Stupid Boys and Tall Stories

Martyn Richard Jones — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:21:00 GMT

WORK IN PROGRESS

Work in progress. Check back for updates. Okay, here is the hall of stupid. Exhibits in no particular order.

Item 1: 1peter

02 Jul 09, 6:23pm (48 minutes ago)

MartynInEurope wrote:

And for the record, a 60/40 split is neither a "vast majority" nor "same same".

.....and for the record, how strange that you haven't been chasing down whatever his name is for claiming that the "vast majority" of Jews live outside Israel.....
yet you bluster on and on ad nauseum that it isn't 1/2 the Jewish population that lives in Israel, its 42%.

1peter wrote in reply: pedantry is your game.

MartynInEurope wrote: Because one (claiming a vast majority) is exaggeration and the other is blatant BS and mendacity. There is no way that 60/40 will ever be the same as 50/50. Never, ever, only in someone's alternative universe.

Wouldn't it have been simpler just to state the facts, rather than just to make it up, as you clearly did.

I'm not being pedantic for calling out BS, especially when the BS is so gob smackingly obvious BS. An exaggerated qualitative statement is nothing like the same as a mendacious quantitative statement.

Item 2: More explanation for idiot

MartynInEurope wrote: For every 400 Jewish people living in Israel, there are 600 Jewish people living in the diaspora.

Is the Jewish population of the Palestinian West Bank added to the total Jewish population of Israel? If so, better take them out. They don't live in Israel.

Are the figures for Germany based on Jewish people who have registered, or all Jewish people resident in those countries? In Germany there are roughly 110,000 people registered as Jewish, because AFAIK, the number of Russian Jews alone is around the 200,000 mark.

So you see, if one actually looks at the details of the statistics, and some of the assumptions, the more realistic figure might be: for every 340 Jewish people living in Israel, there are 660 Jewish people living in the diaspora.

Item 3: A cunt, is a cunt, not works as a cunt

      1peter

      02 Jul 09, 9:10pm (about 2 hours ago)

      MartynInEurope

      Is the Jewish population of the Palestinian West Bank added to the total Jewish population of Israel? If so, better take them out. They don't live in Israel.

      LOL you're beyond pedantry now....fantasy on top of obsession.

      12 posts of.....OMG.... zealous indignation LOL, at my stating that half the world's Jewish population lives in Israel in reply to the lie of the VAST MAJORITY of Jews live outside Israel.

      Yet not a single post about the initial claim.

      As I said, all bluster and pedantry

      Who let the trolls out,
      who,who,who,who

    *      MartynInEurope

      02 Jul 09, 11:20pm (1 minute ago)

      1peter:

          02 Jul 09, 9:10pm (about 2 hours ago)

          MartynInEurope

          Is the Jewish population of the Palestinian West Bank added to the total Jewish population of Israel? If so, better take them out. They don't live in Israel.

          LOL you're beyond pedantry now....fantasy on top of obsession.

      Didn't Pretzelburg bust this type of juvenile minded donkey-assedness a few days ago?

      Why do you persist 1peter, you have been proved wrong, time and time again.

      And you call me a pedant? LOL ...

Israel: State of Jews or Jewish State?

Martyn Richard Jones — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:26:00 GMT

ISRAEL. STATE OF THE JEWS OR JEWISH STATE?

The situation between Israel and Palestinians in the middle east is tremendously confusing, not least because of the marked tendency to overplay the positive and to play down, and then deny, the negative aspects in ones own camp.

Here'a an example of toxic crass stupidity writ large:

If there were indeed schools of Zionist thought that debated such issues they would be in Hebrew and it is interesting how Martyn would cope with that.

I would include the numerous possibilities that occurred to me if I did not have experience that the moderators tend to delete comments that they can't understand,

This intellectually challenged cheerleader, who claims to live in Israel, has never heard about differences of opinion within Zionism? Yet, not only that, claims that one would need to understand Hebrew in order to be able to detect these inexistent divergences of opinion.

1. Background

In common with many other people, I occasionally waste time commenting on internet blogs. One recent blog was an article written by Maajid Nawaz (Director of the Quilliam Foundation), and it basically argued that "just as Islamists should not call for nations exclusively for Muslims, Jews should not label Israel as a Jewish state".

