What does the right of self determination mean if not the right to be what you want to be. One peoples’ right to self determination negates the right of others in the same space. The right of self determination is not predicated on whether you will be democratic. The right of self determination on one level is the right to discriminate. If Israel is denied the right to favour Jews in immigration or to refuse political rights to others in its midst, it is denied the right of self determination.
See also this rebuttal by Fresno Zionism titled A Jewish State Can be Democratic and Moral. But I would like to make the point that it can be undemocratic and moral. Ted Belman
I was raised in a religious Jewish environment, and though we were not strongly Zionist, I always took it to be self-evident that “Israel has a right to exist.” Now anyone who has debated the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will have encountered this phrase often. Defenders of Israeli policies routinely accuse Israel’s critics of denying her right to exist, while the critics (outside of a small group on the left, where I now find myself) bend over backward to insist that, despite their criticisms, of course they affirm it. The general mainstream consensus seems to be that to deny Israel’s right to exist is a clear indication of anti-Semitism (a charge Jews like myself are not immune to), and therefore not an option for people of conscience.
What does it mean for a people to have a state “of their own”?
Over the years I came to question this consensus and to see that the general fealty to it has seriously constrained open debate on the issue, one of vital importance not just to the people directly involved — Israelis and Palestinians — but to the conduct of our own foreign policy and, more important, to the safety of the world at large. My view is that one really ought to question Israel’s right to exist and that doing so does not manifest anti-Semitism. The first step in questioning the principle, however, is to figure out what it means.
One problem with talking about this question calmly and rationally is that the phrase “right to exist” sounds awfully close to “right to life,” so denying Israel its right to exist sounds awfully close to permitting the extermination of its people. In light of the history of Jewish persecution, and the fact that Israel was created immediately after and largely as a consequence of the Holocaust, it isn’t surprising that the phrase “Israel’s right to exist” should have this emotional impact. But as even those who insist on the principle will admit, they aren’t claiming merely the impermissibility of exterminating Israelis. So what is this “right” that many uphold as so basic that to question it reflects anti-Semitism and yet is one that I claim ought to be questioned?
The key to the interpretation is found in the crucial four words that are often tacked on to the phrase “Israel’s right to exist” — namely, “… as a Jewish state.” As I understand it, the principle that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state has three parts: first, that Jews, as a collective, constitute a people in the sense that they possess a right to self-determination; second, that a people’s right to self-determination entails the right to erect a state of their own, a state that is their particular people’s state; and finally, that for the Jewish people the geographical area of the former Mandatory Palestine, their ancestral homeland, is the proper place for them to exercise this right to self-determination.
The claim then is that anyone who denies Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is guilty of anti-Semitism because they are refusing to grant Jews the same rights as other peoples possess. If indeed this were true, if Jews were being singled out in the way many allege, I would agree that it manifests anti-Jewish bias. But the charge that denying Jews a right to a Jewish state amounts to treating the Jewish people differently from other peoples cannot be sustained.
To begin, since the principle has three parts, it follows that it can be challenged in (at least) three different ways: either deny that Jews constitute “a people” in the relevant sense, deny that the right to self-determination really involves what advocates of the principle claim it does, or deny that Jews have the requisite claim on the geographical area in question.
In fact, I think there is a basis to challenge all three, but for present purposes I will focus on the question of whether a people’s right to self-determination entails their right to a state of their own, and set aside whether Jews count as a people and whether Jews have a claim on that particular land. I do so partly for reasons of space, but mainly because these questions have largely (though not completely) lost their importance.
The fact is that today millions of Jews live in Israel and, ancestral homeland or not, this is their home now. As for whether Jews constitute a people, this is a vexed question given the lack of consensus in general about what it takes for any particular group of people to count as “a people.” The notion of “a people” can be interpreted in different ways, with different consequences for the rights that they possess. My point is that even if we grant Jews their peoplehood and their right to live in that land, there is still no consequent right to a Jewish state.
However, I do think that it’s worth noting the historical irony in insisting that it is anti-Semitic to deny that Jews constitute a people. The 18th and 19th centuries were the period of Jewish “emancipation” in Western Europe, when the ghetto walls were torn down and Jews were granted the full rights of citizenship in the states within which they resided. The anti-Semitic forces in those days, those opposing emancipation, were associated not with denying Jewish peoplehood but with emphatically insisting on it! The idea was that since Jews constituted a nation of their own, they could not be loyal citizens of any European state. The liberals who strongly opposed anti-Semitism insisted that Jews could both practice their religion and uphold their cultural traditions while maintaining full citizenship in the various nation-states in which they resided.
But, as I said, let’s grant that Jews are a people. Well, if they are, and if with the status of a people comes the right to self-determination, why wouldn’t they have a right to live under a Jewish state in their homeland? The simple answer is because many non-Jews (rightfully) live there too. But this needs unpacking.
First, it’s important to note, as mentioned above, that the term “a people” can be used in different ways, and sometimes they get confused. In particular, there is a distinction to be made between a people in the ethnic sense and a people in the civic sense. Though there is no general consensus on this, a group counts as a people in the ethnic sense by virtue of common language, common culture, common history and attachment to a common territory. One can easily see why Jews, scattered across the globe, speaking many different languages and defined largely by religion, present a difficult case. But, as I said above, for my purposes it doesn’t really matter, and I will just assume the Jewish people qualify.
