-state ideology without acknowledging that this is the very ideology that oppressed Jews and other minorities during history, as state nationalism has often revealed its imperialist and ethnocidal character.

For Jews to treat the nation-state as the exclusive form of normality on the basis of the last 60 years of Jewish soveriegnty in Israel seems a strange approach to history in general and a particularly strange approach when measured against the durability of the diaspora over millennia.

Mike: What about Armenia? Does she still have to repeal those racist laws that prefer Armenians? Can’t she let 10 million turks enter?

I think that in your rant against hypocrisy, AIPAC, feelings of victimhood, etc you have forgotten that your original grievance against Israel is that Israel doesn’t give you preferential status to become part of the polis, as a non-Jew. But of course you have forgotten that almost every country in the world gives preference to its diasporas. Israel is no exception. Nor is England.

For example, a suburb of Buenos Aires is called Hurlingham. In 1888 it was settled among others, by English immigrants. Most of those immigrants continued to have links to the metropolis, and it is a fact that although they have been living as Argentinian citizens for 120 years, they send their children to the consulate to receive also English citizenship. That is your diaspora and they are privileged in immigrating to England in relation to their Argentinian neighbors who come from Italian, German or Spanish descent. Not to mention in relation to their poorer neighbors who come from mixed Spanish-Indian descent. So England privileges her diaspora too. So why are you angry at Israel? Because you are not invited to our party?

I thought you were children’s laureate, Michael.

It was an addeitional observation with regard to your language, or style of argument. Yes, it was off-piste, Michael, and I am content to dispense with it.

Michael, arguing that Israeli Jews are entitled to national self-determination, or indeed, any Jews who might need or wish to join them, is not an argument that ‘might is right’. It is simply that Jews need not be a special case. European and Arab Christendom and Islam murdered or drove most of them out, 300 000 French Jews notwithstanding. They are not obliged to forget the fact, or to assume they are thereby obliged to endure national dissolution, your rather noble desire to project your own comfortable, secure (North?) London situation, whence you conduct your battle against the status quo, upon them, notwithstanding.

As to hypocrisy, David Rosenberg, it strikes me that you are guilty of it, since, what this piece is really about is having a dig at Israeli Jewish self determination since, hey, David Rosenberg is free in the UK to be a Jew in any way he pleases.

David: I see that you are spending much of your time quoting (ergo, reading) shelves upon shelves of books written by individuals with whose views you agree and who confirm you in your views. I also note that your quotes deal with nothing as inconvenient as facts, just with beautifully-crafted, yet fairly meaningless, phrases.

After World War II and the Holocaust (and Ahmedinajad, please note: according to Michael Rosen, the Holocaust was all about a tiny minority of “foreign” French Jews having perished. You should invite Mr Rosen to your next conference as a plenary speaker!), Isaac Deutscher had famously written how awful he feels that, in the years leading to the Holocaust, he and his party devoted their energies to persuade Jews not to emigrate to Palestine, asking himself how many, as a result, perished in the Holocaust. It is a sign of a true believer, David, that you don’t harbour similar doubts. Soul searching is fatal for true belief, almost as bad as facts and evidence.

And to the credibility of “the insurance policy” – again, David, had you only bothered to deal with facts (good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant) of contemporary Israeli society, rather than forcing reality into ideological mould, you would have understood something very important about Israel: the incredible vibrancy of Israeli culture and identity, the degree of cohesion of Jewish Israeli society. It is not just the cultural output in terms of quantity and quality, an output that puts to shame tenfold-larger countries. It is the level of culture consumption – and I don’t mean “culture” in the narrow sense, but as a shared experience of society, from opera to pop to hip-hop. There is a great deal about Israeli society to which I object (and yes, its attitude to Palestinians is one, its easy descent into aggression and abuse is another), but I can imagine very few other societies with similar degree of common ethos and cohesion. (Recent emigrants are a case apart, but recent emigrants were always a case apart and found their way into the melting pot within a generation.)

You are presumably a Marxist, David, aren’t you? One of the more sensible things Marx said was that reality shapes the consciousness, not the other way around. Whether Israel was deliberately established as an “insurance policy” or not, whether it became such knowingly or by default, its collective consciousness is shaped by its daily reality, by a mixture of sounds, smells, voices, landscapes, experiences which are alien to you. It is your right to feel total alienation from these experiences and this doesn’t make you into a lesser person, just a different one (and differences are legitimate). But, as long as you close your mind to all these and prefer to reinforce your views by invoking fact-free texts whose only “virtue” is that they are in tune with your views, you cannot expect to make a persuasive case for anything at all.

Adding to what S.O.Muffin said: and you cannot expect to learn about Israeli reality from a CD of rikudim. Sorry, David R. you make me so sad: you are like a wannabe tourist who deprecates the place he had chosen to visit but changed his mind and lost his plane. So he returns to the public area and argues with the clerk at the ticket counter to get his money back. He doesn’t forget to ask angrily for the clerk’s full name to report him to the Airport authorities while saying him with a wink that he is too good to continue working as a clerk and that he had some friends he can present the clerk in BUND inc. who are running a wonderful and thriving business.

