Israel to World: "Suck It."

I have a problem with ethnocentric states in principle

well, you know, fine, but most states did not come about in accordance with high principles, and it's kind of interesting how this one in particular gets its legitimacy challenged on the reg when others don't

what basis *should* states be founded on?

'zionist' seems to mostly be a way of distinguishing the good jews xp

Not to get into semantic games, but it's really a religious state more than an ethnic state (Russian Jews, Ethiopian Jews and Moroccan Jews being about as ethnically different as any other three groups).

The world is full of ethnocentric and/or religio-centric states. I mean pretty much all the Arab states are implicitly Arab-centric. In fact the formation of a Jewish state was particularly upsetting as it coincided with burgeoning Arab nationalism in the region as the British Empire receded.

well any state that's designed to privilege one ethnic group over another is going to end up being racist in practice as well as principle imho. there are plenty of examples of this. but my issues with zionism are also historical and political - in that the creation of Israel was a last gasp of colonialism AND collective guilt, with a fairly tenuous historical rationale attached to it (I don't see why the Jews' claim on the territory is any more legitimate than any other of the numerous groups that have occupied that particular strip of land over the last few thousand years). Just the whole entitlement involved in the creation of the state - "this is ours cuz God said so. Also so did these foreign powers who are sorry for treating us like shit for the last 2,000 years, lol now get out" - is just gross.

but I'm sure you've heard all this haha

x-posts

afaict common usage of Zionist is meant to denote someone (usually Jewish) who believes in the fundamental right of Jews to have their own state in Israel. if you go back farther into the history of the term/movement it gets a bit more convoluted, but that's the short-hand.

btw, I know some jews use the word 'zionist' too, but very similar to the word 'liberal' it has lost any real meaning and is just a vague pejorative that probably isn't using outside of a historical context

xp

The world is full of ethnocentric and/or religio-centric states. I mean pretty much all the Arab states

yeah real models for success aren't they

TONS OF X-POSTS

iatee -- "zionism" refers to the desire for an independent jewish state. that state now exists in the form of israel. so, a smattering of people who are somehow zionists but not supporters of israel (they exist!), zionism has become synonymous with support for the continued existence of israel as a state devoted to maintaining a homeland for the jewish people. i agree that at this point in history it's not a very useful term in a realpolitik context (as opposed to the context of political philosophy).

israel sort of defies the relgious/ethnic distinction. maybe it's best to say it's psuedo-religious. israel is NOT a theocracy or a state founded in any substantive respect on religious principles. some of its key founders, like moshe dayan, were completely secular. only some zionists actually think or argue that israel has a god-given right to exist. some think they have a moral right.

the bottom line is that the jewish people are sort of unique. i don't mean that in a value way like "the jews are like a precious snowflake." no, just that they really are unique in terms of the history of peoples on earth.

anyhoo.

the worst offenders re. identifying zionism and jews are of course many of the palestinians. in a way this is historically understandable, if indefensible at this point in time. but i think it's to the point where it's just reflexive. i think a lot of palestinians growing up in gaza or refugee camps will just think of "zionists" and "jews" as synonyms. hence the disconcerting chants of "kill the jews!" or "get rid of the jews!" etc.

i have really mixed feelings about all this. on the one hand, it's important to disentangle the somewhat distinct histories of anti-semitism in e.g. europe and post-48 anti-semitism in the arab/moslem world. AIPAC and other pro-israel organizations get a lot of mileage from identifying those two things, as if palestinian militants were the 2nd coming of hitler. at the same time, i'm not going to excuse or explain away a lot of the really virulent racial hatred on either side..

SHOULD BE "iatee -- "zionism" refers to the desire for an independent jewish state. that state now exists in the form of israel. so, a smattering of people who are somehow zionists but not supporters of israel ASIDE"

that probably isn't using = that probably isn't *worth* using

what basis *should* states be founded on?

well you could treat everybody equally under the law, for starters, at least in principle. (seems to me the more problematic question is "how do you draw borders" rather than "what principles should we use" when it comes to creating a state)

xp

yes, thats the question im asking

q: does the intl waters thing ~matter~ in any of this for you guys, like ethically? @Ismael: if it is unlawful to forcibly board someones vessel in intl waters (piracy!), then the occupants of that vessel ought to be able to respond in kind (under the "law," if such a thing can be said to exist on the high seas).

point being: a violent response by the flotilla to Israeli aggression might be horribly ill-advised, but not like illegitimate. whereas the Israeli boarding actually is kinda unlawful.

