Beinart, you must think your audience are a bunch of idiots. But as Norman Finkelstein said, you're only clever in your cult. You can dress up your desire to destroy Israel in whatever clothing you like, but the rest of us can see right throu…
Beinart, you must think your audience are a bunch of idiots. But as Norman Finkelstein said, you're only clever in your cult. You can dress up your desire to destroy Israel in whatever clothing you like, but the rest of us can see right through it. This claim that *Israel* has a right to exist but its *political system* doesn't is total nonsense. And yes, it is unfair and it is anti-Semitic.
When the US criticizes other countries, we criticize their *policies.* We don't like that China mistreats Uighurs and we don't like that Xi is a dictator. But we don't say "China is an inherently oppressive country because not everyone who lives there is Chinese. China must change its name and inherent nature to be a state for all its citizens." And you know why we don't say that? Because countries have the right to national characters. When the Irish were agitating for independence, the British didn't accuse them of racism and discriminating against non-Irish people. The idea is absurd.
One more example: I have never seen the US or the UN or anyone else criticize any Arab state (including Palestine) simply for being an Arab state and discriminating against non-Arabs.
In fact Beinart recognizes in this column that only some Palestinians consider Palestine to be encompassing everyone who lives there. Those of us who read Palestine's constitution know this to be false. Yet Beinart seems to think contrary to all evidence that if the Palestinians are given the vote, the result will not be a sharia controlled fascist dictatorship that identifies as a Muslim and Arab state explicitly, and therefore a racist one by his own logic, like Palestine is now. It is a good thing therefore that Beinart is not taken seriously by anyone.
I think the argument in the JewishCurrents piece is making a different point.
Under the current regime of international law, the State of Israel has a _legal_ right to exist merely because it already exists and no other state or political entity has any superseding claim to deny her that right now or ever. But Beinart seems to take issue with American Jewish groups moving the goalposts to claim that the State of Israel has essentially a _natural_ right to exist specifically as a Jewish state, even though Israel has effective control, directly or indirectly, over all people living between the river and the sea, of which Jews are a slight minority. That’s in direct tension with basic liberalism, which holds that only individuals have natural universal rights and one individual’s or group’s rights cannot supersede another’s.
The two-state solution was proposed as way to establish a Jewish-majority State of Israel that was consistent with liberalism, but Beinart believes that for all practical purposes that tension can never be resolved with any kind of 2SS that would ever be palatable to Israeli Jews so he abandoned it. It's at root a simple liberal argument, not some wild-eyed leftist clap-trap.
So far from Beinart looking like someone trying to pull the wool over the eyes of his “idiot” readership, he looks more and more like a cold-eyed realist about the illusory and doomed nature of the 2SS. Beinart’s critics would do well to understand the appeal that position has for liberals in the US and elsewhere who have grown disillusioned with the “peace process”, Israeli intransigence, and PA dysfunction and corruption.
The way I'd put it is that states are legitimate but there is no right to have a state whose political system grants you legal supremacy over people of a different religious/ethnic/racial group.
According to whom, Beinart? Because the vast majority of states do grant legal supremacy to one group over all the remainders, most notably Palestine. Meanwhile in Israel all CITIZENS are equal under the law.
Whoops careful by this criterion both China and India are out. And frankly so are most of the Arab countries they bar Jews. For someone with your knowledgebase I expect better. Sorry.
About 20% of Israeli citizens are arabs, with full citizenship rights, and all other Israeli citizens, of whatever race or ethnicity, have full citizenship rights.
Paul, you're conflating two separate problems here. Ending the occupation and Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state are two fundamentally different issues no matter how much you and Beinart try to pretend like they are one and the same. Are we supposed to believe that if Israel ended the occupation and created a Palestinian state tomorrow, Beinart, Ali Abunimah, yourself, and all the other anti-Zionists would stop claiming that a Jewish state is inherently discriminatory and that Jews actually do have a right to their own state separate from all the rest? I find that difficult to believe.
The United Nations through their International Convention on Civil and Political Rights has made it quite clear many times over that all peoples, including the Palestinian people, have the right of self-determination. So either the UN is in direct tension with basic liberalism or you and Beinart are wrong. I'm going to go with the latter.