Here is the original article: Israel must be a secular state for all citizens

My first comment on reading the article was:

I suppose that's entirely up to the Israelis, isn't it? I mean, I want the UK to be a democratic, secular, constitutional, egalitarian, civil society, where the rule of law prevails, and international treaties (UDHR, etc) are the highest laws of the land. I think it's a good plan to follow, but I'm not ready to impose that on anyone, outside [of] what I consider to be my political sphere.

Which apparently was not seen as too controversial.

Later, on the same thread, I responded to PaulLambert, another commentator on the blog, who had written:

17 Jun 09, 1:03pm
It doesn't take a genius to work out why so many Palestinian Arabs are reluctant to recognise Israel as 'the Jewish state'.

My reply, which I admit to be moderately polemic, was as follows:

You know, the argument over whether Israel is a Jewish state or is a state of the Jews, has been another cause of division between Zionists for many years.

What Nethanyahu and others are doing, and let's make no mistake about it, they know what they are doing, in demanding that the Palestinians recognize Irsael, not only as a sovereign state recognized in international law, but as the Jewish State, means that they are asking the Palestinians to endorse one faction of Zionism over all the rest. In effect, they are seeking to legitimate their position on this issue of "Jewish State" or "state of Jews" through Palestinians.

So, not only is it an issue for the Palestinians but also a divisive game that divides Zionists and Israeli nationalists, even more so.

That is a somewhat unprincipled and cynical political ploy IMHO

Of course, then the politically incorrect brigade jump down my throat, not for the polemical analysis, but simply for suggesting that there is even a plurality of opinion on the "fact" that Israel is the "Jewish State".

I followed this up with the following:

Surely the recognition of the State of Israel, as a sovereign state, with an inalienable right to exist, to conduct its own affairs, and to be assured the inviolability of its international borders, is enough, isn't it?

I would be interested in knowing who else, to date, has specifically recognised Israel as "the Jewish State"?

The reaction was as if I'd been directly responsible for some kind of gross sacrilege.

Anyway, here's what Eric Yoffie had to say in an opinion piece published by Forward (The Jewish Daily):

First of all, what does the term “Jewish state” mean? Does it refer, for example, to a state governed completely or in part by Halacha, by traditional Jewish law? Does it refer to a particular set of linguistic, cultural and educational policies that the state will adopt? In my experience, if you put a half-dozen Jewish Israelis in a room and ask them what it means for Israel to be a Jewish state, you will receive four or five different answers, along with at least one indignant insistence that the phrase has no meaning whatsoever. Debates among American Jews on the topic are no less heated.

These ongoing debates about the meaning of a Jewish state are good for Israel, as are the serious and intense discussions taking place about the proper relationship of a Jewish state to its non-Jewish minority. These are highly charged issues that will not be resolved easily or soon. But making the debate a part of the diplomatic landscape is a decidedly bad idea.

Obviously I'm not the only one to have a divergence of opinion with the "my team, right or wrong" crowd.

2. Video Introduction

The first reference item in this blog article is a short documentary called "ISRAEL: A JEWISH STATE OR A STATE FOR JEWS".

It is described as an "Excellent indepth video seeking to answer: how Jewish should the Jewish state be?"

The video was produced by The Joint Authority for Jewish Zionist Education, Youth and Hechalutz Department.

3. A round of quotes

Here are what some people had to say about the issue of a Jewish State or a state for/of the Jews:

Amnon Rubinstein, former Chairman of the Knesset Law and Constitution Committee, an Israeli law scholar, politician, and columnist. A member of the Knesset between 1977 and 2002, he served in several ministerial positions. He is currently dean of the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya and a patron of Liberal International:

Thus the Jews’ own state would... be, as Herzl entitled his famous booklet Der Judenstaat, a state of the Jews, hardly a Jewish state.

Shulamit Aloni is an Israeli politician and left-wing activist. She is a prominent member of the Israeli peace camp, founded the Ratz party and was leader of the Meretz party and served as Minister of Education from 1992 to 1993:

I do not accept the idea of a “Jewish state.” It is a “state of the Jews,” to be exact. Herzl wrote a book called The State of the Jews.

