The New Jewish State Of Alaska!

That was an episode of Northern Exposure.

when was the last time an Iranian leader was "helpful". oh wait, the shah, i forgot. people used to take vacations there in the 50's. it was swanky like cuba.

except that iranians aren't arabs, so they care EVEN LESS for the palestinians, most likely.

The DVDs come in these great little mini zippered parkas.

Addressing the crowds in Zahedan, Mr Ahmadinejad said: "Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets."

He has previously expressed doubts about the murder of the Jews by the Nazis, but today was the first time he said publicly that the Holocaust was a myth.

even now i wouldn't call it anywhere near independent.

Former Russian President
Boris Yeltsin Visits
St. Michael the Archangel Cathedral
Sitka, Alaska
August 12, 2005

http://web.mit.edu/ninadm/www/pesac458.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast

During the 1930's, I think there was ten times more money from Jewish charities going toward Birobidzhan than Palestine.

It's true though! I saw it on CNN. I didn't know that there was an Islamic doomsday scenario. He has a lot of Iranians scared. He believes in the return of an ancient prophet that results in you know what. It was news to me.

but yeah, Germany ran up the bill, let it pay the price. That would have made sense in 1945, if you accept the principle that establishing ethnically monolithic new states is ever a good idea.

Israel, New Jersey or bust!

And having visited the "jewish quarters" of both Prague and Krakow, I'd attest that yes, almost all Jews have been expelled from europe. 1.5 mil jews in ALL of Europe, 6 mil in North America alone, 5 mil in Israel.

But that element is central to the Israel mess, for sure.

I did sidestep that issue alright, but we're getting into some gnarly teritory here. Israel is a nominally secular state. Establishing this sate where the bible said it should be is an unfortunate conflation of politics and religion, empowering the hardcore religious section of Israeli society and establishing an unfortunate precedent wherby the UN is seen to rubber stamp a religious text, or a folk memory, and giving precence to one period in history over another. Why cant I start a country in Africa? We're all from Africa originally, right? I wonder how Spain will feel about this when the Caliphate is knocking at their door.

How much easier it would have been to have considered Isreal to be a metaphor, Bavaria - Isreal of the mind... something like that.

It amazes me that we don't have an anti-Israeli policy movement in the same way as we had an anti-apartheid movement. maybe it's because the Israeli govt have been clever enough to not give it a word.

A little late to wish Israel had been set up somewhere else, dontcha think?

this is the basic problem with the way Israel was established, and as time goes on I'm more and more inclined to think it was just a shitty idea that should never have been implemented in the first place. But it was, so what to do now...

My impression is that Arabs's situation in Israel proper may be something more akin to Arabs in some European countries than S. African apartheid -- rights on paper but to a certain extent ignored or overlooked in reality, living largely separate, probably not having as much economic opportunity, etc.

Israel's handling of the territories is another matter, with which I have many problems. But Israel did give up Sinai a long time ago and has recently gone through great internal political strife (some of which I witnessed firsthand) in order to withdraw from Gaza, so I am not entirely without hope.

Dave B, some folks on American college campuses have suggested such an anti-Israeli policy movement, however it has never gotten much support. Considering the number of dictatorships around the world, and the policies of such non-democratic countries as Iran, Egypt, Syria, it looks kinda wrong to me to be obsessing over Israel. Yea, Israel has problematic policies, but look what's going on around it.

Or maybe you'd like to discuss Sudanese policies in Darfur.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/iranjews.html

Throughout the 19th century, Jews were persecuted and discriminated against. Sometimes whole communities were forced to convert. During the 19th century, there was considerable emigration to the Land of Israel, and the Zionist movement spread throughout the community.

Under the Phalevi Dynasty, established in 1925, the country was secularized and oriented toward the West. This greatly benefited the Jews, who were emancipated and played an important role in the economy and in cultural life. On the eve of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, 80,000 Jews lived in Iran. In the wake of the upheaval, tens of thousands of Jews, especially the wealthy, left the country, leaving behind vast amounts of property.

Despite the official distinction between "Jews," "Zionists," and "Israel," the most common accusation the Jews encounter is that of maintaining contacts with Zionists. The Jewish community does enjoy a measure of religious free dom but is faced with constant suspicion of cooperating with the Zionist state and with "imperialistic America" — both such activities are punishable by death. Jews who apply for a passport to travel abroad must do so in a special bureau and are immediately put under surveillance. The government does not generally allow all members of a family to travel abroad at the same time to prevent Jewish emigration. Again, the Jews live under the status of dhimmi, with the restrictions im posed on religious minorities. Jewish leaders fear government reprisals if they draw attention to official mistreatment of their community.

