Zionism is Racism.
In this country the the best we're gonna get from the pundits on any side is that Israel's actions are a brutal PR disaster.
Conservatives, being not only hypocritical but dim, will disagree.
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more simple logic here if you want.
(thanks Brian)
You can always go to antiwar.com to feel better about these things.
ReplyDeleteZionism is no more racism than American Patriotism is a genocidal.
ReplyDeleteOne can support Israel's right to exist and the right of a Jewish state while being in deep and strong disagreement over Israel's policies over the last months or even years.
One can also support Israel's actions over the past few months for plenty of boneheaded reasons that have nothing to do with racism. Racism is not simply a pejorative (and Israel's actions against Lebanon certainly deserve a pejorative), but it's a particular pejoritive ascribing a specific motive.
I don't defend any racial definition of statehood.
ReplyDeleteI don't defend Germany's right to exist in the 21st century as a "German" state.
And the US has never been anything other than a multi-ethnic democracy.
Got me?
I "got" you, though I think you're ignoring several thousand years of history - almost every country, sans the United States and Canada, exists as a nation-state, which doesn't mean they don't have minority populations (as does Israel). Israel should be obligated to give their minority populations full rights, but that doesn't mean there isn't a German state, an English state, a Turk state, a French state, a Spanish state, an Italian state, etc. I'm awaiting your "Bastille Day is racism" post.
ReplyDeleteI should also note that Jews aren't a race, so wanting a Jewish state, even if you disagree, isn't racism. The "Zionism is Racism" slur is based on the theory that being Zionist is definitionally anti-Arab (or Muslim or whatever, even tho Muslim isn't a race either). Your argument, as a matter of cause, fails even if one buys your premise, which is, to put it mildly, weak.
I do not defend the right of the German government to regulate the demographics of the state on the basis of genetics. Israel claims that right.
ReplyDeleteWhy not allow the Palestinian refugees the "right" of return? The browning of North America doesn't bother me.
Does it bother you?
And I'm sorry to correct you, but modern Jewry is made up of the descendants of a desert tribe (though genetically almost identical to Palestinians). My father was always annoyed that he could not write "Jewish" on forms that asked for his ethnicity. He did no think of himself as "white."
No, you did not get me.