UN apologists: respond to this.

[Agent327]

It's the only possible response to incoherence.

Hm. The fact you don't understand something doesn't mean it's incoherent. Which is, again, something else than 'you don't seem to have a point'. I was discussing your 'point'. Perhaps the 'incoherence' results from that.

You vvere.

Oh, it's a Yes/No game, is it? I don't do those.

That plenty of native inhabitants of the land seem quite friendly vvith Israelis and their nationalism? This is a verifiable fact.

Native inhabitants? You mean Palestinians? So, Palestinians who rely for their livelihood on being in Israel are "quite friendly vvith Israelis and their nationalism"? Since when is this news?

I repeat my question.

I think you can simply google the answer.

Then the definition of ethnicity is no longer useful, since it no longer refers to to distinct group-identities.

You're drawing a conclusion from something that wasn't even argued?

VVhich is grammar. My vvording vvas used for emphasis despite not being grammatically accurate.

Well, therefore isn't used for emphasis. It's used to indicate a conclusion.

Actually, pretty much all Jevvish denominations get along fine in Israel. The Druze and Christians also get along fine vvith Jevvs. Heck, even the African Hebrevv Israelites are accepted. It's just Palestinian Muslims that seem to have the problem.

You just said the natives are friendly. Now, which is it? They're friendly/unfriendly depending on your argument? And who was claiming Israelis don't get along?

That is possible, but rare. Most of the time it is the nation that makes the state. Example: Germany

I quoted Bismarck. Who created Germany. Which was repeated by another German statesman this century, by the name of Kohl. I could make a fairly long list of other states that created nations. The reverse might be a rather short list.

They aren't. They're a national minority.

So they were a bit 'in the way then' of your perceived pre-political entity. Too bad for the natives.

VVhy not?

This statement:

Even vvere nationalism false, it doesn't follovv that nation-states have no right to exist.

is absolutely correct.

This statement:

It is possible to accept the efficacy of nationalism vvithout accepting its truth, just like you can believe that religion is helpful to society vvithout actually being religious.

is also absolutely correct. However, nationalism arose after nation-states were created. That's just the historical development. The fact that now we have nationalism in nation-states (not necessarily exactly overlapping those nation-states) doesn't mean that this nationalism created those nation-states.

Except for Traitorfish, the guy I quoted and vvas responding to.

I'm a bit disappointed in Traitorfish then, if that is true.

Lebanon is the prime example of religion and identity being the same thing.

In the same sense that North Korea and the people's will are the exact same thing, yes.

No one is trying to 'take over' anything. That's just drivel spouted by secular Zionists vvho are upset that their vievvs are losing ground.

Let's hope it stays that way then.

The Messiah vvas explicitly stated to bring in all Jevvs, including the dead, to Israel.

Good. Then I assume you understand why religious Jews may disagree with the legitimacy of the state of Israel.

 

[Traitorfish]

I don't understand hovv any nation-state can come about vvithout first being a "pre-political community."

Most of them did. Spain, Iran and China were all states before they were "nations". Even most successful nationalist projects were carved out of older administrative units, like Ireland or Indonesia, or by the amalgamation of existing entities, like Germany and Italy. Nation-states are really built from the ground-up by nationalists; Israel is in that respect, as in so many others, deeply unusual.

One might claim that these states had to be imbued with nationality by a previously-independent national community, that only coincided spatially with the state before nationalists achieved their goals- but that seems a lot like special pleading.

It is possible to accept the efficacy of nationalism vvithout accepting its truth, just like you can believe that religion is helpful to society vvithout actually being religious. Even vvere nationalism false, it doesn't follovv that nation-states have no right to exist.

If nationalism is false, then nation-states don't exist, and things which don't exist can't have rights. One can argue that it is useful for states to present themselves in "national" terms, but you can't derive any sight of rights (or, equally, obligations) from that unless you also maintain that nation-ness is a genuine quality which states can possess. A person might argue that it is useful for monarchs to be percieved as having a touch of the divine about them, but a person cannot coherently claim that this is merely a fiction and, at the same time, that divine imbues a monarch with certain rights; the two claims cannot both be true.

I don't accept that any nation has the right to possess any land; only that they have the right to self-determination. Zionism may have claimed Palestine, but as I've argued it made much more sense at the time (and many of the early settlers didn't even vvant a state to begin vvith).

Self-determination isn't practically possible without land. There's a reason so many revolutions have been launched under the banner "land and freedom". So a right to self-determination necessarily implies a right to some land, enough for that self-determination, political and cultural, to be effective. Most cultural nationalists would argue that, because the shared history and culture that constitute the essence of the nation are bound up in the occupation of certain areas, effective self-determination requires the occupation of those territories: the Irish must have Ireland because they could not be Irish anywhere else. Jewish nationalism is unusual in that Jewish identity is not predicated on the occupation of any particular place, so it's strange to demand the same geographical detachment from Palestinian nationalism.

I suppose it could be seen as civic nationalism. Just of a kind that I (and every liberal should) hold in contempt.

