A New Take on the Israel-Palestine Situation

In light of a Human Sciences Research Council report confirming the situation in the Occupied Territories as officially an apartheid and increasing tensions in the region, Russell Nieli has an idea. I'm still thinking about the implications but it is refreshing to hear someone with a plan - a new plan - that acknowledges some basic truths about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I found it here on Tikkun, but apparently it is the second part of a speeech he gave. The full talk can be accessed here. The Tikkun link also gives his thought process and basic premises he was working with in formulating this plan - worth checking out. I wonder whether Obama would consider such an idea or what his real vision for peace is. Michael Lerner at Tikkun writes about how Obama may be changing the message towards Israel from Bush's blank check, but he's not doing enough. He calls for some basic actions and for Obama to pack a tougher punch. I definitely agree... Obama has a responsibility to push for real change in the region. It feels to me, time and time again, that Israel is cutting off its nose to spite its face - how do these "world powers" not think that allowing basic resources and human rights to all people - giving all people a sense of security, a sense of community - will not be the most basic foundation to peace?!

Anyway here is the Nieli idea:

None of the major proposed solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian problem offers a way out of the continued bitterness, suspicion, violence, and ill-will between the two parties. To achieve a just and lasting settlement, we must find an outside-the-box alternative to the major peace proposals that have been considered so far.

After years of reflection, I have become certain that "two-state condominialism"-a solution involving a rigid political separation of two peoples within a unified, binational, settlement territory-offers the clearest vision of hope for both Palestinians and Jews.

I know there are immense problems and hurdles to be overcome to enable the realization of the condominial arrangement I describe here. But they are far less intractable, in my opinion, than those involved in the realization of a separationist scheme. The peoples, economies, natural resources, and infrastructures have become intimately intertwined in Palestine/Eretz Israel, so powerful irredentist feelings would inevitably emerge on both sides of any rigid territorial divide. A condominial arrangement would also be more easily realized than the increasingly popular "one-state solution," which I consider to be a complete non-starter politically for the Israelis, both now and in the foreseeable future.

The condominial formula I propose here would enable both peoples to realize simultaneously most of their respective national dreams. It is a win-win situation that gives both peoples powerful incentives to cooperate with one another to make the arrangement work.

Two States in a Single, Binational Settlement Community

The two-state condominial arrangement starts out with the creation of a democratic Palestinian state (composed of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem) much like that suggested in other two-state proposals with the boundaries of the Palestinian state roughly determined by the pre-1967 Green Line. The Palestinian state ("Palestine") would have most of the features of a democratic nation-state, but from the outset it would be an ethnically defined state, a state of the Palestinian people, whereby a close parallel was maintained to the definition of Israel as a state of the Jews. As part of the fundamental agreement, all current Israeli Arabs would be required to transfer their citizenship, national identity, and national voting rights-but not their residence-to the new Palestinian state. Israeli Arabs would retain their permanent right to live in Israel and they would also retain their current benefits under the Jewish welfare state (or be adequately compensated for the loss of them by another arrangement, such as a lump sum payment), but they would become citizens of-and permanent voting members of-the Palestinian state, not Israel.

Both Palestinians and Jews under the condominial proposal would be granted the right to settle anywhere within the territory of either state. Together the two states would thus form a single, binational settlement community. Palestinians would have the right to settle anywhere within Israel, just as Jews would have the right to settle anywhere within the territory of the Palestinian state. Regardless of which of the two states they live in, all Palestinians would be citizens of the Palestinian state, and all Jews would be citizens of Israel.

The states themselves, Israel and Palestine, would have the right-and, indeed, the moral obligation-to set up a dense network of support facilities to care for the economic, cultural, religious, and welfare needs of any citizens living in the territory of the neighboring state. Each state, in other words, would have extensive extra-territorial rights and obligations vis-à-vis its citizens in the neighboring state. The arrangement would be something like that which the U.S. government routinely maintains toward many of its government employees and other citizens living in foreign countries with an extensive American military and diplomatic presence (e.g. West Germany during the Cold War). The Palestinian state would have the obligation to care for its citizen population living in Israel, just as the Jewish state would have the obligation to do the same for Israeli citizens living in the Palestinian state. In any event, Palestinians moving into Israel and Jews living within the Palestinian state would have no claim to any of the welfare and other benefits provided by the territorial state wherein they reside.