basically: seems like these stop hitting yrself arguments hinge on the fact that Israel was perfectly entitled to board/respond, in the way that the police are entitled to arrest you if they catch you mugging someone. but they ~weren't~.

so then you have to consider: were the ppl in the flotilla entitled to have weapons (yes), and to respond to aggression while in intl waters? yes. should they have had weapons and responded violently? no, imo, but there it is. did the Israeli troops have the right to defend themselves? yes. was their response disproportionate to the perceived threat? yes, imo.

should Israel be criticized for a) creating the incident and b) mishandling it in the grossest way? absolutely. I mean ffs if yr gonna board terrible dangerous aid ships, wait until they're actually in ur fucking ZONE before shooting everyone

what basis *should* states be founded on?

well you could treat everybody equally under the law, for starters, at least in principle. (seems to me the more problematic question is "how do you draw borders" rather than "what principles should we use" when it comes to creating a state)

xp

― in my day we had to walk 10 miles in the snow for VU bootleg (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, June 1, 2010 4:18 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i agree in principle but the issue of borders and rights are not extricable! one question being, who gets to decide whether they're a part of this country or the other one!

well you could treat everybody equally under the law, for starters, at least in principle.

israel does this, iirc?

but states get formed in a whole bunch of fucked up ways, usually by violence, sometimes by colonial partition, whatever. it's terrible and fucked up but that's human history, and while that doesn't remotely "justify" all the violence done to all the victims down the centuries, it's something to keep in mind.

so it may offend principle that israel is what it is, but in 2010, are we really still talking about whether it "ought" to exist? partition was an incredible disaster for india/pakistan, neither of which have much meaning as "nation-states" outside of the colonial context, but that's what we/they have now.

q: does the intl waters thing ~matter~ in any of this for you guys, like ethically?

according to israel and its boosters it was legit under the laws relating to blockade anyway?

im not a maritime lawyer as you can guess

You won't be surprised to hear Dershowitz thinks the same.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/israels-actions-were-enti_b_596285.html

hey I think we all agree that creating states is a messy and unpleasant business. Given the last 60+ years I think it's pretty clear that undertaking that particular endeavor in the case of Israel was a BAD IDEA. It can't be easily undone so I agree that arguing about whether Israel "ought" to exist is increasingly beside the point - because it exists now, and it's going to exist in some form for a long time to come. What can be undone is Israel's identity as an ethnocentric (yes I'm gonna keep using that term for the sake of convenience) state - the one-state solution.

I don't think everybody is treated equally under Israeli law...? Jewish right of return, Jewish National Fund, fucked up marriage laws etc.

x-posts

israel does this, iirc?

lol wuuuuuuut

shakey's otm

Amateurist, you know more about this than I do, so I'm asking: is it possible that part of the problem is that the broad part of Zionism -- the idea of a home state -- is a lot closer to settled, so a lot of uses of the word now cluster around things that are more extreme? Like in terms of people's ideologies, these days we pretty often hear "Zionism" brought up in, say, discussions of settlers who feel they have a moral right to land beyond existing lines. I.e., we keep attaching Zionism to hot disputes about expansion and land, and not to less-controversial things like the existence of the state itself.

Was gonna say. I definitely think there should be an Israel, but I use Zionist to describe someone who thinks settlement rights take precedence above all other claims, especially those of Muslims. You can be a Zionist w/o being Jewish - look at neocons.

christian zionism isn't incompatible with anti-semitism, even. oh, it's all so confusing

I don't think everybody is treated equally under Israeli law...? Jewish right of return, Jewish National Fund, fucked up marriage laws etc.

yeah i don't think there is total and absolute equality and that's bad, but it doesn't deserve a lol whut answer. though imperfect, a little like the US through almost its entire history (is there legal equality in arizona?). israel isn't an apartheid state. i get the one state solution as an ideal, kind of, but there's no logical/historical basis for the borders of said single state that makes it more just than a two-state solution. do kind of wonder what the nature of the one-state state would be, too.

Maybe we need Third Wave Zionism.

