> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Seth Kulick" <skulick at seas.upenn.edu>
> -What other country is so concerned, in such a respectable
> -way, with the "demographic problem"? It's just another way of saying that
> a
> -certain segment of the population breeds too fast, as Edward Said once
> -characterized Peace Now's position.
>
> What other countries? Most of Europe worrying about birthrates by north
> africans and other immigrants, the US worried about latinos, and a whole
> range of other countries. There's absolutely nothing strange about Jews in
> Israel worried that they'll lose their essential national characteristics to
> demographic changes.
oh come on! Any leftist should be completely appalled by "Most of Europe"
or "the US" worrying about birthrates of some ethnic (whatever that is)
minority. Only when it comes to Israel does it somehow become acceptable
for people to talk about the "demographic problem". It's not a matter of
singling out Israel. It's a matter of having the same standard that a
leftist would have in any other case. And while nobody in their
right mind would deny racism as a factor in immigrant policy, it does not
follow from the official definition of the state, as it would if we
were an officially "white" country. I'm feeling kind of ill even writing this.
>
> -I spent many years in New Jewish Agenda in the 80s, in which friends who
> -were active in the Middle East work repeated slogans about wanting a
> -"democratic Jewish state". I look back in some kind of amazement at how
> -long it took before it dawned on me that that made no sense at all. Or
> about
> -as much as a "democratic white/black/Christian/Islamic/whatever" state.
>
> Very true. Just as much sense as India electing a party like the BJP
> worried about losing the essential Hinduness of that country, or Arab
> countries that import Indians to do most of the work but would never think
> of letting them have citizenship. Governments all over the world are
> incredibly conscious of demographics and the relation of population to
> national identity.
Whatever happened to "as England is English" or "as France is French"?
>
> In the ideal, I'm against all borders, but given the reality of them, why
> are Jewish borders so much more suspect than every other nationalities? I
> condemn Israel's occupation of its territorities, but understand their
> nationalism as much as the Kurds in Iraq who really want their own country
> have centuries of living under the yoke of other groups.
And if the Kurds instituted a state in which non-Kurds were expelled, and discriminatory policies where instituted against the remaining non-Kurds, and they had to start worrying about an official position of "Who is a Kurd?" in order to enforce who can have land and so on, who would support that?
Look, of course I can understand the attraction of Zionism and having a Jewish state, given history. And I grew up in a non-Zionist household, but with very close family friends very active in American for a Progressive Israel and those kind of groups. But Zionism had these contradictions with basic democratic principles in it from the very beginning, and it seems to me that much of what's happened in Israel is a slow playing out of those contradictions.
Anyway, this is the kind of discussion that is usually endless and goes nowhere, so I'll leave it there. I do enjoy reading your postings, and you were certainly more correct about the 2000 election than I was, but I really disagree with the appropriateness of your examples here.