frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
It is, I'm afriad.
Israeli forces storm Gaza aid ship, and beat people on board. Fatalities reported.
- Thread starter danny la rouge
- Start date
It is, I'm afriad.
Form is different from content.
The fact that two peoples have histories doesn't mean that they share them.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Thanks for making exactly my point and undermining your earlier post to me -the one that started this. The one in which you assumed that form and content were the same and that was a reply to my one that didn't.
You're on a roll here. Which lottery numbers should i not do this week?
tangentlama
Nameless voices crying
Yes you are right. You are supported by the law of return as they changed this the law in the nineteen-seventies.
Ironically, your conversion to reform Judaism and your non-Jewish mother would mean you wouldn't be recognised as Jewish by the orthodox rabbinate.
You're going to have to spell this out for me here because I'm really not sure on what basis you found your triumphalism.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
The afrikaner settlers were mostly poor and working class farmers. During apartheid, despite the fact that an afrikaner-dominated party was in the government, the British settlers who had massacred them previously still owned the majority of the weath.
The National Party gained support on fear. Fear and reminders of the past.
Sound familiar yet?
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Zionism was literal heresy to orthodox Jewry until WWII. The Chosen People were supposed to wait for the Messiah to take them back to the Promised Land, not take up arms and take the place by force.
Israel is a Zionist state, not a Jewish state. It has attempted - rather successfully - to coopt Jewish identity and history for its own genocidal ends, but this is nothing more than propaganda. Which you fell for.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
Actually it is remarkable. There is only one other state in the world born on the basis of equating religion with nation and that country was born at almost exactly the same time. That was Pakistan born in 47
I made a fairly in depth post about it earlier but it was a bit swamped in all the hysteria after the flotilla attack. It is directly relevant here.
http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=10715136#post10715136
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I compared the Israeli state to the South African state, you said i was comparing the people - i pointed out that i wasn't. You then went on this bizarre ramble to show they were one and the same. Now you realise that you were wrong to do so. Simple.
dennisr
the acceptable face
I think that one of the problems is how to achieve that secular democratic state. At the moment both Palestinians and Israelis give a big shit about what its called and the local rulers on both sides use their fear of being swallowed within a secular state to keep themselves in control.
I guess there are similarities with the situation in Northern Ireland and I'm going to be 'contraversial' (for a leftie) here. As much as, ultimately, such false identities should not shape the people of each example - they do. And, as much as the 'easy' option on northern ireland (at least in theory...) was to support a united ireland - ignoring the fears of the protestant (then...) minority the reality was that you could not simply wish that minority away any more than one can israeli jews. I've heard some supposed left wingers talking about pushing the israeli state into the sea. But it just is not going to happen.
The only way for for a secular and united state would be through the mass struggle of both palestinian and israeli working class(es?) breaking with their own rulers - to break those peoples from their state we have to recognise their fears - the fears that help to ally them to that state at this moment in time (of the israeli working class in particular).
I don't have any easy answers to what I am raising but would be interested in what folk think is a solution to the conundrum - assuming, I guess, that folk already recognise that israeli jews do exist - regardless of the artificial creation of the israeli state?
That's very interesting. Especially to see that you mentioned Kahane and so on.
If you're interested in comparative analyses of fundamentalisms, this is a very good book to dip into:
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=24949839
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Agreed mate. Some of them are total twats in not recognising people's fears (which in israelis' case are frequently quite well founded).
The idea of the people - important difference.
And my point was that to argue that groups are similar because they both rely on a founding narrative is anaemic. All groups rely on a founding narrative. It's the content of the narrative that provides genuine difference.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
If you think there's a mechanical relation between 'a people' and constitution's imposed on them then you're even slower than i first suspected. Constitutions as expressions of the people's will
You're making my point for me btw. Carry on.
If you think there's a mechanical relation between 'a people' and constitution's imposed on them then you're even slower than i first suspected. Constitutions as expressions of the people's will
You're making my point for me btw. Carry on.
