I would have expected someone like you to better appreciate why Jewish nationalism had to focus on their ancient homeland, and not some random land. Nothing else has the same mythical resonance, and nothing else could have generated the same emotional and spiritual motivation and willingness to sacrifice, as a people returning to their ancient homeland, which was the cradle of their culture, and whose religious and cultural imagination had for millenia considered as vitally important and cultivated a longing to eventually return.
Zionism was as much a Romantic/spiritual project as it was motivated by the need for Jews to have a place they could be safe against antisemitism, although the practical aspect shouldn't be discounted either and remains important.
As someone who appreciates the "woo", I would have thought you'd be more appreciative of this aspect and it's central importance in human affairs.
I'm overall disappointed in your "practical" approach to this affair - as if the rainy skies of Berlin on the featureless North German plain are preferable to the romance and stark drama and beauty of the desert :) (although it's hardly a desert except in the south).
That is the attitude of a materialist.
As for Europe finding inspiration in Zionism, it seems to me you're missing the point. It's not that Europeans must "move" anywhere, because of course they are currently in their ancient homeland. It's the Zionist "idea" that a nation belongs in its ancient homeland to which it has a special cultural and spiritual relationship, and historical memory.
This is against not just imperial Globalism, but also Islamic imperialism which seeks to make the whole world Islamic. I've spoken with Muslims from Pakistan who tell me they are more entitled to Israel than a Jew, because their people helped conquer the region for the Umma. And of course Globalists believe humans are interchangeable and no land means anything more than any other to anyone.
This is legitimate if you accept the logic and philosophy of imperialism. But classic Zionism from ancient times may be the genesis of the idea of nationalism, or at least one of its classic iterations - the idea that a particular people united by a common cultural and spiritual identity has special spiritual and cultural, historical and ancestral, ties to a particular piece of land, and the world should be conceived of as a "federation" of such entities (the "goyim").
This idea, coupled with the notion of generosity and compassion and welcome for the "stranger", and with a broad definition of national "identity" that reject an overly strict and rigid ethnic or racial classification, is in ancient times as in modern, Zionist.
I understand why it had to be the Holy Land, of course, but in my view, the significance was more religious, than ethnic. It was a messianic idea, not the first attempt at colonising the Holy Land, I might add, as there was a crusader state there in the middle ages, which existed for a 150 years. From the Arab / Muslim perspective, Israel is yet another attempt by the West to colonize the Holy Land. Jews and Christians think it is for religious or ethnic-historical reasons, but politicians in the know are probably well aware that there is more to it than that. Essentially, the West needed a police station in the Middle East and a wedge that they could drive into the heart of the fledgling pan-Arabic state or perhaps even a rebirth of the Caliphate. Israel serves that role beautifully and that is probably the main reason why it has such steadfast support from the US and other Western nations.
As for this criticism:
"I'm overall disappointed in your "practical" approach to this affair - as if the rainy skies of Berlin on the featureless North German plain are preferable to the romance and stark drama and beauty of the desert :) (although it's hardly a desert except in the south). "
From my perspective and that of my Israeli friends, who have emigrated to Berlin, it most certainly is. Living in a desert is a terrible fate, only Westerners tend to romanticize it, a point made very well in Lawrence of Arabia, for instance.
Also, you say my attitude here is pragmatic and materialist. Well yes, this is not a spiritual matter, it is one of geopolitics. I don't accept, that Jews, or Christians have any more claim to the Holy Land than Muslims do, who were the vast majority of the population before the Balfour Declaration and the mass immigration of Jews that followed. Given the religious significance, the Holy Land should probably have been kept under some sort of international jurisdiction, allowing access to all, but that ship has sailed.
I'm well aware of the claims made by Islamic imperialists. I happen to think, they're mostly larping and many people on the right are buying into it, out of fear. In actual fact, Muslims or Islam have conquered nothing and are the biggest losers in the globalisation game, bar none. This is a claim often made by Goldman himself, in the Asia Times. Their birth rates are also dropping, by the way and they are being left in the dust in every sense. If you look at the state of most Islamic nations nowadays, it must be disheartening to see what's happening to those once proud nations, some of which where the very first civilisations on the planet and invented pretty much everything we take for granted today, like agriculture, beer, wine, writing, astronomy, medicine, law, religion and so forth. Now, Islamic countries are falling behind and cannot compete with either the stagnant West or the rising powers in Asia.