Sorry that is how it is meant to be:

Adding to what S.O.Muffin said: and you cannot expect to learn about Israeli reality from a CD of rikudim.

Sorry, David R., You make me so sad: you are like a wannabe tourist who deprecates the place he had chosen to visit but changed his mind and lost his plane. So he returns to the public area and argues with the clerk at the ticket counter to get his money back. He doesn’t forget to shout angrily asking for the clerk’s full name to report him to the Airport authorities on one breath and on another breatk saying to him with a nice smile that the clerk is too good to continue working as a clerk and that he has some friends he can present the clerk in BUND inc. who are running a wonderful and thriving business.

what makes the uk home to so many loud and “in your face” anti-zionist jews?

why don’t we see the same thing in france?

what does the author have to prove with his “self”-determination that a jew choosing to live in france doesn’t?

s.o. muffin. This is entirely my own view. You have put it brilliantly. Amongst other things, it is the place where the murdered European literary tradition of Kafka and Bruno Schultz found its continuation. And it’s also the place where Arab writers have started to develop an Arabic written language suitable to write modernist fiction. I was at a discussion of this at the Jerusalem book fair in 2005.

‘For Jews to treat the nation-state as the exclusive form of normality on the basis of the last 60 years of Jewish soveriegnty in Israel seems a strange approach to history in general and a particularly strange approach when measured against the durability of the diaspora over millennia.’

Another strawman. How many pro-Zionists, or those sympathetic to the Jewish state of Israel, or its Jewish citizens, say it should be the ‘exclusive form of normality’ for diaspora Jews?

En effait, David is say anyone sympathetic to Israel is a de facto literal Zionist, and wishes to become an Israeli citizen, which is rubbish. That is what is so nasty about David or Michael labelling such people ‘Zionist’, as though they were essentially Jewish nationals rather than British nationals. It is a tactic that is rather too similar to that of bona fide antisemites

Oniad,

just to add, the Bund were also of course Jewish nationalists. Their consciousness, to borrow S.O. Muffin’s Marxist terminology, was shaped by the everyday reality that most of East European Jewry, which was, of course, most of world Jewry, constituted a national group.

Mike underscore,

when Jews were not all in one place in European and Arab Christendom or Islam they were mostly driven out or murdered.

Michael Rosen would still have seen them as footsoldiers in his war of progress (from the comfort of London, UK, whither his parents or grandparents had fled the battle ground of that particular war).

I apologise for the brevity of my comments, but I have little spare time and see little virtue in using ten words where one will do.

‘People didn’t come (with relatively few exceptions) because the fire of Zion was burning in their hearts. They fled. They escaped antisemitism, persecution, discrimination, often existential danger, often expulsion, and this seems to be a constant story until this very day. ‘

S.O.Muffin,

I think the point it better illustrates is that, while Jews may not have seen themselves as Jewish nationals, or sought not to be, all too often their ‘fellow’ Christian or Muslim nationals did see them as such.

That is/was part of the reality which then subsequently shaped the consciousness of Jews who became Israeli.

‘The USA has the world’s largest Jewish population, and more than 2 million Jews practise their self-determination in more than 40 states of that “graveyard” of Europe. ‘

The US is only a ‘graveyard’ of Europe if Israel also is. But the number of US Jews has been declining since the late 20th century, that of Israel increasing.

‘Clearly there is a Hebrew-speaking branch of the Jewish people, born and brought up Israel, which has as much right to self-determination as every other people (on Scherer’s lines).’

Great. Then why is this whole article in fact a dig at the self-determination of second largest, or largest, Jewish community in the world?

For David and Michael, it is as though it were still 1908 rather than 2008.

‘I agree with Mike about some of the hypocrisy on show here. It amused me earlier in the comments to be accused of Eurocentrism by people who stereotype all Arabs filled with hatred of all Jews.’

I called you Euro- or Anglo-centric, David.

Haven’t you just stereotyped me as someone who stereotypes ‘all Arabs filled with hatred of all Jews’.

Your entire article is about stereotyping either Zionists, pro-Zionists or people sympathetic to Israel as people who say ‘only this way and not the other’.

And yes, I realise I have just stereotyped your article, but hey.

Michael Rosen’s cavilling at Linda G on this thread is peculiar and a bit disturbing considering how clearly his misunderstandings have been explained to him. The nasty Holocaust-minimising comments (only a third of Jews in France murdered, nothing to get upset about, surely!) cast a particularly lurid light on his offerings. I thought this was especially odd:

“Yes, I realised that. However, ‘Israeli Jews’ weren’t the words you used. You used the words ‘people’ and ’society’ when referring,yes, to ‘Israeli Jews’. It rather confirms my point.”

This only makes sense (given that he acknowledges from the off the truth of Linda Grants’ explanation that the context made her meaning quite clear) if Rosen thinks that describing Israeli Jews as ‘people’ is in some way intrinsically sinister.

I agree with the poster above, though, who points out that there is some mitigation for Michael R’s unfortunate, condescending written manner in that he works largely with children and condescension is the deformation professionelle of anyone who spends too much time with the little ‘uns, in the flesh or in the mind. Such people understandably find it very hard to adjust to adult conversation. At the level of the average four-year-old, Michael is a terrific communicator.