Civic nationalism implies some sort of civic institutions, of which Palestine has few, and none of them particularly effective or popular. Palestinian nationalism is I would say very clearly a form of cultural or ethnic nationalism: the problem it encounters is defining a Palestinian ethnicity or culture, and defining it in a way which has not simply been imposed upon it by the administrative boundaries of foreign empires. That's not an easy project, and one that Palestinian nationalists haven't really made any easier for themselves by their historical attachment to pan-Arabism and, latterly, Islamism, both of which play down whatever it is might be uniquely Palestinian.

 

[Mouthwash]

Hm. The fact you don't understand something doesn't mean it's incoherent. Which is, again, something else than 'you don't seem to have a point'. I was discussing your 'point'. Perhaps the 'incoherence' results from that.

No, I'm pretty sure you're just being incoherent.

Oh, it's a Yes/No game, is it? I don't do those.

You said: "Maybe that's why they are called peace keepers? Under circumstances UN forces are allowed to defend themselves. they are not allowed to engage in aggression. The reasons for this seem rather obvious, I would think."

I responded: "They are called peace keepers because they keep the peace. In a country. VVhich requires them to take actions against violent elements vvithin that country, not merely those that aggress against them."

To which you replied: "Nobody was arguing that."

Native inhabitants? You mean Palestinians? So, Palestinians who rely for their livelihood on being in Israel are "quite friendly vvith Israelis and their nationalism"? Since when is this news?

'Palestinian' refers to a nationality. What I was saying that was plenty of native inhabitants of the land are very friendly with Israelis and Zionism.

I think you can simply google the answer.

Funny, I don't see Switzerland listed here.

You're drawing a conclusion from something that wasn't even argued?

I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say.

Well, therefore isn't used for emphasis. It's used to indicate a conclusion.

But informally, it is often used by English-speakers for emphasis.

You just said the natives are friendly. Now, which is it? They're friendly/unfriendly depending on your argument?

I was saying that only one particular group among the natives in Palestine seems to be actively hostile towards Zionism, and it's Arabic-speaking Muslims. Almost all Palestinians belong to that group.

And who was claiming Israelis don't get along?

You were. First you said that Jews weren't an ethnicity because they all come from different countries: "I was referring to the multi-ethnic background of Jewish Israelis, actually. Didn't you just say you were of Moroccan descent? That applies to practically all Jewish immigrants: they're all from a country that isn't Israel."

I pointed out that that wasn't sound reasoning, and said: "We're a pretty tight-knit group."

To which your response was: "I suppose you mean Jewish Israelis. And no, you're not. There's liberal Jews, Orthodox Jews, there's atheist Jews, all kinds. What they share is being Israeli citizens."

I quoted Bismarck. Who created Germany. Which was repeated by another German statesman this century, by the name of Kohl. I could make a fairly long list of other states that created nations. The reverse might be a rather short list.

But the idea of a German unification in the first place required a pre-political notion of 'Germany.' It wasn't as if a German identity only appeared after Germany had been united.

However, nationalism arose after nation-states were created. That's just the historical development. The fact that now we have nationalism in nation-states (not necessarily exactly overlapping those nation-states) doesn't mean that this nationalism created those nation-states.

That's a contradiction in terms. If a state isn't based off of a common nationality of its constituents, it isn't a nation-state.

I'm a bit disappointed in Traitorfish then, if that is true.

Take it up with him, then.

In the same sense that North Korea and the people's will are the exact same thing, yes.

Are you denying that Lebanon's sectarian groups are based on religion?

Good. Then I assume you understand why religious Jews may disagree with the legitimacy of the state of Israel.

Half of my mother's family are Satmar. I assure you I'm quite familiar with the concept.

Most of them did. Spain, Iran and China were all states before they were "nations". Even most successful nationalist projects were carved out of older administrative units, like Ireland or Indonesia, or by the amalgamation of existing entities, like Germany and Italy. Nation-states are really built from the ground-up by nationalists; Israel is in that respect, as in so many others, deeply unusual.

Which doesn't make you suspect that Zionism has something to it that German or English nationalism doesn't?

One might claim that these states had to be imbued with nationality by a previously-independent national community, that only coincided spatially with the state before nationalists achieved their goals- but that seems a lot like special pleading.

Is it really coincidental? Even though feudalism didn't correspond to language, there's a natural advantage to ruling a coherent group of people.

If nationalism is false, then nation-states don't exist, and things which don't exist can't have rights.

That doesn't follow even if nationalism were false. Nations would still exist in the sense that classes or governments exist, hence nation-states would also exist.

One can argue that it is useful for states to present themselves in "national" terms, but you can't derive any sight of rights (or, equally, obligations) from that unless you also maintain that nation-ness is a genuine quality which states can possess. A person might argue that it is useful for monarchs to be percieved as having a touch of the divine about them, but a person cannot coherently claim that this is merely a fiction and, at the same time, that divine imbues a monarch with certain rights; the two claims cannot both be true.

Liberal civic nationalists believe that people have the right to chose their representation and that this is where governments derive their legitimacy from. If a group of people self-identifies as a nation, this gives them the right to be treated as such.

You might say that a sovereign state wouldn't be granted to, say, Mitch and his boy band simply because they label themselves a nation. That is a contradiction, but so is individual freedom and taxation, consent of the governed and democracy. Politics is an exercise in pragmatism.