Sure, I can appreciate the Arab attempt to think of Israel as just another Christian crusader state, but from the Jewish perspective Islamic imperialism is just one more regional imperialism that makes a splash and then fades away while the Jews remain, like the Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Persian, the Greek, the Roman, etc.
Moreover, the analogy to the Crusades or Western colonialism fails to take into consideration key aspects of the situation. Hamas explicitly compares Zionism to France's colony in Algeria, and has framed its attempt to destroy Israel in those terms, and adopted a strategy based on understanding Israeli psychology in those terms - and it has failed completely. Without getting into an argument over how "objectively" accurate the comparison to Algeria is, Israeli Jews "don't" see themselves as having a "motherland" in Europe where their cultural and historical identities are truly to be located, as the Algerian French clearly did, and most crucially, where Jews are the majority and set the cultural tone, as the French did in France. And of course over 50% of Israeli Jews come from Arab lands from which they were expelled.
All those pro-Hamas call to "go back to Poland " don't sound to Israelis like a call to go back to their legitimate homes but as a chilling cry for them to become once again a despised powerless minority in a foreign land. While I understand why pro-Hamas people want to frame the conflict this way, it is an utter failure in terms of understanding Israeli psychology - and you can't fight your enemy without at least understanding him. Hamas thought they would murder and pillage and rape and all the Jews would flee to easier climes. This proved a massive misunderstanding.
Apartheid, the other regime Israel is (falsely) compared to, fell because the leaders of that system came to understand themselves as their enemies understood them, as they were much more a part of the late-moderm European continuum of values and consciousness and sensitive to its dictates, and because apartheid was indeed a morally odious system. They voluntarily surrendered. Israeli leaders show no signs of radical loss of self respect or propensity to accept their enemies designations, for many reasons, both based on radical differences in facts and recent history.
Whereas I would argue that Israelis DO understand their Islamist enemies, because they listen to how they understand themselves instead of imposing their own matrix onto them - Hamas, in their Charter, openly and without ambiguity say their goal is NOT a Palestinian state but a pan-Islamist empire under Sharia law that will eventually encompass Europe. This is why no Israeli supports the two state solution anymore.
I wouldn't necessarily describe Zionism as a "messianic" idea, as it's founders were quasi-secular, but rather as a "Romantic" idea that drew its inspiration from deep sources of millenia-long spiritual identity and longing - i.e, in key respects, it was a rejection of nihilistic modernity, and rejected many of the materialist assumptions of modernity. It was also, especially at first, highly idealistic and communitarian.
There's a reason that Israeli women today, even secular ones, have above replacement fertility, uniquely in the wealthy West - that's because it isn't an entirely Western state, in that even as it has embraced Western technology it hasn't fully embraced the core materialist nihilism that underlies Western technology, and has retained significant pre-modern mentalities.
As for the idea that Israel is a Western plant for the purpose of fomenting disunity among Arabs, this ignores the fact that the West, and particularly America, did not significantly support Israel till after it proved itself militarily capable and a potential useful ally against the Soviets. The State Department, and most Western intelligence agencies, thought Israel had no chance against the Arabs and wanted to align with the Arab states as much more populous and powerful and wealthy. America actually slapped an arms embargo on Israel in 1948 and stopped key arms shipments from reaching Israel during its war of independence. France, after being Israel's main military supplier, abandoned it after 67, and European countries denied American overfly rights to resupply Israel during the 73 war.
It was only late, around 1976, that America began to be Israel's key military supplier.
I think it far more likely that the West found Israel troublesome and annoying at first, much preferring the seemingly more powerful Arabs, and only shifted to Israel once it demonstrated its worth as an ally against the Arab-aligned Soviets.
"I don't accept, that Jews, or Christians have any more claim to the Holy Land than Muslims do, who were the vast majority of the population before the Balfour Declaration and the mass immigration of Jews that followed."