“…when you describe Jews as a people, is that a racial or religious theory?”

The Jews are not a race or a religion. And their peoplehood is not a theory.

The Jews are a tribe. And a very successful one.

Mike, what makes the Jivarro of the Amazon a people? Is it their race, religion or culture? Might it be all of them? Do the Jivarro titillate your curiosity? Do you think such antiquated “theories” of people (not the people themselves of course!) deserve the right to define and protect themselves? I’m genuinely interested in your answer.

Rosen and Rosenburg,

Now is all criticism of anti-zionism to be considered racist?

Perhaps if ‘Socialism’ had not been quite so rampagingly Imperialist, Colonialist and Nationalist and Racist then the large numbers of Jews whom rejected it or died at its hands might not have done so. As some have pointed out already if the Bund and other Communist-Supremacist-Successionist Jewish apostates had not been so anti-zionist then many – if not millions – of Jews would have not have perished as they did in the death-camps of the Nazis or the Communists.

So there are two good historical reasons why Communist and Socialist anti-zionism killed Jews rather than leading to the Jam Tomorrow that it had, and still does, promise its fundamentalist believers. Socialism and Communism are Successionist religions, that were guilty of everything that you, David Rosenburg, have leveled at Zionism so I suspect that your identity and political problems all stem from this conflict of your true beliefs with your accident of birth. A conflict between your Superiority and Inferiority complexs.

That and the bitterness you perhaps feel because your racially prejudiced, Yiddisher-speaking, Polak and Russian Communist Elitist Idealists in Mandate Palestine and then Israel’s 3rd Commonwealth are disappearing into a pluralist and highly entreprenarial population that had more or less completely dismissed your core values and non-Jewish belief-system as alien.

A land is only ever as good as the people that live on it especially in Israel’s case she is the people that live upon it. See how Israel now flourishes and blooms in every way despite the on-going efforts of Racial and Religious Supremacists, Empires and Successionist Ideologies to destroy her people and despite there being no unifying and overarching ideology or ideological vanguard imbued with special powers to lead her.

Since ‘Zionism’ is now mostly about teaching Jewish children about Israel or sending your children on holiday there, or moving to/holidaying in Israel to join or the friends and family already there or…. defending her from anti-semites, other anti-zionists and those organisations promoting terrorism against her people and the end of Jewish sovereignty being ‘anti-zionist’ makes – you – what?

Thanks for that. John Meredith. I’ll wipe the slate clean of the SaTC grievances.

Iain, I don’t understand your post.

Oniad said,
“the Bund were also of course Jewish nationalists.”

The Bund’ last manifesto before the Holocaust (adopted at its congress in Novebmber 1937) confirmed its long held, unequivocal, anti-nationalist position:

A list of 9 statements/demands at the end of the manifesto started with:
“Against antisemitism, against all manner of human hatred, against one’s own and foreign nationalism!

Hope that is clear Oniad and counts as a fact for Muffin too.
Muffin, I am very familiar with Deutscher’s comments that you quoted, and familiar too with his other essays for the 50s and 60s which expressed the most dire warnings for the future of Israeli society, which appear to me to be borne out. From your earlier comments about “There is a huge deal to criticise about Israel, its policies and Zeitgeist. And this criticism is urgent”, I suspect you probably appreciate these later comments of Deutscher too. But don’t be coy, be specific: which policies ought to be criticised?

Clearly there are a lot of deep divisions within Palestinian society at the moment and its political representation but from the Israeli side of the equation, be specific about what you think Israel needs to do policy-wise to move to a durable long-term solution both with the Palestinians in the Occupied territories and the palestinians within Israeli society.

Where do you stand in relation to the demand both from Israeli peace activitsts like Uri Avnery, Adam Keller etc and from Palestinian MKs that Israel should become a state for all its citizens on an equal footing?

David R,

perhaps you could give us your views on why so many “anti-Zionist’” narratives often come across as crude, essentialising melodramatic accounts (or at least that is the perception from the outside)?

and why there is little concrete analysis on the social conditions which brought about those ideas?

I am disapointed by this post appearing on Harry’s Place. It is shockingly ignorant, and indeed self-contradictory.

Leaving aside one’s opinions on Israeli policy – here is the major internal contradiction of this post: David Rosenberg asserts that the Jews have a right to national self-determination. A major, perhaps THE major, component of ‘national self determination’ is the ability of the nation in question to defend itself.

Good relations with ones neighbours is to be welcomed, but for Jews living amongst other peoples with varying degrees of assimilation, it is essential to know that if an unfriendly regime arose where they are, there exists a country they can go to which will not turn them away.

The Jews counted on the enlightenned values and hospitality of the Europeans for centuries – it didn’t turn out that well. Now they can determine their own political identity, as well as their religious and cultural identities.

Israel is essential to Judaism – this is not a recent zionist construct. Every year at Passover Jews say “now we are here, next year may we be in the land of Israel, now we are slaves, next year may we be free men”. Jew cried this out for centuries before Theodroe Herzl – Israel is as flawed as any other state, but it’s existence is the fulfillment of a centuries old yearning of a people to be free. And anyone who believes in freedom should defend its existence and the right of its people to live in peace.

