Israel Considering Saudi Peace Plan

[Ender]

Israeli is needed for the survival of the Jewish people?!?!?!

MAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

If the Jews want to survive, all they need to do is relocate to a country with open, religious tolerance ingrained into it's laws (if not the actions of the people). Some place they'll be accepted and welcomed, and not spit on.

You know, just about any modern democracy.

Yeah, how well did that work out in the 30's? Need for the existence of Israel aside, claiming that because the laws say "be nice to everyone" exist everything will be fine doesn't track. You can make all the high minded laws you want. It doesn't mean they will be followed. Look at the treatment of atheists and homosexuals in America, or Muslims in France. I would put good money on the fact that if so many fundies didn't back Israel in the US right now McCain/Palin would be raging against the Jews for the wall street screwup. The world is far, far nastier then you appear to give it credit for, and saying that laws for religious freedom automatically guarantee are all the protection you need is nonsense. Case in point. I'll defend most accusation made against the military by people here, because 99.99999% of them are absurd bullshit like claiming we are all white supremacists. But the religion thing in the military has gotten very bad of late - there are tons of examples of this shit against atheists, muslims, jews, and catholics. And this is an organization with routine indoctrination about tolerance and set systems to resolve issues.

[Darth Wong]

Israeli is needed for the survival of the Jewish people?!?!?!

MAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

If the Jews want to survive, all they need to do is relocate to a country with open, religious tolerance ingrained into it's laws (if not the actions of the people). Some place they'll be accepted and welcomed, and not spit on.

You know, just about any modern democracy.

Yeah, how well did that work out in the 30's?

It was impossible to implement in the 30s. No nation existed which met the criteria described in the post. American laws regarding religion are worded in such a hopelessly vague fashion that they can be interpreted to mean just about anything (with predictable results that we continue to see today). Canada didn't even have an official charter of rights at the time.

[Darth Wong]

No. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I'm simply saying that a Jewish state is necessary to the survival of the Jewish people.

Bullshit.

...and you have a reason for this statement, I assume?

Yes. You have failed to justify the deductive logic. In case you're too goddamned stupid to understand the most basic elements of a logical argument, anyone making a cause-and-effect claim must show that there is in fact such a cause and effect. Showing that A led to B at one time in history is not sufficient justification for such a claim, because it presumes static social conditions. Appealing to unknown social conditions in future is even more idiotic, because it presumes that those future changes will resemble the past.

In 1940, when a mixed-race man like Barack Obama would have been killed in the streets. Now he's running for President, and winning. Tell me, do you think every common mixed-race combo should get its own country, just in case the world turns bigoted again?

Has every "common mixed-race combo" been persecuted (at one time or another) by every single nation they've lived in for the past 4000+ years?

That distinction is irrelevant to the point under discussion. You do understand the point you're responding to, don't you? Or are you just stupid enough to think that any distinction between group A and group B automatically nullifies any kind of analogy?

Go fuck yourself. Your argument is that your bigotry is necessary just in case other people are bigoted in the future. Which is a lot like saying that I need to pre-emptively punch you in the face, just because I'm worried you might do it first.

No, my argument is that it's necessary because of an incredible historical precedent of said bigotry.

There is an incredible historical precedent of bigotry against all cultural distinctions throughout history, you fucking moron. Do you have any idea how many ethnic cleansings, genocides, and other assorted atrocities adorn our history books? The biggest reason why the Jews have been persecuted for so long was their refusal to assimilate into other cultures, and you think that further efforts to segregate themselves will solve the problem.

If something happens over and over for 4000+ years, do you just say "well, things are different now, that could never happen again" and go on your merry way? Seems pretty naive and shortsighted to me.

If something happens over and over, intelligent people look for mechanisms, rather than simply assuming that the universe is out to get them.

The idea of Israel as a bulwark against bigotry is idiotic in the extreme: not only is Israel's own bigotry an incitement to others, but it exists only because the western nations want it to exist. Do you really think Israel would exist in any recognizable form today if the western nations had not consistently supported it for the past 60 years? If (as in your nightmare scenario) the western nations all became Hitler-like rabid anti-Semites again, do you honestly think the existence of Israel would protect the Jews from them? Just how much of a military power do you think Israel is, particularly if all of its western support is cut off?

