Yes, Zionism is at odds with liberal values. But it’s less at odds than the alternative; moreover, it has the capacity to be liberalized almost without limit.
I want to take issue with Joseph Dana’s claim that liberal Zionism is a “dishonest system of thought.” I don’t, however, want to take issue with his statement that “the Zionist ideology, in so far as it privileges one ethnic group over another, is at odds with liberal values.” I won’t argue with that second point because I’m an honest liberal Zionist, and I don’t think any honest liberal Zionist, such as Bernard Avishai or Gershom Gorenberg, would argue with it either, because it’s undeniably true. Zionism privileges the Jews over Arabs and other gentiles, and that’s at odds with liberal values. So if I believe in liberal values, such as civic equality, why am I a Zionist, i.e. why do I want Israel to remain a Jewish state?
Because if Israel stops being a Jewish state it will become a Palestinian state, and on the way to that it will be a state at civil war that will bring on the exodus of the Jews – and that’s even more at odds with my liberal values than Zionism. You cannot have two warring nations in one state, and that’s what the Jews and Palestinians are in this part of the world – warring nations. The only way a state can work is if one of those nations is the stable, unchallenged majority, and there is such a Jewish majority in Israel and it should stay that way. I also believe that the Palestinians have as much right as the Jews to be the clear majority in a sovereign state of their own, and the Palestinians’ state – by right – encompasses the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
At home, I think the responsibility of Zionism is to realize that it inherently privileges Jewish citizens over Arab citizens, and to rectify all the inequalities and do away with all the discrimination, except in one area – immigration. While Israel has to get rid of its miserable “Jews-only” immigration policy and allow Palestinians and other gentiles to become citizens, it should still gear its policy so that a solid Jewish majority is maintained. It doesn’t have to be 80% like it is now, but if Israel is going to be a Jewish state and not a Palestinian state, the Jewish majority has to stay pretty solid.
Which means, naturally, that I’m against the right of return. I’m against it both on practical grounds, which I think I’ve laid out, and on moral grounds. It’s not just that the Palestinians started the 1947-48 war, it’s that they, too, carried out expulsions in that war, expulsions of thousands of Jews from the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, Gush Etzion, Kfar Darom and several other kibbutzim and moshavim. As Uri Avnery, a veteran of that war, said in a debate in 2007 with Ilan Pappe: “There can be no dispute that ethnic cleansing took place in 1948 – though allow me to remark, in parenthesis, that the ethnic cleansing was on both sides, and that there was not a single Jew left residing in whatever territory was conquered on the Arab side.” The Arabs were trying to do to the Jews what the Jews were trying to do to the Arabs; the Jews, to be brutally frank, just did it better. So I don’t see that the Palestinians have any right of return, especially since they started the war in the first place.
If there had been a small number of refugees, I personally would have had no objection to letting them come back – not as a matter of right, but rather because there would have been no good reason to refuse. Today, if it would allow the peace to be made, I’d personally agree to let up to a few hundred thousand refugees return to Israel over, say, a 10-year period. But again, not as a matter of right, because I don’t think it is their right.
The above is a capsule version of my idea of liberal Zionism. I don’t see anything dishonest about it.
Related posts on +972:
A sad commentary on the state of liberal Zionist discourse
+972 readers weigh in on Zionism debate
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Adrian
@Henry Weinstein
Well if that’s not what you think then I’m having trouble getting what your point is. Do you think that by repudiating Zionism Israel would become closer to the ideal advocated by modern Liberals? Is repudiating Zionism a necessary condition for achieving this goal? Is it a sufficient condition? Because I honestly don’t see why should this be the case as no Western country that I know of lives up to the Liberal ideal fully, institutional racism is far from being contained in each and every Western State and I’m also skeptical that the fact that the West is closer to this ideal than it was decades ago is necessarily due to leaving the concept of nation-states behind.
Sorry for having hurt you as it was not my intention. In fact I was kind of surprised to read you arguing against Liberal Zionism.
Bosko
Berl said: “Crazy sentence. It doesn’t matter what I or you think of them. It just matters what they thought about themselves”
.
Is this a joke Berl? I said to you that it is not me who claims that the Palestinian Arabs were part of the larger Arab nation it was the Palestinian Arabs themselves who thought of themselves that way. I then asked you, who do you think you are to argue with their own assessment of themselves at the time.
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And your response is your above sentence? Frankly I don’t know what to make of it. It appears that you are trying to twist our conversation and make it appear that I was the one who adopted your position. Then again, it’s possible that this is just your twisted way of conceding the argument. Wouldn’t it be easier just to say so directly Berl?