The other sense is the civic one, which applies to a people by virtue of their common citizenship in a nation-state or, alternatively, by virtue of their common residence within relatively defined geographic borders. So whereas there is both an ethnic and a civic sense to be made of the term “French people,” the term “Jewish people” has only an ethnic sense. This can easily be seen by noting that the Jewish people is not the same group as the Israeli people. About 20 percent of Israeli citizens are non-Jewish Palestinians, while the vast majority of the Jewish people are not citizens of Israel and do not live within any particular geographic area. “Israeli people,” on the other hand, has only a civic sense. (Of course often the term “Israelis” is used as if it applies only to Jewish Israelis, but this is part of the problem. More on this below.)
So, when we consider whether or not a people has a right to a state of their own, are we speaking of a people in the ethnic sense or the civic one? I contend that insofar as the principle that all peoples have the right to self-determination entails the right to a state of their own, it can apply to peoples only in the civic sense.
After all, what is it for a people to have a state “of their own”? Here’s a rough characterization: the formal institutions and legal framework of the state serves to express, encourage and favor that people’s identity. The distinctive position of that people would be manifested in a number of ways, from the largely symbolic to the more substantive: for example, it would be reflected in the name of the state, the nature of its flag and other symbols, its national holidays, its education system, its immigration rules, the extent to which membership in the people in question is a factor in official planning, how resources are distributed, etc. If the people being favored in this way are just the state’s citizens, it is not a problem. (Of course those who are supercosmopolitan, denying any legitimacy to the borders of nation-states, will disagree. But they aren’t a party to this debate.)
But if the people who “own” the state in question are an ethnic sub-group of the citizenry, even if the vast majority, it constitutes a serious problem indeed, and this is precisely the situation of Israel as the Jewish state. Far from being a natural expression of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination, it is in fact a violation of the right to self-determination of its non-Jewish (mainly Palestinian) citizens. It is a violation of a people’s right to self-determination to exclude them — whether by virtue of their ethnic membership, or for any other reason — from full political participation in the state under whose sovereignty they fall. Of course Jews have a right to self-determination in this sense as well — this is what emancipation was all about. But so do non-Jewish peoples living in the same state.
Any state that “belongs” to one ethnic group within it violates the core democratic principle of equality, and the self-determination rights of the non-members of that group.
If the institutions of a state favor one ethnic group among its citizenry in this way, then only the members of that group will feel themselves fully a part of the life of the state. True equality, therefore, is only realizable in a state that is based on civic peoplehood. As formulated by both Jewish- and Palestinian-Israeli activists on this issue, a truly democratic state that fully respects the self-determination rights of everyone under its sovereignty must be a “state of all its citizens.”
This fundamental point exposes the fallacy behind the common analogy, drawn by defenders of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, between Israel’s right to be Jewish and France’s right to be French. The appropriate analogy would instead be between France’s right to be French (in the civic sense) and Israel’s right to be Israeli.
I conclude, then, that the very idea of a Jewish state is undemocratic, a violation of the self-determination rights of its non-Jewish citizens, and therefore morally problematic. But the harm doesn’t stop with the inherently undemocratic character of the state. For if an ethnic national state is established in a territory that contains a significant number of non-members of that ethnic group, it will inevitably face resistance from the land’s other inhabitants. This will force the ethnic nation controlling the state to resort to further undemocratic means to maintain their hegemony. Three strategies to deal with resistance are common: expulsion, occupation and institutional marginalization. Interestingly, all three strategies have been employed by the Zionist movement: expulsion in 1948 (and, to a lesser extent, in 1967), occupation of the territories conquered in 1967 and institution of a complex web of laws that prevent Israel’s Palestinian citizens from mounting an internal challenge to the Jewish character of the state. (The recent outrage in Israel over a proposed exclusion of ultra-Orthodox parties from the governing coalition, for example, failed to note that no Arab political party has ever been invited to join the government.) In other words, the wrong of ethnic hegemony within the state leads to the further wrong of repression against the Other within its midst.
There is an unavoidable conflict between being a Jewish state and a democratic state. I want to emphasize that there’s nothing anti-Semitic in pointing this out, and it’s time the question was discussed openly on its merits, without the charge of anti-Semitism hovering in the background.
Joseph Levine is a professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he teaches and writes on philosophy of mind, metaphysics and political philosophy. He is the author of “Purple Haze: The Puzzle of Consciousness.”
Noah Said:
I agree, except Iran is not an Arab country – they are Persians, who hate the Arabs, most of whom are Sunni. That’s why, as someone blogged on this site, they, i.e. SA et al, fear Iran having nukes, believing thay they – not Israel – will be Iran’s first target.
yamit82 Said:
I don’t see direct relationship between your #42 and what I wrote.
vivarto Said:
In 1900 the arabs living in palestine did not consider themselves a distinct ethnicity but part of Syria then under the rule of the Ottomans. They considered themselves as part of the pan Arab nation as well. Arabs in Gaza before the refugees inundated them were mostly of Egyptian Arab stock. Egypt never recognized Gaza as part of Egypt and Gazans’ did not have Egyptian citizenship. They were just Arabs living in Gaza under Ottoman rule then British rule then administered by Egypt till 1967.
