This is Who We're Supposed to 'Make Peace" With?

[jbg]

I think religious states are a stupid idea... but thats just my opinion. They can do what they like in that regard.

The Jews tried for the longest of time not to have one. The savageries of the Russian pogroms, the French L'Affaire Dreyfusse, and similar antics made it necessary.

[dre]

The Jews tried for the longest of time not to have one. The savageries of the Russian pogroms, the French L'Affaire Dreyfusse, and similar antics made it necessary.

Thats only partially true. Early Jewish Nationalists like Herzl seemed more motivated by a biblical vision of Eretz Yisrael than they were escaping persecution. Although I imagine it was a little of both.

[jbg]

Thats only partially true. Early Jewish Nationalists like Herzl seemed more motivated by a biblical vision of Eretz Yisrael than they were escaping persecution. Although I imagine it was a little of both.

Herzl himself, being British was not facing persecution. But being a journalist he knew that that world as everyone knew it was falling apart at that point, and that the time was ripe. Giving perhaps a small point to the anti-Zionists I suspect he knew that the Ottoman Empire was hard up for cash at that point and that the absentee landlords were willing to sell land to what was correctly called, at that point the "Zionist entity".

In other words, for whatever reasons the stars lined up at that point for the Zionist movement to start work on the formation of what's now the State of Israel.

[DogOnPorch]

Every major power picks sides to support in various little regional disputes and participates in them by proxy.

Id question your assertion that Hezzbolah undermines democracy as well. In addition to having a military arm, they are also a grass roots political movement with very strong support amonst the Druze, a sect of Shia Islam.

Almost half of Lebanons population are Immami/Druze Shias... why do you find it suprising that Iran would sponsor the resistance of a foreign invasion?

Seems logical to me...

This is why you are total scum. Israel...a nation state...is a foreign invasion while you make nice about your pals, Hezbollah...a known anti-semitic terrorist group. Not to mention your apologetic stance re: Ahmadinejad...also a well known anti-semite.

Would you care to say a few kind words about David Duke while you're at it?

Edited October 15, 2010 by DogOnPorch

[jbg]

Returning to another facet of the opening topic, if not the opening post, Egypt's revolution may be a blessed inspiration to all, given its peaceful nature. The only trouble is that it shows how fragile leadership is in the Arab world. It's very difficult to ink a peace deal with a "leader" who may only speak for him or her-self.

[Rue]

Thats only partially true. Early Jewish Nationalists like Herzl seemed more motivated by a biblical vision of Eretz Yisrael than they were escaping persecution. Although I imagine it was a little of both.

No he was not. I would like to know where you got the impression his vision of Erezt Yisrael was motivated by the Bible. Please quote your sources because I am telling you that is just not true.

In fact Hertzl was not a religious man nor was his family. He was not religious at all. He in fact was a socialist and his vision was of a socialist state for Jews and if you do your research you would know he never said it had to be in Israel. He openly considered the Sinai, Cyprus and even Uganda.

Did you just make that up? I want to know why you would try depict him as a biblical Zionist. He was anything but.

His concept of the Jewish collective was a political one not a religious one. He felt jews needed a state institution to protect it from anti-semitism and to guarantee Jews would not be a persecuted minority. It had nothing to do with the biblical version. The people who argued the state should be in Israel were later Zionists and most of the original Zionists, the majority were not religious and did not follow a religious Zionist version.

Religious Zionists whether they be Jewish religion Zionists or Christian religion Zionists were not the majority who started Israel or who live in Israel now.

The religious Zionist you are mistaking Hertzl for and can now be found with about 33% of the Jewish settlers on the West Bank are a minority in Israel and reject the socialist Zionism of Herzl.

The orthodox Jews of Israel who are members of extreme parties such as Shas or who have clout in the Likud party have a complex range of religious and non religious beliefs that make up their Zionist beliefs.

Zionists such as myself and the majority of Israelis are not religious Zionists and never were.

Please read up on Hertzl and don't reference him in such a manner. Its completely inaccurate.

How about before you claim to be an authority on Hertzl you start with the basics:

http://www.suite101.com/content/the-early-zionist-movement-a106433

Edited February 14, 2011 by Rue

[jbg]

No he was not. I would like to know where you got the impression his vision of Erezt Yisrael was motivated by the Bible. Please quote your sources because I am telling you that is just not true.

In fact Hertzl was not a religious man nor was his family. He was not religious at all. He in fact was a socialist and his vision was of a socialist state for Jews and if you do your research you would know he never said it had to be in Israel. He openly considered the Sinai, Cyprus and even Uganda.

Did you just make that up? I want to know why you would try depict him as a biblical Zionist. He was anything but.

His concept of the Jewish collective was a political one not a religious one.

I couldn't agree with you more. In that era many ethnic groups were beginning to assert their yearning to be free from the constraints of being parts of empires. The Finns, Estonians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Lithuanians and Latvians to name a few.

The Jews had and have no less right to a nation than those nationalities.

[Rue]

Many claim to know the origins of Zionism and come on this board

like Dre and misrepresent it precisely because they do not know.

Why Dre said what he did I do not know but here are the actual

facts about Hertzl and the choice of Israel for the jewish sttae.