Bosko
Berl
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So you don’t like the PEF eh? OK, here is another reference which mentions Jordan’s history as Eastern Palestine:
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“*Museum Archives (1889 – present) *Harvard Excavations at Samaria (Palestine, 1908-1910) *Harvard Excavations at Nuzi (Iraq, 1927-1931) *Harvard Expedition to Eastern Libraries by R. Blake and K. Lake (Sinai, 1930) *American Schools of Oriental Research Excavations at Tell el-Kheliefeh and Khirbet Tannur by Nelson Glueck (Jordan, 1937-1940) *American Schools of Oriental Research Explorations in Eastern Palestine by Nelson Glueck (Jordan, 1930s-1940s) *Numrud Dag and Samsat Excavations by Theresa Goell (Turkey, 1950s-1960s) *Drew-McCormick Expedition to Tell Balata/Shechem (Palestine, 1956-1973) *Darwazeh Tepe Excavations (Iran, 1968-1970) *American Expedition to Idalion (Cyprus, 1971-1980) *American Schools of Oriental Research Punic Project (Tunisia, 1975-1980) *Ashkleon Excvations/The Leon Levy Expedition (Israel, 1985-present) NOTE: Manuscripts in Greek, Syriac, Hebrew and Arabic, previously in the Semitic Museum, are now in the Manuscript Collection of Harvard’s Houghton Library”
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http://lib.harvard.edu/archives/0051.html
Piotr Berman
So who mentions Jordan as “Eastern Palestine”? Nelson Glueck (1900–1971) was an American rabbi, academic and archaeologist. Dr Glueck served as president of Hebrew Union College from 1947 etc.
So we know that a Zionist rabbi put a label “Eastern Palestine” on his collection.
With “Eastern Palestine” slogan, are you per chance on of those people:
http://bajurtov.wordpress.com/
Bosko
Ah Piotr, Piotr, Piotr OK, then. Here is yet another reference to Eastern Palestine as Jordan, from yet another source …
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” The River Jordan, it is true, marks a line of delimitation between Western and Eastern Palestine; but it is practically impossible to say where the latter ends and the Arabian desert begins”
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http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine
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You are welcome to keep trying to prove me wrong.
BERL
Bosko,
You succeeded to take again my time..kol hakavod
“Then again, it’s possible that this is just your twisted way of conceding the argument. Wouldn’t it be easier just to say so directly Berl?”
The point is that they perceived themselves as PALESTINIANS in PALESTINE, and, at the same time, part of Bilad asham. Is it clear or not?
In the Western world Palestine was referred sometimes as Palestine other as Syria. Sometimes it included Transjordan, other times not.
In PALESTINE people did call their land PALESTINE (“FILASTIN BILADUNA” – AL DIn AL RAMLI – XVI/XVII century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khayr_al-Din_al-Ramli).
Also in the first years of the XX century the perception was the following:
“Dear readers, it seems we have done something serious in the view of the central government in warning the Palestinian nation of the danger which threatens it from the Zionist current.” In: “An Open Letter to Subscribers.” by the editors “Filastin”, special issue, 7 Nisan 1330/May 1914. Check also R. Khalidi and don’t put in my mouth your words and thoughts.
BERL
BOSKO,
once again read all your beloved quotations here; in other words put them in context and don’t use them in a selective way:
http://www.danielpipes.org/298/is-jordan-palestine
Bosko
Berl said: “The point is that they perceived themselves as PALESTINIANS in PALESTINE”
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No Berl, once again, please read the quotations that Ben Israel presented and the quotations that I presented too. Both make it clear that in 1947, the Palestinians perceived themselves as Arabs in Palestine. And they considered Palestine to be part of Syria, Jordan or Egypt, depending on which part of Palestine they lived.
Bosko
Berl
.
I quote from your own reference:
“First, Jordan-is-Palestine advocates argue that the east bank has always been considered part of Palestine. But a close look at the territory that is today Jordan shows that sometimes it was seen as part of Palestine, at other times not. Further, “Palestine” was for centuries a concept, not a fixed cartographic entity, so its political meaning was even more ambiguous than its borders”
.
Do you follow what it is saying? It is saying at times, what is Jordan now, was considered to be part of Palestine. And what was I saying? Exactly that. I said that Jordan was carved out of what was known as Eastern Palestine in the 1920s. I said no more no less than that. It does not mean that I now advocate that the Palestinian state should be carved out of Jordan. Nor am I saying that Jordan should become Palestine. What I said was, that since Eastern Palestine represented about 80% of historic Palestine and since the Palestinian Arabs perceived themselves as part of the overall Arab nation, it meant that giving 55% of the remaining 20% of Palestine to the Jews, did not represent a diddling of the Arabs. Especially since the 13% of historic Palestine that the Jews were allocated, included the Negev desert (which was 50% of that 13% allocation).
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Do you get it now, Berl?
Piotr Berman
Bosco claims that “historically” (for at least 3 years!) what is not “Jordan” was considered to be “a part of Palestine”. Other historians include France into Arthurian kingdom (which is quite relevant, because historical credentials of two kings, Arthur and David, are quite comparable, as literary sources do not quite match other records; most authorities agree that each of them was a king “somewhere”, but if it was a cluster of forts or a vast area, or something in between? Is it relevant to anything today?
In the case of Palestinians, do the rights of an inhabitant of, say, Haifa, differ if there was, or there was not, a Palestinian state, or Palestinian territory extending somewhere else?