Iran's official government-controlled media often issues anti-Semitic propaganda. A prime example is the government's publishing of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious Czarist forgery, in 1994 and 1999.2 Jews also suffer varying degrees of officially sanctioned discrimination, particularly in the areas of employment, education, and public accommodations.3

And on and on.

Dave B: To be fair, most Israelis supported the withdrawal. But because of the heavy right-wing and ultra-religious opposition, Sharon deserves at least some credit for still having the guts to go through with it. He's even formed a new party in part to break away from those elements of Likkud.

But that element is central to the Israel mess, for sure.

You know that Israel is mostly secular, right? And that Jews are a people with a religion, not the other way around?

Israel has a constitution that links citizenship with religion; as far as I'm aware, only Iran has a similar linkage.

You know that Israel has no state religion, right? (not even Judaism)

Hurting OTM here ... as long as we're talking about myths, let's kill the myth that Israel only exists because of the Holocaust. Israel exists because nobody wanted to accept Jewish refugees. There's a big difference. If the Jews had all resettled in Europe without any problems after the war, then Palestine would have been handed to Egypt and Jordan decades ago (my opinion).

I don't know what you're getting at here, exactly, but I'm Jewish and not religious.

I'm no expert, but don't these people play a pretty important role in Israeli politics?

Wrong is wrong is wrong, isn't it? Denying rights to work, income, land, water, power and movement to a huge number of people and keeping them penned in stockades called 'autonomous regions' or some other euphemism is a deeply problematic policy. Some would say it's a fucking obscenity that disqualifies Israel from the membership of 'advanced democracies' it craves and depends upon to enable US aid.

As for the traumas over Gaza, the fact that it was so obviously in Israel's advantage (think John Carpenter's 'Escape from Gaza') makes it difficult to see how a genuine peace will ever come about, when the baseline position for the Israeli polity is so chauvinist.

Let's agree - Israel are a bunch of cunts, like many many cunts in that part of the world. Instead of invading though to put it right, we can just stop propping it up. Much easier than a costly occupation and death and stuff.

As for Iran, on another thread some ILXors commented that Iran has been calling for Israel's destruction for decades, so why are these recent comments drawing of so much attention? I'm a bit baffled by that as well (I'm not complaining, though).

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Good one, Dave, I guess the West should stop propping up all those Arab oil-based economies too?

Yes, duh. Is there anything more nauseating than the blind eye the US turns towards Saudi Arabia?

Yeah, I think the Israeli govt, particularly certain administrations have been cunts about the territories. So have Palestinans who decided to blow up innocent families eating enjoying meals together, and so have the people who funded and encouraged those people.

Somehow Palestinians' crimes against humanity are *necessary recourse* but Israelis' are not -- this is a strange moral universe and one I would not like to inhabit.

Anyway, I'm not Jewish, and the first thing you learn as a goy in New York is don't argue about Israel, so I should probably leave it at that.

Oh shut the fuck up.

If you want to argue about any other political topic, I'm game, and will match your vitriol. Though I'm pretty sure we'd agree on most other things. Besides my being a wishy-washy bleeding-heart political coward, of course.

Ah! xpost! I don't have any fucking clue how to help the Palestinians achieve viable statehood!

But you're right -- It was in the '40s that India allied itself with Them and Pakistan with Us.

But many former residents of the 'non-disputed' territories, driven out by the terrorist formation of israel, do not have any such rights.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. 1 state solution, palestinians and israelis with equal rights, nothing else produces a viable country.

"Terrorist formation of Israel" -- what does that mean, exactly?

The one state solution produces a country much like south africa where the palestinians, are in deed in the majority but the Jews have all the economic clout. And I think that there is much more in common between the aspirations of the bulk of Palestinians and the bulk of the jewish population (not being blown up, good schools, hospitals, housing, jobs etc.).

I'll gladly read the Harper's piece -- judging from the title I already agree with it.

I recommend "One Palestine, Complete" by Tom Segev for an even-handed look at the mandate period.

It's kind of like discussing the Iraq war and only mentioning the instances where the "insurgents" attack those peacekeeping American soldiers.

Perhaps I am a litle on the hasty side but it is well documented that the untenable situation fced by the madtory forces in the period hastened their withrawal and the formation of the State of Isreal and it certainly helped in the driving out of hundreds of thousands of palestinians. OK so everyone was bombing everyone but the Jews ended up with all of the stolen Land. The UN resolutions of the perriod, whilst granting a state and setting up boundaries (all overrun) did not give the jews licence to kick out the existing population and steal their homes and livelyhoods.

There are certainly worthwhile parallels to be drawn with the current Iraq situation, however they can be only be drawn with an honesty about both situations.

OK so everyone was bombing everyone but the Jews ended up with all of the stolen Land.