While I clearly disagree and think that Jews have the preeminent claim to that particular small piece of land, I certainly agree that everyone who was there before Zionism, Muslims and Christians, also have a perfectly legitimate claim to live in that land, and certainly to religious protection and shared holy sites, etc. That's why Zionism agreed to the 48 partition that would have created an Arab state alongside a Jewish one - the Arabs rejected that. And also why today, 25% of Israel is composed of Muslims, Christians, Druze, and Circassians, who have full rights, serve in the Parliament, are supreme court judges, professors, doctors, lawyers, army generals and air force pilots and commandos.
"Living in a desert is a terrible fate, only Westerners tend to romanticize it, a point made very well in Lawrence of Arabia, for instance."
Well, tastes differ :) But much of Israel is not a desert, and the central coastal strip where Tel Aviv and the majority of the population is concentrated, is actually a lush semi-tropical and very green land. The hilly center and the north are "Mediterranean", and only the south is proper desert.
As for proper desert, the American Southwest is one of the most rapidly growing parts of the country and enormously popular - so large numbers of people seem to love the desert, as I do :)
But certainly, to each their own. One may dislike the desert and prefer green lands, surely, but anyone who is not a stark materialist cannot deny the spiritual beauty and power of the desert, I would think :) (surely they can't?)
"I'm well aware of the claims made by Islamic imperialists. I happen to think, they're mostly larping and many people on the right are buying into it, out of fear. In actual fact, Muslims or Islam have conquered nothing and are the biggest losers in the globalisation game, bar none
Now, Islamic countries are falling behind and cannot compete with either the stagnant West or the rising powers in Asia."
I agree with you here, and think this is the key point about Arab and Muslim desire to destroy Israel and deny Jews sovereignty - instead of internally fixing their problems, they focus on victimizing Jews as an outlet for their sense of humiliation. This is an extremely common if tragic pattern in human affairs. Unfortunately I cannot agree with you it is just a larp, as Hamas has just shown. Would that it were, would that it were.
The first two essays on this site provide a very interesting perspective on the happenings in the collective lunatic asylum of Israel/Palestine and the Middle East altogether.
I would have expected someone like you to better appreciate why Jewish nationalism had to focus on their ancient homeland, and not some random land. Nothing else has the same mythical resonance, and nothing else could have generated the same emotional and spiritual motivation and willingness to sacrifice, as a people returning to their ancient homeland, which was the cradle of their culture, and whose religious and cultural imagination had for millenia considered as vitally important and cultivated a longing to eventually return.
Zionism was as much a Romantic/spiritual project as it was motivated by the need for Jews to have a place they could be safe against antisemitism, although the practical aspect shouldn't be discounted either and remains important.
As someone who appreciates the "woo", I would have thought you'd be more appreciative of this aspect and it's central importance in human affairs.
I'm overall disappointed in your "practical" approach to this affair - as if the rainy skies of Berlin on the featureless North German plain are preferable to the romance and stark drama and beauty of the desert :) (although it's hardly a desert except in the south).
That is the attitude of a materialist.
As for Europe finding inspiration in Zionism, it seems to me you're missing the point. It's not that Europeans must "move" anywhere, because of course they are currently in their ancient homeland. It's the Zionist "idea" that a nation belongs in its ancient homeland to which it has a special cultural and spiritual relationship, and historical memory.
This is against not just imperial Globalism, but also Islamic imperialism which seeks to make the whole world Islamic. I've spoken with Muslims from Pakistan who tell me they are more entitled to Israel than a Jew, because their people helped conquer the region for the Umma. And of course Globalists believe humans are interchangeable and no land means anything more than any other to anyone.
This is legitimate if you accept the logic and philosophy of imperialism. But classic Zionism from ancient times may be the genesis of the idea of nationalism, or at least one of its classic iterations - the idea that a particular people united by a common cultural and spiritual identity has special spiritual and cultural, historical and ancestral, ties to a particular piece of land, and the world should be conceived of as a "federation" of such entities (the "goyim").
This idea, coupled with the notion of generosity and compassion and welcome for the "stranger", and with a broad definition of national "identity" that reject an overly strict and rigid ethnic or racial classification, is in ancient times as in modern, Zionist.
