Hamas' language is no different than that of Israeli main political party. Zionism implies racism, discrimination and the slow killing of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel is denying the right to exist to Palestinians in their own country. That fits the bill. — Benkei

At least you do mention that Hamas political objectives are quite the same as the most militant Zionists. As I've said, extremists have the ball in the political game and the game is played how they want it to be played.

On May 1, 2017, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal presented Hamas’ much anticipated political document, which does not abrogate the Hamas Charter but outlines the strategies that the group has tailored to its current political circumstances.

The main points of Hamas’ new political document are:

- Full reliance on Islam as the group’s sole source of authority for its strategies and objectives.

- Denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in the Land of Israel, while claiming that Israel’s establishment as a state is entirely illegitimate and depicting Zionism as the enemy of humanity. Hamas claims it “does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine.”

- Conferral of an “Arab-Islamic” and “sacred Islamic” character on all of Palestine, entailing the complete denial of any bond or right of the Jewish people or of Christianity to the land. (Hamas believes, based on the Koran and Islamic sources, Jesus was neither a Jew nor a Christian but a prophet of Islam who received the Islamic doctrine from Allah.)

- Justification of the current nature of the struggle to liberate Palestine, that is, the armed struggle, while granting legitimacy to the existence and activity of the “struggle organizations” – namely, the Palestinian terror organizations and their activity.

- Willingness for a Palestinian state to be established within temporary borders (1967 lines) as a step toward continuing the armed struggle to destroy Israel – “from the river to the sea.”

- Recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), while also demanding new elections to its institutions and denying the validity of the organization’s political line and of the agreements it has signed with Israel.

- Praise for the “free people” in the world who support the Palestinian struggle against Israel.

You think these people will seek solution of side-by-side living? They say quite clearly above that a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 lines would be only a step towards the destruction of Israel. Of course in the Middle East rhetoric and actual agreements can be quite different from each other. So people there will say one thing and do another.

I personally don't see much morality in history. Those who demand justice usually are the people who start wars, not those who end them.

Vapid ad hominem. No surprise there. Pathetic evasion. — 180 Proof

In a setting where you and I are sharing what life made us into, I'd try to explain to you how deep my nihilism actually goes and the freedom that gives me.

I'd listen to why you can justify the murder of the Arab child who was killed by a Hamas bomb in Jerusalem the other day.

I don't think that's what's going on here, though.

@180 Proof has put forth the point of contention that, if an effective and lasting peace is to be established, then, because the Israelis have undertaken any number of political strategies which have effectively resulted in the dispute, it is up to them, and not the Palestinians, to offer a show of good faith so that the aforementioned peace can be meaningfully established.

He has framed this argument within kind of a black and white style of argumentation that, though I would bet that he would have much to say in the beaten way of clarification in this regard, as he is of the libertarian Left, in all likelihood somehow proceeds from anti-Imperialism.

His point of contention, however, is more than fair.

So what should determine who the rightful owners are? International law? What makes international law special? If there was a UN 500 years ago would you have followed it unquestionably? But now it's word is permanently binding, it's law - ok, got it. :brow: — BitconnectCarlos

Ah, so God it is, then. But if that's the case, God's been remarkably inclined to allow others to make the Jewish homeland their homes, wouldn't you say?

The Canaanites and Philistines, and perhaps Phoenicians as well, were there before Jews were. We're told that on their arrival the Jews dealt rather harshly with their predecessors. For example: “Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword.” — Joshua 6:21. Yes, even donkeys.

It's difficult, but not impossible, to name all the others who lived in and ruled Palestine since the Jewish conquest. Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians (and Medes, I should say); then it became part of Alexander's empire, then it was ruled by his successors, Seleuces and his dynasty; then Romans, who destroyed the Second Temple in 70 C.E. and did a pretty thorough job of evicting Jews from Palestine, even renaming Jerusalem, under Hadrian; then the Byzantines (who stilled called themselves Romans); then came the Muslim conquest, interrupted briefly and partially for a couple of centuries by the Crusader kingdoms. It was Muslim/Ottoman territory until the mid-twentieth century.

I may have missed some of the many occupants of that land. Let's say that in the last 2800 years or so, Jews haven't had much in the way of ownership of Palestine.

Why then say that it isn't the country of the Palestinians, but rather the Jewish homeland? It seems to be unclear even God has been convinced of that.