Beinart is not a realist in any sense. Like many leftists he is good at identifying problems but woefully lacking when it comes to finding solutions. You think the 2SS is "illusory" and "doomed?" Beinart's one state solution is even more so: neither side wants it, it's in direct contradiction with international law and in history, and will result in civil war and suffering on a scale heretofore unseen in the conflict. Pushing for it is not realistic in the slightest. The 2SS effectively already exists already, de facto if not in name.
And as much as one can criticize the historical treatment of Jews in Muslim lands, it was certainly better than the treatment of Jews in most Christian lands at the time!
Honestly the reversal of these situations to me seems largely the result of the Allied handling of the former Ottoman Empire after WWI, as in seemingly every other situation we can just blame the British!
The Kurds as a people and a nation, like Jews or Palestinians, have a right to self-determination, but that right can be respected, in principle at least, even if Kurds live as political minorities spread out in different pluralistic nation states--Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, etc. The world, the UN, and other international institutions are perfectly fine with this situation. The Kurds might like to have a state of their own and western liberals like me might like to see them get one, but there is no legal regime or universalist ideology that asserts a natural right to a political nation-state with borders drawn to ensure a Kurdish majority. More importantly, there’s currently no politically feasible path to achieve an independent Kurdish state however desirable to outside observers that end goal might be. There are plenty of Kurdish “Zionists” in that regard but very few non-Kurds take that position seriously considering the obvious political challenges.
As for my post above, I was writing my mistaken interpretation of Beinart’s position in the two articles (and I’m pleased to see that he personally corrected it) in response to your vitriolic attacks, not my own (I support 2SS in principle but am increasingly disillusioned and seeing it now as a pipe-dream in practice. The status quo is unsustainable so alternatives are needed—there’s basically no political will to make 2SS happen, the “Camp David / Blame Arafat” narrative is now 20 years old and is more of a facile excuse than an illuminating explanation at this point, so I fault persistent Israeli rejectionism as a major reason for lack of progress since then. Maybe this is the “Andrew Sullivan” position?) If the occupation ended tomorrow, I agree with Beinart that Israeli subjugation of Palestinian rights would probably not end but also believe rocket attacks and border security risks to the State of Israel would also not end.
I dispute your claim that my opinions are "vitriolic attacks." If Beinart doesn't wish his offensive views to be criticized he should consider putting them on a site without a comment section.
In response to your Kurdish example, allow me to quote the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights: "1. All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development." Key phrase there: THEY determine their political status. THEY decide if they want to have their own state or if they want to live as a political minority spread out across states. THEY decide. NOT. YOU. So there's your legal regime or universalist ideology.
I see no reason to deny the Kurds their rights because Internet commenters thousands of miles away flippantly decide there's "currently no politically feasible path to achieve an independent Kurdish state" while ISIS and the Assad regime slaughters them. Not that that's a reasonable point anyway, because you're ideologically against it as well.
An injustice inflicted on one group doesn't justify an injustice inflicted on another somewhere else. As I said, the Kurds have been slaughtered in Syria, in Turkey, and elsewhere precisely because they are weak without a state of their own, yet for some reason you find a continuation of the status quote acceptable? And in favor of the Israeli Jews being subjected to a similar fate?
There's also a difference between preventing a people without a state from getting one and depriving a people who already have a state of it. They are both morally wrong, but the latter latter is explicitly against international law. And as you yourself said, Israel has a legal right to exist and there's nothing you or Beinart can do about it. Thank God.
Legalism is a dubious basis on which to construct a philosophical argument.
Anyway, if ethnic groups should have the right to self-determination, then why has Israel consistently resisted Palestinian unilateral independence? The fact that many Palestinians are waging war against Israel (and vice versa!) shouldn't undermine the basis of their fundamental human rights, if indeed you actually believe human rights should have any validity here.
As to the conflict between state sovereignty and human rights, well... Hannah Arendt knows better than I do, but I'm more skeptical of the state side of things myself.
