Israel A State of Its Citizens? - Part 2

Israel should be a state of all its citizens, not a state that belongs to one part of its population. Israel defines itself as a Jewish state. It's not just a question of definition or nature. It's a question of substance, structure, aims, goals, policies, laws. Israel is not only a Jewish state. It is the state of many people who are not its citizens, because Israel claims to be the state of all Jews all over the world, including people who are living happily, with full citizenship and rights, in other countries.

The Jewish intellectual Hannah Arendt wrote, after the Zionist conference in the early 1940s, that Zionists were proposing to Palestinians either that they leave their country or to agree to second-degree citizenship. This was the way to build a Jewish state. The demographic obsession is one of the main obsessions of Zionism and the Israeli elite. This has recently become demographic phobia. This is the main reason Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza -- to get rid of Palestinians. All the Israeli political parties agree that in any solution, Israel should take as much land from the West Bank and Jerusalem area and that this land should include as few Arabs as possible. This is the rule that shapes Israel's attitude towards the Palestinians: demography and geography. Geography is good, Arabs are bad. We want the good, and exclude the bad.

The Israeli establishment look at us as a quantitative and a qualitative danger. In recent years, words like "demographic bomb", "demographic threat", "demographic danger", are used all the time. I think that when it comes to existential questions the Israeli leadership are in a problem. How to deal with Palestinians in Israel. It is very difficult to square the circle. You cannot be both an ethnic state and a democratic state. So in the Israeli academy there are those who can't live with this contradiction. People like Sammy Smooha at the University of Haifa. After analyzing Israeli democracy -- a fair analysis -- he came to the conclusion that Israel is an "ethnic democracy". Others (Oren Yiftachel) came to a conclusion that it's actually an "ethnocracy".

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• israel
• palestine
• state
• of
• its
• citizens
• azmi
• bishara
• balad
• knesset
• democracy
• jewish
• arab
• conflict
• two
• settlement

[dinavienna]

LOL!!!!!!!

"He (an Arab) needs to think twice before moving here. No one will greet him, not because of racism - but they do not want to live with bad people."

You guys are the official successors of the Nazis!

[ABHA2008]

hahaha no!! The demographical bomb will explode soon =)

[perrik7]

this palestinians are the most racist people ever exist on earth.

why dont they let the jews live by themselves?

[28g34ajbsd]

@saifialig Need I remind your ignorant sorry ass that Jesus was an uppity Jew under the Romans too?

Hitler killed European Jews because "they" were racist? You need to go to elementary school again, my friend.

Or at least refrain from making brain-dead comments everywhere.

[28g34ajbsd]

@mattgf50 Because deportation as such is not the answer in any instance?

Because justifying horrible policies just because Israel was built on them doesn't make you any better?

I'm ardently pro-Palestinian, yet I wouldn't even move the entirety of the settled territories in the OPTs: I'd rather swap land (given they are equal in quality). To call for absolutist justice in this conflict would only amount to barbarity and slaughter, which would pave the way for future bloodshed.

[28g34ajbsd]

@nipomocarlos Saying 'they' should go live in Saudi Arabia is like saying to Israeli Jews they should all move to Brooklyn. Thank God not everybody thinks like you, since in 20 years, when there'll be more Israeli Arabs than Jews, you won't get slaughtered. I'd go easy on the 'moon god' racisms, though.

[saifialig]

Whole Israel and Jews are Racist .That is why they killed by Hitler and Christian(Roman) empire.They even did not given respect to their own prophets Moses and Jesus,Read Jews own book.

[mephesh]

@dinavienna well said

[1111myname]

i think israel has no future. When China becomes stronger and the US will not be the only superpower, israel will meet her end.

[28g34ajbsd]

why don't you go fuck yourself in hell, my friend.