This is why I hate these political discussions. What on earth is an ‘oppressor’ and what could ‘Legitimate’ possibly mean? The answer depends of course on whether you’re a relativist and how far you’re willing to take that. For me, the belief that such notions can be defined in anything but a hopelessly partisan way is at the heart of most conflicts.

but because its form of nationalistic democracy exemplifies the Enlightenment era liberal political self-identity that the West is trying to distance itself from via brutal self-critique. There is nothing quite so threatening to a person than witnessing a way of thinking in an other that they have themselves only recently struggled to free themselves from. This is a thread common to the intensity of. BLM, #Metoo and anti-Israel sentiment. — Joshs

Hitler is a similar symbol, right? He would have been perfectly normal in years past. He became the new Satan because he was a turning point. American gave up on eugenics because of him. They began to see their own racism because of him.

I wonder if Israel is turning itself into Satan. That would be so ironic.

His point of contention, however, is more than fair. — thewonder

He's dehumanizing people. I can't deal with that.

wonder if Israel is turning itself into Satan. That would be so ironic. — frank

It does get hot as hell there in summer

Ah, so God it is, then. But if that's the case, God's been remarkably inclined to allow others to make the Jewish homeland their homes, wouldn't you say? — Ciceronianus the White

Yeah, it has switched hands a few times. But its the Jews turn now.

[

The Canaanites and Philistines, and perhaps Phoenicians as well, were there before Jews were. We're told that on their arrival the Jews dealt rather harshly with their predecessors. For example: “Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword.” — Joshua 6:21. Yes, even donkeys. — Ciceronianus the White

There have been some theologians that argue that this was only banishment such as William Lane Craig but in any event who knows.

It's difficult, but not impossible, to name all the others who lived in and ruled Palestine since the Jewish conquest. Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians (and Medes, I should say); then it became part of Alexander's empire, then it was ruled by his successors, Seleuces and his dynasty; then Romans, who destroyed the Second Temple in 70 C.E. and did a pretty thorough job of evicting Jews from Palestine, even renaming Jerusalem, under Hadrian; then the Byzantines (who stilled called themselves Romans); then came the Muslim conquest, interrupted briefly and partially for a couple of centuries by the Crusader kingdoms. It was Muslim/Ottoman territory until the mid-twentieth century. — Ciceronianus the White

Well done with this paragraph. Thank you for the history lesson!

Why, then say that it isn't the country of the Palestinians, but rather the Jewish homeland? It seems to be unclear even God has been convinced of that. — Ciceronianus the White

Well, it works out for me because I am Jewish and a Jewish state does serve as a form of security for the Jewish people. I can't pretend to be a totally disinterested observer to the question. I'm also generally supportive of self-determination movements elsewhere.

Well, it works out for me because I am Jewish and a Jewish state does serve as a form of security for the Jewish people. I can't pretend to be a totally disinterested observer to the question. I'm also generally supportive of self-determination movements elsewhere. — BitconnectCarlos

Which is fine. Every state deserves security. Israel is asking for more because they are increasing settlements and annexing parts of the West Bank. Thus Israel is asking more rights than most other countries, and getting them.

But you said, the settlements are a necessary evil. But we agreed that prior to the expansion of settlements post 2000's, Israel was more secure. So that shows you that the fear goes hand in hand with the expansion. It's a self-feeding loop: We are in danger, therefore we have to keep our settlements and increase them so we can be safe. But the settlements are the problem.

The Palestinians more than deserve a state. Will there be complications if such an agreement is reached? Sure. But that's a risk Israel must take or continue in its path of hurting itself and killing people in one the most brutal blockades in the world.

As Chomsky says - who was a Zionist prior to Israel's existence and lived in a Kibbutz for some time - says: “Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it."

That means your own government. That will ease tensions. Doesn't mean once they have a state you don't have security. You guys have nukes and a powerful army. Palestine will never get that.

Good post. You can't separate groups into large boxes like oppressor and oppressed and expect to get a full understanding of conflicts. It's a useful lens, but hardly the only one.