With regard to the "one-state solution" versus the "two-state solution" I don't have any personal preference or indeed any stake in the matter, but it has become my impression that for all intents and purposes (i.e. not just nominally), most Israelis and Palestinians oppose the "two-state solution", with the preferred alternative left poorly specified, and the only people who meaningfully support it are Americans.
The one thing I personally think would be and is already an ongoing disaster is the sort of "one-and-a-half-state solution" that is the status quo. The more the status quo becomes entrenched, the more difficult it becomes to dispel unflattering comparisons to past South Africa. Thanks, Ariel Sharon!
Elsie, I’m not making a legalistic argument. The law is quite clear that not only do states have the right to exist, including Israel, but trying to destroy them is a violation of international law, and nations have the right of self-determination. It is in fact you , Beinart, and the other anti-Zionists who are arguing against the law and basic morality as usual.
Israel is only against Palestinian self-determination in so far as that ideology has been weaponized against its people. Israel has been willing to accept a Palestinian state alongside it since as far back as the 1940s. Israelis do not say Palestine is a racist state for being Muslim/Arab and they do not call the Palestinians racists for wanting their own state. This is not a two sided issue, it is a not a two way street. Palestine and and their anti-Zionist allies are simply in the wrong.
You're not making a legalistic argument... and yet you repeatedly appeal to the law, almost as if you're making a legalistic argument lol.
"It is in fact you, Beinart, and the other anti-Zionists who are arguing against the law and basic morality as usual." Could you elaborate on how I am arguing "against the law and basic morality"... like, by actually referring to what I wrote? If you actually bother to read what I wrote, you might notice that I don't actually suggest a path forward so much as state that the status quo itself is immoral and untenable.
"[Palestine] is only against [Israeli] self-determination in so far as that ideology has been weaponized against its people." Double standards my ass.
"Israelis do not say Palestine is a racist state for being Muslim/Arab and they do not call the Palestinians racists for wanting their own state." Do most Palestinians want their own state? And what about all the people displaced from their homes by terrorist attacks by the Zionist insurgency in the 1940s? "Israel has been willing to accept a Palestinian state" suggests you're perfectly fine with legitimizing that historical ethnic cleansing (which I'm 100% expecting you to deny by claiming that it was voluntary, somehow the fault of the people who were displaced, or in some other way justified, so... just don't).
"they do not call the Palestinians racists for wanting their own state" wow you really didn't read what I wrote did you lol. It's almost like you're terrible at reading comprehension, and you don't actually engage with other people's statements in good faith! Bravo!
"This is not a two sided issue, it is a not a two way street. Palestine and and their anti-Zionist allies are simply in the wrong." This "QED" is hilariously unearned. I'm shocked you passed college writing or even high school writing with this sort of incoherent mess.
Elise you’re project again, it is in fact you are performing a Gish gallop by dragging in irrelevant non sequiters and blatantly lying about my positions as well as the historical facts.
Do you contest that the only people who pretend to have a problem with states that have a national character are the Palestinians and their anti-Zionist allies like yourself and Beinart? Yes or no?
Do you contest that it is against international law to try and destroy a nation state and deprive the people living in it of self determination? Yes or no?
You're making an awful lot of assumptions about what I actually think. Just because you've tried to frame the discussion in a given way doesn't mean everyone else needs to play along.
I have made no assumptions about what you think. You are lying and are unable to answer very simple questions. You are not making Palestine look any better with this drivel.
Apartheid label against Israel by legal definition is absolutely false. Apartheid is segregated a race within a state. Israel has African Jews and. Jews are a natio n culture ( as well as religion - unique to Jews) and so are Arabs- is a culture and nationality . This is a dispute over disputed borders between 2 different culture societies and Israel is already declared legally as a Jewish majority state- it cannot be a crime of an apartheid by definition for many reasons. The HRW has deceptively changed the universally recognised legal definition of Aparthied to discredit Israel. Arab Palestinians could have had an independant state but they rejected it from 1948 etc
I personally have no objections to a Kurdistan, ideologically or otherwise, if one could merely snap their fingers and will it into existence. But that’s not the way the world works and international law makes no pretense that it does either. There is nothing in your quote that conflicts with this observation. You tell me explicitly the means with which you would propose to bring a Kurdistan into existence, then I will explain my objections. War on Syria, Turkey, and Iraq? Who would wage it? What about those who live there and don’t want war imposed on them? What does international law say about that? Moving political boundaries are zero-sum—what one party gains, another loses. Who decides whose rights lose out to another’s? Let’s agree that it shouldn’t be keyboard warriors thousands of miles away. Defining rights of self-determination in terms of political boundaries is untenable.