As part of the fundamental agreement, the Palestinian state would be required to acknowledge the special Jewish character of the state of Israel, and Israel would be required to acknowledge the special Palestinian-Arab identity of the state of Palestine, with both states acknowledging the right of all Palestinians and all Israelis to reside anywhere within the joint settlement community formed by the combined territories of the two states.

This is just a rough sketch of what a condominial arrangement would entail. In the pages that follow, I lay out in more detail how such a solution could work, and address practical issues such as the settlement community's taxation structure and the sharing of water resources.

The Story Behind the Condominial Proposal

As a third-generation Italian American raised in the suburbs of New York City among many Jewish classmates, neighbors, and friends, I was deeply moved from an early age by what some call the "Jewish narrative"-like the Leon Uris/Otto Preminger version of Exodus. As a graduate student in Princeton's Politics Department in the 1970s, I began extensive readings about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Those readings were almost entirely in Jewish sources, but they nevertheless made me more understanding of, and more sympathetic toward, the Palestinian Arab viewpoint. This situation left me internally divided-torn between two seemingly irreconcilable narratives, each of which I knew to be of central importance to the peoples involved, both of whom have experienced more than their share of historical suffering and travail.

The result of my inner ferment was a series of proposals I made in print in the early 1990s that I originally called "two-state binationalism," but which I am now calling "two-state condominialism," a term which better captures their overall meaning and structure.

I encourage readers who finish this article to go to the Tikkun website and read my full talk to get a sense of the fatal weaknesses from which, in my view, the major competing peace proposals variously suffer.

Moving Beyond the Pessimism of Realpolitik

At its most basic, the Palestinian-Israeli dilemma can be stated very simply with two points:

1) As a final or end-game outcome, no solution to the conflict over historical Palestine will ever be acceptable to the Arab side if that solution denies to the Palestinians (especially to those who have suffered so long in Gaza and the refugee camps of the frontline states) a right of return to the land that is now Israel-a land which, in their view, was callously and unjustly taken from them by the convergent activities of British imperialists, Jewish settler-colonialists, reactionary Arab leaders and collaborators, and an American-supported Zionist army.

2) Within present political structures and under present conditions of politics and history, no Israeli government in its right mind would ever allow any sizable number of Zionist-hating Palestinians to re-enter Israel and become citizens of a democratic Jewish state.

This is the stark reality of the current situation. Thus stated, one can see why so many observers, and not just those on the fringes of the Kahanist right, believe the situation to be unsolvable. Several years ago, I was discussing this issue with Professor Robert Gilpin, who at the time was the chief international relations theorist in Princeton's Politics Department. After surveying with skepticism some of the more common proposals for peace in the Mideast, Bob turned to me and said, "You know, Russ, there just may not be a peaceful, long-term solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict." Bob's comment at the time struck me as terribly deflating and unduly pessimistic, but also, I must say, as possibly realistic given the track record of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks over the years.

Professor Gilpin is usually identified with the school of international relations associated with the term Realpolitik-a school which stresses the dominant role in the relations between nation-states of military power, economic interests, self-promoting and self-aggrandizing behavior, and national security concerns. Those in this school see themselves as hard-headed "realists" who seek to view the world as it is, not the way they might like it to be, or the way wishful thinking might conceive it to be. Such "realists" typically view their opponents as well-meaning but fuzzy-headed "liberals" or "idealists" ignorant of how the real world works.

Upon critical examination, it's true that the major proposed solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian problem appear doomed to failure. Saying this, however, does not mean that nothing will work. My alternative proposal requires a bit of creative thinking, but I have become ever more convinced that only a creative outside-the-box solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict offers any hope of long-range success.

Also, to read Michelle Chen at Racewire on the HSRC report on apartheid from June 11 click here.

Gay couple granted adoption of foster son after 14 years in Israel

By Vered Luvitch, March 10, 2009, YNet

The Ramat Gan Family Court set a precedent Tuesday after allowing a gay couple to finally adopt their foster son after 14 years.


Prof. Uzi Even and Dr. Amit Kama have been serving as foster parents to Yossi Even-Kama, 30, since 1995.