Would it be OK for Poles to discover that (a) there was never a Belorus state until Communist invented a “republic”, (b) Belorus people are members of a larger community, Russians, that inhabits vast territories extending to Kamchatka, and conclude that it is OK to kick them out? Mind you, (a) and (b) may have solid arguments, but there would in no way be connected to an alleged conclusion. “Why so-called Belorusins cannot live with other Russians in Uzbekistan or Tobolsk and return historically Polish territories to Poles?” Moreover, what passes as their property rights is phony because the land used to belong to Polish nobility and later Communists abolished private property to Belorussian “ownership” is a recent construct, really, fiction.
Bosko
Piotr Bergman: “Bosco claims that “historically” (for at least 3 years!) what is not “Jordan” was considered to be “a part of Palestine”
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I see you are at it again? Telling people what I claim or don’t claim. I urge anyone who is not biased (is there anyone like that here?) to read what I really claim.
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As for your King Arthur, Belorussian, Polish and Uzbekistan quips, please keep trying. Eventually you will get the hang of being funny. Right now, I wouldn’t quit my day job if I were you.
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Of course when it comes to Communists and Communism, you would know more about them than me. After all, they have been mates of yours for a long time. By the way, what’s the deal with your Piotr Bergman pseudonym? Sounds a bit Russianish to me. Yet, didn’t you say you are an Arab woman?
ROSE
Bosko,
I don’t know if I am the not biased person that you are looking for, but the article of Daniel Pipes is clear and you just picked up a sentence. . Daniel Pipes:
“The Jordan-is-Palestine idea is not only historically wrong, legally superficial, geographically ignorant, and politically procrustean, but its implementation would be extremely dangerous. Espousal of this idea by people who genuinely care about Israel’s security, and who long to make the conflict less intractable by widening the territorial scope for its solution, does not reduce the danger it poses.”
ROSE
BOSKO,
BTW, “Further, “Palestine” was for centuries a concept, not a fixed cartographic entity, so its political meaning was even more ambiguous than its borders”.
..so what? It was not a political concept as you would expect in Europe and so it didn’t exist? It was not a state and so it didn’t exist?
Bosko you didn’t prove anything. The only person that continue to say that your argument is strong is you.
Jund Filastin was there and was considered as al ard muqadasa (the holy land) in most of the classical islamic books, from Tabari to go.
Read the translations of Guy Le Strange:
http://www.archive.org/details/palestineundermo00lestuoft
Please read a little bit more about the topic.
The settlers were the Zionists: the “bride was already married”, as the two rabbis have written in 1897 visiting it. The rest is just your propaganda.
Bosko
Rose
Maybe you are the unbiased one. But you still seem to miss my point. I am not one who espouses that Jordan should be Palestine which is the topic Daniel Pipes discusses. I was discussing the proportion of land that the UN allocated to the Jews in 1947. And my point was, that for that discussion, one should not ignore the fact that historically, till 1921, the land that Jordan is on was known as Eastern Palestine which was 80% of the totality of Palestine. Now, couple that to the fact that in 1947, the Arabs of Palestine thought of themselves as part of the larger Arab nation. And on that basis, the allocation of 55% of the remaining 20% of Palestine (namely Western Palestine) is not such a huge chunk.
.
Now, I’ll say it again. I am not advocating that Jordan is Palestine or that it should be. We have moved on. I accept that now, for political reasons, the Arabs decided to look at Palestinian Arabs as a distinct nation. That is their call and I accept that. But that’s not what I was discussing with Berl.
Bosko
With regards to “the bride was already married” comment. What do you mean by that? In fact what did the commenter mean by that?
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The fact is that before the British mandate, the bride was married to the Ottoman empire for several hundred years. It certainly was not married to the Arabs.
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Sure, Arabs lived there. But Jews lived there too. And yes, I acknowledge that the Jews were in the minority but before 1947, the bride did not belong either to Arabs nor to Jews. In the late 1800s things began to change, there were more Jews arriving and some more Arabs too. Things were in a state of flux. And by 1947 a significant proportion of the population was Jewish. So when the colonial power moved out, they were entitled to a proportion of the land. Because not all the land belonged to the Arabs. There was some private ownership by both Jews and Arabs but it was mostly crown land. Contrary to the self deception of Arabs and some Jews too on sites like these, not all the land belonged to the Arabs. There was room there for two states and that was and still is the fairest solution. The zero sum option is not an option. That’s the direction where misery lies. Please don’t push for it!!!
ROSE
“The bride is beautiful but she is married to another man”, making reference to the fact that their hoped-for Jewish homeland was already occupied by the Palestinians.
It does not matter if Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire, otherwise the other 40 countries (40 countries of today of course) that at the time were part of the Ottoman Empire do not belong to their indigenous populations but instead to the Ottoman Empire and through it to the colonial Powers.
Also, in that 40 countries, as Berl wrote you, the Mulk land (private property) was less than 10%. So, or you apply your selective approach to all these countries or your perception is biased and thus wrong.