Back to Israel as a Jewish state. My primary objection is to the framing of it as an ideological matter of some inalienable right. That is, that a party can be passively entitled to have someone else give it to them at the expense of other impacted parties. I see a 2SS with a Jewish majority state as a desirable, but manifestly-political outcome, in which the onus falls on the party in question—Israel-- to actively make it a reality by political means, including making the hard choices and sacrifices that Israeli Jews have become loathe to make. If they are unwilling to do that—and all indications of the last 20 years says that they are unwilling--then it’s perfectly justifiable for observers to move to support a binational “equal-citizenship- for-all”1SS as default. It’s not my position yet, but that’s where I think a lot of liberals who follow the issue are headed.
So you’re not ideologically opposed to a Kurdish state or a Jewish state. Then do you disagree with Beinart’s entire column? Because he’s arguing the opposite.
Well, considering your nom de plume is "Anonyomous", and you effectively sign your comments as such, you are—like the rest of us—more pseudonymous than truly anonymous, and indeed if your comments were truly, i.e. individually, anonymous, how could the allegedly persistent correctness be attributed to you and you alone?
Far from being anonymous, you are instead just "*that guy* [who wears a Guy Fawkes mask like it's 2008]": https://xkcd.com/1105/ Oooh, so edgy!
I thought no state had the right to exist?
https://jewishcurrents.org/there-is-no-right-to-a-state
Beinart, you must think your audience are a bunch of idiots. But as Norman Finkelstein said, you're only clever in your cult. You can dress up your desire to destroy Israel in whatever clothing you like, but the rest of us can see right through it. This claim that *Israel* has a right to exist but its *political system* doesn't is total nonsense. And yes, it is unfair and it is anti-Semitic.
When the US criticizes other countries, we criticize their *policies.* We don't like that China mistreats Uighurs and we don't like that Xi is a dictator. But we don't say "China is an inherently oppressive country because not everyone who lives there is Chinese. China must change its name and inherent nature to be a state for all its citizens." And you know why we don't say that? Because countries have the right to national characters. When the Irish were agitating for independence, the British didn't accuse them of racism and discriminating against non-Irish people. The idea is absurd.
One more example: I have never seen the US or the UN or anyone else criticize any Arab state (including Palestine) simply for being an Arab state and discriminating against non-Arabs.
In fact Beinart recognizes in this column that only some Palestinians consider Palestine to be encompassing everyone who lives there. Those of us who read Palestine's constitution know this to be false. Yet Beinart seems to think contrary to all evidence that if the Palestinians are given the vote, the result will not be a sharia controlled fascist dictatorship that identifies as a Muslim and Arab state explicitly, and therefore a racist one by his own logic, like Palestine is now. It is a good thing therefore that Beinart is not taken seriously by anyone.
I think the argument in the JewishCurrents piece is making a different point.
Under the current regime of international law, the State of Israel has a _legal_ right to exist merely because it already exists and no other state or political entity has any superseding claim to deny her that right now or ever. But Beinart seems to take issue with American Jewish groups moving the goalposts to claim that the State of Israel has essentially a _natural_ right to exist specifically as a Jewish state, even though Israel has effective control, directly or indirectly, over all people living between the river and the sea, of which Jews are a slight minority. That’s in direct tension with basic liberalism, which holds that only individuals have natural universal rights and one individual’s or group’s rights cannot supersede another’s.
The two-state solution was proposed as way to establish a Jewish-majority State of Israel that was consistent with liberalism, but Beinart believes that for all practical purposes that tension can never be resolved with any kind of 2SS that would ever be palatable to Israeli Jews so he abandoned it. It's at root a simple liberal argument, not some wild-eyed leftist clap-trap.