The Jews' best hope to avoid repeating the past is to cultivate favour and assimilate, not to segregate and irritate.

[hongi]

The Jews' best hope to avoid repeating the past is to cultivate favour and assimilate, not to segregate and irritate.

That, DW, is unacceptable for many Jews, secular or religious. In their understanding, assimilation is basically another form of the destruction of the Jewish people.

If Israel is not around, and considering the present friendly attitude in the West, assimilation will just as easily 'dilute' Jewishness as mass extermination. Sure they're will always be the religious hardcore who will only marry with Jews, but the thinking is that Israel represents the bulwark of Jewisness. The whole religion-ethnic concept is exclusionary.

[Darth Wong]

That, DW, is unacceptable for many Jews, secular or religious. In their understanding, assimilation is basically another form of the destruction of the Jewish people.

If Israel is not around, and considering the present friendly attitude in the West, assimilation will just as easily 'dilute' Jewishness as mass extermination. Sure they're will always be the religious hardcore who will only marry with Jews, but the thinking is that Israel represents the bulwark of Jewisness. The whole religion-ethnic concept is exclusionary.

If they define "destroyed" that way, then they should be destroyed. That attitude is exactly the same as Hitler's belief that the Aryan people would be "destroyed" if they mixed with non-Aryans.

[Gil Hamilton]

That, DW, is unacceptable for many Jews, secular or religious. In their understanding, assimilation is basically another form of the destruction of the Jewish people.

If Israel is not around, and considering the present friendly attitude in the West, assimilation will just as easily 'dilute' Jewishness as mass extermination. Sure they're will always be the religious hardcore who will only marry with Jews, but the thinking is that Israel represents the bulwark of Jewisness. The whole religion-ethnic concept is exclusionary.

Not just hardcore Jews. I grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood and alot of my friends growing up were Jewish. There were even more whose parents wouldn't even let them play with me because I was one of the goyim ("goy", interestingly enough, being the first racial epithet I was exposed to growing up). You get even moderate Jewish families that won't let their sons or even more particularly daughters date a non-Jew. These weren't the Hasidim either or any other really orthodox group you see around the neighborhood, but the families of the guys I was in a Boy Scout Troop with.

Through that Troop I met one of the smartest men I've ever known, who was a local Rabbi, and possibly one of the most decent human beings on the planet in my book. One discussion with him that sticks in my mind is a discussion about two friends of mine, one who was a member of his synagogue and the other someone who went to school with me who wanted to date. Unfortunately, the girl in the equation had the double whammy of (A) not being Jewish and (B) in fact being an atheist. This added up to the guy being forbidden on no uncertain terms to date her by his father. The Rabbi explained it was a deeply baked in social prejudice, that identity was more important than anything else, because for a very long time, identity was pretty much about the only thing alot of Jews had (he himself though my friends should date if they wanted to).

You can see that in Faqa's comments. Notice he's saying that the Right to Return would destroy Israel because it would mean Israel would cease to be Jewish and called that "suicide". Of course, it isn't suicide. If it included a peaceful transition, the state of Israel would keep right on going. It wouldn't be Jewish anymore, as the demographics of the country would put paid to it existing under Jewish law (imagine a country where only the minority of the population is legally allowed to get marriage, since as it stands you can only formally get married in Israel if you meet the standards of Orthodox Judaism). That's hardly suicide though, it's metamorphosis, which is a natural thing in a country and is happening anyway. Yet the conceit is that Israel ceasing to be Jewish is somehow Israel ceasing to exist.

Right there is the fundamental disconnect in the discussion. At this point, the only way Israel is going to remain a Jewish state is if they forget about the West Bank and Gaza and the Golan Heights and all the other little pissant scraps of desert the Israelis and the Arabs think are worth fighting over, kick out the Arabs who are in Israel, and generally wall themselves off, because within two generations the idea of a Jewish state is going to disappear by simple breeding habits. If integration is not an option and considered "suicide", then any peace accord might as well be pitched in the fire. At this point, you'd think loyalty to country would be more important than clawing to hold on to their own made up identities, as though God really loves them more than any other schmuck on planet and thus they should have their own country. At the end of the day, they are going to have to learn to live with Arabs, or they aren't going to survive anyway.