I understand why it had to be the Holy Land, of course, but in my view, the significance was more religious, than ethnic. It was a messianic idea, not the first attempt at colonising the Holy Land, I might add, as there was a crusader state there in the middle ages, which existed for a 150 years. From the Arab / Muslim perspective, Israel is yet another attempt by the West to colonize the Holy Land. Jews and Christians think it is for religious or ethnic-historical reasons, but politicians in the know are probably well aware that there is more to it than that. Essentially, the West needed a police station in the Middle East and a wedge that they could drive into the heart of the fledgling pan-Arabic state or perhaps even a rebirth of the Caliphate. Israel serves that role beautifully and that is probably the main reason why it has such steadfast support from the US and other Western nations.
As for this criticism:
"I'm overall disappointed in your "practical" approach to this affair - as if the rainy skies of Berlin on the featureless North German plain are preferable to the romance and stark drama and beauty of the desert :) (although it's hardly a desert except in the south). "
From my perspective and that of my Israeli friends, who have emigrated to Berlin, it most certainly is. Living in a desert is a terrible fate, only Westerners tend to romanticize it, a point made very well in Lawrence of Arabia, for instance.
Also, you say my attitude here is pragmatic and materialist. Well yes, this is not a spiritual matter, it is one of geopolitics. I don't accept, that Jews, or Christians have any more claim to the Holy Land than Muslims do, who were the vast majority of the population before the Balfour Declaration and the mass immigration of Jews that followed. Given the religious significance, the Holy Land should probably have been kept under some sort of international jurisdiction, allowing access to all, but that ship has sailed.
I'm well aware of the claims made by Islamic imperialists. I happen to think, they're mostly larping and many people on the right are buying into it, out of fear. In actual fact, Muslims or Islam have conquered nothing and are the biggest losers in the globalisation game, bar none. This is a claim often made by Goldman himself, in the Asia Times. Their birth rates are also dropping, by the way and they are being left in the dust in every sense. If you look at the state of most Islamic nations nowadays, it must be disheartening to see what's happening to those once proud nations, some of which where the very first civilisations on the planet and invented pretty much everything we take for granted today, like agriculture, beer, wine, writing, astronomy, medicine, law, religion and so forth. Now, Islamic countries are falling behind and cannot compete with either the stagnant West or the rising powers in Asia.
(Thanks, and sorry if my reply is overly long).
Sure, I can appreciate the Arab attempt to think of Israel as just another Christian crusader state, but from the Jewish perspective Islamic imperialism is just one more regional imperialism that makes a splash and then fades away while the Jews remain, like the Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Persian, the Greek, the Roman, etc.
Moreover, the analogy to the Crusades or Western colonialism fails to take into consideration key aspects of the situation. Hamas explicitly compares Zionism to France's colony in Algeria, and has framed its attempt to destroy Israel in those terms, and adopted a strategy based on understanding Israeli psychology in those terms - and it has failed completely. Without getting into an argument over how "objectively" accurate the comparison to Algeria is, Israeli Jews "don't" see themselves as having a "motherland" in Europe where their cultural and historical identities are truly to be located, as the Algerian French clearly did, and most crucially, where Jews are the majority and set the cultural tone, as the French did in France. And of course over 50% of Israeli Jews come from Arab lands from which they were expelled.
All those pro-Hamas call to "go back to Poland " don't sound to Israelis like a call to go back to their legitimate homes but as a chilling cry for them to become once again a despised powerless minority in a foreign land. While I understand why pro-Hamas people want to frame the conflict this way, it is an utter failure in terms of understanding Israeli psychology - and you can't fight your enemy without at least understanding him. Hamas thought they would murder and pillage and rape and all the Jews would flee to easier climes. This proved a massive misunderstanding.
Apartheid, the other regime Israel is (falsely) compared to, fell because the leaders of that system came to understand themselves as their enemies understood them, as they were much more a part of the late-moderm European continuum of values and consciousness and sensitive to its dictates, and because apartheid was indeed a morally odious system. They voluntarily surrendered. Israeli leaders show no signs of radical loss of self respect or propensity to accept their enemies designations, for many reasons, both based on radical differences in facts and recent history.