Jewish nationalism is unusual in that Jewish identity is not predicated on the occupation of any particular place,

I'm not sure that's entirely true. Jews were , after all, scattered across Europe in an non-contiguous fashion. That the idea came about to uproot themselves and settle in a backwater province of a failing empire is a pretty unambiguous message about Jewish attachment to land.

so it's strange to demand the same geographical detachment from Palestinian nationalism.

I'm not. I'm criticizing it because it has no characteristics other than a claim to land. It will dissolve the moment the Palestinians are integrated into the surrounded Arab states (as they should have been from the beginning).

Civic nationalism implies some sort of civic institutions, of which Palestine has few, and none of them particularly effective or popular.

Then I guess it's not civic nationalism.

Palestinian nationalism is I would say very clearly a form of cultural or ethnic nationalism

I see virtually no evidence for that. Can you elaborate?

 

[Agent327]

No, I'm pretty sure you're just being incoherent.

Given what you have been trying to argue, that comes as no surprise. But since you don't have an actual question, let's move on, shall we?

You said: "Maybe that's why they are called peace keepers? Under circumstances UN forces are allowed to defend themselves. they are not allowed to engage in aggression. The reasons for this seem rather obvious, I would think."

I responded: "They are called peace keepers because they keep the peace. In a country. VVhich requires them to take actions against violent elements vvithin that country, not merely those that aggress against them."

To which you replied: "Nobody was arguing that."

Indeed. Perhaps you wish to argue it?

'Palestinian' refers to a nationality. What I was saying that was plenty of native inhabitants of the land are very friendly with Israelis and Zionism.

Ah no, it doesn't. Palestinian is an ethnicity. You can be an Israeli citizen and a Palestinian. You can live in Gaza and be one. Jordania, Lebanon, Egypt. Heck, you can live anywhere and be a Palestinian. It's sort of like being a Jew.

Funny, I don't see Switzerland listed here.

There you go, You can google.

I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say.

Drawing conclusions from things nobody argued is commonly known as a straw man argument.

But informally, it is often used by English-speakers for emphasis.

It really, really isn't. If it is, it's used wrongly.

I was saying that only one particular group among the natives in Palestine seems to be actively hostile towards Zionism, and it's Arabic-speaking Muslims. Almost all Palestinians belong to that group.

So the natives, Palestinians or whatever you want to call them, were unfriendly towards Zionist settlers. That is kind of the opposite of what you were trying to argue.

You were. First you said that Jews weren't an ethnicity because they all come from different countries: "I was referring to the multi-ethnic background of Jewish Israelis, actually. Didn't you just say you were of Moroccan descent? That applies to practically all Jewish immigrants: they're all from a country that isn't Israel."

I pointed out that that wasn't sound reasoning, and said: "We're a pretty tight-knit group."

Well, you're not. Your 'tightly knit group' can be found all over the world - as well as in Israel. The fact that those different groups get along well doesn't mean they're 'tightly knit'. (And I didn't say Jews weren't an ethnicity. although if you like, I will argue it.)

To which your response was: "I suppose you mean Jewish Israelis. And no, you're not. There's liberal Jews, Orthodox Jews, there's atheist Jews, all kinds. What they share is being Israeli citizens."

Exactly.

But the idea of a German unification in the first place required a pre-political notion of 'Germany.' It wasn't as if a German identity only appeared after Germany had been united.

That's not entirely correct. You see, the Germany we got (under Prussian rule) wasn't the Germany envisioned before there was this state called Germany. This was the Little Germany option. And I note you shifted your argument from pre-conceived entity to notion. The notion of Germany dates from antiquity. But until the rise of nation-states nobody realized any state of Germany. In the end it took a state (not a nation) to create the nation-state Germany. Look at the Kurds. Clearly they would easily form a nation-state. But they don't, as no state champions their cause. Ergo, they're nothing but minorities in the states they live in.

That's a contradiction in terms. If a state isn't based off of a common nationality of its constituents, it isn't a nation-state.

Actually, it's the reverse. Without the state, there's no nationality. That's the difference between the Kurd ethnicity and the Iraqi state. Iraqi citizens (nationals) can be Kurds. Or Jews. Or Palestinians.

Take it up with him, then.

Since he already expanded his position (and you took him up on that), I see no need.

Are you denying that Lebanon's sectarian groups are based on religion?

Not at all. But Lebanon isn't made up of sectarian groups. And it might perhaps occur to you that different religious groups often also have different cultures.

 

[Traitorfish]

Which doesn't make you suspect that Zionism has something to it that German or English nationalism doesn't?

Define "something". Certainly it's different, but lots of things are different. Chinese nationalism is hugely alien to Western assumptions about national identity: the idea that the speakers of Mandarin, Wu and Yue varieties of Chinese should form a single "nation", let alone that Hans, Manchus and Hmong should form a single "nation", would be baffling it wasn't so familiar. There is no generic nationalism, no nationalism removed from the particular history of the people who subscribe to it and are imagined to constitute the nation. Jews are unusual, I'll grant, but they're not unique, except in the sense that every nation is unique.