To be sure, the Pashto of the AfPak border area are beset by a number of oppressors, but when the TTP butchers 150 school children, it's not wrong for the Pakistani special forces to go in an kill them. Israel has the technological and material measures to absorb rocket attacks, and should be less aggressive in hitting civilian launch sites. That doesn't mean they aren't justified in going all out against attempts at tunnel raids aimed at butchering civilians. "Any means," is not justifiable. Nor does the logic of the stronger group being able to disarm necissarily have much meaning for individual encounters. Israel might have a modern army for defense of the country, but it's meaningless for the Jew (or random person mistaken for a Jew) being dragged out of his car and beaten to death by a mob. You have to have a distinction, otherwise the mob is being justified resistors if they happened to beat a real Jew, but oppressors if they happened to beat a Palestinian Christian, which is ridiculous.

We know from militants own communiques and planning that attacks that producing backlash against their own people often is a goal of violence. The goal is to kick off the cycle, knowing that in group preference will help them come out ahead. That's what the Israeli mob was doing marching around Jerusalem, trying to provoke attacks.

To be sure, every side has its true believers and fantatics, but seasoned militants aren't thinking in those terms, and we shouldn't project that sort of heroic lens on to them. Half the time their more concerned with protecting their turf within their own in group. For example, as soon as the US gave the Kurds breathing room in the 1990s, they fell to civil war.

The other problem is that the roles and power relationships are rarely as clear as they are in Israel. Did Islamists go from oppressed under Mubarak, and thus justified in their resistance by any means, then to oppressors as they tried to solidify total control over the country, thus justifying Sisi's coup?

Palestinian violence makes sense when it is forcing Israel into concessions. Violence helped them get closer to a state in the late 80s and 90s, but then too much violence, violence by partisans more concerned with ousting other Palestinians' control in Gaza rather than in fighting Israel, helped them lose that chance.

I don't know why the world, or at least the Western world seems to care about this conflict so much more than larger ones. It seems to me that it is becoming just a proxy for the culture wars wracking America, and I can't say that I think that bodes well for the US or European powers being able to act as an arbiter for peace.

I, in the general course of this argument, have referred to the subjugation of the Palestinian populace on the part of the Israelis as a "biopolitical program". As I understand that I have a perspective that is situated by my experience of the world, I know that some may take usage of Michel Foucault's concept to be strange, if not indicative of a certain degree of either pretense or cult pathology.

Because @180 Proof his issued his argument in a rhetorical style typical of left-wing black intellectuals, a number of other posters in this thread have assumed for it to be indicative of some form of dogmatism. Being capable of deciphering what he has put forth, I have merely been attempting to clarify that, while there is a certain degree of what you might call "equivocation" to his manner of speech, what he has said is neither controversial nor injudicious.

What he has said is that, should the Israelis want to establish an effective and lasting peace, it is up to them to make a show of good faith by revoking the various machinations that they have undertaken in the general course of the conflict that effectuate the subjugation of the Palestinian populace. What he is suggesting is that peace can only begin when the Israelis abandon the form of apartheid that they have enforced up until now.

While I do not agree with what you have only inferred as what he has been implying, that Hamas is somehow justified in their attacks on the Israeli civilian populace, I do agree that an effective and lasting peace can only be created when the Israelis decide to take the measures of which it would be requisite for them do so.

He is also correct to point out that a number of members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, of whom there is much to say, but that is neither here nor there for the time being, do more or less advance the resolution to the conflict that I have put forth, being the establishment of a Palestinian state along what people generally call the "'67 borders", effectively consisting of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and eventual creation of one state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians. Though I think that this state ought to be called "Israel-Palestine", I am willing to concede the moniker in so far that politicians within the nation of Israel become sincere in their establishment of such a genuine state.

My take on all of this is only so relevant, however. We, now, have other predicaments, but, there were enough people in Fatah who wanted to establish an effective and lasting peace for the peace process to be functional and not enough Israelis who were even willing to scale back their settlements, let alone abandon them entirely, for it to be. What there is to take from his claim, that it is up to the Israelis to make a show of good faith so that peace can be meaningfully established, is just simply to the point.

don't know why the world, or at least the Western world seems to care about this conflict so much more than larger ones. It seems to me that it is becoming just a proxy for the culture wars wracking America, and I can't say that I think that bodes well for the US or European powers being able to act as an arbiter for peace. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Don’t know if you saw my previous post:

Israel has become a flashpoint for the left not just because of its subjugation of palestinians
but because its form of nationalistic democracy exemplifies the Enlightenment era liberal political self-identity that the West is trying to distance itself from via brutal self-critique. There is nothing quite so threatening to a person than witnessing a way of thinking in an other that they have themselves only recently struggled to free themselves from. This is a thread common to the intensity of. BLM, #Metoo and anti-Israel sentiment. Israel is us Westerners, the way we used to be, the way many of us still are ( Trump , Brexit supporters) .