Ethnic majorities do not guarantee national sovereignty or autonomy but without it you have that non country like Belgium. It’s natural that people relate positively to those who are like themselves and not to those who are not. In every case where minorities rule majorities it’s through dictatorship and tyranny, but they always have a short shelf life.
America is maybe the one exception as it was based not on ethnicity but on ideas.
@ yamit82:
You ask me, “What values might they be?” and “What cause are your speaking of?”
I think I made myself clear,
“Thus saith the L-rd, G-d: I do this not for your sake O House of Israel, but for My Holy Name…” So the G_d of creation resolves to bring the Jews to Israel, not to glorify the Jews and to place them high among the peoples of the world, but to make His Name respectable in the eyes of those who are not Jewish. This is Jewish belief and reflects on Jewish values.
I am an atheist and to me it is remarkable that the Jewish people worship “the one true G_d”, who has appeared to no other people, to worship him and this god is rather conservative in what grants to his Chosen People. For all his might and authority he asks little of the Chosen People and gives them little too, a small piece of land on the edge of the Mediterranean that has hosted great and powerful civilizations, whose leaders claimed to be gods themselves and worshiped many other gods besides, who demanded much and promised more than they deserved. It is no wonder they are reviled in a world where nobody is respected who does not love empires and the boons they grant.
my reply 45 to paul in moderation…why oh why, oh woe is me.
Paul Said:
the sucker is the Jews, so who are the innocent whom the Jews are persecuting?
Paul Said:
Who is the 3rd party? I don’t expect anyone other than Jews to tell other Jews that they are being conned: I just told you that same fact.
vivarto Said:
Actually you have made my point in a way. The distinction being a local majority in another country versus a requisite majority needed within a national sovereignty that predicates it’s national identity on a specific national ethnicity. Would or could Israel without a clear and overwhelming majority of Jews be in fact a Jewish State and could we claim it is so? There is no Zionist from left to right that disagrees with that principle. The alternative is either giving up on Jewish sovereignty and either leaving or living if allowed under a non Jewish sovereignty which some Jews even today are not adverse to.
Judaism is isolationist and in that context the Land should also be is as isolationist as is practical and that means limiting and restricting access to the country to any non Jew for any reason. There is no other way to limit the influences that are inimical to Jewish values and Jewish Law. Otherwise what you are left with is a country were some Jews hang out but can be hardly differentiated from any other western nation in terms of culture and values. For that Israel was not brought into being after 2000 years.
vivarto Said:
But I was serious. See my comment#42
Paul Said:
What values might they be?
Our relations with other countries should not supersede our raison d’être as Jews and citizens of the Jewish State. Jews do have a mission statement. Relations should serve Jewish ends not gentile ones and should never void or invalidate Jewish ethics and morals. We should never use the nations standards for our own behavior. Jews believe that every Jew is a representative of all Jews and Jews are G-d’s chosen representatives in this world. What is true for the individual Jew, how much more so the Jewish State?
What cause are your speaking of?
Belief in Israel? What does that means?
3 years after the Holocaust Israel declared independence. Coincidence or “Divine Providence”? I believe as do many Jews that the Exile is the personification of Jewish weakness, defeat, flight, persecution, torture, humiliation, genocide, holocaust, degradation. And because of this, it must – in the eyes of the gentiles – personify the weakness, so to speak, of the G-d of the Jews. To the enemy of the Jew, Jewish defeat is proof of the inability of the G-d of Israel to give His people strength and triumph and glory. Such a G-d is either impotent or non-existent…
I also believe that our G-d has decided that now is the time to end and to liquidate the Jewish exile. Not because the Jews merit it, we don’t, but because we Jews as G-d’s representatives have not reacted or behaved according to expectation. Jews learned to love to and cling to the very exile that was meant as a punishment and corrupted Torah Judaism in the process. The Jews abandoned it’s nationalistic component and became a religion much like all others. That was the Great Sin of European Jewry and now North American Jewry…?
“Israel’s degradation is the desecration of the Name of the L-rd.” (The Biblical commentator Rashi, Ezekiel 39:7)
“As I live, saith the L-rd, G-d, surely with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, will I be king over you. And I will bring you out from the peoples… with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm and fury poured out.” (Ezekiel 20)
“Fury poured out.” Heaven help us!
If I remember correctly, someone stated that IL was the only country/state that had legal foundations (based on UN charter???). Not a single other!
steven l Said:
Even majority is not a sufficient criterion. For example in 1900 Arabs were majority in Palestine, than did not mean that Palestine belonged to them. By the way, in 1920s Brooklyn had Jewish majority, but that did not make Brooklyn a Jewish state either.
yamit82 Said:
Actually this is a subject or a serious discussion.
