'There is discrimination linked to the nature of the state. Israel says simply 'I am a Jewish state' and that creates discrimination with regard to non-Jews."
....devoted servant of the pope - Latin Patriarch and Catholic Archbishop of Jerusalem Michel Sabbah, since 1987 the highest Catholic prelate for Israel, Jordan, Cyprus and the West Bank and Gaza.
More on the pope's representive here.
6 comments:
I can't see anything about Judaism here. What am I missing?
I assume you are not Jewish?? Many non jews do not understand that we are a people, not a religion. There is, of course, a Jewish religion that is tied to that peoplehood in a unique way but not all Jews accept that religin any more than all Indians accept Hiduism.
This Bishop is play8ng the "Israel can exist but only as a non-"sectarian" state. " Of curse that would mean submergence of the jews in one more Islamic state.
I posted the image or Pious XII, to remind readers that such comments are not harmless.
First up, you shouldn't make assumptions as to ethnicity or religion, particularly on so flimsy a basis.
Second, speaking out against the sectarian or racist nature of the State of Israel is not speaking out on Judaism, it is speaking out on zionism.
Judaism is a religion. The Jews are either practitioners of that religion or the descendants of practitioners of that religion. You seem to be suggesting that all Jews are descendants of a people who all come from the same country. That is racial mythology. There have been several Jewish states in history, not just where Israel is now and many of the inhabitants of those states would have become Jewish. There have also been wholesale tribal conversions over the last two thousand years, often originally linked to trading rights rather than religious belief. That is how it is that Jews have so many different appearances from black African to white European. The nazi and zionist myth of a Jewish "race" is just that, a myth.
And besides, the "peoplehood" or not of the Jewish people does not entitle a movement of Jews to settle in a country, ethnically cleanse most of its native population and enact an array of laws discriminating in favour of Jews worldwide and against the native non-Jewish population.
I presume your mention of Pius XII was in connection with his co-operation or collaboration with the nazis. Why don't you show a picture of the zionist Kastner who collaborated with Eichman, or of Jabotinsky who collaborated with the Ukranian pogromist, Petliura? They too got many Jews killed.
But your offence here is straight forward dishonesty. The Patriarch was making a perfectly legitimate complaint about how Israel is organised against its native non-Jewish population and you said he spoke out on Judaism. You also made a thinly veiled comparison to a nazi collaborator when there were zionists who collaborated with disastrous results for the people they presumed to represent.
And my honesty makes you presume I can't be Jewish? Stand back at look at yourself.
1. If you will look back I wrote "I assume followed by ????????." My intent was not to asert that you were or were not Jewish but that your POV was a common one among non Jews.
2. Sorry, but asserting that Jews do not have a right to a homeland IS antisemetic. Why should Jews not have the same rights as the French, the Maka, the Kurds, and the Swiss? Why shouldn't there be a state where the nomr is to be Jewish?
3. Your view of Jewish history suggests to me that you are ill informed and you certainly do nto understand Jewish law.
a. Practicing Judaism has NEVER made on a Jew. In Roman times modern estimates suggest that as many as 1/3 of the population at one tinme practiced Judaism without converting. Conversion means becoming a member of the people, not simply accepting some set of truths.
b, There have NOT been several Jewish states in history. Leaving aside ancinet Judea and Israel and modern Israel, there have to my knowledge never been a "Jewish" state. There is, however, an antisemitic story that claims such a state existed where Kazahkistan now exists, The claim was that their King had forced his people to convert and their descendents became the Russian Jews. This has been debunked by extensive modern genetics showing that the Russian Jews have hte same origins as the Sephardic Jews.
c. I am not sure why you talk ab out racial mythlogy. The Jews are certainly NOT a race. There is no genetic difference that dientifies Jews. In ancient times Jews readily accepted new peoples into the tribes .. including "black: africans .. such as Moses' wife Zipporah. So, if by "race" you means the skin color consciousness of Americans, sorry that has not been part of Judaism. In modern times we accepted the return of the Ethiopean Jews as well. Currently there is an effort to return Jews who have become mingled with Incan and Hindu peoples.
There is not and never has been a zionist myth that we are a race.
3. Yourt comment on whther the zionists had a right to establish Israel in an Arab coccupied land is worth discussing.
FWIW, Jewish occupation of the area is continuous since Roman times. For much of that time the majorities of several cities .. Hebron, Sfad, Tiberius, and Jerusalem were Jewish.
FWIW, when the Zionists colonized the area (yes that is the right word) there was no concept of an Arab nation of Palestine. The Arab states and Arab nationalism did not happen until well into the 2oth century. For that matter Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon did not exist at that time either.
FWIW, there nver nhas been a Zionist goal of ethnically cleansing the area. From the beginning the dream was a return and co-existance. For the most part, BTW, Israeli Arabs have full rights. Where there are excpetions, these are a great concern for Jewish liberals.
4. I have no idea what your venom against bad Jews means in relationship to Hitler (who had a Jewish grandparent) or Pious XII.