What there is to take from his claim, that it is up to the Israelis to make a show of good faith so that peace can be meaningfully established, is just simply to the point. — thewonder

I agree with that. Why do you think they withhold any show of good faith?

I would encourage an internationalist approach that covers more issues (including similar ones, like Western Sahara, West Papua, Kashmir that do not get enough attention) But even though it gets a lot of attention, it’s still not resolved, so I don’t understand the gall of people complaining about the attention it receives. It is supported by U.S. policy in a way that can be challenged by its citizens and needs all the attention it can get.

Palestinian territory is illegally occupied by Israel under international law, they're strangling under their boot. That is dictionary definition of oppression. Who cares the fuck about whether the word oppression is flaunted in culture wars, people need to stop being triggered by popular discourse. We’re talking about concrete policies that need to be opposed here.

He has found fault with the Israelis in the general course of this dispute. Though I, too, think that, as it particularly has unfolded, they are who is bear the lion's share of the blame for the conflict, I am willing to give them more of the benefit of the doubt as per the general course of human history. Regardless as to who is at fault for that the conflict continues, it just simply is only the Israeli government who can take the requisite measures with which to establish an effective and lasting peace. This, first and foremost, means that they must abandon the strategy of settling in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, something that they have consistently refused to do, despite the many allegations of their violating both human rights law and the accords which they, themselves, effectively delimited, and almost definitely also necessitates the eventual recognition of a state of Palestine.

What I suspect for best and brightest affiliates of Fatah to have told Israeli delegates time and time again is that, even were they willing to concede their loss of territory so as to establish a peaceful relationship, should they continue to settle in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, because the situation is just simply out of their hands, the conflict will just simply continue. What I suspect for the Israeli response to this to have been, time and time again, has been to say, either to themselves or even to explicitly inform the other party in these negotiations that "we know an just don't care", proceed to draw a set of borders on a map, and more or less imply, "that's our peace to say and you can take it or leave it."

You're saying there is no coordinated will to back off of Gaza.

Most likely this is about money. Some powerful entity stands to lose money if Israel backs off.

Agree 100%. My point was merely that the culture war paradigm works to retard meaningful change in US policy. Likewise, no negotiations are going to work without acknowledging that Israel has legitimate security concerns, oppressor or not.

Israel has become a flashpoint for the left not just because of its subjugation of palestinians
but because its form of nationalistic democracy exemplifies the Enlightenment era liberal political self-identity that the West is trying to distance itself from via brutal self-critique. There is nothing quite so threatening to a person than witnessing a way of thinking in an other that they have themselves only recently struggled to free themselves from. This is a thread common to the intensity of. BLM, #Metoo and anti-Israel sentiment. Israel is us Westerners, the way we used to be, the way many of us still are ( Trump , Brexit supporters) . — Joshs

Good points! Yet, the escalation of the anti-Israel rhetorics requires additional explanation. I would like to bring my previous post that could help to understand why Israel keeps
attracting so much attention and hatred:
"It is worth clarifying how the debate in this thread is unfolding. There is one
side, so-called "pro-Israel," pointing out various dimensions and complexity of the ongoing conflict so that the achievement of peace would require patience and a trade-off. And there is another side, "anti-Israel," contending that Israel bears full responsibility for the existence and escalations of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Strikingly, these positions and arguments are similar to one of Zizek's outstanding examples of ideological blindness: "Let us examine anti-Semitism. It is not enough to say that we must liberate ourselves from so-called 'anti-Semitic prejudices' and learn to see Jews as they really ar - in this way we will certainly remain victims of these so-called prejudices. We must confront ourselves with how the ideological figure of the 'Jew' is invested with our unconscious desire, with how we have constructed this figure to escape a certain deadlock of our desire. The proper answer to anti-Semitism is therefore not 'Jews are really not like that' but 'the anti-Semitic idea of 'Jew' has nothing to do with Jews; the ideological figure of the ‘Jew’ is a way to stitch up the inconsistency of our own ideological system."
(Zizek,' The sublime object of ideology’). No, an "anti-Israel" protagonist is not necessarily an anti-Semite. But the ideological operative system here is similar to the Nazi anti-Semitic ideology in Zizek's sense. The grounding desire, an aspiration to immediately achieve the ultimate peace and justice, presupposes the evil ('sublime') object, invested with negativity and monstrosity. As a result, an ideological figure of 'Israel' has been constructed. 'Israel' has been labelled, demonized, and removed from civil discourse and the historical context. As Zizek points out, 'a pathological, paranoid construction' rejects objective facts and arguments. It employs them just for rationalizations and self-affirmations."

