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1/ So, if someone criticizes Israel they are expected to nonetheless say the requisite mantra: “Oh but of course, Israel has the right to exist.” Or else they are considered anti-Semites...
2/ Meanwhile one can criticize Palestinians and NEVER say that an autonomous Palestinian State has the right to exist. Indeed you can oppose that entirely. And not be considered an anti-Arab bigot...
3/ If u put conditions on the right of a Palestinian State to exist, which are rooted in Palestinian behavior, but take Israel’s right to exist as sacrosanct no matter Israeli behavior, a) you’re a racist and b) u can’t be taken seriously in a discussion of anti-Semitism...
4/ Fact is, no nation per se has the right to exist. States don’t have rights. People do. All people, including in this case Jews and non-Jews in Israel/Palestine have rights to safety, security and liberty...
5/ And they have those rights, morally, on equal terms. Any state that affords some folks rights & privileges it denies to others (as in Israel re: right of return, land ownership, etc) may well have the right to not be violently attacked (Bc the people deserve safety), however..
6/ That doesn’t mean it has the right to exist in its current form. By the same token the US had the “right” not to be violently destroyed by the USSR in 1962. But we didn’t have the right to remain as we were: a segregated apartheid nation...
7/ the National right to exist does not extend to just any particular governmental form. If a state is established in unjust foundations or follows unjust policies it doesn’t have a right to exist on THAT foundation...
8/ Because the rights of people harmed by those policies outweigh the rights of a given nation state. Especially because nation states are largely artificial creations that flow from violence, power politics etc...while human beings are flesh and blood and possess = moral worth..
9/ So the right of any nation to exist in the technical sense does not give its leaders the right to just do whatever they want to do. Human rights outweigh territorial rights by definition...
10/ so, for instance does Saudi Arabia’s “right to exist” give it the right to remain an Islamic theocracy? Of course not. Because the people have human rights to better treatment...
11/ surely we can discuss Israeli policy (or any country’s) w/o facile arguments about the “right” of states 2 exist, which at best are non sequiturs & at worst (in the case of Israel) are lame attempts 2 give we who are Jews unique rights to do whatever we wish to others...
12/ but again, if you insist on Israel’s right to exist as the state of the Jewish people, with rights and privileges for we who are Jews that are not shared equally by non- Jews then by definition ...
13/.. you would have to support the right of Muslim theocracies and Christian republics, in which Jews would be (and are) marginalized. Or “white” ethnostates... all of which should be rejected on human rights grounds... but we can’t have it both ways...
14/ And if you demand that Israel has a right to exist in that form but an autonomous Palestinian State does not have a right to come into being, or only if its people meet certain conditions, then you are a hypocrite and racist by definition...
15/ oh and if your love for Israel is really only about wanting Jews to ingather there so Jesus can usher in the end times at which point Jews can all be sent to a lake of fire, gladly stop posing as a friend to Jews. You’re a spiritual terrorist and Christian supremacist. B gone