Exaggerating and then ridiculing one’s exaggeration may be entertaining, but not serious.
If/when you are ready to discuss the subject rather then attacking persons, as you did in the past, I’ll be interested in such discussion.
Funny! Nobody question the legal authority of tyrannical minorities in power and the right to a state in Syria, Iraq, the Gulf states, SA. But the West and the Muslims want to deny the Jews who are the majority, their right to a state. That is the “apparent difference” between civilized and uncivilized people.
vivarto Said:
Stop there!!!!
Some of us would extend that principle to include all residents and all tourists.
Yidvocate Said:
I’d say it actually is very good.
I believe that citizens of Israel must be Jews. If Arabs want to become a part of Jewish nation, they should be welcome, otherwise they have no business being citizens of the Jewish state. Many good patriotic Jews have Arab ancestors, many Arabs have Jewish ancestors, too. Having Jewish ancestors does not make an Arab Jewish. Nationality is not race, not ethnicity, it is a matter of national and cultural identity.
There should be clear criteria for how to become a Jew. The current orthodox criteria work for some people, but are not are insufficient as most Jews and most Israelis today would not qualify.
We need new criteria for becoming a part of the Jewish nation.
Laura Said:
The discussion that follows Laura’s response is interesting but it is only of academic interest. Her response the proper one. That the NYT published it is par for the course. The frightening thing is that this “professor” instructs the next generation. Is it any wonder that anti-Semitism is on the rise?
Israel is again a nation for its people where once, for over 2,000 years, it was not and its innocent people were driven underfoot. Is this the hand of G_d or is it rather from what G_d gave the Jews? In the re foundation of Israel we see justice in history. Any fool can see this.
“After all a con man will keep playing his sucker until his sucker gets wise.”
But the sucker here is being conned into persecuting the innocent. There is a third party here and the third party needs to tell the sucker they are being conned. If they won’t make the effort, then maybe they they are being conned too.
Paul Said:
I believe you are greatly mistaken and that the opposite is true. Today,you can read about the latest libels made against Israel and the jewsih people. that Israel killed a pal baby when it was in fact a hamas missile.
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.il/ , http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2013/03/wapos-max-fisher-gets-it-wrong.html ,
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session22/A.HRC.22.35.Add.1_AV.pdf
It was no coincidence that the media, including the BBC and the Washington Post ran with the libel with the intention to incite genocide against the Jews similarly to the blood libels of the middle ages. J’ accuse because the evidence of continuing libel is conclusive. The same entities to which you believe Israel should “advance its’ cause as a nation” are the same entities who are engaged in a serial, chronic libeling of the Jews with the intention of incitement to genocide. There is no difference between the pattern they exhibit to day and the chronic, serial slaughter and swindling of the Jews for the past 2000 years.
Paul Said:
Perhaps you should heed your own words and acknowledge that the “enemies of Israel and the Jews” include the “usual suspects” of the last 2000 years: their nations, their institutions, their “free press, etc. Hope may indeed spring eternal for more desirable outcomes but one should not confuse this desire with reality: with the facts which demonstrate an unrelenting repetitive habit that has not abated to this very day (Tuesday 12 March 2013). It is dangerous for the Jews to keep playing the game of red herring which the usual enemies keep casting at the Jews with great success. After all a con man will keep playing his sucker until his sucker gets wise.
@ Shy Guy:
Israel was a democratic state under the Judges especilly Devra,lead them into battle.
@ yamit82:
Darlin, they alsways have!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yamit82 Said:
I agree completely, but to completely flesh out your argument, you must also consider Israel’s relationship with other nations and the values it embraces historically with regard to other nations. Israel has never seen itself as a colonial power. The religious beliefs of the Jews have never embraced the domination and subjugation of foreign peoples to the beliefs of Judaism. Nowhere has G_d ever issued commands to this end to the Jews (or anyone else, to be honest)
And of course the threats coming through legalistic democratic values in Israel are nothing but a tool for invaders and occupiers to undermine the Jewish foundations in the history of the land of Israel. It is the values they embrace that include the occupation, domination and subjugation of everyone to their beliefs. Nobody is confused when they apply Israel’s legal system against the interests of Israel.
As long as Israel advances its cause as a nation and as long as the Jews of Israel continue to advance Jewish belief in Israel, Israel will be safe. Of all the lies that they tell about Israel, the one lie you will not hear is that Israel seeks dominion over other nations. This despite the most odious lie that Jews in the diaspora were a conspiracy for domination through subversion. It is no irony that the enemies of the Jews and Israel are themselves the most perverse and subversive of occupiers, the bloodiest of colonizers and the most absolute in their struggles for dominance over others.
Mr. J. Levine fails on basic and fundamental issues: to check the facts. He never did and that is why he makes irrelevant comments on the rights of the Palestinians. Many Prof. at universities are fed on cool Aid even the Jews. Plenty of Nobel prize winners are narrow minded, plainly stupid, biased or ignorant.
“The claim then is that anyone who denies Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is guilty of anti-Semitism because they are refusing to grant Jews the same rights as other peoples possess. If indeed this were true, if Jews were being singled out in the way many allege, I would agree that it manifests anti-Jewish bias. But the charge that denying Jews a right to a Jewish state amounts to treating the Jewish people differently from other peoples cannot be sustained.”