We are speaking, inter alia, about the same colonial powers that, without asking anything to the local population (they called the PALESTINIANS, i.e. the 9/10th of the population, “NON-JEWISH POPULATION”), decided how they were supposed to manage their lives.
Moreover, you write that….”my point was, that for that discussion, one should not ignore the fact that historically, till 1921, the land that Jordan is on was known as Eastern Palestine which was 80% of the totality of Palestine”: this is simply NOT true and the article of Pipes deals also with this crucial point.
Be kind enough, study better the topic or, at least, read the ENTIRE article of Pipes.
ROSE
PS
There is nothing bad about your will to support Israel or the “Jewish cause”. What is morally reprensible is your attempt to negate the history of the other; as someone else mentioned, “FILASTIN BILADUNA” (Palestine our land). Why Al Din Al Ramli wrote this in the XVI century? Peraphs he was drunk: this would help a lot your theory.
Once again, read the translations of Guy LeStrange and then come back here to write about it with a little bit more knowledge about the topic
Bosko
Rose
It is exactly the other way around. I am the one who is talking about two states for two peoples. I am the one who is talking about the fact that two peoples lived in Palestine Arabs and Jews. Yes , Jews lived there even before the waves of Zionists began arriving in the late 1800s. So how can you say this:
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“What is morally reprensible is your attempt to negate the history of the other”
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The reality is that those who object to the immigration by the Jewish people are the ones who negate the history of the ‘other’, namely the Jewish people. It never needed to be a zero sum game and it still need not be. Even now there is room for the two state solution, despite the fact that since 1948, there are over 8 million people in the area that was Palestine. In 1948, there were only 1.8 million people in the same area so there certainly was room for two states.
Bosko
Rose
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I provided a number of links which confirmed that historically, there was an East Palestine. Go back on this thread, check it out. Moreover, even Berl’s reference link (Daniel Pipes) says this:
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“a close look at the territory that is today Jordan shows that sometimes it was seen as part of Palestine, at other times not. Further, “Palestine” was for centuries a concept, not a fixed cartographic entity, so its political meaning was even more ambiguous than its borders”
.
Which bit of that is not clear? Remember. I am not saying that this means that because of that, Jordan should now be Palestine. I am saying that historically, it was at least that sometimes it was and certainly just before 1921 it was …
ROSE
You provided just few excerpts from Western organizations: it does not mean anything. Moreover once again you push on the botton of “POLITICAL MEANING”: I give up and I don’t try anymore to explain u that you are looking at the reality just with Western eyes.
The real point is that uou DIDN’T answer to the main issue:
It does not matter if Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire, otherwise the other 40 countries (40 countries of today of course) that at the time were part of the Ottoman Empire do not belong to their indigenous populations but instead to the Ottoman Empire and through it to the colonial Powers.
Also, in that 40 countries, as Berl wrote you, the Mulk land (private property) was less than 10%. So, or you apply your selective approach to all these countries or your perception is biased and thus wrong.
Bosko
Rose mentions: ““FILASTIN BILADUNA” (Palestine our land). Why Al Din Al Ramli wrote this in the XVI century?”
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And that’s it? That makes the entirety of Palestine exclusively Arab lands, for eternity?
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The reality is that Jews said the same thing way before that as well as after that. History changes. Things don’t remain static. Historically, various people had sovereignity over Palestine. And in the late 1800s there was another change in the making. The Jews were returning to their ancestral home lands. That wasn’t the first time in history when there was a state of flux. Jews were returning, they bought lands and built homes alongside their Arab and Jewish neighbours who lived there even longer than the Arabs. There was room for all of them and there is room for all of them still. Why was it a bigger crime for refugee Jews to return than the way that others before them arrived? Others who arrived and conquered the land by the sword.
ROSE
BOSKO,
once again you change as u like the topic:
“And that’s it? That makes the entirety of Palestine exclusively Arab lands, for eternity?”.
I never said that. On the contrary, this is one of the founding myth that many settlers use in order to steal palestinian land in the occupied territories: what happened more than 2,000 years ago “makes the entirety of Palestine exclusively Jewis lands, for eternity?”.
The sentence of Al RAMLI, that was born in RAMLE, is important inasmuch it explains the clear perception of the local population, that of course was also part of bilad asham. not for any other reason.
PS btw, I never said that the Jews don’t have the right to be here. for sure they have it. they just don’t have the right to occupy the palestinian territories, especially in consideration of the price that the PALESTINIANS already paid for them
Bosko
Rose
.
I am western and I won’t apologize for looking at things through western eyes. And i should not be expected to. Non westerners look at things through non Western eyes. Do you want me to say that they shouldn’t? If I would, you would probably call me racist. So the reverse should be true too.
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OK, so we have an impasse, I and people like me look at things through western eyes. Middle Eastern Arabs look at things through their own perspective. We have an impasse. There were wars. There still are wars. Hopefully in time, if not now, one side or the other, or hopefully BOTH will tire of the war and we will compromise. We are all human and I am sure we will find common ground based on a pragmatic solution. In the meanwhile, if we are both (yes, them too) are stupid, then we will both suffer. That’s the way things work.
