Bush Again Delays Move Of US Embassy to Jerusalem
In a letter to Colin Powell, Bush claims that it is a necessity to postone transfer of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem “to protect the national security interests.”
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for once I think he’s right
it’s against America’s national security to move the embassy to the occupied territories
Babtlonian, only east jerusalem is occupied.
Asaf, that is the biggest problem about these discussions. There is seldom a clear rhetorical baseline for discourse. Many of my Green Party friends, for example, insist that all Palestine is occupied, and Jews are entirely a religious construct with no legitimate national rights.
your green party friends are right only in the sense that Israel is built on other people’s land. sadly its hard to reerect 471 villages.
So you can tell the green party fella’s to start talking in pragmatic terms- what do we do with the current occupation, and what do we do with the problems left from the 1948 occupation – the refugees. sending all the jews back to europe is as silly as… hmm. i’m not creative today. you get the point.
When did the USA formally recognise Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem?
Unless there is some statute of limitations, then it follows that those 471 villages from the old British Mandate were built on other peoples’ land as well.
It is as silly to suggest repatriating Palestinian refugees and their decendents in green-line Israel as it is to suggest sending all Jewish refugees and their decendents back to Europe. I don’t think I am alone in my belief that national rights will precede human rights, particularly in the Israeli-Palestinian (read: Jewish-Arab) conflict.
Among so many other possible reasons, this may be why the Green Party is as relevant as it is today.
Geez Asaf, sounds like you agree with those Greens more then you think. “Israel is built on other people’s land†Which is a wide distortion of the facts. The fact the Jews worldwide were buying legally buying land before WWI, and then there was that whole UN partition plan. Sounds like you feel guilty about Israel defending itself during the Independence War. So maybe, as impractical as it might seem, you actually do want the Jews to move back to Europe and the United States. You’ve already made that leap.
Yes, it would be ridiculous to suggest sending all the jews back to europe (Asaf) or sending all Jewish refugees and their decendents back to Europe (Zionista) — most especially ’cause many (most?) never had ancestors living in Europe in the first place.
That kind of criticism simply echoes the Eurocentric caricatures of our enemies. A better line would be to call it ridiculous to send all the Jews back to the countries in which their ancestors most recently lived — East Europe, North Africa, the Gulf, wherever.
7 percent of the land was bought. thats all.
….or the sovereign kingdom of israel was destroyed by imperial roman armies, conquered by imperial arab militias, colonized by europeans and then conquered again by a repatriated Jewish national movement that emanated from from the ghetto to the mellah.
i’ll never abandon zionism as an inherently postcolonial struggle for socially subordinated jews to reclaim a space where they ruled themselves on the land that was lost on them. the same right goes for the algerians, palestinians, armenians, and many others.
VS Naipaul puts it well as an East Indian writing from Africa and the Caribbean –
“there was no imperialism like that of the Arabs”
“rather than an African history that starts when Europeans made contact, African history belonging to Africans.”
the same goes for Jews. Good reference article in Zeek http://www.zeek.net on antisemitism at Harvard, in the current issue
8opus: “That kind of criticism simply echoes the Eurocentric caricatures of our enemies. A better line would be to call it ridiculous to send all the Jews back to the countries in which their ancestors most recently lived — East Europe, North Africa, the Gulf, wherever.”
It was intended as more a mirror to reflect the absurdity, rather than to echo the sentiment. Nevertheless, inarticulate as I may have been, that is precisely my point. We can either attempt to undo history, or offer constructive solutions to the problem. Often enough, self-styled progressives opt for the former.
It’s not so much about history as it is about practical politics and good geopolitical strategy. Why add one more can of petrol to the fire raging in the MidEast by moving a bunch of diplomats and attaches from one building to another — especially now.
The location of the embassy is not a priority, especially now. Symbolism has no place in The World Power’s policies when the region is on the tipping edge of war.
.rob adams
Some Israeli’s open admit they don’t care what happened before 1948. Asaf, are you also content with short-term memory?
josh, i dont get your question or where its leading to. Our current political crisis has its roots in adam and eve. so what?
There are many Greens in the UK that echo the sentiments of the Green friends above. Alas, I find it hard to talk to someone who believes that Israel does not have a right to exist, because more often than not it is hides a streak of judenhaas.
Andrew
the right to exist and the right to exist as a Jewish state are two different things
Babylonian– If Israel is not a Jewish state, it is not Israel, but something else. The word “Israel,” by definition linguistically, historically and politicallty, refers to the JEWISH nation, not the nation which happens to be in a particular place in the Middle East.
the right to exist and the right to exist as a Jewish state are two different things Tell us more, then. What does the right to exist mean?
Babylonian,
Israel is geo-political entity that contains Jews and Gentiles. If you look at the primary definition of Israeli (i.e., a national of Israel) in the Oxford Concise English dictionary you will find no mention of a Jew or a Jewish state.
Jerry,
I think you meant to address my post, not Babylonian’s. If I’m right, I would respond that dictionary writers (lexicographers) look for simple working definitions of words, not comprehensive ones. Israel functions like other countries, so it falls into the category of “nation.” That says nothing one way or the other about Jews or Judaism. “New York City” may be defined as “a large city,” but from that definition you know very little about it, such as that it is a major hub for world travel and immigration to the US, or that it’s highly multi-cultural, or that it is (and is in) a place with a democratic system of government.
If Israel is not a Jewish state, it is not Israel, but something else. Yes. The word “Israel,” by definition linguistically, historically and politicallty, refers to the JEWISH nation, not the nation which happens to be in a particular place in the Middle East. No.
Israel is a Jewish state. There is a link between Israel and the Jews. The link does not mean that the two are identical, though.
Babylonian’s distinction is silly, but that doesn’t mean we can reduce Israel to Jews — only to a country that has a special responsibility to Jews and imprinted in a unique way by their culture.
That is, after all, the point of Zionism, many of whose foundational documents differed from so many other nationalisms — Baathism, Kemalism, whatever — in the concern for balancing statehood with respect for minority rights.
It’s antecendants not decendants, that would be easy