12 million Jews in the world

[Imran Siddiqui]

Neither peoples have autonomy, so they aren't nationalities.

What the Hell does autonomy matter?

Do they have a seperate ethnicity, with their own culture and language and traditions? Then they are a nation. The Basques, I know for sure, are a nation seperate from all others.

[Ramo]

I don't know about your fancy poli. sci. definitions, but I've always associated nations with states. It sounds to me that you're trying to say an ethnicity is equivalent to a nationality.

The Basques might be extraordinarily ethnically distinct from other Spaniards (and French), even to the point of having a non-Indo-European language, but that doesn't make them a nation.

Catalonians are a nationality and want to be sovereign just as the basques.

I want to be sovereign from Washington. Does that make me a nation?

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Ramo
I don't wanted to be controlled by the tyrants in Washington (or Austin, for that matter). Does that make me no longer an American?

It depends whether you want a different government for the same country, or you want a whole different country in place.

If you want a whole different country (say, great zimbabwe ) then you're not an american, but a zimbabwean.

They have no nation, ergo they're not a nationality.

Ok, I'll remember to use it

I suppose you've run a genetic comparison showing them as similar to Yemenese as each other.

Yes. I know yemenese. They're the same.

Neither peoples have autonomy, so they aren't nationalities.

Yes they are. They're not nations, but they are nationalities.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Ramo
I don't know about your fancy poli. sci. definitions, but I've always associated nations with states.

They are two different terms as there are nations that currently have no State of thier own, The Palestinians and Basques being chief among them.

[Natan]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Natan -

You ignored the rest of my comments about "states". I did not express opposition to states, only opposition to the formation of states that result in the taking of property belonging to people not voluntarily ceding sovereignty to a state created by others.

No, you were opposed to extension of soveriegnty over anyone who didn't want it, regardless of what happened to their property.

Yes, I don't believe "states" are more valid than individuals when the states are infringing upon the rights of those individuals.

I believe that whatever ensures more justice/fairness/good stuff is more valid.

As the colonial power in charge of that area, and as a member of the security council, Britain had veto power.

NOT IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY VOTES! This is why the US could not prevent the "Zionism is Racism" resolution or various other General Assembly resolutions critical of the US and its allies. There is no party with a veto on the General Asembly.

But according to chegitz, the British wanted the UN to take charge. If Britain did not want that and instead wanted to side with the Arabs in opposition to Israel, they would have done so.

And indeed they would have, except that the Irgun and other Jewish guerilla/terrorist movements were making life for the British in Mandatory Palestine pure hell. You might as well say that the US wanted South Vietnam to be Communist.

"Stared" Britain down?

We certainly did make them back down on Suez. Now addmitadly, in 1956 we were taking a pro-Arab stand and they the pro-Israel one, but that just shows how quickly things can change in the ME. Once Britain had lost its hegemony over Egypt to Nasser, it resorted to military means and alliance with Israel.

America was not so pro-Israel to stick it's neck out angering both the British and the Arabs in control of the oil.

By 1956, the US was much more aware of the need to compete with the USSR for control of the Middle East. I think this is a matter which could be disputed either way; but still, it would have been rather costly for the British to insist on absolute Arab control of the area against the will of the other superpowers.

Were they attacking Jerusalem or the Jordanians? Not allowing foreign troops to march through your jurisdiction to alleviate preesure from someone else is not the same as trying to rid the ME of Jews.

The Jordanians were fighting the Jews in Jerusalem and trying to get rid of them (as they succeeded in doing in East Jerusalem) so the Haganah fought its way through the Jordanian lines to relieve the Jews in Jerusalem. It seems indisputable to me that if the Jordanians had won in Jerusalem, they would have moved on to attack the rest of the Jewish-held areas; certainly, the combined Arab battle plan would have obligated them to do so. It should also be noted that this territory was not Jordanian, since it was part of the British mandate which had been allocated for an independent Arab state.

Then maybe I did mis-read chegitz posts, I got the impression the Arab legion was more concerned with holding onto the lands within their jurisdiction than conquering Israel.

I think it would be more correct to say that the military circumstances (Israel's concern with breaking the siege of Jerusalem) thrust them into a defensive posture. And again, these lands were not meant to be in their jurisdiction, and would only be declared such by the Jordanian government after the war.

Krazyhorse: Of course there was some mixing of the gene pools, the question is how much. Not that race matters though.

Ozymandias:
1. If it makes you happy to think of Israel as an empire, be my guest, but actually, analysts endow the Israeli presence in the West Bank with far more signifigance than its worth, and expect it to be governed by Rules of History as predictable as any mathematical formula. They have naturally been dissappointed.

2. Thomas Friedman is a moron and blowhard.

Apart from that though, the model he presents is not really helpful in describing the political situation in Israel. Likud is far more attached to Democracy than say, Shas or Yahadut Hatorah (UTJ), and Likud's support for the idea of Israel as a Jewish state is unquestionable, yet it is far more interested in the West Bank and Gaza than the two afformentioned religious parties. I think it is much better to view Israel as divided on two separate issues which usually do not intersect: The security issues of peace, war, and the West Bank on the one hand, and the domestic issues of religious vs. secular, with a few ethnic divisions (in Friedman's book, these would have been simply Ashkenazi-Sephardi since the Russians weren't aroudn yet, making another axis) added in for flavoring. Friedman's model ignores the importance of issues of religion and ethnicity, which have been driving Israeli politics in the last ten years. In fact, about half the parties of Knesset were founded for religious or ethnic reasons, and many do not even have a position at all on security issues.