ROSE
BOSKO,
“OK, so we have an impasse, I and people like me look at things through western eyes. Middle Eastern Arabs look at things through their own perspective”.
Fair enough, but you forget a little particular. You (and me), i.e. “Westerns”, are the foreigners in this land. Otherwise you support the base of every Colonialistic approach: the opinion of the colonializer on the colonized cannot have the same value of the one of the colonized. At least in regard to the land, the traditions and the perceptions of the colonized itself.
PS
Once again you didn’t answer to the main issue:
It does not matter if Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire, otherwise the other 40 countries (40 countries of today of course) that at the time were part of the Ottoman Empire do not belong to their indigenous populations but instead to the Ottoman Empire and through it to the colonial Powers.
Also, in that 40 countries, as Berl wrote you, the Mulk land (private property) was less than 10%. So, or you apply your selective approach to all these countries or your perception is biased and thus wrong.
Bosko
Rose
.
And I never said that they did not identify themselves by their geographical dwellings as well. What I did say was that overall, they identified themselves as Arabs who live in Palestine. NOT solely as a distinct people who are JUST Palestinians and Arabs only as an afterthought.
Bosko
Rose
.
I beg to differ. And you keep on ignoring me when I remind you that Jews are NOT foreigners to the Middle East. There is irrefutable historical evidence that ties the Jewish people to the land of Judea and Israel. Moreover, a small remnant of Jews never left that land. So colonialists is a totally inappropropriate way to describe the Jews of Israel. In fact that is just propaganda.
Bosko
Rose
.
If the Australian Aborigines would have been exiled from Australia and then they would return say 500 years later, would you describe them as colonialist invaders?
ROSE
BOSKO,
I never said that Jews are foreigners to the Middle East. Until a Jew that wants to make aliah doesn’t come in this part of this world as a settler or claiming that he has more right than a palestinian (included palestinians with Israeli citizenship) for me there is not any problem whatsoever.
But ONCE AGAIN you didn’t answer to the MAIN ISSUE related to our discussion:
It does not matter if Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire, otherwise the other 40 countries (40 countries of today of course) that at the time were part of the Ottoman Empire do not belong to their indigenous populations but instead to the Ottoman Empire and through it to the colonial Powers.
Also, in that 40 countries, as Berl wrote you, the Mulk land (private property) was less than 10%. So, or you apply your selective approach to all these countries or your perception is biased and thus wrong.
Bosko
Rose
.
I think that you are the one that missed my point about being part of the Ottoman Empire. My point was that because of it, Palestine was sovereign Ottoman territory. Not Jewish, not Arab nor any of the other 40 countries. As such, whoever immigrated to Palestine, bought land and built homes there, they settled down on sovereign Ottoman lands not Arab lands.
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Rose said: “the Mulk land (private property) was less than 10%”
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Which means that the crown land was 90%. Which means that most of the land that the UN allocated for the Jewish state (Israel) was not Arab land but crown land. Since For hundreds of years before 1947, there was no sovereign Arab state in Palestine. Thanks for making the point that I was trying to articulate.
Bosko
Rose: “I never said that Jews are foreigners to the Middle East”
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And I never said that you did. But quite a few others on this site did and do say exactly that.
Bosko
Rose
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As for your occupation comment. That is entirely off topic but let’s discuss it anyway. First, let me say that I believe that most Israelis would prefer to end the occupation. But in exchange, they want reasonable assurance that peace will follow if not forever (let’s be realistic) then for a very long time and I mean a very long time. Two of Israel’s offered generous peace deals, within the last decade, (certainly according to most Israelis) which if had been accepted, then the occupation would have been an end to the occupation by now. They were not accepted. So how do you want to end the occupation? Withdraw unilaterally? Or make even more concessions? And where should Israel draw the line?
ROSE
BOSKO,
“My point was that because of it, Palestine was sovereign Ottoman territory. Not Jewish, not Arab nor any of the other 40 countries. As such, whoever immigrated to Palestine, bought land and built homes there, they settled down on sovereign Ottoman lands not Arab lands.”
That’s the reason why your position is biased,
wrong and immoral.
It implies the fact the If I were a US citizens I could go to Serbia and tell to the indigenous serbian population that serbia did not belong to them. Do u understand that this is stupid and immoral?
Moreover the total percentage of land bought by the Jews in Palestine in 1947 was the 6% of the total.
Once again, you use a western way of looking the reality. Like the people that say “Palestine was not a State” and so that Palestinians cannot complain. This is childish.
In the Ottoman Empire there was simply a different way of dealing with the land. For example the Musha’ system was based on the idea that the land did “belong” to the community of believers represented by their Emir. THE LAND WAS OF THE PEOPLE THAT DID LIVE ON IT: all the rest is western propaganda, or ignorance.
The problem is not the fact that you support the rights of the Jews. The problem is that you don’t respect the others, even if you are persuaded of the contrary.
Until the day in which the majority of the Israelis will continue to share your opinion this land will never live is peace.