"The court finds that all of the stipulations noted in the adoption laws and pertaining to the foster child in question have been duly met," Justice Alisa Miller noted in her ruling. "I hereby grant the adoption decree and state that Yossi Even-Kama is now Uzi Even and Amit Kama's son."


Yossi first arrived at the Even-Kama home in 1995, after being disowned by his family for being a homosexual. Even and Kama soon petitioned the Israeli Social Services to become his foster parents, and when their request was granted they also became Israel's first-ever gay couple to be recognized as a foster family.

In 2004, Even and Kama were married in Toronto, Canada.

The decision to make the adoption official came after we applied for reduced tuition for Yossi with the (Tel Aviv) University, where Uzi serves as a professor," Kama told Ynet. "The request was denied since he was not officially recognized as our son, so we decided to begin adoption proceedings two years ago."

An official family now

The court ordered Social Services to review the case – as it does in any adoption case – "but Social Services thought the proceeding may be illegal and eventually we had to petition for Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to rule on the matter," added Kama.

"The Attorney General's Office found that there was no problem with the proceeding and the review was put together. The judge found that in our case, since we have had a parent-child relationship for so long, we were already a de facto family, but we only became an official family now," he said.

Emotions ran high in the courtroom after Judge Miller read her ruling. "I'm very excited. We started off thinking we had no chance of getting here and now, two year later, we got it (the decree of adoption)," said the newly-adopted son.

Yossi's biological father had to sign away his parental rights in order to allow for the adoption to come through, which he did. "I'm grateful to him for that," he said.

"This may be only a formal authorization, but formalities do count for something and I'm very happy," he added.

Knesset Member Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz) welcomed the court's decision, saying that "the right to adopt is a fundamental right. This is an immensely important step towards state-recognition of gay families."

Horowitz offered the Even-Kama family his heartfelt congratulations and wished them "a very happy life together."

Israeli Resistance to the Occupation

"Ready to be Traitors": The Israeli Resistance
By Hannah Safran, from CounterPunch, March 26, 2009.

On January 8, 2009, 13 days into the war on Gaza, 45 people, Jews and Arabs, came together in Haifa to discuss how to proceed with our anti-war activities. Each one of those present in the room had already participated in more than one action against this war in Gaza.

In Haifa itself, the third largest city in Israel, there have been at least two demonstrations each day – one at lunchtime at the university and the other later in the evening in downtown Haifa, where many Palestinian citizens of Israel live. At both demonstrations both Palestinians and Jews have been present.

Five days earlier, on the first Saturday after the start of the war, most of us went either to Sachnin, a Palestinian town in northern Israel, to join some 25,000 people for a demonstration, or to Tel Aviv – the largest city – were there were another 10,000 people. All of the protesters were citizens of Israel, but the Israeli-Jewish press hardly mentioned the Sachnin demonstration, because it was mainly Palestinians who demonstrated. The press also hardly mentioned the Tel Aviv demonstration, because it routinely ignores the Jewish left.

We all felt these protests were not enough. We wanted to bring the message home to Israelis who refuse to see that their government has engaged the country in yet another unnecessary and cruel war.
Most of those in the Haifa meeting knew each other from years of protest against Israeli occupation of the occupied territories and especially from the anti-war protests during the second Lebanon war, when Haifa itself was bombarded. However, there were also new faces – young men and women who added to the sense that we are increasing in number and there is still hope.

We belong to a growing public that does not buy into the Israeli propaganda of ‘there is nobody to talk with’ – the idea that we, Israelis, are eager to make peace but they, the Palestinians, are not interested. We have come of age during the past eight years of activism against all odds.

Many of us are long-time, dedicated peace activists. We come from organizations such as Women in Black (a 21-year-old vigil against the occupation), the Hadash party (a coalition of left-wing groups and the Communist Party), Ta’ayush (an Arab-Jewish activist group), the Haifa University Forum Smol (left wing lecturers and students), Isha L’Isha feminist centre and many other groups, all of them working in their own way for politics of social justice and peace.

