"C. G. Estabrook" wrote:
>
> [A racist state is one in which one group defined by descent is privileged
> in law and practice. (The Virginia of my boyhood was a racist state:
> e.g., it legally prohibited marriages between whites and other races.)
I agree with your overall estimation of the state of Israel, but this parenthesis is a bit misleading. First, Virginia was not a _state_ of any kind in the sense relevant here (the nation state), but a province of the United States. More importantly (and this differentiates Israel, South Africa, etc. from Germany and the U.S. -- what you describe as existing in Virginia is a racist _policy_, as is also (for example) the case of Germany with its treatment of Turkish and other immigrants. South Africa was and Israel is a racist _state_ by its very nature: it cannot cease to be racist by any change of policy but only by liquidating itself as a state. An Israel without racist policies would simply be Israel.
Carrol