[BountyHunterSAx]

That, DW, is unacceptable for many Jews, secular or religious. In their understanding, assimilation is basically another form of the destruction of the Jewish people.

If Israel is not around, and considering the present friendly attitude in the West, assimilation will just as easily 'dilute' Jewishness as mass extermination. Sure they're will always be the religious hardcore who will only marry with Jews, but the thinking is that Israel represents the bulwark of Jewisness. The whole religion-ethnic concept is exclusionary.

If they define "destroyed" that way, then they should be destroyed. That attitude is exactly the same as Hitler's belief that the Aryan people would be "destroyed" if they mixed with non-Aryans.

If that isn't the irony to end all ironies . By the way, hongi, what makes you say that Jews perceive assimilation as the end of Jewishness? I'm not saying you're right or wrong about it, I frankly have no idea either way, and would like to see more of your reasoning/evidence.

-AHMAD

[eyl]

You can see that in Faqa's comments. Notice he's saying that the Right to Return would destroy Israel because it would mean Israel would cease to be Jewish and called that "suicide".

And the chances of that happening peacefully are? Eevn if you ignore the past century of conflict, do you really think dumping 1.5 million impoverished people into a country of 7 million could somehow happen without massive disruption?

Of course, it isn't suicide. If it included a peaceful transition, the state of Israel would keep right on going. It wouldn't be Jewish anymore, as the demographics of the country would put paid to it existing under Jewish law (imagine a country where only the minority of the population is legally allowed to get marriage, since as it stands you can only formally get married in Israel if you meet the standards of Orthodox Judaism).

Wait, do you actually think non-Jews can't get married in Israel?

Right there is the fundamental disconnect in the discussion. At this point, the only way Israel is going to remain a Jewish state is if they forget about the West Bank and Gaza and the Golan Heights and all the other little pissant scraps of desert the Israelis and the Arabs think are worth fighting over, kick out the Arabs who are in Israel, and generally wall themselves off, because within two generations the idea of a Jewish state is going to disappear by simple breeding habits.

You're right about the West Bank and Gaza, but it should be pointed out that the Golan Heights has relatively few Arabs (and is irrelavent to the issue ofthe RoR anyway) and the Israeli-Arab birthrate, while higher than that of secular Jews, has been dropping over the last decade or so. If any, the "demopgraphic doomsday" scenario I think is more likely is dominance of the Jewish ultra-Orthodox population, at which point the whole country's economy will drop into the crapper.

[hongi]

By the way, hongi, what makes you say that Jews perceive assimilation as the end of Jewishness? I'm not saying you're right or wrong about it, I frankly have no idea either way, and would like to see more of your reasoning/evidence.

-AHMAD

I'm not going to say all Jews believe that assimilation will destroy Jewishness. For one thing, being a Jew is both a religion and an ethnicity. Every Jew in the world could be an apostate but they'd still be Jews as long as they were born to a Jewish mother or converted. So in that sense actually I was wrong when I compared assimilation to genocide, because assimilation will never destroy people. At least a non-observant Jew can become a baal teshuvah (revert).

What a lot of Orthodox Jews think is that assimilation will weaken and destroy Judaism, as a religion. When gentiles marry Jews, which is technically impossible under Jewish law (marriage is only seen as between Jews and between gentiles), the chances are that religious observance goes down, they don't keep shabbos, the high holidays, they don't pray, they don't keep kosher, they stop teaching their kids the Bible etc etc.

Now granted, I picked up this sentiment from hanging around Orthodox people on the 'net so I could be wrong, but I don't think this is a minority position in Orthodox Judaism at all. Here's one article that talks about intermarriage. You can go to a Jewish forum, or ask a rabbi, or ask a frum person about this.

By the way, I should mention that while we're discussing the necessity of a Jewish state for the survival of the Jewish people, that's an argument that secular Jews use a lot, but religious Jews probably use the 'God gave it to us, He wants us to hold it, end of story' reason more.

A question for everyone here. I know comparisons to a white state were made earlier, but what if white people were a minority and a white state was needed so that they could survive (the argument of white nationalists in other words). Is that justifiable?


