States, Nationalisms, & the American Empire

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Mon Sep 10 18:01:50 PDT 2001


Doug says:


>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>On one hand you seem to be saying that all leftists must
>>consciously struggle against all nationalisms, regardless of
>>contents of given nationalisms, advancing a consistently
>>anti-statist position. On the other hand, you seem to be saying to
>>Palestinians, "Israel exists & will not go away -- deal with it,"
>>thus legitimating the nationalisms of Zionists while negating the
>>nationalisms of Palestinians, at best perhaps advocating "a
>>two-state solution," at worst merely recognizing the "facts on the
>>ground" -- including the Zionist state & U.S. imperialism that
>>keeps it alive. Is your position coherent?
>
>Yup, of course it is. I have no interest in legitimiating Zionist
>nationalism. On the other hand, what would a Palestinian state look
>like? It'd be very weak, and at the mercy of Israel, the U.S., and
>the World Bank.
>
>There's an ugly article in the current Dissent by a fellow named
>Gadi Taub, who argues for a Palestinian state on the grounds that
>every people needs its state - "two states for two nations." This
>kind of organicist nationalism repels me. What I'd like to see is as
>plural and secular a state as possible (acknowledging that
>nation-states aren't going to go away any time soon, just like
>Israel isn't).

You don't advocate "a two-state solution" a la Leo. You say you want to see "as plural and secular a state as possible." Can you elaborate on it? What does it mean? Secularism + federalism (e.g. a federal union of autonomous republics)? Or a secular state in which Jews, Palestinians, & others co-exist as citizens with equal rights? Something else? What will its relation to the rest of the world be like?

Yoshie



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