The systematic oppression of the Jews over 20 centuries, the holocaust, the Judenrein out of the Muslim and Arab countries the threat to the Jews in the EU etc… are not sufficient evidence for J.L! The fact that there may be no more than 50 or 75,000 legal Palestinians refugees does not mean anything to J.L.! How many examples can J.L. cite of people who have and remain at the mercy of other for more than 2000 years? Why should anyone have a state of their own in J.L. opinion? What about the Kurds! What are for J.L. the criteria for state ownership? The force of right and power! IL has both.
To his credit, Prof. Levine, a self avowed leftist has made a valiant effort, plumbing the very depths of reason to explain why neither he nor others of his ilk are antisemitic in questioning Israel’s right to exist in 3 respects, which he lays out in his introductory comments as:
Levine proceeds with his question that he answers in the negative as to whether Jews as a people have a right to self determination and whether that entails a right to a state of their own, with the following base premise:
Though his effort to proceed to his conclusion, which is actually the premise or assumption he begins with, is a valiant effort to justify an anti-Israel views as not being antisemitic, rarely seen from his fellow leftist intellects and certainly never from the common garden variety of leftwing antisemites who pontificate their anti-Israel bilge that includes at best, facile explanatory denials of being antisemitic, Levine goes so deep, he has crossed over from objective world of reason and rationality into the outer limits, a world that Alice found herself in after chasing a rabbit down the rabbit hole.
Levine is described as a philosophy professor at the U of Massachusetts, Amherst where he teaches and writes on philosophy of mind, metaphysics and political philosophy.
In considering, analyzing and weighing Levine’s treatise, one should be mindful of the definition of metaphysics:
Levine’s treatise is proof positive that he takes his students down the same rabbit hole Alice went down to explore the world of politics, existence and being from a place that lies outside objective experience and reality. That is exactly the place he tries to take those who had the patience to read his NYT piece.
Two things are clear from Levine’s piece:
1. He is an antisemite;
2. We needn’t worry that Levine’s fellow antisemites of the left wing or any other variety, will rely on his postulations to make their case that they can be logically and rationally anti-Israel without being antisemites. Few if any of Levine’s fellow antisemitic brethren would understand, let alone have the patience to acquaint themselves with Levine’s other worldly thinking. Instead the vast majority of the left wing anti-Israel antisemitic mob will rely as they have on their own soundbite plain denials of being antisemitic or at best offer up only their simplistic facile and incredible explanations as to why they are not antisemites.
What is clear from Levine’s self absorbed piece is that regardless of his intellectual sophistication that he brings to the fore in seeking to discredit and delegitimze Israel, he has by his own words damned himself as an antisemite just as surely as have his less then intellectually sophisticated fellow left wing antisemites who make every effort to deny their own obvious antisemitism.
@ yamit82:
Yamit’s point pre-supposes that the minority could, either alone or in coalition, become a majority. It is true that, in that eventuality, in the imperative of self-preservation, the government of the nation state of the Jewish People would have to “negate Western democratic principles and norms” as they are defined or understood today (even there, not entirely).
It will be interesting to observe events in Europe in the very near future. Will France, Britain, Denmark, etc. have to “negate Western democratic principles and norms” to survive Islamization and remain the nation states of the people that they have been for centuries? Are “Western democratic principles and norms” flexible or fungible?
Basically, Levine is a modern day reincarnation of T. Judt, V. Tilly, the wako N. Finkekstein, or any of the Arab or non-arab one-staters, although, less original. Thus, I assume he implies that if Israel in its current form is illegitimate and has no “right to exist” as the Jewish state, the alternative is a “non-secular” binational state, which has been promoted by Israel’s detractors for decades.
Ignoring his lies regarding the main reason for Israels’ creation, the 2,000 year Jewish desire to return home, and not the holocaust (this only made it somewhat more urgent), and the fact that legally Israel was created to be the Jewish National Homeland (League of Nations Article 2), his explanation as to why Israel shouldn’t exist for the Jewish people is the presence of a non-Jewish people. If that is true, why then should Iran, Saudi, Syria, exist solely for the Arabs, especially as these Arab/Muslim nation states evicted their Jewish populaces or worse.
More alarming, is his failure to highlight the the nature of such an alternative (what would the new state look like?). At best it would see the subjugation of the Jewish minority, but more likely its cleansing. In fact, one need not look any further than the treatment of Coptics in Egypt, woman and minorities in Gaza, and Israel circa 1920/21, 1929, 1936-1939, etc.
Clearly, Levin’s proposal merely would replace a democratic state with yet another Arab Nation state. Most likely, one that is radically Islamic.
Professor
Ph.D., Harvard, 1981
Appointed at UMass: 2006
Prior positions:
Ohio State Univ, 2000-06
massada 2000
JEWISH S.H.I.T List
Self-Hating and/or Israel-Threatening
THEY WALK AMONG US!!