5. The "patriarch's" arguement was against the exotance of a Jewish state. If you think that idea is legitimate, you and he share some pretty hateful thoughts. He did NOT argue for the need to increase rtights of Israeli arabs, nor is he known for doing so.
He certainly doe not seem to want peace ..war,war is an old Catholic tradition.
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I am sure it would surprise you, but I am very much rpo-palestinian. I do think Zionism wa sborn out of a non Arab cocnept ..nationalism and colonialism. BUT I also feel that the Arab world had mistreated the Jews long enough that there is equity here too. BTW do you know who the pople of Yathrib were and why their city is now free, by law, of any Jews?
My drain is one fo semitic brotherhood. Palestinians and Israelis have a lot to share and the Arab world would only gan by our brotherhood.
3.
The right to a homeland is an individual right not a collective one. If we followed your reasoning Jews alone would be entitled to Israel and be barred from everywhere else. Not a wise position for a Seattle Jew or for any of the overwhelming majority of Jews who could live in Israel under Israel's racist Law of "Return" but choose not to do so.
Comparing French to Jewish makes no sense and doesn't stand up to a moment's scrutiny. French means pertaining to France. Jewish means pertainting to the Jews or to Judaism. Jewish does not mean pertaining to a country like French does. A person from France is entitled to France as their homeland. If they leave their homeland they can return to their homeland. That counts for French Jews as well as French anything else. But French Jews, according to your principle, have two homelands (just as you do, as luck would have it!). And because of that, Palestinians, the people who demonstrably really are from Israel and the occupied territories, have no homeland both in terms of where the majority can live and in terms of sovereignty. So on the individual homeland principle as expounded by you, every non-Jew is entitled to one homeland, every Jew from outside Israel is entitled to two (as are most Israeli Jews but that's by the by) and every Palestinian is entitled to no homeland.
You have confused the principle of peoplehood with territorial peoplehood/nationhood. It is territorial nations who have the right to sovereignty. The French (including French Jews) have the right to French sovereignty. By your principle it would only be people of some kind of French ethnicity or religion, say Franks or Gauls. Apply that principle to Germany (and scroll back about 7 decades) and you can recall the kind of party and ideology that preaches for that kind of sovereignty and the disastrous results. It's the one that Pius XII got caught up with, which you so helpfully alluded to.
Semitic brotherhood is more racisl mythology. Semitic literally means descended from a son of Noah, Shem. A ludicrous notion. A family of people is a nice idea no matter what those people's mythology, but it won't start with one category of people, and only one, the Jews, being given carte blanche to carry out the ethnic cleansing of another or others in order to establish racially, religiously or ethnically exclusive statehood for people who don't come from there and against people who do come from there.
I can't believe an America has to be told that it is wrong to exclude people from governance or from territory, as Israel does, simply on the grounds of their ethnicity or religion.
So whether or not Jews are a people or just people makes no difference. The principle of homeland and statehood both revolve around where people are from, not the mythology of their ancestors.
Anyway, mazel tov on breaking your record for comments. I have to move on now.
I gather you do not think Jew are entitled to a homeland because in 1850 we did not have one?
By that standard, Palestinians, Saudi Arabians, Lebanese, Iragui, Nigerians, and most certainly Palestinians would not be entitle to a homeland.
I suppose by your rules, the Jews who had lived there for 3000 or more years were entitled but not those in the diaspora? Does that make sense?
As for the Palestinians, I support there right to have a homeland and by that I include all who belogn to that people today, even though the huge majority of non Jews in 48 were from poeple who has immigrated since the 1880s to find jobs and of course today, sadly, the majority of Palestinians live in a diaspora. Their plight is not dissimilar to that of the Jews.
Of course you understand that your rules for who can be a people attached to a land means most of us have to leave the US???
I found your attitude to the French funneee. France, among all cultures, places a high value on its ethnicity and peoplehood. The not only encourage immigrants who wnat to live thre, they insist on alevel of common culture.
As for Israel, in a sense the same thing is true. Anyone who weants to convert to Judaism has the same rights as a sabra. I suspect many Palestinians would convert if they knew this. I also think it would be intriguing to contest the rabbinic authority in defining conversion.
The sad thing about this aerguement is that you and I likley have the same compassion for any people, including Palestinians, who want to live together in a homeland. I feel the same way bout indigenous Americans, Tibetans, Taiwanese, Kurds, etc. Don't you?
BTW ... your definition of semite is nit the same one I use. I also find the story of Noah apocryphal. OTOH, thee linguistic, historical and now genetic data all agree that there is a semitic origin to a fraction of the human race. King Abdullah and Simon Peres share a common ancestor someplace more recently than George Bush and President Hu. The cultural tie is especially meaningful. Islam and Judaism share origin myths not shared by other peoples. Arabs are said to be descended form Abraham as are Jew, but a Muslim revert who is Bantu or a Jewish convert who is Hindu would only share that identity in a spiritual sense.
If I can get you to come with me one step, as an American I have adopted TJeff as an ancestor. I consider myself one of his people.
I feel I have inheritted some of his debts and some of his gifts along with 300,000,000 other fellow Americans. I feel we have a right to this land.
Is there something wrong with that?
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