Bosko
Your US citizen analogy telling Serbians is not the same because the last time I heard, Serbia is not under US administration. Palestine on the other hand was under Turkish administration, the Turks collected the taxes, they provided the infrastructure, the public service, the laws, hospitals, disaster procedures. At least in theory. The fact that they may not have been doing it efficiently is a separate issue. The mere fact that they had that responsibility, gave them sovereignity rights.
.
Moreover, I put it to you Rose, the Ottomans were not even westerners yet they too subscribed to such thinking.
ROSE
Bosko,
Serbia was under the Ottoman Empire. If you prefer take as an example Romania or Bulgaria. And if you don’t like the “US citizen” take as an example a “French citizen” or a “dutch citizens”.
In Serbia, in Romania and in more than 30 countries of our days the taxes were collected by the Ottoman Empire.
Do u see how weak your point is?
Bosko
Rose
“Do u see how weak your point is?”
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Not a good tactic. After all, you are not the jury or the judge whose argument is stronger or weaker. Let others judge.
.
Now about your second attempt at an analogy using a “French Citizen” or a “Dutch Citizen” instead of a “US Citizen”. You really have lost me with that attempt. Are you saying that the French or the Dutch are administering Serbia? Am I missing something here? Neither the USA or France nor the Dutch have the same status with regards Serbia as the Ottomans had with Palestine when it was under Ottoman rule. Do you see how weak YOUR point is?
Bosko
Rose
.
Help me out here. In your first analogy involving the US citizen, who in real life is his equivalent. Ditto for Serbia, who is Serbia’s equivalent. You really have lost me. I don’t even know what you are trying to say. I am not just trying to be difficult.
Bosko
Rose
.
If your in your analogy, you are thinking of say the US citizens as being the equivalents of the Jews who migrated to Palestine, then guess what. If their migration into Serbia would have started around the late 1800s, with the permission of the Ottomans and by 1947, they would represent 33% of the population, then they too could demand self determination after the colonial overlord moves out. Even though they don’t have the same historical connection to the land as the Jews do in Palestine/Israel/Judea.
.
In fact, isn’t that exactly what happened in Kosovo with the Albanians? They migrated there and became a majority. Then they broke off Serbia and the international community backed them up.
ROSE
BOSKO,
we speak 2 different languages.
With “US/FRENCH/DUTCH citizen” a meant a “FOREIGNER”, whatever person that came from ANOTHER continent.
So, if a person that comes from another continent has the right to tell to a Palestinian that the land does/did not belong to him, it means that you should apply the same criteria to the other 40 countries that today are part of what was the Ottoman Empire.
This means that using your approach an Italian (so a FOREIGNER FROM ANOTHER CONTINENT) of the last century could go in BULGARIA and be entitled to explain to the local indigenous population (In BULGARIA) that he does not owe anything because he is under the Ottoman Empire, i.e. an empire that does not use the same system used in Europe. On the contrary, according to your argument, the Italian has exactly the SAME right of the indigenous person.
Do you realize that this is the essence of colonialism and a western-centric way of reading a reality that was not western?
ROSE
BOSKO,
With my analogy I want to show u how weak and unfair is to say that the land did belong to a Colonial power just because it took control, through a Western imposition and with a “white man’s burden” approach, of a territory previously administrated by an Empire that had a different (in comparison to Europe) way of dealing with Land Tenure.
Hope that now it is clear
Cortez Moreno
Why don’t the Israelis take the steps to end the occupation?
I don’t see large scale recognitions of Palestinians as equals or brothers or partners for the future. There is no self-reflection on research of the last decade that has shown that over 90% of Palestinians (Bedouins included) are the descendants of Hebrew/Jews who remained on the land (genetic links show that individual Jewish groups i.e. Sephardic or Ashkenazi Jews are more closely related to Palestinians they are to each other.). No willingness to recognize that Palestinians are also(in addition to Israeli Jews) indigenous people of the land.
There is no effort to integrate schools in Israel or in the West Bank; most Palestinian(inside and outside of Israel proper) and Israeli children are segregated for a majority of their schooling.
The continuing growth of settlements and horrendous treatment of Palestinians in Area C of the West Bank (if you’ve seen some of the recent demolitions by the Civil Administration you would know what kind of psychological horror is being inflicted on people every day), suggest that Israel just wants to create more impoverished, conservative terrorist.
There’s no effort to even proselytize or convert Palestinians (maintenance of archaic laws from the Roman era do nothing to help the dwindling population of Jews).
Palestinians have a lot to do but they are not the ones with the power in the situation.
ROSE
CORTEZ MORENO,
u look a bit confused.
“No willingness to recognize that Palestinians are also(in addition to Israeli Jews) indigenous people of the land.”
Palestinians ARE the indigenous population and in addition there are some Israeli Jews, a much smaller percentage, that are also indigenous. This does not mean that also the percentage of non-indigenous are not entitled to live here, but please don’t mess up the reality.