Even if white people were a minority and a white state was

[Darth Wong]

A question for everyone here. I know comparisons to a white state were made earlier, but what if white people were a minority and a white state was needed so that they could survive (the argument of white nationalists in other words). Is that justifiable?

No. And don't ask why not: he who claims such a position should justify it. The "white race" could be smeared out of existence by interbreeding and it would be no great loss to humanity.

And you are correct: this is the argument used by white racist groups, as well as Hitler back in WW2.

[Vendetta]

A question for everyone here. I know comparisons to a white state were made earlier, but what if white people were a minority and a white state was needed so that they could survive (the argument of white nationalists in other words). Is that justifiable?

No. Establishing a state based on something as trivial as skin pigmentation, which is at best an evolutionary adaptation which is currently doing us little to no good (though if we suffer a global food crash then lack of dietary vitamin D might make it useful again at northerly lattitudes), is a nonsense.

[Big Orange]

While I agree that Judaism has endured history through profound, antagonistic tribalistic isolation, dangerous anti-Semites like the Nazis were still obsessively going after 'Jews' who only had one Jewish parent or/and didn't give a toss about Abrahamic religion, defining Jewishness as a pseudo-biological state, so the tribal sanctuary of Israel was temporarily vindicated after the Holocaust (but it was through sheer passion rather than grounded logic).

[Darth Wong]

While I agree that Judaism has endured history through profound, antagonistic tribalistic isolation, dangerous anti-Semites like the Nazis were still obsessively going after 'Jews' who only had one Jewish parent or/and didn't give a toss about Abrahamic religion, defining Jewishness as a pseudo-biological state, so the tribal sanctuary of Israel was temporarily vindicated after the Holocaust (but it was through sheer passion rather than grounded logic).

Heh. If Israel had existed before WW2, it would have been conquered by the anti-semitic western imperial powers. I don't know where Jews get this idea that if they had a discrete homeland (which was conveniently targetable through conventional military means), then they would have been so much better off. Frankly, it sounds like bullshit they concocted in order to justify the Orthodox religious belief in restoration of God's Promised Land.

[Gil Hamilton]

And the chances of that happening peacefully are? Eevn if you ignore the past century of conflict, do you really think dumping 1.5 million impoverished people into a country of 7 million could somehow happen without massive disruption?

Integration falls under the catagory of finesse and good planning. It certainly isn't impossible. It is, however, if you start with the automatic assumption that it will end violently, but that right there is called a self-fulfilling prophecy. The point is doing what is just, and if the Israelis kicked people of their land, they should return it.

The point is, the idea that Right to Return would mean the end of Israel because it could possible mean the end of Israel as a Jewish dominated state is complete rubbish. The state of Israel would endure, except for the bigoted yahoos who think that any Israel that isn't a Jewish state is a dead one.

Wait, do you actually think non-Jews can't get married in Israel?

Not formally recognized as marriage by Israel, unless they belong to a specific religious organization and meet the standards of a Rabbinical council or the approved Muslim/Christian/Druze equivalent. That's been the huge pickle with Israeli citizens who are secular or not-Jewish. Israeli law also doesn't have any provisions for inter-faith marriage and you are shit out of luck if you are an atheist. In order to actually get married, they have to exploit legal loopholes, like getting married in Cyprus or getting a mail-order marriage from Paraguay, which in turn is legally recognized by the state of Israel. Otherwise, there is no civil marriage allowable in Israel.

Not only that, the Israeli marriage laws are designed that way specifically to prevent intermingling of Jewish lines with others.

You're right about the West Bank and Gaza, but it should be pointed out that the Golan Heights has relatively few Arabs (and is irrelavent to the issue ofthe RoR anyway) and the Israeli-Arab birthrate, while higher than that of secular Jews, has been dropping over the last decade or so. If any, the "demopgraphic doomsday" scenario I think is more likely is dominance of the Jewish ultra-Orthodox population, at which point the whole country's economy will drop into the crapper.