3. Actually, many people have been turned down. There was a Christian clergyman of some sort who was of Jewish background who the (secular) Israeli Supreme Court turned down on the grounds that his conversion excluded him from the Jewish people; a few more criminals, and a bunch of people who were not in any way shape or form Jewish but whose relatives by marriage (or blood relatives who had converted) were Jewish.

Ramo: The debate has become a bit semantic, but my original point was that Jews have a connection to each other (nationality, ethnicity, whatever you call it) which runs deeper than say, the connection between Christians or between Buddhists.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I don't know about your fancy poli. sci. definitions, but I've always associated nations with states. It sounds to me that you're trying to say an ethnicity is equivalent to a nationality.

So you think we should accept your opinion rather than political science definition over an area of political science?

States are not nations and nations are not states. For example, the German nation involves Germany, Austria, parts of Poland, Czech Republic, Denmark.

[Ramo]

I looked it up. Turns out both definitions are valid, according to dictionary.com.

na·tion (nshn)
n.

1.
a. A relatively large group of people organized under a single, usually independent government; a country.
b. The territory occupied by such a group of people: All across the nation, people are voting their representatives out.

2.
The government of a sovereign state.

3.
A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality: “Historically the Ukrainians are an ancient nation which has persisted and survived through terrible calamity” (Robert Conquest).

4.
a. A federation or tribe, especially one composed of Native Americans.
b. The territory occupied by such a federation or tribe.

Edit:

On second thought, I don't think Jews can be called a nation, since Yiddish is even not a Semitic language, but a Germanic langauge.

[Natan]

Originally posted by Ramo
On second thought, I don't think Jews can be called a nation, since Yiddish is even not a Semitic language, but a Germanic langauge.

Dictionary.com doesn't make language a requirement to nationhood.

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by Natan

Dictionary.com doesn't make language a requirement to nationhood.

LOL

I have no idea what this thread is about but

ethnicity: having common traits with other people

nationality: feeling you belong somewhere

citizenship: what it writes in your ID

[Ramo]

Dictionary.com doesn't make language a requirement to nationhood.

True... But it seems odd to bring such disseparate langauges under one national category.

[Natan]

Originally posted by Ramo
True... But it seems odd to bring such disseparate langauges under one national category.

Odd indeed, although there are a few precedents, like Iran, (Azerbaijanis and Persians) Afghanistan, and Canada.
The fact that Jews have developed retained languages like Yiddish and Ladino for centuries long after their neighbors ceased using them also suggests to me that they are more than just a religion. If you threw five million Christians or Muslims from four or five different continents, speakers of half a dozen languages (and I'm just talking the main ones now) together in a new country built from scratch, I don't think they'd be able to create the sort of country and society Israel has.

[Dr Strangelove]

The truly remarkable thing is that the religion of the Jewish people has enabled them to survive the diaspora as an entity over two millenia. During this time period numerous other cultures died out. Anyone here know any Vandals, Goths, or Jutes. The experience of the Jews demonstrates the power of a literate culture to endure and thrive.

[Berzerker]

Natan -

No, you were opposed to extension of soveriegnty over anyone who didn't want it, regardless of what happened to their property.

Where did I say this? Have I failed to clearly express my opposition to the taking of private property to form a "state" or thru border changes? And there is no meaningful difference between sovereignty and private property - one cannot seize either without attacking the other. We began by talking about the taking of private property and ventured into the taking of sovereignty which is related to the first.

I believe that whatever ensures more justice/fairness/good stuff is more valid.

Stealing from people is moral? Then the Arabs have the moral authority to rid the ME of Jews if they decide doing so fits their definition of morality, true? Or are you leaving only yourself in the position of deciding which thefts are "moral"? What you said was no different than what Ann Coulter said when trying to justfy the taking of Indian lands.

Oh, and the UN General Assembly is irrelevant, all they can do is express opinions, not take actions in violation of the Security Council's will.

[Natan]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Natan -

Where did I say this?

If you and your neighbor create a "state" and then claim either my land as part of your state or claim "jurisdiction" over my existence and my land, that is theft. Even when Indians were allowed to keep their land - and lets remember this is a big country and Indians only occupied a very small percentage - they were still subject, to a lesser degree than other citizens, to the new government's jurisdiction, a taking of sovereignty. If I was "in charge" back then, I would not have allowed these takings. Europeans could have moved in and occupied unclaimed lands or bought lands from the rightful owners. Any "state" created through voluntary associations would include only those peoples who agreed.

(emphasis added)

Have I failed to clearly express my opposition to the taking of private property to form a "state" or thru border changes? And there is no meaningful difference between sovereignty and private property - one cannot seize either without attacking the other. We began by talking about the taking of private property and ventured into the taking of sovereignty which is related to the first.

There is no purpose in having a dicussion of private property when your real objection is to states, not their actions.

Stealing from people is moral? Then the Arabs have the moral authority to rid the ME of Jews if they decide doing so fits their definition of morality, true? Or are you leaving only yourself in the position of deciding which thefts are "moral"? What you said was no different than what Ann Coulter said when trying to justfy the taking of Indian lands.

No, what I'm saying is that the reason I support Israel and consider its cause to be just and the reason I consider Israel to be the just side in its wars is that Israel has always treated those under its administration better than any other contestant for control of the area.

Oh, and the UN General Assembly is irrelevant, all they can do is express opinions, not take actions in violation of the Security Council's will.

Right, and 181 was a General Assembly resolution and no Security Council resolution had been made on the question of Israel at this time, nor could the British have made one, since the USSR supported the creation of Israel as a means of destabilizing the region.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Anyone here know any Vandals, Goths, or Jutes. The experience of the Jews demonstrates the power of a literate culture to endure and thrive.

I know a couple vandals and a some really cute goths.