We are Jewish and Palestinian Haifa residents, all citizens of Israel. But nobody in mainstream Israeli politics or even academia is ready to recognize that these alliances are the nucleus of the new left in Israel today. Even the (only) liberal daily newspaper Ha’aretz, which has claimed since the year 2000 that there is no left in Israel, refuses to recognise that something else has developed on the ruins of the old Zionist left.

Haifa is not unique in its grass-roots peace activism and its ability to bring people together beyond political differences. Many groups have been active for years and their numbers have increased a hundredfold since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000. Breaking the Silence (a group of ex-servicemen who are exposing what is happening in the occupied territories), the Anarchists Against the Wall (a group of dedicated brave, mainly young people, who are at the forefront of demonstrations against the wall), the Women’s Coalition for Peace (a coalition of nine women’s organizations), New Profile (which advocates de-militarisation of Israeli society) – these are only a few of the many different groups active around the country.

In addition, there are the human rights organisations that are doing an extremely important job despite the belligerent Israeli establishment. Organisations such as Physicians for Human Rights and B’Tselem have dedicated staff and volunteers who are part of the movement for peace. I should also mention the many groups of Palestinians in Israel, such as Mossawa (‘Equality’), Adalla (‘Justice’) and Women Against Violence, who campaign against war and racism and for the cultural and civil freedoms of their oppressed community. These organisations are mobilising growing numbers of young women and men who are dedicated to the struggle for civil rights, human and women’s rights for the Palestinians of Israel.

One remarkable phenomenon was the declaration against the war, circulated within five days of it beginning, by 24 women’s organizations. The declaration called for an end to the bombing and demanded that war should stop being an option. The organisations signing this statement went beyond women’s peace organisations such as the Women’s Coalition for Peace. This time, for the first time, it included a mixture of organizations promoting social, legal and financial rights for women.

The Haifa-based feminist organization Isha L’Isha went even further and issued a statement calling ‘upon the government of Israel to bring about the end of the cruel siege on Gaza, to stop immediately its attacks, to free the residents of the south from their role as hostages in the hands of politics without future, and to fulfil the role for which it was elected – to bring about prosperity and economic security, peace and security, today and for generations to come, for all women and men in Israeli society, while creating true alliances with all the residents of the area’.

We should recognise this change, and hope for joint action by these organizations and other civil society groups such as the environmental movement. The process that dismantled the old party system in Israel brought many people to take part in local community groups, dissatisfied with their social and political oppression. These groups have not yet been able to formulate a common platform for change, and they are facing the resistance of the hegemonic Ashkenazi (Jews of European descent) establishment, which refuses to recognize their existence and importance. But in spite of their orchestrated attempt to make the entire left-peace-resistance movement invisible, these social forces, together with the new left, might one day group together to effect change.

The refusal to recognize our existence has served the propaganda machine of Israel well, especially in times of war. The Israeli media work in unison with the government to present a unified voice of the Jewish population, supporting military action small and large. This seemingly unified voice is presented in opposition to the Palestinians in Israel who are naturally opposing the war and the occupation.

Any demonstration, articles or public statements against the war are discarded as representing Arabs and not Jews. The ‘only democracy in the Middle East’, as Israel portrays itself, does not allow dissent. If you are against its military offensive you are immediately branded a traitor. From this, the idea follows that all Palestinian citizens of Israel who oppose the war should be stripped of their citizenship. Such racism is what all of us, Jews and Arabs, have to suffer when we decide to publicly oppose the war.

There are a growing number of people ready to be considered ‘traitors’. When Israel conquered the rest of Mandate Palestine in 1967 (most of it had already been taken in 1948 to create the state of Israel) there were only a handful of Jewish people who publicly opposed that occupation.

The first group to do so was called Matzpen (‘Compass’), a group of perhaps fewer than 100 people altogether. They launched a brave struggle against the Israeli policies of expansion and oppression. Forty years later, their insight and courage is now manifested in about 60 peace groups of different kinds and a thousand people marching in the streets of Tel Aviv on the first evening of the war.

It is not even just the left who oppose Israel’s policies. Even the Council for Peace and Security, a group of ex-generals and high ranking officers, had called on the government – just a month before the war on Gaza – to accept the Saudi peace plan and to go ahead with a two-state solution.