So far from Beinart looking like someone trying to pull the wool over the eyes of his “idiot” readership, he looks more and more like a cold-eyed realist about the illusory and doomed nature of the 2SS. Beinart’s critics would do well to understand the appeal that position has for liberals in the US and elsewhere who have grown disillusioned with the “peace process”, Israeli intransigence, and PA dysfunction and corruption.
The way I'd put it is that states are legitimate but there is no right to have a state whose political system grants you legal supremacy over people of a different religious/ethnic/racial group.
According to whom, Beinart? Because the vast majority of states do grant legal supremacy to one group over all the remainders, most notably Palestine. Meanwhile in Israel all CITIZENS are equal under the law.
Well that simply isn't true.
Whoops careful by this criterion both China and India are out. And frankly so are most of the Arab countries they bar Jews. For someone with your knowledgebase I expect better. Sorry.
It's almost like nation-states are inherently flawed as a societal institution!
About 20% of Israeli citizens are arabs, with full citizenship rights, and all other Israeli citizens, of whatever race or ethnicity, have full citizenship rights.
Paul, you're conflating two separate problems here. Ending the occupation and Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state are two fundamentally different issues no matter how much you and Beinart try to pretend like they are one and the same. Are we supposed to believe that if Israel ended the occupation and created a Palestinian state tomorrow, Beinart, Ali Abunimah, yourself, and all the other anti-Zionists would stop claiming that a Jewish state is inherently discriminatory and that Jews actually do have a right to their own state separate from all the rest? I find that difficult to believe.
The United Nations through their International Convention on Civil and Political Rights has made it quite clear many times over that all peoples, including the Palestinian people, have the right of self-determination. So either the UN is in direct tension with basic liberalism or you and Beinart are wrong. I'm going to go with the latter.
Beinart is not a realist in any sense. Like many leftists he is good at identifying problems but woefully lacking when it comes to finding solutions. You think the 2SS is "illusory" and "doomed?" Beinart's one state solution is even more so: neither side wants it, it's in direct contradiction with international law and in history, and will result in civil war and suffering on a scale heretofore unseen in the conflict. Pushing for it is not realistic in the slightest. The 2SS effectively already exists already, de facto if not in name.
Jews lived under the rule of Moslem toleration in the past; so now the situation reversed. But the territories are a different matter.
And as much as one can criticize the historical treatment of Jews in Muslim lands, it was certainly better than the treatment of Jews in most Christian lands at the time!
Honestly the reversal of these situations to me seems largely the result of the Allied handling of the former Ottoman Empire after WWI, as in seemingly every other situation we can just blame the British!
The Kurds as a people and a nation, like Jews or Palestinians, have a right to self-determination, but that right can be respected, in principle at least, even if Kurds live as political minorities spread out in different pluralistic nation states--Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, etc. The world, the UN, and other international institutions are perfectly fine with this situation. The Kurds might like to have a state of their own and western liberals like me might like to see them get one, but there is no legal regime or universalist ideology that asserts a natural right to a political nation-state with borders drawn to ensure a Kurdish majority. More importantly, there’s currently no politically feasible path to achieve an independent Kurdish state however desirable to outside observers that end goal might be. There are plenty of Kurdish “Zionists” in that regard but very few non-Kurds take that position seriously considering the obvious political challenges.
As for my post above, I was writing my mistaken interpretation of Beinart’s position in the two articles (and I’m pleased to see that he personally corrected it) in response to your vitriolic attacks, not my own (I support 2SS in principle but am increasingly disillusioned and seeing it now as a pipe-dream in practice. The status quo is unsustainable so alternatives are needed—there’s basically no political will to make 2SS happen, the “Camp David / Blame Arafat” narrative is now 20 years old and is more of a facile excuse than an illuminating explanation at this point, so I fault persistent Israeli rejectionism as a major reason for lack of progress since then. Maybe this is the “Andrew Sullivan” position?) If the occupation ended tomorrow, I agree with Beinart that Israeli subjugation of Palestinian rights would probably not end but also believe rocket attacks and border security risks to the State of Israel would also not end.
I dispute your claim that my opinions are "vitriolic attacks." If Beinart doesn't wish his offensive views to be criticized he should consider putting them on a site without a comment section.