Also needs to be mentioned that the majority of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are 24 years or younger (about 65% and 58% respectively), and the plurality are 0-14 years (about 44% and 36%). Regardless, it's hopeless to discuss further when a handful of interlocutors are, like a magnetized needle fixated towards the North, incapable of pointing anywhere else besides the agency of Palestinians, who have the least agency of all involved.

Do you get the sense that some of the more strident critics of Israel on this thread are using the Palestinians more as symbolic props than as real people? Kind of like Hollywood movies where the set-up involves an ‘other’ ( black, native american, fill in the blank) victimized and oppressed by the imperialist Western white man. This oppressed other can do no wrong since they are just empty symbols. — Joshs

What Joshs is actually saying here is that he is so incapable of basic human sympathy that he cannot fathom how others can be capable of it.

I don't think we're in 100% agreement, you're squinting to see an issue that does not need to be relevant. You're making it relevant by bringing it up in discussion because you were bothered by terminological usage rather than the actual issue. Terminology that is appropriate. The said security concern of being shot at by enhanced fireworks that kill a couple of people would be no longer be an issue with a resolution of the conflict, enhancement of security is not why Israel continues the occupation of over 4 million people.

Do you get the sense that some of the more strident critics of Israel on this thread are using the Palestinians more as symbolic props than as real people? Kind of like Hollywood movies where the set-up involves an ‘other’ ( black, native american, fill in the blank) victimized and oppressed by the imperialist Western white man. This oppressed other can do no wrong since they are just empty symbols.
— Joshs

What Joshs is actually saying here is that he is so incapable of basic human sympathy that he cannot fathom how others can be capable of it. — Maw

Numbers2018 sees through that self-serving interpretation.

the ideological operative system here is similar to the Nazi anti-Semitic ideology in Zizek's sense. The grounding desire, an aspiration to immediately achieve the ultimate peace and justice, presupposes the evil ('sublime') object, invested with negativity and monstrosity. As a result, an ideological figure of 'Israel' has been constructed. 'Israel' has been labelled, demonized, and removed from civil discourse and the historical context. As Zizek points out, 'a pathological, paranoid construction' rejects objective facts and arguments. It employs them just for rationalizations and self-affirmations." — Number2018

Thanks for that from Zizek.
It’s a powerful analysis

Yes I understand that you don't want to appear incapable of human sympathy and require half-brained excuses.

To the contrary, I don't think that capital has anything to do with this at all. I think the ruling order in Israel has cultivated a national myth that it now believes in all too directly. They have become as method actors who can no longer differentiate between their part on the global state in the Homeric epic of the triumph of Western democracy and their real-life roles as diplomats, intelligence officers, journalists, and religious scholars who live in a fledgling democracy that all too often serves as a global synecdoche. Within the general course of collective dissociation and dissonance born out of Israel's troubled history, they have forgotten their oft-cited experience as a somewhat ritualized other and have mistaken the apophenic experience of the call of the epochal for the writ of the divine. They have become lost in what they understand all too well of just what it takes to secure political power. When I think about the political ecology of the nation of Israel, I feel no righteous indignation or misplaced revolutionary fervor; I am merely touched by the twinge of poignancy and a sense of pity. In the beaten way of speculation, I would suggest that they have learned all too well from a certain American correspondence of theirs, one that can't help but know that their entire cataloged history of clandestine actions has done nothing to cultivate any of their former Liberal ideals and that it, much to the contrary, has only served to incite any number of geo-political crises which Giorgio Agamben characterized as "civil war as a political paradigm". People say that Western Asia is a "powder keg". Israeli intelligence has watched their American allies leave the gunpowder on the floor and the matches in the hands of adventurous children. They have seen them smile and will soon learn to do so as well.

