Jews / Hebrews

Further explorations of the world as it is and the world as we wish it to be

HEBREWS!?

…one of the unique things about the jewish people is that historically – at least for nearly two millennia – they were not a state/nation per se altho they were and are an ethnically identifiable “people,” independent of their religion … albeit a stateless people … a little like gypsies … members/citizens of many diverse nation states in the middle and far east, in africa, asia, europe, and the western hemisphere – while simultaneously maintaining their jewish identity, but not as a nation with a state/territory as such.  the advent of zionism, the notion there should be an ethnically identified jewish state (designed initially as a nationalist movement primarily to protect jews from centuries of abuse), changed all that.

i personally never much favored the idea of there being a state for jews, especially on ethnically cleansed conquered lands, even as I celebrated the pre-1967 triumphs of Israel.  it is my naïve utopian hope that israel and palestine will merge as one state for all its people – a far better outcome in my view than a jewish national state living side by side in peace with a safe, just, and equitable state for the palestinian people – and equally unlikely an outcome as there being one just and equitable state for all the people of Palestine.  as Gideon Levy says, “the two-state solution is dead (it was never born); the Palestinian state will not arise; international law does not apply to Israel; the occupation will continue to crawl quickly to annexation, annexation will continue to crawl quickly toward an apartheid state; “Jewish” supersedes “democracy”, nationalism and racism will get the stamp of government approval, but they’re already here and have been for a long time.”  in light of that reality i’m left believing israel and palestine are one state already, albeit an apartheid state w a major civil rights problem.” and there is no palestinian state, regardless of the best intentions of the pope.

So how did David turn into Goliath?