“From your earlier comments about “There is a huge deal to criticise about Israel, its policies and Zeitgeist. And this criticism is urgent”, I suspect you probably appreciate these later comments of Deutscher too. But don’t be coy, be specific: which policies ought to be criticised?”

Had you read my contribution to HP threads in the last few years, David, you would have not accused me of coyness. My views are on record. The fact that you didn’t bother to read them is your privilege, but if so I take it that your accusation of coyness and you question are less than sincere.

For the record – and where do I start?

1. I want an end to the occupation. Two sovereign states, one Israeli and the other Palestinian, two national homes living in peace and increasing economic and social cooperation. Along the 1967 borders.

2. I want equality of esteem and respect toward all Israeli citizens and total, absolute equality toward all of them, inclusive of the 22% who are of Palestinian origin. And I believe that this is totally consistent with Israel being open to Jewish emigration and being a shelter to Jews whenever they are victims of persecution. Exactly like I expect the Palestinian state to be open to Palestinian emigration and being a shelter to Palestinians whenever they are victims of persecution.

3. I want an Israeli society which is more equal and committed to social justice.

4. I want an Israeli society where the base relationship between its different constituents – Jews and Arabs, Mizrahi and Ashkenazi, old-timers and emigrants, … – is that of mutual respect and of a readiness to listen to each other, rather than drowning the other with raised voice and worse.

If this isn’t enough for you, try to read my other posts on this topic before you are making unpleasant accusations.

OK, David Rosenberg,

you are quite right to pick me up on imprecise use of language: what I meant by ‘nationalist’ was that they regarded, and maintained, East European Jewry were a national group meriting territorial national autonomy in a socialist federation.

But, of course, that made the Bund too nationalist for Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and the Socialist International.

And I’m not Oniad.

Sorry Zkharya, but if you can be wrong about the Bund being nationalists, I can be wrong about calling you Oniad. Ironically Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, like the Zionists, found it too challenging to see national-cultural identity in anything other than territorial terms.

Muffin – no unpleasantness was intended. I have read some of your posts in the past and understood them as a lot more serious than many of the other puerile point scorers. But I don’t read Harry’s Place very often these days, the puerile brigade put me off, and it often feels like a waste of time, so my questions were to you were genuine and I wanted to see how much common ground we shared (rather a lot).

I don’t have a hard and fast position on one/two states. For many years I described myself as holding a two-states position (believing this would be an advance even if not the solution) but the more of the occupied territories that is swallowed up in settlements, Jewish only roads, the more contiguous Palestinains society is broken up, the more land-grabbing goes on in Jerusalem, it is getting harder to see how there can be a viable Palestinian state. The assumption that anti-zionist = one stater is anassumption that Zionsits often make but it is not necessarily true. Some people more hardline anti-Zionists than me like Norman Finkelstein have always argued for a two state solution.

Equality of esteem and respect definitely – but how will this be brought about. What policies about which structures are necessary to achieve this? On immigration policies – if a Jew wants to live in Israel – fine but what about the law of return – do you believe in the right of Palestinians to return/some Palestinians to return/compensation? As an opponent of racist immigration laws in Britain and elsewhere I can’t support a racist immigration law in israel and I am assuming that you don’t believe that the ultimate security of the Israelis in that part of the Middle East is bound to a desperate struggle to maintain a demographic advantage.

A more equal Israel/committed to social justice – definitely – is this bound up with the trade union movement becoming more independent from the political establishment? Is it about a move towards proper rights for migrant workers?

One more question – more directly related to the theme of the thread, should issues relating to Israel/Zionism have any bearing on Jews involvements in political campaigns in the diaspora with other minority groups?

David:

Briefly…

• I agree that the creeping annexation of the West Bank (and I include East Jerusalem in this) is making any sort of compromise increasingly difficult: this is, after all, precisely the purpose of the Yesha Council and the Greater Israel settlers. Yet, I believe that we haven’t crossed the point of no return.

• Can anti-Zionists be in favour of a two-state solution? Not for me to say, I am not an anti-Zionist. Having said so, there is something suspect in a self-defined anti-Zionist being in favour of a two-state solution. I mean, why? Also, once you are saying “I am an anti-Zionist”, you can take it for granted that you will not be listened to by almost all Israelis.

• Right of return of Palestinian refugees: Definitely, all Palestinians should have the right of return to the Palestinian state, exactly like Jews have the right of return to the Jewish state. Once we agree that the heart of the problem is a clash of nationalisms and that it admits a national solution, this is the way to proceed. In addition, there should certainly be a humanitarian gesture for agreed number of refugees to move to Israel, e.g. as family unification. More importantly, there should be an admission by Israel that, without apportioning blame (a rather futile exercise, which leads absolutely nowhere), the reestablishment of Jewish statehood in Israel meant a disaster, a nakhba for the Palestinians, and that Israel must play a role in setting this right. The greatest contribution by Israel will be, I believe, to help in absorbing Palestinian refugees in Palestine, not just in helping to create the economic framework (something in which international community should invest massively!) but in sharing Israeli experience. I know, David, that you find it emotionally difficult to say a good word about Israel. Better believe me, more than any other country on earth, Israel has learnt how to absorb mass emigration, and do it efficiently, effectively and (yes!) humanely. This expertise, generously shared with Palestinians, should be crucial in actually rehabilitating lives, rather than just relocating refugees from one slum to another.