Discussions such as these are geared as red herrings to keep the Jews baffled by BS. No one is questioning the legitimacy of Saudi Arabia. End of argument!
this disingenuous Joe should leave the nature of Israel’s govt to the Israelis and spend more time looking into the financing of his “newspaper” by the Saudi “democracy”. Joe is trying to spread his purple haze and puzzling consciousness on the Jews. He should stick to the irrelevant halls of Amherst.
Ancient Israel had an absolute monarchy under G-d.
The famous jingle is true: Jews do answer to a Higher Authority.
In the end, Jews wanted a government like the nations and G-d reluctantly acceded to their request.
Judaism is not about pleasing the desires of man; its about pleasing G-d. The pagan Greeks who gave us democracy thought man was the measure of all things, which is why the Greek gods were really deified humans.
On the other hand the Jews thought G-d was the sunum bonum of human existence and people’s lives centered around Him – not around their own needs. Its not a coincidence the Hebrew world “Halakah” means “to walk.” There is not a word in it about democracy.
In the Jewish view, freedom comes from G-d and not from man. Many are they who follow false idols these days and nothing is as contemptible as the Jew who thinks his earthly success has nothing to do with G-d who put him here in the first place.
In the final analysis, the Greek and Jewish view of life aren’t exactly mutually compatible.
In a democratic Jewish State does a minority were they to become either a majority or near majority have the right to vote the Jews out of power and replacing them with their new majority? Would even less than an absolute majority of the existing minority grow to numbers where they could unite with anti Jewish leftists to become a majority ruling coalition?
Would the Law of return for Jews be equalized for the non Jewish minority populations living outside of Israel?
Should Israel change her flag and national Anthem? Can a Non Jewish minority identify with either symbol? Were our minority to become a majority do they have the right to change our national language from Hebrew to Arabic? Would Independence Day, Jerusalem Day be abolished?
The author is basically correct in his analysis albeit from an anti Israel even self hating Jewish position but his basic analysis is correct.
Israel cannot be a truly Western democratic country and maintain it’s Jewish Character. Israel cannot be a truly Jewish state without restricting certain rights and prerogatives which negate Western democratic principles and norms. What we do have so far is equality in law for all citizens and discrimination against our minorities based on our Jewish collective sense of self preservation as a nominally Jewish State, in an unsaid and mostly collective understanding of where certain lines are that should never be crossed.
@ yamit82:
I was confusing you with Shy Guy who I thought responded to my comment. It remains, if you have a criticism with somebody’s comment, it is best to respond with what you think is better. Which you finally did, after the damage was done.
OK, you do know what you are talking about. I am responding to Shy Guy
@ Per:
Strict application of Jewish law in 1948 or any time afterwards would have solved the problem of Jewish rights in the Land being threatened by a minority. Not by any democratic means I can assure you.
One of the hardest jobs in the world is speaking up for Israel. There is no support from Israel, no support from most of the religious community who think that G-d will take care of everything – and thus no effort is required on their part; nothing but confusion and a lack of urgency from established liberal Jewish groups and a bad dose of confrontation from leftist antsemitic Jews.
I do not claim that as a secular Jew I know much Torah and I surely do not identify with liberals or leftists. However, I do know that everyone needs to do more because while the forces lining up against Israel are numerous and unified by a common purpose, we as Jews are divided and staking out many different positions as disparate groups that do not respect each others views.
A reform Rabbi told me that the Jewish peoples’ strength is in their diverse opinions and that gave the Rabbi the excuse to not help nor speak up for Jews on campus when I asked him for support. His opinion was and still is that the position of the far left whom he dialogues with has just as much currency as those who speak up and defend Israel. To me that is a cop out and cowardice. The IDF or any army cannot operate against its foes without a common purpose and if the Jewish people cannot at least agree that we have to fight together, all will be lost.
Do you think that Israel ought to be ruled today by Jewish Kings with a direct line to G-d through Torah? This day in age even if some Messiah came along he would have a hard time convincing anyone of his legitimacy.
I have no faith that G-d will save Jews or Israel – that has never happened in the past during Holocausts and other wars and attacks on Jews. I would rather put my faith in the strength of good moral people who share views on what is right and what is wrong. If those morals come from Torah, then they need to do more than just study Torah, they need to communicate and work with people to make sure G-d’s commandants are followed and Israel is defended (assuming they believe in Israel).
Paul Said:
No!! I AM saying you don’t know what you are talking about.
And I do understand what you are talking about.
That is as definitive as I can go without saying what I really think.
Dean Said:
Get this straight democracy is a Greek concept and not a Jewish concept. Judaism is a polar opposite of democracy and an anathema.
What do you think that the Torah was subject to one man one vote? Even our Kings at least the good ones were limited in power to the authority of the Torah and the Sanhedrin and it’s not coincidental the Sanhedrin was housed on the Temple Mount within the Temple complex. Ideally our Kings can be compared to constitutional monarchs (Ruled according to Halacha), although many if not most abused their authority and power.