Many xposts @gbx - not sure how much help I can be as Law of the Sea isn't really my thing, and I'm unaware of (i) where the incident actually took place (it does appear from the maps to be a long way from the coast) and (ii) what the legal basis is for the blockade of Gaza at all (I assume that Israel claims jurisdiction over Gazan waters in some occupation-type way). Also, my book's a little bit old. However, I'm guessing I'm probably the best-qualified here to have a stab:

* PIRACY/SELF-DEFENCE

- the boarding certainly wasn't piracy, because piracy is a private vessel attacking other vessels for private ends. This was a state act. The vessel was a private boat, however, not a warship - so any right of self-defence should be understood in the normal personal way, rather than thinking about one country fighting off an attack by another. Did the commandos pose a threat to the people on the boat such as would justify their attacking them? We don't know, frankly, and I haven't watched the videos to find out. In any case it's difficult to know how to analyse that, because we don't know what law they'd be defending themselves under - it's probably Turkish law because it's a Turkish boat, but it might be Israeli law depending on where it was. In any case, the question should be something like: at the time of boarding, were the people on the boat in physical danger such as would justify attacking the boarding soldiers with metal bars as a means of making that danger stop?

* JURISDICTION

- generally speaking, the high seas are free and a state needs jurisdiction in order to board a vessel. It could get this in a very few ways, e.g.
: the vessel flies its flag (I think Turkey in this case)
: the vessel is committing an offence over which the state has jurisdiction (e.g. piracy or the slave trade, but also a few relatively trivial things like illegal broadcasting)

- the territorial sea is the strip of sea along the coast, usually up to twelve miles (don't know much Israel claims) over which the state does exercise jurisdiction. Generally speaking, a merchant ship (I think this means all non-warships) has right of innocent passage through the territorial sea of any state - but it ceases to be innocent passage if it partakes in certain activities, breach of customs being one of those, in which case it's no longer innocent. The state can board to investigate e.g. a crime disturbing peace and good order, which I presume Israel considers blockade-busting to be.

NON-CONCLUSION

So (with all the above caveats) if this was in Israel's waters, Israel would probably have the right to board and interdict the vessel. If it was on the high seas, they probably wouldn't - however, I have some difficulty in believing that e.g. the US wouldn't intercept a drugs boat that's lying thirteen miles off Miami, so perhaps there's some obvious principle that I'm not aware of.

Israel isn't an apartheid state.

It discriminates between its citizens according to their race and religion - and awards different privileges and imposes different obligations in light of such discrimination, and by force of law. So yes, it is an apartheid state now.

I thought of something else: Israel could also assert self-defence to intercept the vessel if it believed it was carrying a threat e.g. previous interceptions of arms shipments. This would be a state-type self-defence and so not exactly like the one I set out for the people on the boat, though they're pretty similar concepts. One hears of other countries intercepting and diverting ships from time to time for terrorism-related reasons or whatever - this is presumably the rationale in those cases too.

It discriminates between its citizens according to their race and religion - and awards different privileges and imposes different obligations in light of such discrimination, and by force of law. So yes, it is an apartheid state now.

― sonofstan, Tuesday, June 1, 2010 11:15 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

said it was imperfect, and therefore open to criticism by the US in particular with its long history of racial equality, but i guess im objecting to the implied south african comparison which is, how you say, disproportionate.

Usually people use the "apartheid" canard to refer to Israel's treatment of Gaza and the West Bank. This doesn't work because Gazans and West Bankers are not second-class citizens of an apartheid state, but rather residents of an occupied territory (not that this is better, just making a distinction).

If you leave aside the occupied territories, you can't really equate Israel's treatment of its Arab citizens with Apartheid South Africa. However flawed and unequal Israel may be, you didn't have integrated areas like Jaffo in Johannesburg. You didn't have black members of South African parliament. You didn't have substantial numbers of black students going to top South African universities. Etc.

^^ these analogies are never going to get very far so long as half the people we're concerned with exist in a non-category somewhere between citizens and refugees and occupied foreigners. (for instance, right now, mayne, I actually don't have any idea which category you are placing people in; you are not considering gaza-strip residents "citizens," right?)

never mind, xpost

said it was imperfect, and therefore open to criticism by the US in particular with its long history of racial equality, but i guess im objecting to the implied south african comparison which is, how you say, disproportionate.

oh ffs

pretty sure that was some sarcasm there gbx

to Israel's credit, there is no "3/5ths of a person" clause in their Constitution, and citizens are all supposed to be equal under the law. Aside from the other (fairly minor) things I already noted tho, the fact that Israeli gov't claims political dominion over a whole bunch of non-citizens is where the real mistreatment comes into play.

no shit

just unproductive high horsey sneering imo. "hey American you literally cannot criticize ppl for acting like disgusting savages because yr country did slavery and w/e" = bullshit and unproductive

I mean whatever it was probably just a bit of fun

xps

xpost - the sarcasm is the annoying part! by that logic we should just all have slaves, since nobody has quite the right history to take the moral high ground about it.

