tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post8045589706977032885..comments2024-03-12T22:31:46.500-04:00Comments on What Would Phoebe Do?: Why we can't all just get alongPhoebe Maltz Bovyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-66766433238787288382008-05-21T09:43:00.000-04:002008-05-21T09:43:00.000-04:00I wish the modern state of Israel had been founded...I wish the modern state of Israel had been founded in Uganda.<BR/><BR/>ChaimAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-25177654396177327342008-05-13T17:51:00.000-04:002008-05-13T17:51:00.000-04:00Note, incidentally, the continuing exodus of white...Note, incidentally, the continuing exodus of whites from South Africa, because of "high crime," among other things. Note that the promise of Zimbabwe to maintain the white farmers had an effective life of twenty years. If there are no whites in South Africa in twenty years--if there was no middle ground between white domination of South Africa and the elimination of whites from South Africa--how moral then will we take the agreement to hand over power to the black-majority government? Should the Afrikaaners-in-exile then applaud?Withywindlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11465319711207992232noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-70371120185755760552008-05-13T17:43:00.000-04:002008-05-13T17:43:00.000-04:00Every nation has the right to define itself; any g...Every nation has the right to define itself; any group not included has the right to rebel, either to seek inclusion in the nation state or independence. Justice and legitimation are determined by the rights and wrongs accruing to competing nations, not to individuals.<BR/><BR/>I'm all in favor of settler states that establish themselves as demographically dominant--the United States, for a notable example. The white South Africans, like the French Algerians, tried to have their cake and eat it too--a settler state supported by massive amounts of cheap native labor. Not an impossible trick to pull off--the whites of Latin America still rule the roost in largely non-white nations. But generally, the attempt is worse than a crime, it is a folly.<BR/><BR/>Israel, because of its socialist origins, imported a large enough Jewish working class to make Israel viable. If it allows itself to become dependent on Palestinian labor, it will die. The most hopeful sign for Israel is their substitution of a motley labor force of Thais, etc., for Palestinians; too many Arabs on the wrong side of the walls, and no more Israel.<BR/><BR/>The judgment of the rights and wrongs of nations is a prudential judgment of particular national characters--in which judgment, the actions necessary for survival register positively by some scales of virtu(e), and negatively by others. But the scale should never be by the categorical imperatives of values.<BR/><BR/>Any portion of the American nation has a right to define itself so as to exclude me. It is not an illegitimate decision; it merely means I will fight them to the death.Withywindlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11465319711207992232noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-92071409946455296732008-05-13T15:26:00.000-04:002008-05-13T15:26:00.000-04:00So, Phoebe, you raise a question you don't really ...So, Phoebe, you raise a question you don't really answer: is the right of a nation to define itself in racial/religious terms (pending the utopia, of course) available to all, or is it reserved exclusively for Israel?<BR/><BR/>They South African counter-example raises a hypothetical: <I>if</I> demographic trends continue, and Jews become a minority in Israel, what steps would you permit them to take to hold on to power? Would you permit these steps to other nations threatened with demographic displacement?Burkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14252946969701576139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-46555640212272281852008-05-13T13:13:00.000-04:002008-05-13T13:13:00.000-04:00I think Jeffrey Goldberg had a good riposte to hol...I think Jeffrey Goldberg had a good riposte to holocaust-centric view of Israel in his Atlantic article where he interviewed Olmert.<BR/><BR/>And if the only reason to abjure a post-Zionist Israel is the way Jews are treated in other countries -- then the Israeli ethnostate really is in trouble. Withywindle's argument is better.<BR/><BR/>Speaking of which, here's <A HREF="http://www.mossawacenter.org/files/files/File/Reports/2006/Future%20Vision%20(English).pdf" REL="nofollow">a report by a Palestinian-Israeli think tank (the Mossawa centre)</A> on ways Israel could better include its aboriginal community.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-46148818664226065662008-05-13T09:44:00.000-04:002008-05-13T09:44:00.000-04:00As is well known, Jews were kicked out of the rest...As is well known, Jews were kicked out of the rest of the Middle East only following the Nakbah.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-56622633153592294692008-05-13T09:07:00.000-04:002008-05-13T09:07:00.000-04:00No thoughts on the Jews kicked out of the rest of ...No thoughts on the Jews kicked out of the rest of the Middle East, I see.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-67358697811970418002008-05-13T05:59:00.000-04:002008-05-13T05:59:00.000-04:00Except that the world did not allow South Africa t...Except that the world did not allow South Africa to define itself as an Afrikaaner state. Nor was Rhodesia allowed to define itself as a White state. Jews are only a bare majority in Palestine due to the massive ethnic cleansing of 1948 and again in 1967. I realize that WW supports ethnic cleansing even of German speaking Jews and anti-fascist Social Democrats from Post-war Czechslovakia. Both categories were expelled enmasse as "Germans." But international human rights law disagrees with both of you. What if the US defined itself as an exclusively White Christian state? What if it then decided to maintain the purity of that state by expelling 80% of non-Christians and non-Whites into Mexico? I do not think all the "progressive pro-Zionists" would be so hip on defending this as an example of justified national self-determination.J. Otto Pohlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07457089758142264049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-68862791371742941862008-05-13T00:07:00.000-04:002008-05-13T00:07:00.000-04:00Even if Jews could live freely anywhere in the wor...Even if Jews could live freely anywhere in the world, Israel would still have the right to define itself as a Jewish state. Every nation-state has and should have that right.Withywindlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11465319711207992232noreply@blogger.com