Is it really coincidental? Even though feudalism didn't correspond to language, there's a natural advantage to ruling a coherent group of people.

It's advantageous, but in practice, not something that happened with any consistency. Most of the subjects of the King of France in 1789 did not speak French as a first language, and many did not speak it at all. Rulers ruled what they could, and if shared language and culture greased the wheels of power, all the better for them, but there was no process by which distinct cultural units gave rise to distinct political units. The "national culture" exists in the imagination, and is realised after the fact, whether by the state or by the public, it's not something that can be found in the wild.

That doesn't follow even if nationalism were false. Nations would still exist in the sense that classes or governments exist, hence nation-states would also exist.

If nationalism is false, then nations as imagined by nationalists do not exist. There might be states that imagine themselves as "national", but that becomes simply descriptive, like a state being "socialist" or "republican". It becomes a way of talking about things, not an objectively real characteristic of institutions.

Liberal civic nationalists believe that people have the right to chose their representation and that this is where governments derive their legitimacy from. If a group of people self-identifies as a nation, this gives them the right to be treated as such.

You might say that a sovereign state wouldn't be granted to, say, Mitch and his boy band simply because they label themselves a nation. That is a contradiction, but so is individual freedom and taxation, consent of the governed and democracy. Politics is an exercise in pragmatism.

"People have rights" and "nations have rights" are too fundamentally different phrases, though, even if the former can be disguised as the latter. "The nation", as an entity distinct from the individuals who are imagined to comprise it, remains a fiction, and fictions cannot make claims on human beings. Whatever rights a state or community might claim, they must derive from the rights of actual persons, not from the claim to embody some disembodied national gestalt.

I'm not sure that's entirely true. Jews were , after all, scattered across Europe in an non-contiguous fashion. That the idea came about to uproot themselves and settle in a backwater province of a failing empire is a pretty unambiguous message about Jewish attachment to land.

That idea was a relative novelty, though, and one that has still not yet won over everybody who considers themselves Jewish. Anyone who announces themselves an Irishman, however far remove, announces an attachment to Ireland, but announcing oneself a Jew carries no necessary claim of that sort, except perhaps to Biblical Israel, and Biblical Israel is no more a tangible place than Tír na nÓg. (Admittedly, the Ireland imagined by many Irish-Americans is only very slightly more tangible than Tír na nÓg.)

I don't argue that the Jews are an necessarily rootless people; aside from anything else, it's a classic anti-Semitic trope. Many Jews have strong attachments to particular towns, regions or even countries, but what's different is that these are attachments are felt by individuals, families or local communities, not by Jews as a group. That's not to say that Israel does not hold a powerful sway over Jewish imagination, but it doesn't define what it is to be a Jew.

One could argue that's the tragedy of Zionism: in its supreme pessimism, it asks Jews to destroy bonds they've built over generations, centuries, in favour of a land they've never seen. Without the horrors of the Second World War and its aftermath, in which the Third Reich and Soviet Union took it upon themselves to destroy those bonds whether European Jews liked it or not, it's hard to imagine Zionism achieving its modern claim to represent, if not world Jewry, then at least a certain essential aspect of what it is to be part of world Jewry.

I'm not. I'm criticizing it because it has no characteristics other than a claim to land. It will dissolve the moment the Palestinians are integrated into the surrounded Arab states (as they should have been from the beginning).

Well, in the first place, it's a claim to land made by a certain group of people, the Arab-speaking inhabitants of the region of Palestine. The claim itself is based in the claim that a certain kind of relationship between a certain area of land and a certain group of people, which necessitates the identification of that group as a group, with some shared history and destiny that form the basis of the claim and the framework with which to make the claim. If it was exclusively about land, anyone could declare themselves Palestinian and stake a claim in the former Mandate- and if that were easy, you'd imagine more of the settlements would consider flying the Palestinian flag.

I see virtually no evidence for that. Can you elaborate?

Most Palestinian nationalists imagine "Palestinians" to represent a distinction cultural or ethnic group, and thus a distinct national group, and their argument for an independent Palestinian state flows from that. As such, it makes the most sense to describe the dominant form Palestinian nationalism as as ethnic or cultural nationalism- whether or not one believes that Palestine itself represents a cultural or ethnic nation.

 

[Mouthwash]

Agent, I'm not going to bother responding to you anymore. Just a heads up.

Define "something". Certainly it's different, but lots of things are different. Chinese nationalism is hugely alien to Western assumptions about national identity: the idea that the speakers of Mandarin, Wu and Yue varieties of Chinese should form a single "nation", let alone that Hans, Manchus and Hmong should form a single "nation", would be baffling it wasn't so familiar. There is no generic nationalism, no nationalism removed from the particular history of the people who subscribe to it and are imagined to constitute the nation. Jews are unusual, I'll grant, but they're not unique, except in the sense that every nation is unique.

The Jews are much more like the ethnoreligious groups that populate the Levant than anything found in Europe. It's arguable that Zionism is a natural way of life for Jews in a nationalistic age.

