Moving Israel to Europe

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
Setting aside whether or not setting up Israel in Palestine was just or not, what do you think about the results, LotM?

Would you call Israel, overall, a success? Do you think Isreal as presently constituted is more benificial to the Jewish people than an Israel set up elsewhere (be it in Uganda or even somewhere within the USofA) would've been?

-Arrian

I dont think Uganda was feasible - the brits really didnt want to give it up, or that the US would have opened up to mass immigration (they were clamping down at the time), let alone a jewish state.

Given the events of the holocaust, of course if i could travel back in time, wave a magic wand, and obtain a place where Jews could move freely in the 1930's I would, without regard to the geography. New Mexico would be fine, or Uganda, or anywhere else.

Of course if youre giving me a magic wand, why cant I use it to make the Arabs of Palestine decide that theyd be better off compromising with the Zionists (as Emir Abdullah suggested) rather than opposing them - then we can have free immigration, and save millions of Jews AND have a jewish state IN Israel.

But thats silly - there is no time travel, and there are no magic wands.

Given the reality, and the historical record, Israel has no need to apologize for its founding. And it DOES have the right to take into account the earlier denial of its right to exist in determining what a secure peace arrangement now would look like, which is the only practical matter at issue in these discussions.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Last Conformist

Which is fairly irrelevant - the OE dissolved a quarter century before Israel was established.

The relevant time is the League of Nations establishment of the Palestine Mandate with its promise of a Jewish national homeland. By 1948 there were significant portions of Palestine with Jewish majorities, and a case for partition and a Jewish state could be made on grounds of self determination alone.

[Arrian]

I wasn't seeking some sort of apology. Not at all. I was just asking if you thought, in hindsight, it might have been better - for Jews, notwithstanding anyone else - to have founded Israel elsewhere. And yes, I'm fully aware that the question is pointless. It's Friday and this is Apolyton - a pretty good combo for pointless questions.

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
I wasn't seeking some sort of apology. Not at all. I was just asking if you thought, in hindsight, it might have been better - for Jews, notwithstanding anyone else - to have founded Israel elsewhere. And yes, I'm fully aware that the question is pointless. It's Friday and this is Apolyton - a pretty good combo for pointless questions.

-Arrian

well then you have to clarify something - in some sense Israel WAS a failure. It was a failure because it was not established till 1948, and by then 6 million Jews had been murdered. When a refuge was needed, Palestine was closed, by the mandatory authorities, at the behest of Arab nationalists.

If youre positing that by taking Uganda instead, i could save most of the six million, in exchange for giving up the historical connection land - well of course I would. I would think that goes without saying. I dont happen to think thats a realistic choice - the Brits DIDNT offer mass immigration to uganda in 1939, or anywhere else for that matter. And I dont think that you can get from a 1905 point of departure to a functioning Jewish homeland in Uganda by 1939 - for a whole bunch of reasons.

Or are you asking if the advantages of the holy land are worth the arab israeli wars - which, horrible as theyve been, are dwarfed by the holocaust? Thats more difficult - again I doubt that a Jewish homeland elsewhere would have been made more easily - and I think the ingathering of Jews from the Muslim world, was aided by the location in the mid east, and particularly in Israel with its associations.

But of course Im an optimist on mideast peace. Despite the events of the last 80 years, I actually beleive that we will make peace with our muslim brothers and sisters, and that we will achieve national rights, in peace, for both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. If I didnt believe that, I suppose Uganda would look more attractive.

[muxec]

Move us to Denmark! Yes, to Denmark!

[Dis]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


The jewish people were not dead. They just didnt live on their land.

There are no other examples I know of, where a people in long exile, kept not only a memory, but a claim on a land, and then organized a return to it. So basically your "general point" boils down to you think the establishment of a national home for the Jews in Israel was a mistake. Which is duly noted.

should we also give back land to native americans? Such as New York city?

[Arrian]

Or are you asking if the advantages of the holy land are worth the arab israeli wars - which, horrible as theyve been, are dwarfed by the holocaust? Thats more difficult - again I doubt that a Jewish homeland elsewhere would have been made more easily - and I think the ingathering of Jews from the Muslim world, was aided by the location in the mid east, and particularly in Israel with its associations.