Who ended up with the West Bank and Gaza?

People who put things this way, presumably to maintain Zionist momentum, have actually lost touch with what Zionism was mostly about at its inception, the power and grace of Hebrew culture. They underestimate the capacity of Israel’s cities to absorb new generations, including Arab citizens and foreign workers, to something both fully democratic and patently Jewish, yet in a way that does not presume to straighten the crooked timber—in short, to make Israel Jewish the way France is French

If you can't find people who are willing to criticize Israel you aren't looking very hard. Anyway, since you say "there is guilt on all sides," don't you think it might be more useful to just describe what you think the situation in pre-state Palestine was actually like, rather than distorting it in order to counteract pro-Israel propaganda (or whatever you're trying to do)?

Nonetheless, it beings up one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter

Deep.

wasn't this cos they invaded israel immediately on its foundation?

Every point is an invitation to turn it around like some wanky Oxford Union debate, instead of getting to the heart of the matter. Which is this: the treatment of the Palestinians inside the occupied territories is an affront to all standards of civilised behaviour and shows that as far as the Israeli state is concerned, the Palestianians are unpeople who have no claim to any of the rights civilised states afford their peoples - heat, water, light, shelter, freedom from capricious military intervention, random violence and so on.

I'm with Ed (and Edward Said) - a twin-state solution will institutionalise the respective hatreds and will embed them. Only a reconciliation and equal rights in a single state solution can truly offer a way forward that promises and end to the death.

this is the ultimate union-style power move, though, claiming your own view as the absolute heart of the matter, opposed to all that wanky non-argument stuff other people harp on with. i'm not sure that yr characterisation is 100% valid w/r/t to 'the Palestinians' as a whole, but obv it applies to a great degree.

Only a reconciliation and equal rights in a single state solution can truly offer a way forward that promises and end to the death.

this is more important because there's a kind of disconnect, perhaps, between a good idea, and the elements on the ground that might make it feasible. for it to happen, both sides at least need to confront historical truths.

The single state solution is a utopian fantasy that will never happen. Countries comprising two roughly equal ethnic populations that have historically been at loggerheads don't have a great track record for peace, harmony and stability. Yugoslavia to thread. When even countries like Belgium struggle to stay unitary, when even the Czexhs and the Slovaks end up splitting up, I can't see any hope whatsoever for a unitary Israeli/Palestinian state. Realistically, some sort of workable two state solution is the best hope.

I think you're missing a subtlety here. I may not be a good representative, but I pretty much have never conceived of Israel qua political entity or even historical-religious site as in any way integral to my culture/heritage (tho maybe I should). What I do feel is an inherent connection to the Jewish people who live there, even though I barely know any, because they share, at least in a very broad sense, the same religious/cultural identity, which identity is always at least mildly threatened by its numerical minority status and religious/cultural outsiderism.

Just two reasons why a person might be more concerned or vocal about this problem than more localized "distant" similar-problems elsewhere.

Israel, on the other hand, is supported more out of principle than realpolitik. Israel is held to a higher standard by many, because it is a democracy, and the country's formation is tied to the persecution of Jews in the 20th Century.

So, many people do have a different standard for Israel than other countries in the region. Personally, I think this is a good thing.

Another obvious thing is that there are countless nations where different groups are or feel completely ill-served and mistreated by the central government -- but with Palestinians there is a whole extra notable layer, which is that they're one of few such groups who are explicitly considered not to be a part of the state in question, who are held in some sort of nationless statusless Zone in some truly-unusual wildlife-refuge manner. It's not hard to imagine why this might occupy a larger spot in people's attention than the more common dynamic of the marginalized or oppressed citizen-group.

-- gabbneb (gabbne...), December 16th, 2005.

I've never heard this, except maybe in a very very metaphorical way in a Jewish prayer or something.

And I don't even think Palestinian leadersip is all that interested in one state except as a threat (Arafat saying the greatest weapon Palestinians have is the womb).

What I do think could happen that would be ideal is a sort of cooperative two-state system in which eventually workers and goods flow relatively freely across the borders (they did so more at one point). I've heard some Israelis talk nostalgically about the days when you at least might have Palestinian acquaintances because they came across the border to work in Israel, and I think that people on both sides are less prone to hatred when they have any kind of contact with each other.

right, i meant in the metaphorical sense and wasn't saying it's common usage. but the nation-state is in some sense metaphorical.

Most Israeli women think we American Jews are soft and spoiled. OTOH they think we're less chauvenistic and more gentle, which is supposedly some of what worked in my favor.

My gf basically just looks like a fitter American Jew anyway - all eastern-european ancestry and no ability to tan.

http://www.frozenchosen.org/

Me too.

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