And the amount of protest is growing daily. Around the world, Jews are speaking up against the myth of ‘one people, one voice’. They are fed up of supporting Israel, with its obvious refusal to follow a peaceful solution to the conflict. As I write, eight Canadian-Jewish women are invading the Israeli consulate in Toronto, chanting anti-Israel slogans. A group of Israelis who live in Holland issued a statement against the Israeli attack on Gaza. A week ago a branch of Women in Black in Melbourne, headed by an Australian Israeli woman, organized a demonstration in front of Government House and managed to get on the main news channel. The Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, based in the US, organised a petition against the bombing of the Islamic University in Gaza.

We, the resistance movement in Israel, will continue our struggle against the war in Gaza and the racism that prevails within Israeli society. We will continue to grow, we will connect to other social and environmental protest groups, and we will hopefully help change our society for the better.

Dr Hannah Safran is a feminist peace activist and a co-founder of Women in Black, Haifa.

Illegal Mines in the West Bank

The BBC reported yesterday that a human rights group in Israel,
Yesh Din (translatable as "There is a judge" or "there is justice" is calling for Israel
to stop mining in the occupied territories.
From the BBC:

Yesh Din cites military documents which show nine million of the 12 million tonnes of rock and gravel mined in the West Bank each year are sold in Israel - and says Israel is "addicted to the exploitation".

It says its High Court petition addresses "the illegal practice of brutal economic exploitation of a conquered territory to serve the exclusive economic needs of the occupying power".

"According to international law, this kind of activity is a violation of occupation laws as well as of human rights laws and, in certain cases, might be defined as pillage," says the petition.

Where are your Valentine's Day flowers grown?

V-Day is also a very important day for Israeli exports because many of the flowers sold in (British) supermarkets and corner shops come from Israel and the Occupied Territories. Maybe it's the same where you live?

If you care about Israeli war crimes in Gaza, if you disagree with Israeli policies in the Occupied Territories, if you wish to live in a world without Apartheid... refuse to buy Israeli flowers on St. Valentine's Day.

When it comes to flowers, it isn't enough just to check for a Produce of Israel label or a barcode starting '7 29'. Israel sends many of its flowers to Holland for repackaging and relabelling. Support your local producers... buy locally-grown flowers.

The demonstration shown in this video took place last Saturday outside the premises of Carmel Agrexco. Carmel Agrexco is a 50%-state owned Israeli company at the heart of Israel's colonisation and exploitation of Palestinian land. It exports fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs from Israel and the Occupied Territories and accounts for 70% of exports of fresh produce from occupied Palestine. Britain takes 60% of its exports to Europe and Agrexco is the largest importer of illegal settlement goods into the UK, where it trades under the Carmel, Coral and Jaffa brand names.

Flowers exported by Agrexco are grown in illegal settlements on Palestinian land and so constitute illegally traded goods. Many Palestinians refuse to work with Agrexco. Thousands of others, though, are compelled by the complete strangulation of Palestinian agriculture resulting from the Israeli occupation to work packing goods for export in packing houses on land forcibly taken from their communities by Israeli settlers. They are paid as little as 30 shekels (£4) a day and have no sickpay, holiday pay, rights to unionise or contracts. Children are often employed on these settlements. Many of these Palestinian workers have called on the international community to boycott and campaign against Carmel Agrexco.

A regular picket is to be found outside Agrexco's premises in the UK. The aim of the picket is to expose its complicity in murder, theft and damage of occupied land, collective punishment, Apartheid, ethnic cleansing and other breaches of International Law to public scrutiny. A group of 15 women locked themselves to the gates of Carmel Agrexco to stop a delivery of Valentine's roses.

For the video:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ectomorfo/3274316685/

Obama's first television interview in office

Obama said, among other things:

"[Peace between Israel & Palestine is] going to be difficult, it's going to take time. I don't want to prejudge many of these issues, and I want to make sure that expectations are not raised so that we think that this is going to be resolved in a few months. But if we start the steady progress on these issues, I'm absolutely confident that the United States -- working in tandem with the European Union, with Russia, with all the Arab states in the region -- I'm absolutely certain that we can make significant progress.going to be difficult, it's going to take time. I don't want to prejudge many of these issues, and I want to make sure that expectations are not raised so that we think that this is going to be resolved in a few months. But if we start the steady progress on these issues, I'm absolutely confident that the United States -- working in tandem with the European Union, with Russia, with all the Arab states in the region -- I'm absolutely certain that we can make significant progress."