If nationalism is false, then nations as imagined by nationalists do not exist. There might be states that imagine themselves as "national", but that becomes simply descriptive, like a state being "socialist" or "republican". It becomes a way of talking about things, not an objectively real characteristic of institutions.

I don't care about institutions, I care about people. The only thing that defines a nation is that a group of people agree it is so.

"People have rights" and "nations have rights" are too fundamentally different phrases, though, even if the former can be disguised as the latter. "The nation", as an entity distinct from the individuals who are imagined to comprise it, remains a fiction, and fictions cannot make claims on human beings. Whatever rights a state or community might claim, they must derive from the rights of actual persons, not from the claim to embody some disembodied national gestalt.

How does this view accept the legitimacy of any state at all?

I don't argue that the Jews are an necessarily rootless people; aside from anything else, it's a classic anti-Semitic trope. Many Jews have strong attachments to particular towns, regions or even countries, but what's different is that these are attachments are felt by individuals, families or local communities, not by Jews as a group. That's not to say that Israel does not hold a powerful sway over Jewish imagination, but it doesn't define what it is to be a Jew.

Regardless, any religious Jew believes that the destiny of all Jews is to reside in the land of Israel. Zionism just offers a different method for that.

Well, in the first place, it's a claim to land made by a certain group of people, the Arab-speaking inhabitants of the region of Palestine. The claim itself is based in the claim that a certain kind of relationship between a certain area of land and a certain group of people, which necessitates the identification of that group as a group, with some shared history and destiny that form the basis of the claim and the framework with which to make the claim. If it was exclusively about land, anyone could declare themselves Palestinian and stake a claim in the former Mandate- and if that were easy, you'd imagine more of the settlements would consider flying the Palestinian flag.

But that still doesn't differentiate Palestinians, ethnically, from Arabs as a whole. Besides, the claims to a right of return are justified by virtue of having lived in Palestine prior to 1948. This has been applied universally: anyone who was expelled or fled during the war is a "Palestinian."

Group identities can form around almost anything. Saying that the Palestinians must either be civic or ethnic nationalists is a false dichotomy.

Most Palestinian nationalists imagine "Palestinians" to represent a distinction cultural or ethnic group, and thus a distinct national group, and their argument for an independent Palestinian state flows from that. As such, it makes the most sense to describe the dominant form Palestinian nationalism as as ethnic or cultural nationalism- whether or not one believes that Palestine itself represents a cultural or ethnic nation.

I'm not quite sure about that. Most Palestinians and their supporters are on the 'cultural left' (that is, they oppose the existing world order), and they tend to talk a lot about how Jewish particularism is the reason for the conflict. A high proportion of them are communists. It would be awkward to emphasize a ethnic identity when their entire platform is about how awful ethnic nationalism is.

 

[Traitorfish]

The Jews are much more like the ethnoreligious groups that populate the Levant than anything found in Europe. It's arguable that Zionism is a natural way of life for Jews in a nationalistic age.

How much does that owe to some unique Middle Eastern-ness on the part of world Jewry, and how much does it owe to the fact that Europeans have gone through two centuries of nation-building that largely excluded Jews? The Jews are unusual in Europe, but they're not aliens, for all the uncomfortable agreement on that point between Zionists and the far-right.

I don't care about institutions, I care about people. The only thing that defines a nation is that a group of people agree it is so.

But we're not just talking about nations, we're talking about nation-states. States are actually-existing entities, while nationality is an imaginary characteristic; actually-existing institutions cannot derive their legitimacy from imaginary characteristics.

How does this view accept the legitimacy of any state at all?

I don't think we can should with the assumption that states are legitimate, and then justify it. If people have rights, then states must derive their rights in some ways from people; how they do so isn't my problem to solve.

Regardless, any religious Jew believes that the destiny of all Jews is to reside in the land of Israel. Zionism just offers a different method for that.

None the less, the religious Israel is not a homeland, in the traditional sense. It's a mythological location, like Lloegyr for the Welsh: a place they once lived, and will live again in some future age of fire and wrong-righting, but not a place they've ever been. Even for Jews who live there, the Biblical Israel and the actual, territorial Israel are not one and the same place.

But that still doesn't differentiate Palestinians, ethnically, from Arabs as a whole. Besides, the claims to a right of return are justified by virtue of having lived in Palestine prior to 1948. This has been applied universally: anyone who was expelled or fled during the war is a "Palestinian."

Group identities can form around almost anything. Saying that the Palestinians must either be civic or ethnic nationalists is a false dichotomy.

"Palestinian" is an ethnicity because people believe it is. Palestinian nationalism is a primarily an ethnic nationalism because Palestinian nationalists imagine themselves primarily in ethnic terms. (Emphasising shared history and descent more than shared culture, which is quite unusual; as I said, there's no generic nationalism.) Whether or not you find Palestinian claims to ethnicity or the logic of Palestinian ethnic nationalism to be convincing, that's how its proponents imagine their cause.

I'm not quite sure about that. Most Palestinians and their supporters are on the 'cultural left' (that is, they oppose the existing world order), and they tend to talk a lot about how Jewish particularism is the reason for the conflict. A high proportion of them are communists. It would be awkward to emphasize a ethnic identity when their entire platform is about how awful ethnic nationalism is.