(by the way, the thing that frustrates me about discussing South Africa analogies is that a lot of responses would seem to imply that South Africa would have been morally improved by not considering non-white people real citizens in the first place, which strikes me as ... an odd stance)

Amateurist, you know more about this than I do, so I'm asking: is it possible that part of the problem is that the broad part of Zionism -- the idea of a home state -- is a lot closer to settled, so a lot of uses of the word now cluster around things that are more extreme? Like in terms of people's ideologies, these days we pretty often hear "Zionism" brought up in, say, discussions of settlers who feel they have a moral right to land beyond existing lines. I.e., we keep attaching Zionism to hot disputes about expansion and land, and not to less-controversial things like the existence of the state itself.

― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Tuesday, June 1, 2010 4:44 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

like suzy said i think a lot of people do now use "zionist" to characterize the people pushing for an expansion of israeli territory into the west bank etc. but that's not what the arab states meant when they pushed through the "zionism = racism" statement in the UN. and it's certainly not what many palestinians and other arabs mean when they chant about zionists/jews (militants rarely use the term "israelis" because that term refers to a state which they feel is illegitimate). it's an ahistorical use of the word which i'm inclined to disagree with, if only because the opprobrium it invokes is then made to cover (mixed metaphor?) the whole history of zionism. which isn't free of its own crimes or even, i think, moral incoherence.

but yeah in a way the word is not practically useful because it centers around a DESIRE to see a jewish state. now there IS a jewish state, so it's less a question of whether it has a right to exist and more a question of, how does a tactically superior state actor deal with a neighboring state actor that wishes them harm? does it deal with it in a way that emiserates the population of that neighboring state--something it clearly has the capability of doing? that seems to be a misguided choice, both ethically (obv) and practically.

i think some of the posts above speak about gaza as if it weren't a state. it's not a very functional state, partly due to israel and partly due to hamas, but it does have an elected government. whether gaza constitutes its own state or part of a broader palestinian state that's presently divided is one of the weirder questions in this whole situation. in a way it's starting to resemble the whole taiwan/PRC situation where at least of the 1980s both sides claimed to be the legit rulers of "china" while neither, practically, governed the full territory they conceived of as "china."

honestly you look at a place like gaza that seems condemned to misery and you've gotta wonder if a one-state solution isn't the only answer for them. that said, you look at the militancy in gaza, the way so many of its children are basically raised to dehumanize the israeli enemy, and you wonder if a one-state solution is possible in the next 70 years.

ok i'm done, sorry.

Amateurist that smells off to me, like some colonial divide and rule propaganda.

I mean I dunno an awful lot about middle east politics but are you saying they only have themselves to blame? Chicken and egg and all that but wtf?

no. not in the slightest. you're reading into my comments stuff that simply isn't there.

i'm just saying it's a weird situation where the palestinian authority claims to be the rightful state actor for the palestinian state which encompasses west bank and gaza. and hamas claims the same. except that the PA has no practical control in gaza and hamas has little authority in the west bank.

this situation arguably complicates things for all parties involved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah-Hamas_conflict

i mean, it's a mess:

Ismail Haniyeh (Arabic: إسماعيل هنية‎ Ismaʻīl Haniyya; sometimes transliterated as Ismail Haniya or Ismail Haniyah) ( Arabic pronunciation (help·info)) ; (born January 29, 1963) is a senior political leader of Hamas and one of two disputed Prime Ministers of the Palestinian National Authority, the matter being under political and legal dispute. He became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas conflict, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues to exercise prime ministerial authority in the Gaza Strip.[1] The Palestinian Legislative Council also continues to recognise his authority.

Thanks, I guess Im still wondering if Israel likes to help keep it this way- to keep the land grab going and the people divided?

Which begs the question, where does the illegal appropriation of Palestininan land by Israel fit into your scheme as a driver for this internal political division, obstacle to the creation of a viable Palestinian State, dehumanisation of Israelis and so on?

land grab lol

yes, use 'apartheid' instead

it doesnt beg the question, it raises the qeustion

"you wonder if a one-state solution is possible in the next 70 years."

ppl said same about Northern Ireland 30 years ago. A US prez who didn't cater to Zionist maniacs would be a nice start.

finally, some nuanced political opinions itt