Moreover,
“There is no self-reflection on research of the last decade that has shown that over 90% of Palestinians (Bedouins included) are the descendants of Hebrew/Jews who remained on the land”
This is an old flawed theory already proposed in 20s by Borochov and Ben Gurion…they were the first to repudiate it: it is baseless
Bosko
Rose
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Now your analogy is clear. I misunderstood it at first . But I am still not sure how you are applying your analogy. If you are trying to say that because a place was under colonial rule in the past, group of people can turn up many years later after (I stress the word after) the colonial rule ended and came a stake in the place, then your analogy is wrong especially if by then, the natives already establish their own sovereign state.
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If however, you are talking about strangers arriving to the place during the colonial rule. And if after the colonia ruler left, if by then the new comers represent a significant proportion of the population, they certainly do have the right to claim self determination.
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I’ll mention again the KOSOVO example because that is exactly what happened in KOSOVO. Under the Ottoman rule, the Muslim Albanians built up their numbers to a level that allowed them to claim all of Kosovo for themselves after the recent Balkan wars. And guess what, the international community sided with the Albanians NOT the Serbs.
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Please don’t ignore that REAL example. I already mentioned it in my previous post. What have you to say about that?
Cortez Moreno
Well Rose…
“Palestinians ARE the indigenous population and in addition there are some Israeli Jews, a much smaller percentage, that are also indigenous. This does not mean that also the percentage of non-indigenous are not entitled to live here, but please don’t mess up the reality.”
But the Palestinians are not recognized or acknowledged by the Israeli government as indigenous people of the land next to Israeli Jews(not in place). I did not say that the non-indigenous people are not entitled to live there. Israeli Jews make up a clear majority of Israel proper and they are also an indigenous people as well. My point if you read further is that there isn’t a recognition that Palestinians are not foreigners to the land (If you go to the Jewish virtual library…they will still claim without legitimate facts that all Bedouins and most Palestinians are from far away Arab lands).
Note: this has no bearing on the right of return as a legal matter but more on the political acknowledgements.
Flawed theory? Baseless? Ben Gurion may have been wrong about many things but archaeological evidence and DNA evidence corresponds with the theory. I understand there maybe a ideological reason to oppose facts but don’t disregard them as baseless.
Within the same studies that supports the assertion that Ashkenazic Jews are not in fact descendants from the Khazars(as anti-semites would like to believe) it has been shown in multiple studies that Palestinians and Bedouins (and Kurdish Muslims and Samaritans for that matter) are closely related to various Jewish groups with a recent common ancestor within the last 2,000 years (corresponding with the expulsion of many but not all of the Jews from Jerusalem by the Romans). DNA evidence has also shown that Palestinians have European admixture (which has been corroborated with the Crusades in the South Levant) and some level of Arab and African DNA(corresponding with the Arab conquest and the Arabization/Islamization of the Palestinians who were Christian before, Jewish before and likely Canaanite before) but are mostly natives of the Levant. You can read Arielle Oppenheimer’s study or Steven Bray’s study for more information.
Note: This has no bearing on evolving and modern Halakhic Rules, Talmudic and Rabbinic Law in relation to Jewish “status.”
It just goes to a larger point that Israel has not recognized the history and connection of the “others”(Palestinians, Bedouins whomever else is low on the totem pole in the South Levant) to their historical claims as a matter of government and larger ideological policy. It is one of many indicators (beyond the most obvious ones we see today in the Knesset and current ruling party) that they are not at the stage yet where they are willing to rethink how to solve the situation while preserving and evolving Jewish political identity.
Ben Gurion was right about that history(may have been wrong on many other things) and he did try to “Judaize” the Bedouins in the Negev through a special program early on. However, the government got lazy and focused on other priorities. Today they are still trying to Judaize the Negev…but by displacing the Bedouins instead of embracing them.
Also Borochov however misguided he was had
Cortez Moreno
To Add: Borochov however misguided he was…probably had more progressive views (probably cause of his ideological leanings) on Palestinians and than anyone in Likud today.
Bosko
Rose
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And you know what? Fiji is another such place where Indians (largely Muslims) now slightly outnumber the natives, as a result of colonial rule. OK they have not decided to claim self determination although trouble has been brewing in Fiji between the original inhabitants for a few years now.
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So, are you telling me that because the Indians are late comers, they should forever be disenfranchised?
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And let me remind you again. In the case of the Jews of Palestine, the Jews were not just interlopers. The Jews had at least as much historical connection to Palestine as the Arabs. And even more in my and many other people’s opinions.
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So please Rose, by all means I would be interested in hearing your opinion about the real live analogies of KOSOVO and FIJI rather than make believe analogies to do with US, French and Dutch citizens.
ROSE
BOSKO,
Once again you mixing different things and putting in my mouth your ideas.
No one thinks that “because the Indians are late comers, they should forever be disenfranchised”…the point is that Indians should not claim to have more rights on that land than the indigenous, as for example the settlers and many israelis do. They should respect the other and not build up settlements using religion in a selective way (of course that context is totally different and so doesn’t have any reason to speak about it there).
Moreover, they always should remember who the indigenous are.