• Of course, more equal Israel means stronger and more independent trade union. You aren’t, I am afraid, up to date. For almost a decade the Histadrut is no longer controlled by the “Labour” Party. It is actively (much more than TUC) run by worker councils and shop stewards. The problem of the Histadrut is not government control but the fact that it represents mostly large enterprises, utilities and public sector, but with little penetration into the modern economic sectors. But the main problem is not Histadrut but the feral free-market government policy, slashing-and-burning the welfare state and education.

• “should issues relating to Israel/Zionism have any bearing on Jews involvements in political campaigns in the diaspora with other minority groups?” – I am trying to understand what you mean. We are all wearing many hats and the Jewish hat (whether yarmulke or IDF helmet or anything else) is just one of them. I am involved in many things in my life that have nothing to do with being Jewish and have no bearing on how I define myself vis-a-vis the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Now, you might asking here (but I can be wrong) whether Jews should cooperate with committed enemies of Israel in political campaigns. My answer (and I hope it isn’t too vague for your liking) is that I am personally willing to cooperate with those who share with me universal principles, even if I disagree with the conclusions they are drawing from them. Thus, I am definitely willing to collaborate with Muslims in combating prejudice against them, but I am not willing to collaborate with Muslim Brotherhood and their ilk, because they are themselves racists, any more than I am willing to collaborate with BNP. Does this answer your question?

Muffin wrote:

“Having said so, there is something suspect in a self-defined anti-Zionist being in favour of a two-state solution.”

forget two States, for the moment.

I would simply settle for most anti-Zionists being able to recognise anti-Jewish racism, when they see it and them making an effort to oppose it?

under the present circumstances, I think we should start slightly lower down in our expectations.

Israel takes in non-Jewish refugees and gives them at least temprorary a country to live in. Thirty years ago, Israel gave refugee to Vietnamese refugees. In 1999, Israel gave sanctiuary to Moslem refugees from Kosovo. Today Israel is taking in Moslem African refugees from the genocide in Darfur and Christian Africans fleeing renewed fighting in the southern Sudan. See http://www.nif.org/media-center/nif-in-the-news/darfuris-get-israeli-id-cards.html & http://www.isrealli.org/index.php?s=refugees for this inspiring story.

David Rosenberg,

it is quite conventional to refer to the Bundists as, from 1903, Jewish nationalists: they sought Jewish national autonomy in a socialist federation, along the lines of other national groups. Their being denied this at the Second RSDLP Congress in 1903 led to their secession.

Bundist nationalism was on the Austro-Marxist model. The generic meaning of nationalism, it seems to me, is some form of national will to self-determination, which may take a variety of forms. It is only in its extreme or extra-territorial forms that it becomes something else. Else how are you going to define Palestinian nationalism?

I might add that national self-determination is different from individual self determination, which is largely what you are talking of, it seems to me.

The Bund also wished to represent the Jewish proletariat generally, not unreasonably, which is what Lenin objected to. It seems to me you are not happy with any body representing Jews generally.

Your manifesto of 1937 (can you provide an online link, incidentally?) dates from a time when that was no longer possible, since (asides from Stalin’s effective dissolution of the Russian Bund) the territory in which Jews lived was now divided between other states, especially Poland. Many Polish nationalists wished to exclude Jews, while Polish Bundists sought equality within a Polish state, but, nevertheless some kind of cultural Jewish national autonomy, and a political one, to the extent they wished to represent the Jewish proletariate. Their position was that the Jews were a national minority within Poland.

I might add that, while the Bund wished Polish Jews to be Polish citizens, this did not mean they regarded them as Polish nationals. Au contraire, they wished Jews to retain Yiddish language and culture, not Polish, as their national culture.

‘Ironically Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, like the Zionists, found it too challenging to see national-cultural identity in anything other than territorial terms.’

But the Bund effectively called for territorial national autonomy. They called for their being permitted to represent the Jewish proletariat regardless of which other alleged national territory it fell in. And the mass of Jews formed a generally territorially contiguous group i.e. the historical Pale of Settlement. The Bund called to be permitted to represent them without interference by the RSDLP or any other national socialist party. That was effective territorial national political autonomy in a socialist federation, along the lines of other groups. You are right Lenin et al. objected to it on the grounds that it was nationalist. But it was a form of national will to self-determination. Which is a conventional definition of nationalism.

I am also glad, David, that you implicitly acknowledged the Bund to have been Jewish nationalist, merely non-territorial nationalist (though in fact the picture is more complicated than that).

Linda Grant and Ami were correct about Mike Rosen’s sneering attitude:

“It comes at comment number 88-ish in a thread on self-determination by guest contributor Dave Rosenberg at Harry’s Place.