This is probably the problem.
You're talking about the people, I'm talking about the idea of the people and how that is employed.
@dennisr
You talk about states and identities, but the question is not that different people have different identities it is the democratic nature of the states in question. Israel is not a state of all of it's citizens. You can eshew this struggle for democratic rights of Palestinian Israelies but then it becomes very difficult to see how some sort of workers' struggle uniting Israelies and Palestinians can be possilbe.
You talk about states and identities, but the question is not that different people have different identities it is the democratic nature of the states in question. Israel is not a state of all of it's citizens. You can eshew this struggle for democratic rights of Palestinian Israelies but then it becomes very difficult to see how some sort of workers' struggle uniting Israelies and Palestinians can be possilbe.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
dennisr
the acceptable face
Don't get me wrong - I'd agree that the question is 'the democratic nature of the states in question' - its how the folk on the ground are able to are able to change the nature of those states (or ultimately overthrow the present states). My thinking is that the strength of the israeli state is that a section of the regions working class are, in effect allied to it (as with NI) - so the strategy to change the nature of that state (or overthrow...) must first be to break that section of the WC from that state.
In practice - linking the day-to-day social struggles on immediate issues to wider struggles, including against racism, national oppression and occupation.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Diamond, I do recommend to you the Sunday Herald article I linked to earlier.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
...it would be necessary for Israel to invent them.
dennisr
the acceptable face
Thing is, if the palestinians didn't exist, the social and economic divisions within the israeli jewish community are such that there would probably a civil war there anyway. Ironically this stuff is probably what keeps Israel internally "stable".
Exactly - "we have always been at war with eurasia" (1984) - and all that. Given those divisions have not gone away, if handled in a manner that recognises that communities fears - even to the extent of recognising the possibility of transitional demands of multiple 'states' - they can also be the present zionist states downfall.
Thing is, if the palestinians didn't exist, the social and economic divisions within the israeli jewish community are such that there would probably a civil war there anyway. Ironically this stuff is probably what keeps Israel internally "stable".
Am I right in thinking Middle Eastern Jews are worst off than the European Jews?
dennisr
the acceptable face
Swimming against the stream at the moment, Israelis opposed to the blockade and occupation, are fighting simply to have the right to demonstrate not being equated with 'terrorism'. "Demonstrating does not make you a terrorist" is one of the main slogans of the CWI members.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
You can do fast track quickie orthodox conversions though now ...
I'd like a drive-thru conversion, like the weddings you can get in Vegas.
Spion
I hear ya
you might need to get out of the car for the circumcision, unless the rabbi sat in the passenger seat while he sorted you out
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Israeli society is heavily stratified, largely along racial lines. In the 2001 census it was 72% Jewish, 22% Arab and 6% "other", mostly immigrant workers on a revolving door policy. The latter group were brought in to replace Palestinian labour when they instituted external closure in the early 1990s. Jewish Israelis are further stratified, with Ethiopian, Arab and Russian Jews at the bottom of the heap - Ethiopian Jews because they are black, Arab Jews because they are Arabs, and Russian Jews because they do not have to prove Jewish ancestry to claim citizenship.
Arab Jews were brought in as an afterthought by the early Zionists, to be the working class for the new Ashkenazi state and have always been treated like shit. They, and other marginalised Jews, are the primary supporters of Likud, whilst Labour is the party of the priveleged.
A lot of settlers are there for economic reasons only, and may be an unlikely source of working-class solidarity. A whole Palestinian village in East Jerusalem turned out for the funeral of a bus driver from a nearby settlement who was killed by a bomb. Some settlers facilitate meetings and relationships between local Palestinian and Jewish youth, and some have said they would seek asylum in the future Palestinian state, so badly are they treated by the crazies who run the settlements.
I don't know how you get around the problem of resources though. One state or two, there is not enough water to go around unless the Israelis give up much of their current lifestyle. I'm not sure change can come from within. Whilst Uncle Sam is picking up the bill, they have no incentive to change anything.
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