He also said,

"Now, Israel is a strong ally of the United States. They will not stop being a strong ally of the United States. And I will continue to believe that Israel's security is paramount. But I also believe that there are Israelis who recognize that it is important to achieve peace. They will be willing to make sacrifices if the time is appropriate and if there is serious partnership on the other side."

[...]

"I think it is possible for us to see a Palestinian state -- I'm not going to put a time frame on it -- that is contiguous, that allows freedom of movement for its people, that allows for trade with other countries, that allows the creation of businesses and commerce so that people have a better life."

Israel's reputation in Europe

Found this originally on MRZine. I found it especially interesting since I grew up learning about how Europe was very anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.. this is definitely a conversation sparker.

Gaza in Europe
by Jacques Hersh

Freedom of expression is once again on the agenda in Denmark. The country received world attention when the rightist newspaper Jyllands-Posten published provocative cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad a few years ago. The cartoons caused widespread protests in the Muslim world, whereas discussions in Denmark and other Western countries revolved around freedom of the press.

This time, a new cartoon controversy was set off by the liberal daily Politiken. The paper's cartoonist Per Marquard Otzen published a cartoon that depicts Israeli soldiers' behavior in the attack on the Gaza Ghetto by drawing upon a 1943 photograph of Nazi persecution of Jewish women and children in the Warsaw Ghetto.

In an open letter of protest to the editors of the paper, Finn Schwartz, a leader of the Jewish community, asked: "Does Politiken really think, as the cartoon implies, that the relation between Israel and Hamas is comparable to that between Hitler's Germany and European Jews?" The letter expressed pain and anger at the message of the cartoon: "For the Jewish community, especially for the Jews who survived the Holocaust, it is inconceivable to make such comparisons between the Israeli army's conduct and the Nazis' attempt at the final solution [Endlosung] of the Jewish people."

In his reply, Politiken editor-in-chief Toger Seidenfaden says that such a comparison is indeed inappropriate in his opinion and would never appear in an editorial of the paper. But he also makes it clear that he doesn't believe the cartoon to be so crude that it should not have been published at all. Nor does he regard a debatable and disproportionate historical comparison as equivalent to anti-Semitism. Furthermore, he points out the fact that most major newspapers in the world have in fact published similar comparisons.

It should be recalled that there has always been a strong pro-Israel public opinion in Denmark since the proclamation of the Jewish state. However, the war on Gaza has created a shift, which can be also observed within the political class. At a relatively large Copenhagen demonstration against Israel's war on January 13, all parties of the opposition (from the center left to the extreme left) had their leading members speak to the 6,000-7,000 people assembled at City Hall Square and in front of the Danish Parliament.

A similar evolution is visible elsewhere on the continent. There has been much unease in Europe about the scope of Israel's military response and the resulting civilian casualties. Event though the "politically correct" position is still that Israel, like any other country, has the right to defend itself, questions about proportions and consequences for civilians are giving rise to debates on the Israeli policy toward the occupied territories, which are in turn creating a new awareness of the Israel-Palestine problem. The mantle of Jewish victimhood, which has long served to cover Israel's occupation in Palestine and its attacks on its Arab neighbors, is in the process of being frayed by Israel's own warfare on a defenseless population.

Israel has lost carte blanche, and that is a positive development. On the other hand, there is also a negative development: there have been attacks on individual Jews and Jewish symbols in most European countries, raising fears of new anti-Semitism. The promise of Zionism that the creation of a Jewish state would bring safety and security to world Jewry has proven to be an illusion. The tragic irony of modern Jewish history is that anti-Semitism may become reinvigorated, or more accurately a new variety of it may grow, as a reaction against the Zionist project. An increasing number of Jews, especially in the diaspora, are aware of this danger. One of the questions raised by Israel's latest war is what form Jewish responses to Zionism, as well as to shifting public opinions about Israel, will take.

True Heroes

It gives me pride and relief to watch this film clip of testimonials from Israeli citizens who refuse to serve in general and in Gaza, now, specifically. Their words are full of wisdom from experience and from pain - it brought me to tears, quite honestly, and renewed my hopes for democracy in Israel. Definitely worth a watch, and the parts that impacted me most were at the end so even though it's seven minutes long, it's worth it.