Just to unpack Linda for a moment: the word ‘people’ means ‘Jews’ in the passage, doesn’t it? The list of ‘people’ she gives as all living in Tel Aviv, are, from this account all Jews. Presumably if she has spoken to any non-Jews, she would be boasting about, wouldn’t she? So in order to get a more ‘nuanced’ view (sorry if I snigger) she spoke to lots of different kinds of Jews! And this is what gives the world of Linda’s readers, a ‘nuanced’ view of Zion?! Perhaps I’m mistaken, and Linda, the in-depth journalist of the nuanced view interviewed Palestinians, or even immigrant workers but just happened to omit the fact from this passage…perhaps. Perhaps not. In the meantime, I confess: I sniggered.
MichaelRosen | Homepage | 06.09.08 – 10:50 pm | #

http://www.haloscan.com/comments/levi9909/7299556108433596298/

shame, I had thought Mike Rosen was slightly more mature that that, obviously not

But of course I did do those interviews, posted links to them on this thread before Michael wrote this, and he confirmed that he had read one of them. You might almost accuse him of being a cheap and dishonest propagandist.

Linda,

with the likes of Michael Rosen, you are dammed if you do, you are dammed if you don’t

I think it is something to do with the persistent anti-Zionist mentality, which has a wholly negative outlook at its base

so in the twilight zone inhabited by some of these anti-Zionists anything that is said, published or spoken about by “Zionists” is regarded as utterly false

it is a form of entrenched bad faith, where everything that anti-Zionists say is given the most charitable interpretation and allowances made any discrepancy, however, the utterances of “Zionists” are seen as bogus, duplicitous and Machiavellian from the outset

I’m sure that there is, probably somewhere, some halfway sensible anti-Zionists but they seem to be an ever shrinking minority, and what is left is a cranky rump with a rather nasty fixation, often expressed in the most immature of terms.

which is probably why they rarely debate their views in open forums it is hard for them to argue a positive cogent case, instead what comes out is dressed up bile, as shown by Jews Sans Frontieres

Wish I’d noticed this thread sooner. Ironic that it seems to have gone up over Shavuoth.

It’s also a fixation on concept instread of reality. Israel isn’t a place it’s a theoretical construct, and hence could or should be deconstructed and dismantled ccordingly.

Sorry that my work schedule at the moment allows limited access to computers so I will respond briefly to a set of comments.

Muffin thanks for your much more detailed comments, many of which I agree with. No doubt you are more up to date with Histadrut politics than me – but what is the Histadrut attitude to migrant workers? Are they for regularisation, citizenship rights, unionization? Some years back the JSG was in touch with kav le’oved – workers hotline – who were taking up these issues and seemed to think the Histadrut was not doing enough.

And thanks for answering the questions about alliances. Since the late 70s when the Anti-Nazi league as set up through to the peace/anti-war movements today, “official”Jewish leaders have tried to warn Jews away from participating in a range of broad-based progressive campaigns by saying that these groups are anti-Zionist. They are either letting the perceived interest of the Israeli state dominate the political interests of diaspora Jews or using it as a smokescreen to keep Jews away from contact with the Left. Of course there is much more the Left can do to be a more welcoming place for Jews, but in this thread I want to concentrate on the jewish/Zionist end of the equation. The consequences of the clash between diaspora and Israeli state interests was one of the main thrusts of the original post

Modernity – you said you would simply settle for most anti-Zionists being able to recognise anti-Jewish racism, when they see it and them making an effort to oppose it I hope this is not aimed at the JSG since this has been a significant part of the group’s work since it’s inception. It is instructive that our first big blow up with the Jewish establishment (In the late 70s/early 80s) was not over Israel or Zionism but over our persistent demand that the Board of Deputies tell the truth to the community about the nature and extent of anti-Semitic attacks that were being perpetrated. They were hiding this information from the community and denying the need to make alliances with other threatened groups. Members of the Board of Deputies like Harold Soref were saying that Jews were in the first division of ethnic minorities and didn’t want toe be in the third division – a comment for which he was taken to task by the late Shalom Charikar an Indian Jewish member of our group.

And after the May 8th fiasco at Wembley recently, where the Zionist Federation saw fit to celebrate Israel’ 60th by having Jackie Mason starring – and making jokes at the expense of Blacks, women and gays, I guess that Zionists ought to look first at some of the racism going on a little closer to home.

Have to say, Modernity, I’m disappointed with the patronizing and stereotyped portrayal of anti-Zionists you have adopted on this thread – you don’t normally need those attitudes to prop up your points so I hope we can continue our discussion free of that and concentrate on the substance of what we are agreeing or disagreeing over as we normally do.

Mark Gardner “Wish I’d noticed this thread sooner. Ironic that it seems to have gone up over Shavuoth.” I also go to watch West Ham on Saturdays and as a secular Jew I would be happy to post on Yom Kippur. Didn’t realize that Harry’s Place was only for glatt kosher frummers. What’s your point?

David Rosenberg wrote:

“Modernity – you said you would simply settle for most anti-Zionists being able to recognise anti-Jewish racism, when they see it and them making an effort to oppose it I hope this is not aimed at the JSG since this has been a significant part of the group’s work since it’s inception.”

