I don’t know that dude’s point but my point is that even though the light of democracy may seem dim right now in Israel, it’s still there and must be protected. No legitimate human rights will come from Islamic law or pan Islamism because religious law is made up by church muckity mucks as they go along, and any right they grant can be taken at their whim. Meanwhile, the good fortune of democracy on this earth is closely tied to the humanity of all mankind, and ill fight anyone that violently insists otherwise. Like it’s fine if you want to live like it’s the dark ages but don’t cross the border or shoot at boats. Maybe if the Likuds survive the next election the idea of smothering the baby in its crib might be more palatable to me. I’m not ready to feed a burgeoning democracy to Iranian far-right extremists or their proxies, just yet.
I agree with you. I’d like more democracy is Israel.
I think that people ARE going to need to reimagine what Israel is, though. People – including folks like Einstein – have been saying since it’s founding that it is fundamentally incompatible to have a multi-ethnic democratic ethnostate. It’s internally contradictory. You have to lose one of those words.
Jewish nationalists would like to lose the multi-ethnic part. Religious extremists would like to drop the democratic part (and probably the multi-ethnic part too). I’d like to drop the ethnostate. I think Israel can be a democracy that welcomes Jews AND Palestinians. But to be frank, democracy and Zionism have been looking increasingly incompatible for a long time, and a lot of folks in the US need to start recognizing that.
I don’t know that dude’s point but my point is that even though the light of democracy may seem dim right now in Israel, it’s still there and must be protected. No legitimate human rights will come from Islamic law or pan Islamism because religious law is made up by church muckity mucks as they go along, and any right they grant can be taken at their whim. Meanwhile, the good fortune of democracy on this earth is closely tied to the humanity of all mankind, and ill fight anyone that violently insists otherwise. Like it’s fine if you want to live like it’s the dark ages but don’t cross the border or shoot at boats. Maybe if the Likuds survive the next election the idea of smothering the baby in its crib might be more palatable to me. I’m not ready to feed a burgeoning democracy to Iranian far-right extremists or their proxies, just yet.
I agree with you. I’d like more democracy is Israel.
I think that people ARE going to need to reimagine what Israel is, though. People – including folks like Einstein – have been saying since it’s founding that it is fundamentally incompatible to have a multi-ethnic democratic ethnostate. It’s internally contradictory. You have to lose one of those words.
Jewish nationalists would like to lose the multi-ethnic part. Religious extremists would like to drop the democratic part (and probably the multi-ethnic part too). I’d like to drop the ethnostate. I think Israel can be a democracy that welcomes Jews AND Palestinians. But to be frank, democracy and Zionism have been looking increasingly incompatible for a long time, and a lot of folks in the US need to start recognizing that.