Some wisdom from the Boyarin brothers

"The solution of Zionism-that is, Jewish state hegemony, except insofar as it represented an emergency and temporary rescue operation- seems to us the subversion of Jewish culture and not its culmination. It represents the substitution of a European, Western cultural-political formation for a traditional Jewish one that has been based on a sharing, at best, of political power with others and that takes on entirely other meanings when combined with political hegemony.
"Let us begin with two concrete examples. Jewish resistance to assimilation and annihilation within conditions of Diaspora, to which we will return below, generated such practices as communal charity in the areas of education, feeding, providing for the sick, and the caring for Jewish prisoners, to the virtual exclusion of others. While this meant at least that those others were not subjected to attempts to Judaize them-that is, they were tolerated, and not only by default of lack of Jewish power-it also meant that Jewish resources were not devoted to the welfare of humanity at large but only to one family. Within Israel, where power is concentrated almost exclusively in Jewish hands, this discursive practice has become a monstrosity whereby an egregiously disproportionate measure of the resources of the state is devoted to the welfare of only one segment of the population. A further and somewhat more subtle and symbolic example is the following. That very practice mentioned above, the symbolic expression of contempt for places of worship of others, becomes darkly ominous when it is combined with temporal power and domination-that is, when Jews have power over places of worship belonging to others. It is this factor that has allowed the Israelis to turn the central Mosque of Beersheba into a museum of the Negev and to let the Muslim cemetery of that city to fall into ruins.33 Insistence on ethnic speciality, when it is extended over a particular piece of land, will inevitably produce a discourse not unlike the Inquisition in many of its effects."

"The inequities-and worse-in Israeli political, economic, and social practice are not aberrations but inevitable consequences of the inappropriate application of a form of discourse from one historical situation to another.
"For those of us who are equally committed to social justice and collective Jewish existence, some other formation must be constituted. We suggest that an Israel that reimports diasporic consciousness-a consciousness of a Jewish collective as one sharing space with others, devoid of exclusivist and dominating power-is the only Israel that could answer Paul's, Lyotard's, and Nancy's call for a species-wide care without eradicating cultural difference.35 Reversing A. B. Yehoshua's famous pronouncement that only in a condition of political hegemony is moral responsibility mobilized, we would argue that the only moral path would be the renunciation of Jewish hegemony qua Jewish hegemony.36 This would involve first of all complete separation of religion from state, but even more than that the revocation of the Law of Return and such cul- tural, discursive practices that code the state as a Jewish state and not a multinational and multicultural one. The dream of a place that is ours founders on the rock of realization that there are Others there just as there are Others in Poland, Morocco, and Ethiopia. Any notion, then, of redemption through Land must either be infinitely deferred (as the Neturei Karta understands so well) or become a moral monster. Either Israel must entirely divest itself of the language of race and become truly a state that is equally for all of its citizens and collectives or the Jews must divest themselves of their claim to space. Race and space together form a deadly discourse. Genealogy and territorialism have been the problematic and necessary (if not essential) terms around which Jewish identity has revolved. In Jewish history, however, these terms are more obviously at odds with each other than in synergy. This allows a formulation ofJewish identity not as a proud resting place (hence not as a form of integrism or nativism) but as a perpetual, creative, diasporic tension. In the final section of this paper, then, we would like to begin to articulate a notion of Jewish identity that recuperates its genealogical moment-family, history, memory, and practice-while it problematizes claims to autochthony and indigenousness as the material base of Jewish identity."

"We want to propose a privileging of Diaspora, a dissociation of ethnicities and political hegemonies as the only social structure that even begins to make possible a maintenance of cultural identity in a world grown thoroughly and inextricably interdependent. Indeed, we would suggest that Diaspora, and not monotheism, may be the most important contribution that Judaism has to make to the world, although we would not deny the positive role that monotheism has played in making Diaspora possible.50 Assimilating the lesson of Diaspora, namely that peoples and lands are not naturally and organically connected, could help prevent bloodshed such as that occurring in Eastern Europe today." - and elsewhere.