Nah, that's goblajook. There's no such thing as the "cultural left", and Foucault is too dead to say otherwise. Marxists are now an entirely marginal part of the Palestinian nationalist movement, even if they're over-represented among Western fellow travelers, and the Leninist strains of Marxism have always been entirely comfortable with ethnic nationalisms, provided they're sufficiently "anti-imperialist" and make at least a show of tolerance for minorities. And Palestinian nationalists might seem to spend more time complaining about Jewish nationalists than engaging in nation-building of their own, but that doesn't make them non-nationalists, it just means that they're not terribly effective ones.

 

[Agent327]

Agent, I'm not going to bother responding to you anymore.

Throwing down the towel is quite fine. Nothing dishonourable.

The Jews are much more like the ethnoreligious groups that populate the Levant than anything found in Europe. It's arguable that Zionism is a natural way of life for Jews in a nationalistic age.

A rather debatable double statement. First, 'the Jews' is already a generalization. Second, there were Jews living in the Middle East long before Zionism. Interestingly, they played little part in the Zionist movement, which was, for the most part, a European thing. Lastly, it's even debatable whether most Jews today are Zionist (which is not the same as 'supportive of the state of Israel'), let alone in the early days of Zionism. As mentioned, things changed drastically in this respect due to the holocaust.

Regardless, any religious Jew believes that the destiny of all Jews is to reside in the land of Israel. Zionism just offers a different method for that.

Religious Jews might disagree. Important to note that land of Israel. Not state of Israel.

But that still doesn't differentiate Palestinians, ethnically, from Arabs as a whole. Besides, the claims to a right of return are justified by virtue of having lived in Palestine prior to 1948. This has been applied universally: anyone who was expelled or fled during the war is a "Palestinian."

There's no such thing as 'ethnic Arabs' outside the Arabian peninsula. The only reason Palestinians are 'Arab' is that they speak the language - and, in a general way, share the religion.. There's nothing ethnic about that.

 

[Mouthwash]

How much does that owe to some unique Middle Eastern-ness on the part of world Jewry, and how much does it owe to the fact that Europeans have gone through two centuries of nation-building that largely excluded Jews?

Judaism has strict rules on intermarriage and the heritability of Jewishness. The Jews are explicitly defined as a people with whom God has a special relationship in the Torah. I think that's sufficiently similar to groups like the Druze or Yazidis.

The Jews are unusual in Europe, but they're not aliens, for all the uncomfortable agreement on that point between Zionists and the far-right.

I don't think that there's any agreement whatsoever. Maybe some racists occasionally voice their support for shunting Jews into Palestine, but I've never heard any similar claims by Zionists. Do Greek nationalists think that no Greek has the right to live outside of Greece?

But we're not just talking about nations, we're talking about nation-states. States are actually-existing entities, while nationality is an imaginary characteristic; actually-existing institutions cannot derive their legitimacy from imaginary characteristics.

You're no longer arguing in good faith here.

Nations exist in the same sense that religions exist. If the Vatican conquered central Italy and said that God had given them a divine mandate to rule it, we would call it a "theocracy." Hence, a state that is brought into being by nationalists to represent them and their perceived co-nationals is dubbed a "nation-state."

(I also really understand how Brexit voters feel if they are opposed by intellectuals like this, who feel justified in declaring the former's way of life to be illegitimate because they took an economics course or whatever.)

I don't think we can should with the assumption that states are legitimate, and then justify it. If people have rights, then states must derive their rights in some ways from people; how they do so isn't my problem to solve.

I'm arguing that ethnic-based nation-states are just as legitimate as any other kind. I don't care for any other debate.

None the less, the religious Israel is not a homeland, in the traditional sense. It's a mythological location, like Lloegyr for the Welsh: a place they once lived, and will live again in some future age of fire and wrong-righting, but not a place they've ever been.

The two concepts are similar enough to be interchangeable in the minds of many Jews. Hence, you are incorrect.

(Also, I don't know of any other mythological promised land that there is a historical record of the mythologizers actually being in.)

Even for Jews who live there, the Biblical Israel and the actual, territorial Israel are not one and the same place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada#Israeli_army

"Palestinian" is an ethnicity because people believe it is. Palestinian nationalism is a primarily an ethnic nationalism because Palestinian nationalists imagine themselves primarily in ethnic terms. (Emphasising shared history and descent more than shared culture, which is quite unusual; as I said, there's no generic nationalism.)

I don't know how true this is. It seems that plenty of them just care about getting back to the villages that their parents came from. Besides, I define nationality as being true to the extent that people act if it is. Even if all Palestinians agreed that they were part of the same nationality, some believe it is based on Islam and others believe it is based on secular nationalism- and both groups found the other side so intolerable that they fought a brutal sectarian conflict. That doesn't exactly smack of authenticity.

 

[Agent327]

FWIW, nationality is just a legal term. It's what gets entered in your passport, equivalent to 'citizen of state X'.

 

[Traitorfish]

Judaism has strict rules on intermarriage and the heritability of Jewishness. The Jews are explicitly defined as a people with whom God has a special relationship in the Torah. I think that's sufficiently similar to groups like the Druze or Yazidis.