About the ottoman land:
” If you are trying to say that because a place was under colonial rule in the past, group of people can turn up many years later after (I stress the word after) the colonial rule ended and came a stake in the place,…”
Did I write this? Why do you come up with something totally detached from what I have written?
I wrote that is unaccettable to use a Western approach and claim that the Palestinians didn’t have rights on their land just because private property (mulk land) was not “the way” trough which the Ottoman Empire used to deal about land tenure.
If you believe that they didn’t have rights on their own land so also the indigenous population in the rest of the Ottoman Empire should be disenfrachised of their rights. you cannot apply also this issue in a selective way.
If you don’t address THE ISSUE and you continue to change the main topic this will not change in any case the reality
…continue…
ROSE
Cortez Moreno,
Sorry, your theory are proven wrong long time ago. This is Borochov:
“The Fellahin in Eretz-Israel are the direct descendants of the remnants of the Jewish and Canaanite agricultural community, with a very slight admixture of Arab blood; for as is well known, the Arabs, proud conquerors, mixed very little with the mass of the people in the lands which they conquered [...] Thus the ethnic difference between the Jews of the Diaspora and the fellahin of Erz-Israel is no greater than the difference between the Ashekenazi and the Sephardi Jews. The local people are neither Arabs or Turks [...] ”
This is the reality, already discussed on this site:
Maxime Rodinson:
“A foreign people had come and imposed itself on a native population. The Arab population of Palestine were native in all the usual senses of that word. Ignorance, sometimes backed up by hypocritical propaganda, has spread a number of misconceptions on this subject, unfortunately very widely held. It has been said that since the Arabs took the country by military conquest in the seventh century, they are occupiers like any other, like the Romans, the Crusaders and the Turks. Why therefore should they be regarded as any more native than the others, and in particular than the Jews, who were native to that country in ancient times, or at least occupiers of longer standing? To the historian the answer is obvious. A small contingent of Arabs from Arabia did indeed conquer the country in the seventh century. But as a result of factors which were briefly outlined in the first chapter of this book, the Palestinian population soon became Arabized under Arab domination, just as earlier it had been Hebraicized, Aramaicized, to some degree even Hellenized. It became Arab in a way that it was never to become Latinized or Ottomanized. The invaded melted with the invaders. It is ridiculous to call the English of today invaders and occupiers, on the grounds that England was conquered from Celtic peoples by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in the fifth and sixth centuries. The population was “Anglicized” and nobody suggests that the peoples which have more or less preserved the Celtic tongues – the Irish, the Welsh or the Bretons – should be regarded as the true natives of Kent or Suffolk, with greater titles to these territories than the English who live in those counties.”
You write that the Kazari thesis is antisemite. Fair enough, and so your is 100% racist.
ROSE
BOSKO,
I never wrote that the “Jews were just interlopers”. So once again don’t put words in my mouth.
“The Jews had at least as much historical connection to Palestine as the Arabs. And even more in my and many other people’s opinion”…about this my answer is the following:
It is not enough to follow a certain religion and to claim for this to have more rights than an indigenous inhabitant. Religion is first of all something between you and your god: i.e. a private matter.
…continue about kosovo…
Cortez Moreno
Bosko
“And let me remind you again. In the case of the Jews of Palestine, the Jews were not just interlopers. The Jews had at least as much historical connection to Palestine as the Arabs. And even more in my and many other people’s opinions.”
Why do the Jews have more of connection than the present day Palestinian Arabs who have been on the land continuously for thousands of year? Don’t you think Orthodox Ashkenazic jews could be perceived as interlopers due to their customs, culture and lack of desire in the past to connect with the local populations?
Simplifying the connection to Jews not being interlopers makes it easy to forget the Jewish ancestry of most Palestinian Arabs, the existence of Sephardic Jews alongside Palestinian Arabs and Christians, Samaritans, Druze and other groups ethnic groups who largely spoke the same language, had similar customs and culture(this is prior to the advent of modern Arab and Jewish nationalism) but practiced different religions.
This issue is a foreign population…specifically Ashkenazic Jews(even more specifically Eastern European that were 2,000 years removed for the most part excluding those who immigrated in the 1800s) that came to a land that they had no connection to and didn’t respect the local culture and people in pursuit of their colonial enterprise of flawed self-determination.
Bosko
BOSKO,
kosovo is an interesting topic and the most controversial case of the last years, so controversial that the UN resolution 1244 is STILL VALID, i.e. the resolution that claim the Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo.
But I don’t understand what is the point. Even assuming that the international community will fully acknowledge the independence of Kosovo how this would be related to Israel and Palestine?
I am not an expert of Kosovo, but I read online that in the Ottoman Empire “Anscombe suggests that records show that the demography of Kosovo was very much mixed and that both Serbian and Albanian ethnic groups dominated. Moreover, they seem to indicate more cases of Albanians rebelling than any other ethnicity in the region.”
I hope that u don’t want to compare the percentage of Serbian and Albanian in “Kosovo” with the percentage in the same period of Jews and Palestinians in Palestine…