Whereas I would argue that Israelis DO understand their Islamist enemies, because they listen to how they understand themselves instead of imposing their own matrix onto them - Hamas, in their Charter, openly and without ambiguity say their goal is NOT a Palestinian state but a pan-Islamist empire under Sharia law that will eventually encompass Europe. This is why no Israeli supports the two state solution anymore.
I wouldn't necessarily describe Zionism as a "messianic" idea, as it's founders were quasi-secular, but rather as a "Romantic" idea that drew its inspiration from deep sources of millenia-long spiritual identity and longing - i.e, in key respects, it was a rejection of nihilistic modernity, and rejected many of the materialist assumptions of modernity. It was also, especially at first, highly idealistic and communitarian.
There's a reason that Israeli women today, even secular ones, have above replacement fertility, uniquely in the wealthy West - that's because it isn't an entirely Western state, in that even as it has embraced Western technology it hasn't fully embraced the core materialist nihilism that underlies Western technology, and has retained significant pre-modern mentalities.
As for the idea that Israel is a Western plant for the purpose of fomenting disunity among Arabs, this ignores the fact that the West, and particularly America, did not significantly support Israel till after it proved itself militarily capable and a potential useful ally against the Soviets. The State Department, and most Western intelligence agencies, thought Israel had no chance against the Arabs and wanted to align with the Arab states as much more populous and powerful and wealthy. America actually slapped an arms embargo on Israel in 1948 and stopped key arms shipments from reaching Israel during its war of independence. France, after being Israel's main military supplier, abandoned it after 67, and European countries denied American overfly rights to resupply Israel during the 73 war.
It was only late, around 1976, that America began to be Israel's key military supplier.
I think it far more likely that the West found Israel troublesome and annoying at first, much preferring the seemingly more powerful Arabs, and only shifted to Israel once it demonstrated its worth as an ally against the Arab-aligned Soviets.
"I don't accept, that Jews, or Christians have any more claim to the Holy Land than Muslims do, who were the vast majority of the population before the Balfour Declaration and the mass immigration of Jews that followed."
While I clearly disagree and think that Jews have the preeminent claim to that particular small piece of land, I certainly agree that everyone who was there before Zionism, Muslims and Christians, also have a perfectly legitimate claim to live in that land, and certainly to religious protection and shared holy sites, etc. That's why Zionism agreed to the 48 partition that would have created an Arab state alongside a Jewish one - the Arabs rejected that. And also why today, 25% of Israel is composed of Muslims, Christians, Druze, and Circassians, who have full rights, serve in the Parliament, are supreme court judges, professors, doctors, lawyers, army generals and air force pilots and commandos.
"Living in a desert is a terrible fate, only Westerners tend to romanticize it, a point made very well in Lawrence of Arabia, for instance."
Well, tastes differ :) But much of Israel is not a desert, and the central coastal strip where Tel Aviv and the majority of the population is concentrated, is actually a lush semi-tropical and very green land. The hilly center and the north are "Mediterranean", and only the south is proper desert.
As for proper desert, the American Southwest is one of the most rapidly growing parts of the country and enormously popular - so large numbers of people seem to love the desert, as I do :)
But certainly, to each their own. One may dislike the desert and prefer green lands, surely, but anyone who is not a stark materialist cannot deny the spiritual beauty and power of the desert, I would think :) (surely they can't?)
"I'm well aware of the claims made by Islamic imperialists. I happen to think, they're mostly larping and many people on the right are buying into it, out of fear. In actual fact, Muslims or Islam have conquered nothing and are the biggest losers in the globalisation game, bar none
Now, Islamic countries are falling behind and cannot compete with either the stagnant West or the rising powers in Asia."
I agree with you here, and think this is the key point about Arab and Muslim desire to destroy Israel and deny Jews sovereignty - instead of internally fixing their problems, they focus on victimizing Jews as an outlet for their sense of humiliation. This is an extremely common if tragic pattern in human affairs. Unfortunately I cannot agree with you it is just a larp, as Hamas has just shown. Would that it were, would that it were.
Thanks for your perspective. I think you're making some good points there.
The first two essays on this site provide a very interesting perspective on the happenings in the collective lunatic asylum of Israel/Palestine and the Middle East altogether.
http://michael-hudson.com
Why do we still call this collective lunatic asylum the "holy land".
I