I included the Golan Heights because its one of the pissant strips of desert that for some reason people there really care about. However, as long as Israel holds on to Gaza and the West Bank and even a large portion of areas with alot of Israeli-Arabs, Israel will still cease to be Jewish in less than 50 years. That means its time to actually learn to live with Arabs.

[Big Orange]

Heh. If Israel had existed before WW2, it would have been conquered by the anti-semitic western imperial powers. I don't know where Jews get this idea that if they had a discrete homeland (which was conveniently targetable through conventional military means), then they would have been so much better off. Frankly, it sounds like bullshit they concocted in order to justify the Orthodox religious belief in restoration of God's Promised Land.

Most of the Jews residing a small homeland in the Middle East if history went a different way probably wouldn't have helped them as a defence against oppression or genocide, since it didn't work for the Christian Armenians and the Kurdish tribes (who have both been flattened by a succession of brutal empires and regimes).

[Guardsman Bass]

The point is doing what is just, and if the Israelis kicked people of their land, they should return it.

And as I pointed out, not only are the land claims confused now on all this (since in many cases Israelis have been living on that land for long periods of time, and the property boundaries have been re-drawn), but most of the original owners are either dead or dying. It's not "give me back my land!" - it's now, although unspoken, "Give me back Great-Grandpa Ahmad's land!"

You might be able to just say "Okay, you all can come into Israel and live here now" without actually giving back any land, but you're still going to have clashes when the children and grand-children go find Great-Grandpa Ahmad's land and find out that Israelis have been living on it for the past 60 years.

[Big Phil]

Why is it that so many people's "solution" is to allow Palestinians a right of return to Israel, but to completely ignore the Jews kicked out of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, etc.? In any case, there are two very practical things preventing this "solution:"

1. Jews don't want to live in Jordan, Iraq, Syria, etc., where they will be a (violently) oppressed minority.
2. Palestinians don't want to live in Israel as either equal members of a free democracy or second-class citizens. They want the Jews GONE and they want their own State.

[hongi]

Why is it that so many people's "solution" is to allow Palestinians a right of return to Israel, but to completely ignore the Jews kicked out of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, etc.? In any case, there are two very practical things preventing this "solution:"

1. Jews don't want to live in Jordan, Iraq, Syria, etc., where they will be a (violently) oppressed minority.

They can ask for monetary compensation instead of going to where their parents used to live. Hell will freeze over before the Arabs pay up, but it's not like Israel will compensate the Palestinians either.

[Darth Wong]

Why is it that so many people's "solution" is to allow Palestinians a right of return to Israel, but to completely ignore the Jews kicked out of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, etc.?

That's a fair point; to be honest, as time passes, the concept of squatter's rights increasingly weakens any Palestinian claim to "right of return" anyway. That's the reason the Natives can't seriously demand to take back the Americas from the white people, after all.

In any case, there are two very practical things preventing this "solution:"

1. Jews don't want to live in Jordan, Iraq, Syria, etc., where they will be a (violently) oppressed minority.

I thought we had made Iraq a haven of freedom

2. Palestinians don't want to live in Israel as either equal members of a free democracy or second-class citizens. They want the Jews GONE and they want their own State.

That opinion probably correlates strongly with the level of personal oppression an individual Palestinian has experienced. I don't think there's any reason to say it's universal.

[Guardsman Bass]

This is slightly tangential but it's about the demography of Israeli Arabs. Apparently, their birth rates have been in decline for some time, while Jewish birthrates in general have been going up. It's even more pronounced in certain areas, like Jerusalem. They're still quite high, at over 4 children, but not as high as they used to be.

[Darth Wong]

So Israel's demographic takeover will be by Orthodox Jewish fanatics, rather than resentful Palestinians?

[Guardsman Bass]

So Israel's demographic takeover will be by Orthodox Jewish fanatics, rather than resentful Palestinians?

I imagine it depends on whether the active, pro-settler Orthodox or the Haredim (the ones who dodge the Israeli conscription and soak up welfare) end up dominating. Mind you, this doesn't take into account the breeding rates of the Occupied Territories, although since they don't have free access to Israel without certain permits, perhaps all that means is that the Israelis will have both an increasingly ungovernable population to the east of them along with an ever-increasingly cheap source of labor (from the extra unskilled folks wandering around).