The Kohenim and Levites were hereditary and were not elected. Kings as well had to be decedents of David and when they weren’t like the Maccabees or Herod, they were not supported by the people. Where is you democracy? A religion that dictates which shoe to put on first is not likely to allow freedom of choice or vote. Resident strangers had only personal rights of life and property but no political rights and they must support and respect all Jewish laws for them to stay in the land. They were subject to the same laws and penalties for violation of Jewish laws many being the death penalty so for practical purposes they became virtual Jews.
Jews were oppressed in Egypt, where we were slaves (Exodus 3:9). Syrians oppressed us so that we needed a deliverer (2 Kings 13:4-5). To our lawgiver, oppression was tremendously more severe than the mere absence of voting rights.
@ yamit82:
I do know what I am talking about. If you don’t know what I am talking about you should say, “I don’t know what you are talking about” instead of “You don’t know what you are talking about.”
Paul Said:
I must say Paul, that you don’t know what you are talking about.
Let’s see, what is democracy? Is it the democracy of an Egypt or the PA and Hamas, where there is one party and one vote – once? Is it the democracy as practiced in totalitarian regimes where there is one choice and one had better accept it or face violence? Is democracy what takes place in America where there are only two dreadful parties to choose from? Or is it the multiplicity of choices, as in Israel, where key parties have to appease and pander to those extreme elements who hold the balance of power? Does democracy mean that our worst enemies must be included in the count, even if they want to destroy society and democracy itself, the more, the better? Israel is a democracy but a democracy need not be without limits. Unbridled and guaranteed access to the reins of power is not an essential part of any democracy. The US would never allow a party named the Al Qaeda Party to share the same stage as the Democrats and Republicans…or would they? The PA are happy electing there own leaders (once anyway) and their people are bullied easily into believing that terror leaders have their best interests in mind. Democracy involves more than a vote – it also means literacy, numeracy, beliefs that are more than merely supremacy based on one body of texts that put others down.
@ Shy Guy:
Democracy is a rather modern concept. At one time Israel was a kingdom like most other nations at the time. When Israel was destroyed by the Romans, that was the last time Israel had a king.
But even at the time, Israel had something that suggested a democracy, which is that in the eyes of Israel, the nations of the world were equal in the eyes of G_d. And further, nobody living in Israel was ever obliged to Jewish belief who was not Jewish. I’m sure that there were varying degrees of enforcement of Jewish law in the history of Israel, but it must have been unavoidable that non-Jews find themselves as permanent residents in Israel and despite this, there is nothing scriptural in Jewish belief about how to subjugate non-believers. Compare and contrast with its parodies in Catholicism and Islam where subjugation along with expansion of authority over nations go hand in hand.
Israel is a democracy, not just in principle but rather in instinct derived from Jewish belief. It’s not hard to see even now that the greatest struggles in Israeli politics is among Jews. Non-Jews have special political privileges in Israel and are even licensed for subversion. But that’s tolerable (to a point). Jewish struggle is neatly divided into two categories, colonization of Israel and subjugation from without and exile from Israel and subjugation in the diaspora.
What gives these Jewish antisemites reason to believe that Jews and Muslims could live in a utopian country as equals in which Muslims would respect the rights of Jews? We know that Muslims can live as equals with Jews in Israel but in every Muslim country throughout history Jews have had to leave or be treated as dhimmis. In every instance in history Jews have been evicted, taxed, dominated, tortured, and killed by Islamists when and where they gain control.
The wishful thinking and dangerous stupidity of the Jewish left is not unlike the mentality of leftist Jews in Europe and America pre- and during WWII. They tried to say “can’t we all get along,” then they said, “let’s not upset our leaders because they will get really mad with us.” When it became obvious that there was wholesale slaughter taking place they practiced the see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil routine.
This is typical Jewish anti-Semitism. To these self-haters, Israel has no right to be a Jewish state. Israel must allow all 7 million refugees (5 generations of them – after the first refugees declared war on the Jews) to be repatriated… but Jews booted out of other parts of the ME are never mentioned. Jewish return to Israel is immoral to these leftist creatures. Israel, to the leftist mind, is a guilt offering to European Jews as a result of the Holocaust and not the result of 3000 years of habitation broken only by those who wanted to annihilate and evict the Jews from their indigenous home. They say that questioning Israel’s right to exist is not anti-Semitism – but they never question 56 Muslim countries right to exist as Islamic countries. And they craftily never say what will happen to the Jews under their proscription for the end to Israel. Basically they are telling us that the Jews should be singled out for special treatment (a Nazi prescription) – that they must be wanderers, ghettoized and subject to the moods of Christians and Muslims who want them in concentration camps and not part of a strong Jewish nation. They deny all aspects of Judaism’s connection to the land of Israel because they are leftists, not Jews. The ideas expressed in the above paper are the same as what I hear at every IAW event put on by groups like the United Church, Independent Jewish Voices (really these people are United Church surrogates), union leaders who spew antisemitism, leftist politicians and Islamists who want all of the Middle East to add to the 99.9% they already control – not because they need more land but because they want fewer Kafirs.
Per Said:
Where does Judaism advocate a democratic state?
Why is only the Jewish State of Israel singled out as illegitimate?