David, if I had wished to make critical remarks on the JSG, you wouldn’t miss them, but as I can’t think of any, I won’t.

you wrote:

“Have to say, Modernity, I’m disappointed with the patronizing and stereotyped portrayal of anti-Zionists you have adopted on this thread – you don’t normally need those attitudes to prop up your points”

is it conceivable that my views might be based on evidence?

Hmm… well?

perhaps the JSG could bring those critical faculties, so well honed by attacking the Board of Deputies, to bear on a grouping closer to your heart: the Greens

when I read in a thread, Greens that dismiss attacks on synagogues is not being antisemitic or racist, then I’m left to conclude that possibly there’s a problem with some Greens?

and in particular when these comments are made on one of the green leader’s blogs, who makes a point of going on about his opposition to antisemitism, but can’t even see it when it under his nose:

“Anti-Semitism barely exists, although of course Zionists pretend otherwise, so that they can categorize anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism. Britain’s Jewish community is not remotely under threat and it is hysterical nonsense to pretend otherwise.”

and

“The Standard recently published a photograph of graffitti reading ‘I HATE ISRAEL’ This was described as racist and anti-Semitic, and I’m sure CST chalked it up as such for their stats. But in my view it wasn’t at all – it was no more racist than ‘I HATE THE USA’ would be.”

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=25556312&postID=3895904929611014126&page=1&pli=1

so David, I welcome your view on these Green “anti-Zionists”??

do you think that the attack on the four synagogues was antisemitic? Or not?

Yes – the I think the attack on the synagogues was antisemitic.
And if the perpetrators think that by doing it they were supporting the Palestinians against Israel, they have shown that they are enemies of both the Jews and the Palestinians.

I would hope that any serious anti-racists/socialists distinguish between people and governments, and any serious commentators on Jews and Israel/Palestine would recognise the distinctions between Jews, Israel, Jewish people, Israeli people, Israeli government/military and Zionism. Certainly anyone blurring those distinctions does not help the situation and provides cover for anyone wishing to cloak anti-Jewish feeling as anti-Israel activity.

Had it said “I hate the Israeli occupation” and been daubed on a wall not belonging to a synagogue I would not consider it antisemitic. If “I hate the israeli occupation” was daubed on the Israeli Embassy or on an El Al office it wouldn’t reflect political sophistication but I would not consider that an antisemitic incident. I suspect the CST might. Would you?

I am sure that quite a lot of the CSTs statistics on antisemitic incidents are accurate and I know personally of incidents (form white christian racists) that have not been reported and not made it into the statistics. Whether the CST have the analytical sophisitication to distinguish between political anti-zionism and antisemitism is another matter entirely. The JSG’s experience on the receiving end of the antics of the CST and its predecessor the CSO suggest that this is something they lack. And the CST are not alone. Many statements by the Board of Deputies and the Chief Rabbi not only blur the distinction but out of political convenience or ignorance, but blur all the other important distinctions stated above.

Modernity – I’m familiar with he thread you are talking about on a Green leader’s website. Unlike this discussion in which many individuals have contributed, a tiny number of contributors discussed that thread, of which a couple made the kinds of points you object to and others contested these points. You assume the people contesting these points were not Greens or anti-Zionists. I don’t. But I can’t see how you can argue that these points are indicative of the views of Green anti-Zionists in general.

Several Green members I know (Jewish and non-Jewish) are opposed to Zionism and are thoroughly consistent anti-racists. They just may not choose to spend the amount of time we do arguing on blogs.

David Rosenberg wrote:

“You assume the people contesting these points were not Greens or anti-Zionists. I don’t. But I can’t see how you can argue that these points are indicative of the views of Green anti-Zionists in general.”

please, David, let’s not tax the improbable, it is not unreasonable to assume that a leading member of the Green Party’s blog is read and contributed to by, er, Greens, etc

and even if those nasty comments by Michael Williams aren’t from Greens, I would have hoped at least those valiant antiracist anti-Zionist Greens would have made an effort to contest his disgusting remarks, but no one did.

even Derek Wall couldn’t be troubled to comment

and I don’t want to quibble over whether or not these people are Green’s but when it under their noses and they don’t make any effort against it, then I’m certainly sceptical (notice how they pepper their own comment with the words: anti-Zionism, etc)

I appreciate that you might be loath to attack or even reprimand some Greens, but that’s the point, its much easier to criticise our “enemies” (CST, BoDs, etc) than to highlight failings of our friends (Greens, etc), isn’t it?

Which brings me to the salient point, if you can’t get people to oppose the basics, anti-Jewish racism when it is so stark and so bleeding obvious, then hoping that they’ll suddenly understand the subtleties of Jewish self-determination is fantasy

If they can’t get the basics right, how can you trust them with the more complex issues?

PS: just to clarify, no I don’t think that all Greens are racists or such like but when there is such seeming indifference and obvious hostility, then you have to wonder what’s wrong with some of them and why they others don’t take up the issue?