The Druze and Yazidis are hardly typical of the Middle East, though. Their actually population is minuscule; there are less of the two groups combined than there are Basque people, and it would be strange to take the Basques as embodying some unique European-ness. A more typical ethnoreligious group would be the Kurds, who aren't really that different in how they identify themselves and how they are re-imagined as a nation than European peoples did in the formative period of national identity. A group like the Jews are unusual anywhere in the world, and that seems to be borne out by the fact that they ended up almost everywhere in the world, are were unusual wherever they went- and, given that the Arabs gave up on ethnic exclusivity within a few generations of the early conquests, that includes in Palestine.

I don't think that there's any agreement whatsoever. Maybe some racists occasionally voice their support for shunting Jews into Palestine, but I've never heard any similar claims by Zionists. Do Greek nationalists think that no Greek has the right to live outside of Greece?

No, but they might argue that no Greek is truly at home outside Greece, and that's precisely what Zionists argue of Jews. Israel is not simply a Jewish homeland, according to Zionist orthodoxy, or even the Jewish homeland, it is the only Jewish homeland, the only true home that Jews can ever know.

And, in fairness, there a good historical reasons for that belief. Jews were not made to feel at home in much of the world, especially in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, and the contrast between Auschwitz and the State of Israel could not have been more profound for those who experienced both of them. But that doesn't mean that it's true for all Jews, or that it's integral to Jewish identity. If Israels feel that it is, that's fine, but it that tells us that Jewish identity is not a monolith.

You're no longer arguing in good faith here.

Nations exist in the same sense that religions exist. If the Vatican conquered central Italy and said that God had given them a divine mandate to rule it, we would call it a "theocracy." Hence, a state that is brought into being by nationalists to represent them and their perceived co-nationals is dubbed a "nation-state."

(I also really understand how Brexit voters feel if they are opposed by intellectuals like this, who feel justified in declaring the former's way of life to be illegitimate because they took an economics course or whatever.)

I'm arguing in perfectly good faith, I'm just not saying things you like.

Nations are an active of collective imagination, I agree, and they real o the extent which people treat them as real. But they remain acts of imagination, and acts of imagination cannot bestow rights or privileges, onto individuals or institutions, nor allow those entities to impose claims upon others. To describe a state as a "nation-state" is only that, descriptive, it carries no moral significance of any kind.

I'm arguing that ethnic-based nation-states are just as legitimate as any other kind. I don't care for any other debate.

I agree that ethnic-based nation-states are just as legitimate as any other kind. But I also think blue unicorns are as likely to exist as pink ones, and I don't think that the burden is on my to justify the existence of pink unicorns.

The two concepts are similar enough to be interchangeable in the minds of many Jews. Hence, you are incorrect.

(Also, I don't know of any other mythological promised land that there is a historical record of the mythologizers actually being in.)

They might tell themselves it's interchangeable, but I don't know if it is. The Irish don't seriously believe that they live in the Ireland of Cú Chulainn, or the Greeks in the Greece of Achilles. Unless the Jews are a singularly credulous people- and history suggests rather the opposite- an at least implicit distinction is going to be drawn between the Israel of Moses and Solomon and David, and the one where they live and work.

And, again, Lloegyr. It's just the Welsh word for Southern and Eastern Britain, in which English-speakers predominated by about c.1000, as opposed to Wales, Cumbria, Cornwall and Strathclyde, which remained predominantly British. It wasn't very far away and plenty of Welshmen would have visited it, but in Welsh mythology, its significance far exceeded the mundane reality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada#Israeli_army

That's just theatrics. It doesn't tell you how people think, only how they think they should think.

I don't know how true this is. It seems that plenty of them just care about getting back to the villages that their parents came from. Besides, I define nationality as being true to the extent that people act if it is. Even if all Palestinians agreed that they were part of the same nationality, some believe it is based on Islam and others believe it is based on secular nationalism- and both groups found the other side so intolerable that they fought a brutal sectarian conflict. That doesn't exactly smack of authenticity.

Palestinians are hardly the first people to express conflicting sense of national identity. Israelis do it, too: you yourself assert that secular Zionists do not understand Jewish identity, and non-Zionist Jews even more so. Disagreement, even violent disagreement over the nature of a group identity and the future of the group does not exclude that group from the category of "nation", not if China, Russia, France or the United States are anything to go by.

 

[Mouthwash]

The Druze and Yazidis are hardly typical of the Middle East, though. Their actually population is minuscule; there are less of the two groups combined than there are Basque people, and it would be strange to take the Basques as embodying some unique European-ness.

Well, it's really more that ethnic groups in the Middle East usually seem to be entirely defined by religion even when that religion does not carry the same meaning elsewhere. But it's worth noting that the genuinely ethnic-based religions all seem to come from there, the only exception I can think of being Sikhs (and they aren't even technically ethnic-based).

A more typical ethnoreligious group would be the Kurds, who aren't really that different in how they identify themselves and how they are re-imagined as a nation than European peoples did in the formative period of national identity.

I don't understand how you interpret the Kurds to be an ethnoreligious group.