Moshe Zimmermann is an Israeli historian and publicist. Since 1986 he is director of the “Richard-Koebner-Center for German History“ at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1993 he was honoured with the Humboldt-Prize, in 1997 with the Jacob-and Wilhelm Grimm Prize of the German Academic Exchange Service, in 2002 with the Dr.Leopold-Lucas-Prize of the university of Tuebingen and in 2006 the Lessing-Prize for critique. His focus of research are the social history of the 18th and 20th century of Germany as well as of the German Jews and Anti-Semitism:

In Israel... the Herzlian concept of a “state of the Jews” is developing in the direction of a blatantly ethnocentric “Jewish state”....

Amos Oz is an Israeli writer, novelist, and journalist. He is also a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva. Since 1967, he has been a prominent advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2008 he received an Honorary Degree from the University of Antwerp. He also received the Dan David prize in 2008 for "Creative Rendering of the Past":

Herzl’s book was called The State of the Jews and not The Jewish State: A state cannot be Jewish, any more than a chair or a bus can be Jewish....

4. More On Zionism

Zionism is predominantly, but not exclusively, seen as one of the various manifestations of nationalism. Amongst secular and non-secular Jews there was and is disagreement over what should be the nature and form of Zionism. This discourse and disagreement covered the spectrum between the exclusive nationalism of the Revisionists led by Vladimir Jabotinsky and and the all-inclusive nature of the nationalist camp headed by Martin Buber.

Jabotisnky warned that the conflict with the Arabs was inevitable that talk of compromise and negotiation would have no sway with the local population. This contrasted with the completely inclusive Zionism of the philosopher Martin Buber, who in 1925, together with his followers, founded Brit Shalom (the Peace Covenant). Brit Shalom called for mutual reconciliation between the Jewish and Arab national movements in Palestine. Buber discarded the idea of Zionism as simply another national movement and wished instead to create an exemplary society. He argued that such a society should embrace Jewish domination of the Arabs. It was therefore incumbent on the Zionist movement to reach a consensus with the Arabs even at the cost of the Jews remaining a minority in the land. Brit Shalom embraced the idea of bi-nationalism and saw in its promise of a single state the moral and just resolution to a heartbreaking and tragic conflict. A third major faction of Zionism born of the curiously and frequently conflictive partnership of David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann took a more pragmatic stance, and although they were also committed to the enterprise of a Jewish State, they attuned their position in accordance with the shifting conditions in Palestine and elsewhere.

Zionism therefore came from Europe, and was in main a reaction to the evolving nationalism of European peoples and the increase in anti-Semitism in Europe. European nationalism had two key drivers: the exaltation of feeling and identity, which characterized the nationalistic romantic period in arts, and the Liberal requirement that a legitimate state is about people rather than, for example, a dynasty, a deity or imperial domination. In defining national identity in Europe, there were two distinct approaches. One was the all-inclusive approach, anyone who accepted loyalty to the state was a citizen, and the other was to define citizenship in ethnic terms. Therefore, not all nationalisms ended up as chauvinistic and destructive, but the nature of all nationalism determined the necessity of boundaries.

To put things in simpler terms, the rise of bourgeois nationalism in Europe went hand in hand with a marked increase in xenophobia and anti-Semitism. Many more Jewish Europeans became victims of the consequences of this nationalism, and added weight to the fact that they were, to some extent, marginalized in all societies in which they lived. Jewish Europeans saw how the nationalists used their nationalism as a way to reduce their alienation and to claim their positions in society; it was therefore hardly surprising that some Jews took the idea of nationalism to be both a threat and as a way of protecting themselves.

Therefore, it should not be so difficult to see how, from these and other social-economic imperatives, the various nationalist interpretations of Zionism were gradually brought into being.