David

I don’t know if you have read our Antisemitic Incidents Reports but I invite you to do so and draw your own conclusions about how we categorise incidents. They are available on our website at http://www.thecst.org.uk and the one for 2006 in particular has some relevant observations about the difference between anti-Israel and antisemitic incidents. Our website also has a downloadable leaflet explaining all our incident categories and definitions. Our work on antisemitic incidents has been repeatedly recommended by police, criminologists and international bodies working against hate crime and I would hope it will stand your scrutiny too.

As for your hypothetical example: if “I hate the Israeli occupation” were daubed on the Israeli Embassy, we would not classify it as antisemitic; if it were daubed on a synagogue we would. The Stamford Hill daubings were not actually on synagogue property, but were deliberately clustered in Stamford Hill, which is known for its Jewish community, and therefore in our analysis involved deliberate targeting of the Jewish community, which is antisemitic. This is a grey area, and it is the kind of incident that prompts lengthy internal discussions in our office over whether it is antisemitic or not. As you will see from our Antisemitic Incident Reports, we reject a large number of potential incidents each year as not being antisemitic. We do not automatically accept every reported incident as antisemitic, nor do we follow the Macpherson definition. I find it ironic that in the 1970s and 1980s the Jewish establishment was accused of playing down the amount of antisemitism. Nowadays we tend to get accused of inflating it. The real truth, much more mundane, is that we try our best to tell it how it is. That might not be a political enough answer for you but it’s how I try to do my job.

btw I think Mark Gardner’s point was that a discussion about Jewish identity that takes place at a time when observant Jews cannot take part, is going to be missing a pretty important perspective.

I hope that my colleague Dave Rich’s reply has clarified how CST classifies antisemitic incidents. Anyone wishing further info should go to our website and read the pdf’s of the annual incident report (http://www.thecst.org.uk).

The case of the Greens cited in last night’s conversation is an interesting one. It typifies how anti-Israel and (especially) anti-Zionist hatred can so often slip into a knee jerk refutation of mainstream Jewish perspectives on antisemitism, thereby demonstrating the double standards employed against Jews because they are associated with Israel and Zionism. (Contrast it with the response that anti-Al Qaeda graffiti in the close vicinity of local mosques would rightly bring).

I’m not too sure why David Rosenberg went off on one about me merely saying it was ironic that his posting on Jewish self-determination went up on Shavuoth. Its been (and still is) a particularly interesting thread about Jewish identity and it occurred over a Jewish festival that is associated with study, debate and reflection.

I think there is a basic problem with definitions in this article. Self-Determination, in its most widely used sense, is *national* self-determination. As such, it presupposes a state.

See:

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: self-determination

Process by which a group of people, usually possessing a degree of political consciousness, form their own state and government. The idea evolved as a byproduct of nationalism. According to the UN charter, a people has the right to form itself into a state or to otherwise determine the form of its association with another state, and every state has the right to choose its own political, economic, social, and cultural systems.

Red Deathy writes:

‘Well, has’t Zionism demonstrably failed, in as much as the vaunted Jewish stae is itself continually under existential threat, and rests as much upon the support of foreign powers as would simply campaigning for human rights in country X would?”

No, it has not. It is arguably the most successful political movement Jews have organized in modern times. Far more successful than Bundism, anarchism, etc. etc. etc. Israel is also doing rather well economically and terror attacks are significantly down after the separation barrier was built.

The point of the article, TNC, was to challenge narrow (territorial) orthodoxies of self-determination and to show how in any case they are not that helpful in the Jewish example – an international people who cannot be re-made into a one-state nation.

Zionism has certainly been a well organised movement but a successful political movement only in so far as oppressive state nationalism has been a successful political movement and Israel has joined the club. You could argue that in Italy, Germany, Spain and Japan – fascism was a “successful” political movement – but successful at what? If, as I suspect, you are talking about giving Jews rights and dignity I think that campaigners for civil rights and social justice in the diaspora over the last 300 years gave Jews more than zionism has. One of the ironies is of course that the loyalty tests constantly demanded by Zionism, (an idea that blithely commandeers the language of “liberation” and “self-determination”), actually makes many Jews feel less able to speak their opinions.

As for economic success – the gap between rich and poor has been growing wider and wider in Israel and many Israelis, Jewish and non-Jewish live in poverty;there are millionaires/billionaires in israel today but their economic success is not generalised. It has an economically successful international arms/security/surveillance techniques industry – but I don’t think that is something to brag about; and the country is massively aided by the USA.

If I was a Zionist (which I was once) I’d be feeling a bit hard done by.

Once again, David Rosenberg demonstrates the nastyness of the anti-Zionists by comparing the democratic nationalism of Israel to dictatorial nationalism of Fascism. Notice it is always to Fascism that Zionism is compared to, not the democratic nationalism of the United States, Great Britain, France or India, even though it is to these countries that Israel most closely resembles.

May I point out that the US, Great Britain, France, India like Israel all have successful Weapons/Security/Surveilance industries. In all these democratic countries, these are the basis of the high tech industries that power their moden economies and have resulted in many inventions including the internet. This is sad contrast to the Arab countries whose only new weapon is the suicide bomber and even that they barrowed from the Tamil (mostly Hindu) Tigers of Sri Lanka.