“Right to exist” – a very interesting phrase. In some ways it doesn’t matter seeing as how Israel does exist and at least in the short term will continue to do so (may it be in the long term as well!). But I think one thing that is underneath that phrase is the right to exist in self defining ways so long as that self definition doesn’t lead to serious abuses of various kinds. Clearly Israel is struggling to figure out how to balance the various components of its own self definition sometimes successfully and unfortunately increasingly not.

Another thing that is implied when the right to exist argument is used, is a notion among opponents of Israel, that because the conditions that led to the creation of the state were illegal/highly questionable/immoral/fill in the blank, an ethos of eliminating Israel from the map can be legitimized. Its one thing to question the legitimacy of settlement occupation but quite another when the same logic is used to say that Tel-Aviv is also occupied. I’m not talking about empirical fact here. I’m talking about reasonable interpretations of the facts that can lead to effective thinking about ending the conflict.

As far as what a country’s best interests are, that also seems to be open to interpretation. The problem in my mind is not with specific policies but that people don’t see in those they disagree with the same devotion and passion that they do. In other words if we all were able to say “I disagree but I believe that you think you have Israel’s best interests in mind”, the discourse would be very different. Having said that, I think there are some clear red lines to be drawn even when one is able to say that.

1) JG, you’re still my hero!

2) KFJ latched on to the main problem with Eli’s one state argument that I would have made – the denial of collective rights, which are the basis of nationalism.

In his last al Jazeera piece, from whence I think Eli drew inspiration, Abunimah has really fine-tuned his arguments about the intrinsic in-group exclusivity (i.e. built-in injustice) necessary to assert the principle of self-determination, and the need for post-identity national groupings.

However sound his logic, what we’re seeing in the world is a radical departure from his purported ideal. Nationalism along racial, religious, ethnic and other “in-group” criteria has surged, and continues to surge. East Timor, Kosovo, South Sudan, Tibet, Kurdistan… perhaps north and south Nigeria, possibly even an Alawite state carved out of Syria… Even the European Project, that great beacon of post-national hope, is foundering. Economic integration was not controversial, but political integration has been stalled for a decade, and with the fiscal crisis authority has only two places to go – back to individual member states or to German control.

The tendency of people all over the world is not post-identity, but hyper-identity. People want to create national groupings that represent their preferred community and maximize their (*gulp, dirty word coming) privilege, not those that subsume their collective individuality like the Borg. Bi, tri or tetra-national states – like Belgium, Iraq, Pakistan – are in a condition of delicate equilibrium or outright collapse and de-facto fragmentation.

It is highly relevant to note that not only does the principle of self-determination have universal support – KFJ called it a “pillar of global society”, and it is – but that outside of select academia and… well, the ruling elite of Europe, it has more support than ever before. The last few decades have witnessed an explosion of nationalism and state-formation out of precisely the kind of super-national groupings Eli recommends, and given the multiplying number of separatist groups around the world, more states and autonomous zones are likely to come.

Of course, enlightened self-determination is predicated on an in-group which can maintain its rule on the basis of prevalent standards of legitimacy – demographic superiority, minority rights, etc. But self-determination (i.e. the realization of collective rights in a sovereign state) is the name of the game, period.

Abunimah’s basic argument, if we are to ascribe it no ill intent and only address it on the merits, is an attack not on Jewish self-determination, but on the rights to self-determination of EVERY community of people, everywhere. If he wants to tell the Kosovars to go back to Serbia, or the South Sudanese to rejoin Sudan, or the Tibetans to stop praying for independence, I say we let him.

3) Good Shabbos!

According to an essay by the nineteenth century French philosopher Ernest Renan, a state has the right to exist when individuals are willing to sacrifice their own interests for the community it represents. Unlike self-determination, the right to exist is an attribute of states rather than of peoples. It is not a right recognized in international law.

Ethnic leaders in Abkhazia, the Basque, Chechnya, Ireland, Israel, Kurdistan and the Palestians have all invoked it at some point.