I don't think that the nation of Israel cares for capital. I think that it's a pedagogy of the oppressed. T.E. Lawrence closed "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom" with this stanza:

"Men prayed me that I set our work,
The inviolate house,
As a memory of you
But for fit monument I shattered it,
Unfinished: and now
The little things creep out to patch
Themselves hovels
In the marred shadow
Of your gift."

I don't wonder what he meant.

Wouldn't a move towards peace necissarily mean the removal of repressive restrictions of movements on Palestinians?

I agree with you on the relative threat of rockets. When militants weren't cut off from Israel they didn't use rockets, and they killed a considerable number of Israeli civilians. The border wall and onerous restrictions did indeed seriously cut down on deaths on the Israeli side, just as the occupation cut down significantly on larger scale raids and more fatalities across the 1950s. The year after the signing of Declaration of Principles, 1993, saw a terror attack every 7 days, and the guns and bombs used were significantly more deadly than today's rockets.

There is a lesson in that period, in that the violence was in some sense less about Israeli actions, which were moving towards peace and statehood, than about intra-Palestinian struggles over peace and spoiling attempts. That is, it was giving space to peace that in turn created the security situation that turned the Israeli public away from peace in the long term (although demographics are a larger issue).

Unwinding those security measures while maintaining public support for peace is going to be a challenge for earnest peace makers (if they ever get power). Dynamics today are not all that different. If the West Bank was moving towards statehood and relaxing of border controls, it's not hard to imagine Hamas carrying out attacks with the goal of stopping the process. The more veto players (agents able to carry on violence unilaterally) in a civil war, the more likely it is to continue and the less likely it is to stay settled after a peace. That's why I've never felt it was in Israels long term interested (peace) to atone infighting. Now they have riots on their streets and rockets coming in across the border and no one on the other side to talk to who can control things (they're also, in at least some videos, unwilling to put down their own mobs, something they had a stomach for in the 1990s).

An agreement that creates a Palestinian state, a functioning state with a future, will necissarily open up those avenues of attack by loosening border controls. Indeed, if gross inequality isn't to keep the fires alive even after independence, the Palestinians need access to the Israeli economy (as well as reparations to invest in development). It's a necessary change, but one that doesn't come without risks.

Judaism is a dying religion isn't it? That's why they went to Israel: to protect their religion from assimilation into a world that didn't hate them anymore, or enough to keep them isolated. Is that true?

It's heartbreaking. The Muslims have also been shaped by a sense of irretrievable loss and impending doom.

Yes I understand that you don't want to appear incapable of human sympathy and require half-brained excuses. — Maw

Where do sympathy and empathy come from? Are they simple ‘capacities’ or do they depend on our ability , rather than desire, to understand worldviews alien to our own? Are ‘oppressors’ and ‘evil-doers’ lacking in the intent to care, or so they misinterpret those they ‘oppress’?

Is it threatening for you to contemplate the possibility that there is nothing that distinguishes from you those you condemn for subjugation, prejudice or even atrocity in moral terms? That they believe passionately, as you do, that they are behaving according to the highest standards of morality? And that the root of our conflicts is precisely what you are doing here, questioning moral intent and will to sympathy of the other rather than focusing on differences in perspective and worldview?

Judaism will live on just as any other religion or spirituality will and can do so with or without the nation of Israel. I'm really just having a conversation with a person, probably a man, whom I, perhaps, only imagine to read this.

What has become of the nation of Israel, I think, is just tragic. All of the youthful enthusiasm, longing for a spiritual homeland, and hope that came along with things like the Kibbutz Movement have long since vanished. It's just kind of this spectacular postmodern display of the one of the world's foremost security apparatuses and fourth-generation warfare now. The militarization of Israeli civil society has become so diffuse that half of the general discourse of political debate often bears an uncanny resemblance to operations undertaken by American psychological operations. People are fascinated by Israel because it is an emergent form of biopolitics. It's like an intelligence operation that has become a political regime.

Being said, not everyone there is as inculcated within what is a national myth as they are often made out to be and I would prefer to remain hopeful both for the betterment of the political ecology of the nation itself and that it should facilitate an effective and lasting peace process. It is still a Liberal democracy that is entirely capable of establishing good relations with neighboring nation-states. They just kind of ought to choose better allies.