In response to your Kurdish example, allow me to quote the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights: "1. All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development." Key phrase there: THEY determine their political status. THEY decide if they want to have their own state or if they want to live as a political minority spread out across states. THEY decide. NOT. YOU. So there's your legal regime or universalist ideology.
I see no reason to deny the Kurds their rights because Internet commenters thousands of miles away flippantly decide there's "currently no politically feasible path to achieve an independent Kurdish state" while ISIS and the Assad regime slaughters them. Not that that's a reasonable point anyway, because you're ideologically against it as well.
An injustice inflicted on one group doesn't justify an injustice inflicted on another somewhere else. As I said, the Kurds have been slaughtered in Syria, in Turkey, and elsewhere precisely because they are weak without a state of their own, yet for some reason you find a continuation of the status quote acceptable? And in favor of the Israeli Jews being subjected to a similar fate?
There's also a difference between preventing a people without a state from getting one and depriving a people who already have a state of it. They are both morally wrong, but the latter latter is explicitly against international law. And as you yourself said, Israel has a legal right to exist and there's nothing you or Beinart can do about it. Thank God.
Legalism is a dubious basis on which to construct a philosophical argument.
Anyway, if ethnic groups should have the right to self-determination, then why has Israel consistently resisted Palestinian unilateral independence? The fact that many Palestinians are waging war against Israel (and vice versa!) shouldn't undermine the basis of their fundamental human rights, if indeed you actually believe human rights should have any validity here.
As to the conflict between state sovereignty and human rights, well... Hannah Arendt knows better than I do, but I'm more skeptical of the state side of things myself.
With regard to the "one-state solution" versus the "two-state solution" I don't have any personal preference or indeed any stake in the matter, but it has become my impression that for all intents and purposes (i.e. not just nominally), most Israelis and Palestinians oppose the "two-state solution", with the preferred alternative left poorly specified, and the only people who meaningfully support it are Americans.
The one thing I personally think would be and is already an ongoing disaster is the sort of "one-and-a-half-state solution" that is the status quo. The more the status quo becomes entrenched, the more difficult it becomes to dispel unflattering comparisons to past South Africa. Thanks, Ariel Sharon!
Elsie, I’m not making a legalistic argument. The law is quite clear that not only do states have the right to exist, including Israel, but trying to destroy them is a violation of international law, and nations have the right of self-determination. It is in fact you , Beinart, and the other anti-Zionists who are arguing against the law and basic morality as usual.
Israel is only against Palestinian self-determination in so far as that ideology has been weaponized against its people. Israel has been willing to accept a Palestinian state alongside it since as far back as the 1940s. Israelis do not say Palestine is a racist state for being Muslim/Arab and they do not call the Palestinians racists for wanting their own state. This is not a two sided issue, it is a not a two way street. Palestine and and their anti-Zionist allies are simply in the wrong.
You're not making a legalistic argument... and yet you repeatedly appeal to the law, almost as if you're making a legalistic argument lol.
"It is in fact you, Beinart, and the other anti-Zionists who are arguing against the law and basic morality as usual." Could you elaborate on how I am arguing "against the law and basic morality"... like, by actually referring to what I wrote? If you actually bother to read what I wrote, you might notice that I don't actually suggest a path forward so much as state that the status quo itself is immoral and untenable.
"[Palestine] is only against [Israeli] self-determination in so far as that ideology has been weaponized against its people." Double standards my ass.
"Israelis do not say Palestine is a racist state for being Muslim/Arab and they do not call the Palestinians racists for wanting their own state." Do most Palestinians want their own state? And what about all the people displaced from their homes by terrorist attacks by the Zionist insurgency in the 1940s? "Israel has been willing to accept a Palestinian state" suggests you're perfectly fine with legitimizing that historical ethnic cleansing (which I'm 100% expecting you to deny by claiming that it was voluntary, somehow the fault of the people who were displaced, or in some other way justified, so... just don't).
"they do not call the Palestinians racists for wanting their own state" wow you really didn't read what I wrote did you lol. It's almost like you're terrible at reading comprehension, and you don't actually engage with other people's statements in good faith! Bravo!