[eyl]

Integration falls under the catagory of finesse and good planning. It certainly isn't impossible. It is, however, if you start with the automatic assumption that it will end violently, but that right there is called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Except that you're asking us to literally stake our lives on the gamble that your best-case scenario is what will happen in reality.

The point is doing what is just, and if the Israelis kicked people of their land, they should return it.

And that warm fuzzy feeling of doing the right thing has zero practical value as opposed to the risks. No thanks.

The point is, the idea that Right to Return would mean the end of Israel because it could possible mean the end of Israel as a Jewish dominated state is complete rubbish. The state of Israel would endure, except for the bigoted yahoos who think that any Israel that isn't a Jewish state is a dead one.

No. Such a massive demographic shift - an overwhelming influx of people from what's basically a third-world culture - would mean the collapse of Israeli national culture, which is largely (though not exclusively) drawn from Jewish culture. You'd have a political entity which might have the same name (probably not) but in all other respects will only resemble modern Israel in its geographical location.

Not formally recognized as marriage by Israel, unless they belong to a specific religious organization and meet the standards of a Rabbinical council or the approved Muslim/Christian/Druze equivalent. That's been the huge pickle with Israeli citizens who are secular or not-Jewish. Israeli law also doesn't have any provisions for inter-faith marriage and you are shit out of luck if you are an atheist. In order to actually get married, they have to exploit legal loopholes, like getting married in Cyprus or getting a mail-order marriage from Paraguay, which in turn is legally recognized by the state of Israel. Otherwise, there is no civil marriage allowable in Israel.

True, but it wasn't what you actually posted:

(imagine a country where only the minority of the population is legally allowed to get marriage, since as it stands you can only formally get married in Israel if you meet the standards of Orthodox Judaism).

implying only Jews could get married in Israel.

Not only that, the Israeli marriage laws are designed that way specifically to prevent intermingling of Jewish lines with others.

Well, actually the people who designed the system were the Turks - though that's in part the reason why the situation wasn't altered.

I included the Golan Heights because its one of the pissant strips of desert that for some reason people there really care about.

The Golan Heights aren't defined as a desert, AFAIK. And the "some reason" is a pretty obvious strategic significance.

However, as long as Israel holds on to Gaza and the West Bank and even a large portion of areas with alot of Israeli-Arabs, Israel will still cease to be Jewish in less than 50 years. That means its time to actually learn to live with Arabs.

With the Palestinian Territories, true. However, sans those regions, thats not necessarily true with the Israeli-Arab birthrate declining.

[eyl]

A bit late, but this caught my eye from earlier in the thread:

Factually inaccurate, for one. Israel wasn't founded by Jews. It was legally founded by the British in conjunction with the United Nations,

In what sense was Israel founded by the UN (certainly not the British, as the reason the question ended up in front of the UN was because they wanted to wash their hands of the whole affair) and not by Jews? Sure, the UN approved the creation of a Jewish state, but the declaration of the state, and more importantly all of the practical work, was done by Jews. If it was the UN actions which founded the state, there wuld also have been founded at the same time a Palestinian state and a UN-run region at the same time, short-lived as they may have proved to be.

which, incidentally is why there are a whole bunch of really orthodox Hesedim in my hometown neighborhood that refuse to acknowledge the existence of the state of Israel (because it WASN'T founded by the Messiah or by Jews, like the book said it would be).

Drop "or by Jews" from that sentence and it'll be much more accurate (it's actually a bit more complicated, but I don't see any point in delving into the theology involved).

[Ace Pace]

So Israel's demographic takeover will be by Orthodox Jewish fanatics, rather than resentful Palestinians?

I imagine it depends on whether the active, pro-settler Orthodox or the Haredim (the ones who dodge the Israeli conscription and soak up welfare) end up dominating. Mind you, this doesn't take into account the breeding rates of the Occupied Territories, although since they don't have free access to Israel without certain permits, perhaps all that means is that the Israelis will have both an increasingly ungovernable population to the east of them along with an ever-increasingly cheap source of labor (from the extra unskilled folks wandering around).

It'll definetly be Haredim. Orthodox Jews may have many kids by our standards of the word, but they're not large breeders compared to the ultra-orthodox.