5. A Liberal's View

Noah Nissani (Beersheva) in an article titled "Post Holocaust Adaptation of Jabotinsky Peace Plan" (and translated from Hebrew) wrote:

Today's Iron Wall must guarantee the security of the Jews, both in Israel and abroad, even in demographic conditions that would not be in our favor. The first step that must be taken as soon as possible, for the sake of all the people of our country, is to replace the current regime with a Liberal Democratic constitution. It should be based on a mutual consideration of the real needs of all the social components in the "State of the Jews and all its citizens". We must insist on including in the new constitution, based on two communal autonomies, the following conditions:

1) To safeguard the security of the Jews in their land and abroad:

a) Since the Jews are and will be a minority wherever they live and Israel is the only Jewish state, every Jew must have the right to be a citizen of the state at any time and regardless of his / her location of residence.

b) Since the Jews are and will be a minority in the Arab-Muslim world, security and immigration policies will be determined exclusively by the authorities of the Jewish autonomy.

2) To secure equal civil rights for all citizens, regardless of the majority's will, both autonomies will receive equal representation in all branches of the joint government.

D) To guarantee full civil, national and religious rights to all the state's citizens, most of the roles and powers of government will be transferred from the central authorities to the two communal autonomies.

There evidently are divergences of opinion about what a state should constitute, and plainly, this is no different in Israel. What is alarming is the maniacal way in which some elements of extreme rightwing fundamentalism not only argue that alternate opinions, views and arguments are mistake, false or even lies, but that they are quite capable of denying the very existence of plurality. Especially when it comes to sensitive arguments, for which they are intellectually and emotionally ill equipped to deal with.

6. Actors and Players

Theodor Herzl was an Austro-Hungarian journalist and the father of modern political Zionism.

Herzl was born in Pest (today the eastern half of Budapest, Hungary) to a Jewish family originally from Zemun, the Kingdom of Hungary (today in Serbia). When Theodor was 18, his family moved to Vienna, Austria-Hungary. There, he studied Law, but he devoted himself almost exclusively to journalism and literature, working as a correspondent for the Neue Freie Presse in Paris, occasionally making special trips to London and Istanbul. Later, he became literary editor of Neue Freie Presse, and wrote several comedies and dramas for the Viennese stage.

As a young man, Herzl was engaged in a Burschenschaft association, which strove for German unity under the motto Ehre, Freiheit, Vaterland ("Honor, Freedom, Fatherland"), and his early work did not focus on Jewish life. His work was of the feuilleton order, descriptive rather than political.

Did Herzl work for a state of the Jews or a Jewish state? Herzl essentially saw that state as a secular entity. It was to be a haven of safe refuge for harassed Jews, rather than a vibrant centre of Jewish spiritual life.

Martin Buber was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship.

Buber, together with a number of key Central European Zionist activists and intellectuals, including Shmuel Hugo Bergman, Gershom Scholem, and Henrietta Szold, participated in political organizations like Brit Shalom and the Ichud, which worked toward Jewish-Arab rapprochement. Zionism would succeed, they argued, only if it would find a way to reconcile the equally legitimate claims of both Jews and Arabs to some form of national self-determination in the Land of Israel.

Their insistence on an equality of national rights led them to support voluntary Jewish limits on immigration as a tactic to build trust with the Arabs, and the establishment of a bi-national state where both groups would find national-cultural expression through a sharing of political power.

Martin Buber's vision of Zionism is in marked contrast with the "scaffolding of corruption" and "... foundations of oppression and injustice" peddled by some denizens of web forums.

Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg, primarily known by his Hebrew name and pen name, Ahad Ha'am, was a Hebrew essayist, and one of the foremost pre-state Zionist thinkers. With his secular vision of a Jewish "spiritual center" in Palestine he confronted Theodor Herzl. Unlike Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, Ha'am strived for "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews".

It's there, in black and white, for all to see. Ha'am strived for "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews". What next, will the rightwing "my team, right or wrong" crowd be denouncing the works of Herzl?

--- to be completed ---

7. Say what? A sideline

When I was a child in Wales, an Uncle of mine used to tell me jokes, one of them went something along the lines of:"What is a Zionist?" the answer to which was "A Jew who takes the money of a second Jew in order to send a third Jew to Palestine."

Well, at least the money was once spent on sending Jews to Israel, and not spent on lifting anti-Semitic racists out of poverty traps in Eastern Europe and then planting them where their reactionary nastiness can be given full rein.

8. Conclusions

Your guess is as good as mine.

--- to be completed ---