"This is not a two sided issue, it is a not a two way street. Palestine and and their anti-Zionist allies are simply in the wrong." This "QED" is hilariously unearned. I'm shocked you passed college writing or even high school writing with this sort of incoherent mess.
Are you familiar with the "Gish Gallop"? It's extremely tiresome. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop
Elise you’re project again, it is in fact you are performing a Gish gallop by dragging in irrelevant non sequiters and blatantly lying about my positions as well as the historical facts.
Do you contest that the only people who pretend to have a problem with states that have a national character are the Palestinians and their anti-Zionist allies like yourself and Beinart? Yes or no?
Do you contest that it is against international law to try and destroy a nation state and deprive the people living in it of self determination? Yes or no?
You're making an awful lot of assumptions about what I actually think. Just because you've tried to frame the discussion in a given way doesn't mean everyone else needs to play along.
Anyway, when did you stop beating your wife?
I have made no assumptions about what you think. You are lying and are unable to answer very simple questions. You are not making Palestine look any better with this drivel.
Apartheid label against Israel by legal definition is absolutely false. Apartheid is segregated a race within a state. Israel has African Jews and. Jews are a natio n culture ( as well as religion - unique to Jews) and so are Arabs- is a culture and nationality . This is a dispute over disputed borders between 2 different culture societies and Israel is already declared legally as a Jewish majority state- it cannot be a crime of an apartheid by definition for many reasons. The HRW has deceptively changed the universally recognised legal definition of Aparthied to discredit Israel. Arab Palestinians could have had an independant state but they rejected it from 1948 etc
Where are Jews in WB ? Where are Jews in Gaza ? Where are Jews in 22 Arab states ?
Jews and Arabs in area C where IDF is
I personally have no objections to a Kurdistan, ideologically or otherwise, if one could merely snap their fingers and will it into existence. But that’s not the way the world works and international law makes no pretense that it does either. There is nothing in your quote that conflicts with this observation. You tell me explicitly the means with which you would propose to bring a Kurdistan into existence, then I will explain my objections. War on Syria, Turkey, and Iraq? Who would wage it? What about those who live there and don’t want war imposed on them? What does international law say about that? Moving political boundaries are zero-sum—what one party gains, another loses. Who decides whose rights lose out to another’s? Let’s agree that it shouldn’t be keyboard warriors thousands of miles away. Defining rights of self-determination in terms of political boundaries is untenable.
Back to Israel as a Jewish state. My primary objection is to the framing of it as an ideological matter of some inalienable right. That is, that a party can be passively entitled to have someone else give it to them at the expense of other impacted parties. I see a 2SS with a Jewish majority state as a desirable, but manifestly-political outcome, in which the onus falls on the party in question—Israel-- to actively make it a reality by political means, including making the hard choices and sacrifices that Israeli Jews have become loathe to make. If they are unwilling to do that—and all indications of the last 20 years says that they are unwilling--then it’s perfectly justifiable for observers to move to support a binational “equal-citizenship- for-all”1SS as default. It’s not my position yet, but that’s where I think a lot of liberals who follow the issue are headed.
How could Kurdistan come into existence? How about boycotts, divestments and sanctions?
So you’re not ideologically opposed to a Kurdish state or a Jewish state. Then do you disagree with Beinart’s entire column? Because he’s arguing the opposite.
Cry harder
Most eloquent Beinart fan.
Thanks! Coming from a hypocrite like you it means a lot.
All these comments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to log off. (Both of you lol.)
Always anonymous.
And always right.
Well, considering your nom de plume is "Anonyomous", and you effectively sign your comments as such, you are—like the rest of us—more pseudonymous than truly anonymous, and indeed if your comments were truly, i.e. individually, anonymous, how could the allegedly persistent correctness be attributed to you and you alone?
Far from being anonymous, you are instead just "*that guy* [who wears a Guy Fawkes mask like it's 2008]": https://xkcd.com/1105/ Oooh, so edgy!
I’m sorry, did you have something actually useful to contribute?
Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
You'll have to excuse the food poisoning I've gotten from this thread.
If your stomach is too weak to hear opinions different from your own then exit the thread. You aren’t contributing anything of value anyway.
My stomach may be weak, but my peristalsis is strong!