A group like the Jews are unusual anywhere in the world, and that seems to be borne out by the fact that they ended up almost everywhere in the world, are were unusual wherever they went- and, given that the Arabs gave up on ethnic exclusivity within a few generations of the early conquests, that includes in Palestine.

Islam is a universalist religion. Muslims from Indonesia or Africa are treated the same way under Islamic law, and acquiring Muslim status is as simple as declaring your faith in front of witnesses. Even going by the Quran, it's not as if Islam was simply "given to the Arabs." Muhammad built his own community in Medina based solely on acceptance of the religion.

(There's a case to be made that that wasn't the original intention of whoever really created Islam, but that's hardly relevant.)

No, but they might argue that no Greek is truly at home outside Greece, and that's precisely what Zionists argue of Jews. Israel is not simply a Jewish homeland, according to Zionist orthodoxy, or even the Jewish homeland, it is the only Jewish homeland, the only true home that Jews can ever know.

That isn't true, at least for the school of religious Zionism I'm familiar with. The religious duties of the diaspora and the state of Israel are viewed as equally important. Chabad-Lubavitch actively discourages the kind of thinking you're talking about, that being a good Jew means making Aliyah.

But that doesn't mean that it's true for all Jews, or that it's integral to Jewish identity.

Think of it as lurking in the 'subconscious.' The goal is to see Jews happy and free in the land of Israel, with a rebuilt Temple. If human rights can be seen as a secularism of Christianity, than Zionism was a secularism of Judaism- and probably an inevitable one.

Nations are an active of collective imagination, I agree, and they real o the extent which people treat them as real.

I don't think that they are figments of imagination, I think they are based on "something." But in my opinion rights are given according to need.

But they remain acts of imagination, and acts of imagination cannot bestow rights or privileges, onto individuals or institutions, nor allow those entities to impose claims upon others.

You are quite wrong here. It's true that I can't sue Timmy if I think that Timmy's house was promised to me by Thor, but rights inside a society are simply norms imposed to keep some kind of order, to ensure that every member of the society (or in barbaric societies, every member of a class or tribe) gets the opportunity to live a proper life. They aren't absolute moral obligations. Applying any kind of legal or institutional framework to ideology, ethnicity, religion, etc. on intragroup levels is impossible- hence, the very concept of a 'right' or 'privilege' can't even apply.

To describe a state as a "nation-state" is only that, descriptive, it carries no moral significance of any kind.

Sure, but in real life it is always going to carry some moral significance, because there is human baggage attached to those abstract concepts. Jews still mourn the Roman destruction of the Temple.

I agree that ethnic-based nation-states are just as legitimate as any other kind. But I also think blue unicorns are as likely to exist as pink ones, and I don't think that the burden is on my to justify the existence of pink unicorns.

Then what's all the brouhaha about Scottish nationalism?

They might tell themselves it's interchangeable, but I don't know if it is. The Irish don't seriously believe that they live in the Ireland of Cú Chulainn, or the Greeks in the Greece of Achilles. Unless the Jews are a singularly credulous people- and history suggests rather the opposite- an at least implicit distinction is going to be drawn between the Israel of Moses and Solomon and David, and the one where they live and work.

But Jewish presence in Israel is real, and we share a near-identical belief of our origins, purpose, and destiny with any first-century Pharisee. That's what you call authenticity.

And, again, Lloegyr. It's just the Welsh word for Southern and Eastern Britain, in which English-speakers predominated by about c.1000, as opposed to Wales, Cumbria, Cornwall and Strathclyde, which remained predominantly British. It wasn't very far away and plenty of Welshmen would have visited it, but in Welsh mythology, its significance far exceeded the mundane reality.

You seem intent on criticizing secular Zionism for making a religious concept mundane, and now religious Zionism for making a mundane concept- the historical reality of Jewish presence in Israel- religious.

That's just theatrics. It doesn't tell you how people think, only how they think they should think.

It's hard to give concrete of examples of something so fundamental to Israeli thinking. They really don't think of themselves as separate, at least not a whole lot more than modern-day Turks think of themselves as separate from the Ottomans. One could question the historicity of ancient Israel, of course, but I don't think that's what you mean.

 

[Agent327]

Well, it's really more that ethnic groups in the Middle East usually seem to be entirely defined by religion even when that religion does not carry the same meaning elsewhere. But it's worth noting that the genuinely ethnic-based religions all seem to come from there, the only exception I can think of being Sikhs (and they aren't even technically ethnic-based).

Actually, the only ethnic-based religion - according to Mouthwash himself, stated earlier - would be Judaism.

The goal is to see Jews happy and free in the land of Israel, with a rebuilt Temple.

It seems Jews in Israel seem are quite content simply lamenting at the Wailing Wall.

If human rights can be seen as a secularism of Christianity, than Zionism was a secularism of Judaism- and probably an inevitable one.

Well, since the first is already incorrect, the second doesn't follow. (Not to mention that 'Zionism as secularism of Judaism' has very little to do with the actual history of Zionism.)

 

[Lexicus]

"with a rebuilt Temple"
"secularism"

You can't make this stuff up...