When you clear out the smokescreen used by atheist white liberal Jew-haters to justify delegitimizing Israel, you end up with this core:
Atheistic white liberals are religious racists, the same as nazis, muslims, and communists. They feel they are “angels”, rational and “enlightened”, and always correct. Since angels are meaningless without devils, the atheist white liberals paint conservative white christians as “devils in human form”, who cannot be re-educated, and must be “neutralized”. And for these atheistic white liberals, the Jews are “the whitest of the white people”, and their homeland, Israel, is “the center of hell on earth”, which must be eliminated before we can have an atheistic, liberal paradise on earth.
We have seen this type of “rational, enlightened thinking” over and over again: christians labeling Jews as “christ-killing devils”, muslims labeling Jews as “prophet-killing devils”, christian nazis labeling Jews as “mongrel, sub-human communist devils”, and communists labeling Jews as “rootless, cosmopolitan reactionaries”.
The fierce racism of the “rational, enlightened” atheistic liberals insists that only white, conservative christians, and most of all, Jews, can be “truly racist”, are truly racist, and can never be re-educated. In contrast, all “non-whites” are simple, child-like innocents, who can never be truly racist, and all have the potential to become atheist liberal angels under the “enlightened” guidance of the white atheist liberal elite.
The ultimate “paradise on earth” envisioned by white atheistic liberals consists of a one-world government run by the United Nations, mainly by non-whites, with religion and the individual nation-state eliminated, the role of whites marginalized, and Jewish Israel wiped from the earth.
Atheistic “rational, enlightened” white liberals are delusional, brain-washed, and incapable of truly rational analysis. It is futile to try and change their minds. They are true-believers, identical to christians, christian nazis, muslims, and communists.
(On a lighter note Q: What is the most common genetic disease transmitted by Jewish mothers to their children? A: Guilt)
Did you expect better from this “professor”,why?
This highly paid ignoramus is one of those experts that point us in the true path,right?…wrong!
Down the road at Harvard,his fellow professor,Steven Pinker,would have him for intellectual lunch.Firstly he wrote this article for the NY Times,that would have been the same as writing for Soviet Izvestia or Der Sturmer in Germany.
I checked further into his credentials & found that he teaches Metaphysics.We are being lectured by a guru,maybe even a traveler between worlds,who would have guessed it? I stand humbled by the opinion of this great half-man!
Finally I noted the title of a book he authored “Purple Haze” & it became clear to me where his opinion came from.This Intellectual midget has spent a lifetime with his head in a purple haze which he has yet to come out of!
There is no contradiction between being a Jewish State and a democratic State, and professor Levine misses the mark entirely. The state members of the United Nations are all national states. Professor Levine apparently has not understood that the right to protection by the State against opression does not only extend to the minorities of the State. The majority has exactly the same right. In cases where a majority group lives under a contiuous existencial threat from a minority, the State has a clear obligation to protect the majority by constitutional provisions. Israel is the only State in the Middle East where its majority population is actually granted protection from opression by a minority, as different from minority ruled states like Syria and Jordan, where the majority’s right to protection is grossly violated.
Did anyone actually read that? I took a quick look and rejected it as unfit for consumption. Maybe they have time for this stuff at Amherst, but not me over breakfast. Not even the Sultan bloviates like that.
What a surprise that this article was published by the NY slimes.
This article is a crock of shit. And yes what Joseph Levine is stating is antisemitic.
Jews upset over Israel’s existence aren’t exactly news. Never mind that there isn’t a single Arab democratic country. Israel is flawed and imperfect to the point the Jewish State has to disappear for its own good.
Jewish self-determination is verboten if that hurts Arab feelings. We’ve reached a point where Jewish rights must be superseded in the name of multicultural sensitivity and political correctness. Of course no body else is asked to give up being a nation.
Only the Jews! In the case of Joseph Levine, its more proof you can take the Jew out of the Ghetto but its near nigh impossible to take the Ghetto out of the Jew. Anti-Semitism lives on, more virulent than ever in our world.
If one accepts that democracy means equality for all, then the learned professor is correct that Israel can’t be a Jewish state and a democratic state. So be it! The Jews did not yearn for 2,000 to return to the “democratic” state of Israel, which Israel never was, but to the Jewish state of our ancestors. If that disenfranchises our Arab citizens, I say that’s just too bad. If they don’t like,they have where to go to fulfill their national aspirations, whereas we don’t. The reality is of course, that most would prefer the rights and liberties they enjoy in the Jewish state to the oppression that would be meted out to them in any one of their 21 Arab states or 50 some odd, Islamic states and that speaks volumes. Let now one loose sight of why we are even having this discussion and we must always keep this in context: the Arabs ethnic cleansed their Jewish inhabitants that had lived in those lands for thousands of years even before Muhammad made his appearance on the world stage whereas the Jews permitted Arabs to stay in Israel. Had the Jews done like the Arabs, the world would never have heard of a “Palestinian People” (of the Arab variety that is!)and the good professor would have never had to pontificate on this imponderable topic, that is anti-Semitic to the core while grossly disingenuous in it’s singular treatment of Israel to the exclusion of all other democracies that exhibit the same, if not more egregious contradictions than Israel.