[NGFP-BookClub] some comments

[Ruth Gavison]

Last night I checked and saw only George's question. Now I have a few more.
Thanks for you very different and very thoughtful questions and comments. We
shall return to some of them in the following weeks. For example to the
question Claudia raises re Who is a Jew and the meaning of a Jewish identity
that is not religious. 

 

So let me make a few comments and clarifications. First, these subjects are
huge and extremely controversial. I do not think there is a ONE RIGHT ANSWER
to many of them.   The purpose of the course is to raise the questions and
discussion of them. So do not hesitate to challenge anything that is said in
the articles or in the comments.

 

Yes, George, in principle a group can have self determination that does not
require a state. It is called sub state self determination. Multiculturalism
is based on the idea that states can indeed host many cultures and allow
their members the protections they need to continue to be both faithful
citizens and full members of their cultural, national and religious groups,
seeking to develop and transmit this cultural heritage to generations of
their descendants. Some people in the history of Zionism indeed wanted just
that - the Brit Shalom people, for example.  Yet as we are reminded by other
comments, this did not work in Palestine because after partition was decided
by the UN in 1947, the Arabs rejected it and went to war. In fact, partition
was recommended precisely because the feeling was that the two people could
not share one state and live in peace in it. And this is not unique to
Israel/Palestine. The Checks and the Slovaks preferred two states. The
Baltic states preferred states to merely cultural self determination. Same
in the Balkans.  Multinational and multi-religious states are not always
very stable. See Lebanon.

 

Even Chaim Gans, who is a great advocate of the sub-state right to self
determination, agrees that in the present situation, there is a right to a
Jewish state and not just to Jewish self determination.   If it becomes
possible for Jews and Palestinians to live in peace and security in one
state, that would permit each group to develop and maintain its own language
and culture - yes, that would be something that would be very attractive to
me as well. Jewish SD is the justification for a state. If I can have
effective Jewish SD without a state -  That's fine with me.  I do not see
this happening in the near future.

 

I agree here with the participant who sent his two comments re the meaning
of the absence of a Jewish state in Europe during WW2. Sad - but true. The
Roma, too, suffer a lot because they do not have a state. Have not followed
that case deeply, but I think they do not want and do not have conditions
for a state - among others, concentration of a critical mass of people in a
territory that can be called their homeland.

 

Which brings me to the basis of the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state.
This is indeed a critical question. Some people (Claudia?) may think this
justification must be religious. I myself am not an observant Jew and even
had I been one - I cannot see how the bible can be a relevant argument for
people who believe in the New Testament or the Quran. But the bible is of
course a critical link in the claim of right Jews have for Eretz Irsael
even if it is not the only one.  Suzan is right to note that justifying
Jewish SD on majority may be contingent and unstable. She wants to refer to
the partition resolution. 

She is right. But if the Arabs had won that war - there would be no Jewish
state and no Jewish SD despite that resolution!  As you yourself say, rights
and realities do not always go together. The argument for the Jews' right to
statehood is indeed very complex. It depends on history, and on
international decisions, and on the ability of Jews to maintain their state,
and on the ability and Jews to protect the rights of non-Jews living in the
state and in the region. I agree that it is much harder to justify a state
for Jews if the Palestinians, who have lived there for generations, do not
have effective self determination for themselves. Such SD will be best
protected by their own state.   The challenge now is to see how we can
maintain SD for the two peoples concerned.

 

Last, some short reference to Claudia - and we will talk about this issue a
lot next week. I know some people cannot think of Judaism and Jewishness in
terms that are not religious. For many generations, Jews who stopped being
observant were indeed lost to Judaism. But at this point in time, in all
Western religions, there is a process of modernization and secularization
that meant that many people stopped seeing their identity as dictated mainly
or exclusively by religion. Yet many of them did not want to shed their
specific ethnic or cultural identity. Most people are not and do not want to
be cosmopolitans. 

 

So today, for many groups, including Jews, we are in a process of redefining
ethnic and national identity in terms that are not exclusively dictated by
religion. But you are right that this has fascinating implications to
questions such as Who is a Jew and who is entitled to become a citizen in
Israel (or who is entitled to go to a Jewish school!).  We shall return to
these issues.

 

I will check my mail again in the evening (my time).

 

Ruth

 

 

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