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For the nth time, a thread on the difference between Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel) & Medinat Yisrael (State of Israel) for Gov De Santis and anyone else still confused. Content warning: Contains nuance and will not please those on either extreme. Please read whole thread. (1/10)
Eretz Yisrael is the homeland of the Jewish people. Full stop. Denying this is antisemitic. We have thousands of years of history, memory, collective narrative there & have spent 2000 yrs praying for return, fasting to commemorate destruction of Temple, etc. etc. (2/10)
(Side note: those who think it's clever to say "Arabs are semites, so Zionists are antisemitic": 1. Antisemitism, a term invented in 19th c Germany has never meant anything but hatred of Jews 2. The idea that modern Jews are not "real" Jews is an antisemitic canard.) (3/10)
Zionism represented both continuity & discontinuity. Continuity in terms of the relationship with Eretz Yisrael, which had never gone away. Discontinuity in assertion that modern political means could create modern nation-state there (rather than awaiting Messiah) (4/10)
Remember: this was moment when nation-states were being created. Jews, like other minorities, were asserting national rights, sometimes within other nations (like the Bund calling for Jewish nat'l rights w/i Pale of Settlement) & sometimes for own state. (5/10)
So Zionist Jews took the plunge & entered the political arena and got a state. (Much history there, of course...you can read a book or two about it). That state is Medinat Yisrael, which is a modern country, a member of the UN, subject to same rules as other countries. (6/10)
Accepted international boundaries of Medinat Yisrael don't exactly map onto those of Eretz Yisrael. Some places, in occupied territories (per int'l law, see above) are important in Bible/Jewish history (eg Hebron, Bethlehem, Shiloh). Some are in MY but not EY (like Eilat) (7/10)
That doesn't mean Jews can't yearn for those places as we have for 2000 yrs. It doesn't mean we can't pray to have sovereignty there in messianic times. (Or even negotiate access to holy sites in peace deal!) But entering int'l political arena means playing by int'l law. (8/10)
(Side note: Palestinian leadership, incl Hamas, has, by & large, said they'll accept state on '67 borders, even though they yearn for more. That's ok: everyone can keep yearning for return to full homeland, while following international law in meantime.) (9/10)
In conversations about Israel/Palestine, Eretz Yisrael & Medinat Yisrael get conflated all the time. It's not helpful. Acknowledge both Jewish homeland in EY (and Palestinian homeland there too--one doesn't cancel other) AND difference between that & modern state. (10/10)