Herzl who was non religious and was a journalist with a doctorate in law, did meet with the Sultan of Turkey

in 1896 to ask for a Jewish home in Palestine, true. The Sultan told him to kiss off.

In 1897, the First Zionist Congress was held in Basel, Switzerland and Hertzl was elected President.

Then In 1898, he organized an effort to create a Jewish state but Palestine was only one location

considered and if he was the religious Zionist Dre misrepresented him as being he would have only considered

Palestine.

The fact is however he was not a biblical Zionist and this is why in 1902-03,

he tried Herzl negotiating with the Egyptian government to have the Jewish state

created in fact in in Al Arish, which is in the Sinai Peninsula.

In fact in 1903, the British government offered Herzl British East Africa,

a.k.a. Uganda, to be the Jewish state and he actively considered it. A biblical Zionist

would have rejected it outright.

In fact Herzl was in favor of taking Uganda as the Jewish state

and proposed just that at the Sixth Zionist Congress.

At the 7th Zionist congress the choice of Uganda was rejected by

other Zionists who said it should be where the original Israel was,

i.e., Palestine. So to say Herzl was a biblically envisioned Zionist

is a crock. He was not.

Furthermore the notion of creating the new jewish state from where the old

one was, was not necessarily based on the concept of believing Judea and Somaria

belonged to Jews. It was as much if not more a political motivation then a religious

one, i.e., that this was where Jews belonged as a collective because that is

where they came from. So it was a notion not just of a Jew as told in the Bible,

but a Jew as defined as a semitic people of the area then called Palestine who

were not always Jews but would become Jews.

It was in fact the other co-founder of Zionism, Eliezer Ben Yehuda

who would more appropriately be descibed as maintaining a Jewish religious

concept as part of the jewish collective concept behind Zionism.

Edited February 14, 2011 by Rue

[Rue]

The largest influence on Hertzl would be what some call Austrian

humanism.

see;

http://www.springerlink.com/content/l770726463rm1553/

Today's Zionism has many complex components. It is the belief that

Jews are a collective and have a right to universal sufferage through

a state institution to protect themselves from persecution and

extinction.

This is it in a nutshell.

Those who believe in Zionism because of Jewish religious beliefs are

but one kind of Zionist and religious Zionists can be either Jewish or

Christian and those who are Jews can be orthodox, conservative, reform,

ultra-orthodox in religious belief. There is not any uniformity there.

There are then ultra-orthodox Jews who believe the state of Israel can not

come about until the messiah comes back first and many of them are mistaken

as Zionists because they live in Israel (i.e., Jerusalem( or in the Hebron area

of the West Bank.

The religious Zionists of the West Bank who are settlers are not all the same.

Some believe that all of Judea and Somaria belongs to Israel others are willing

to flex on where the borders should be.

The vast majority of Israelis are still not religious and best described as

cynical existentialist if you must use a ridiculous label. Their belief of identity

comes from constantly being told they are hated and will be wiped out or should

go poof and disappear.

The early Zionists came from European climates of pogroms and the Drefus affair.

Their sense of identity came from being hated not loved.

In the Arab world of dhimmitude their sense of identity came from being segregated

as second class inferiors subhect to extortion and violence.

In Europe the hatred was based on the passion play of Christ as justification.

In the world of Sharia Law and Islam the hatred was based on passages from the Koran

depicting Jews as evil and infidel.

If Zionists only defined themselves by the religious concept of the Old Testament

they would be far different in consistency and make up than the range of Zionist

essays and literature that exist from its origins in Europe or in its later reincarnations

after the holocaust.

[bud]

Today's Zionism has many complex components. It is the belief that

Jews are a collective and have a right to universal sufferage through

a state institution to protect themselves from persecution and

extinction.

even if it means trampling all over someone else's rights. that's what's wrong with zionism.

i don't think anyone (normal) argues that jews have a right to protect themselves from persecution. it's how they have created the state of israel, how they refuse to agree to what their borders are and the conditions that they've put the palestinians in which has most of the world up in arms.

Edited February 14, 2011 by bud

[jbg]

even if it means trampling all over someone else's rights. that's what's wrong with zionism.

I guess then out of the many peoples who got self-determnation in the wake of WW I the Jews are the only ones not deserving?

[bud]

I guess then out of the many peoples who got self-determnation in the wake of WW I the Jews are the only ones not deserving?

how did you come up with that conclusion?

anyway, i can't respond to another one of your irrational comments until you're able to respond to the other irresponsible comments you've made in other threads. go answer jbglobe.

[Jonsa]

even if it means trampling all over someone else's rights. that's what's wrong with zionism.

i don't think anyone (normal) argues that jews have a right to protect themselves from persecution. it's how they have created the state of israel, how they refuse to agree to what their borders are and the conditions that they've put the palestinians in which has most of the world up in arms.

You really have a simplistic view of the history of Israel. They created israel through a war that would have seen the extinction of the jew in palestine if they had lost. they have refuesed to agreee on their borders, because their arab enemies refused to sign peace treaties until finally Sadat got brave and signed one only to get shot for his efforts.

and while the Israelis are not without sin when treating with the palestinians, they are only a part of the equation. The treatment of the palestinians by their arab brothers has been pretty disgusting. The behaviour of the palestinians has also contributed to their present plight.