But of course Im an optimist on mideast peace. Despite the events of the last 80 years, I actually beleive that we will make peace with our muslim brothers and sisters, and that we will achieve national rights, in peace, for both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. If I didnt believe that, I suppose Uganda would look more attractive.

Yeah, I was talking post-Holocaust. And I have my answer: you think that, despite the Arab-Israeli wars & ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, Israel as currently constituted is a success. Fair enough.

I wish there had been a way to create a state of Israel without putting it in such a hostile environment. But, of course, if such hostile environments weren't so damn common, I guess there wouldn't have been such a NEED for Israel.

-Arrian

[Edan]

Originally posted by Arrian
Would you call Israel, overall, a success?

Given that most Jews moved out of or were expelled from countries in which they were far less safe, I would say yes.

Do you think Isreal as presently constituted is more benificial to the Jewish people than an Israel set up elsewhere (be it in Uganda or even somewhere within the USofA) would've been?

I don't know (I suppose it might matter where they would have ended up). But like others said, it would probably have been more difficult to convince people to move to a new country you don't have a cultural link to.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


The relevant time is the League of Nations establishment of the Palestine Mandate with its promise of a Jewish national homeland.

I think we both know how much such promises are worth.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian


Yeah, I was talking post-Holocaust. And I have my answer: you think that, despite the Arab-Israeli wars & ongoing conflict with the Palestinians, Israel as currently constituted is a success. Fair enough.

I wish there had been a way to create a state of Israel without putting it in such a hostile environment. But, of course, if such hostile environments weren't so damn common, I guess there wouldn't have been such a NEED for Israel.

-Arrian

Ya know, I could come up with a dovish what-if critique that doesnt involve not having an Israel in Israel.


July, 1967. Offer the entire West Bank, (excluding Jerusalem) back to Jordan. Every acre, in exchange for a peace treaty. King Hussein might well have taken the offer. Instead Israel dilly dallied with offers for territorial compromise. A West Bank in Jordanian hands, instead of PLO hands, might have been worth the insecure boundary lines. It would have set the history of the next 30 years on a completely different course.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Dis


should we also give back land to native americans? Such as New York city?

To me, thats what the casino thingy is all about. Give them oodles of money - which they can use to buy land.

And of course if there are any native americans from tribes that used to live in the US, living outside the US who want to migrate here, I think they should have an absolute right to do so. The one tribe I can think of in that position is the Nez Perce, who fled to Canada when they were chased off their lands in Idaho.

[lord of the mark]

In order to advance the noble cause, I am presenting here a link to Foxwoods Casino, of the Pequot nation.

http://www.foxwoods.com/

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark



So it was ok to revive Poland, a dead country, on land that belonged to Russia and Germany, because the Poles had not been exiled from their land. Thats the standard line. It has nothing to do with dead countries, or dead nations. Poland, like similar revivals was of a dead country. The Jewish people were clearly never a dead nation. However they didnt live on their land.

Given that there are no other examples of a nation in exile, maintaining its national existence in this way, I dont think its possible to assert a general rule seperate from this particular case.

The diffrence is simple. A set of democratic elections in most of the lands that were designated to Poland in the aftermath of the Collapse of both the German and Russian empires after WW1 would have led to the creation of an independent Polish state- the outcome east of the Curzon line is doubtfull given the large number of Ukranians and Belorussians, though of course Poland's eastern boundary was decided by warfar.

If elections and referendums had been held in the Ottoman province of Palestine after the collapse of the Ottoman empire, there certainly would have been no Zionist state there, since Jews made up a minority of the population.

The very simple injustice comes form the fact that the victors of WW1 assumed total and undemocratic control of the province of Palestine- imperial rule from Istandbul was replaced with Imperial rule from London, and the decision to eventually create a zionist state was made without the support of the vast majority of the local population at the time that decision was madeby London. The local immigration policies which allowed for the large influx of Jews were not created a government with legitimacy in Palestine, but by a foreign soverign thousands of miles away.

Would you not admit to the gross unfairness of the treatement of Arab populations after the 1st world war as compared to that of Europeans? Or is that injustice immaterial and insignificant?

[Gangerolf]

There's still that Jewish oblast in Siberia...

[Gangerolf]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast