Opinion // How Israel Went From Atheist Zionism to Jewish State

[rug]

The synthesis of Zionism and socialism has disintegrated, making way for a winning symbiosis of religion and strong ethno-nationalism.

Shlomo Sand Jan 21, 2017 5:59

It’s sad to read the recent complaints of Israeli intellectuals about the collapse of the only Jewish democracy in the Middle East. The secular melancholy is likely to arouse identification among readers – but not to enlighten them, alas.

It sometimes seems that words are nothing more than props in the hands of talented circus acrobats. For example, there is a profound connection between the terms secularism and atheism, but they are by no means congruent or identical. Among Israeli intellectuals, and not by chance, the differences between the two are far more vague than in other areas of the national discourse.

For example, a person can be secular in the political sense of the word and believe in a higher power (like the late Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz), or an atheist who is not really secular (like the late Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion). Secularism is – not only, but mainly – a political viewpoint, whereas atheism is firstly a philosophical viewpoint.

In the historical development of liberal democracy – and, in effect, in the growth of some of the authoritarian democracies, too – secularism meant the separation of religion and state. Or, to be more precise, a severance of the traditional Gordian knot between political society and the Church (or churches).

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.766485

[Mosby]

1. shlomo sand is an antisemitic asshole

Who has made his living shitting on Jews and Israel.

[rug]

2. Why would Haaretz publish an antisemite?

That he rejects religious Zionism does not make him an antisemite.

I criticize the Zionist historiography, when it makes the continuation of the metaphysical concept, that very important aspect of the land that God gave the Jews and then took away—when they put the human subject in the middle of the action and say that the Jew has a total right to this land. I don’t think the religious affinity to the land gives you historical right. And after 2000 years, to pretend that the land is your land, if we continue with this logic, we can’t accept the right of the whites, blacks and Latinos to live in New York. It’s something dangerous, this idea.

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/12/shlomo-sand-on-zionism-post-zionism-and-the-two-state-solution/#sthash.i2yxSc1g.dpuf

He clearly, despite being a veteran of the Six Day War, opposes the rationale behind the state of Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Sand

I can't speak to the question of whether he is or is not an asshole.

[Mosby]

3. I don't read Haaretz and don't know what motivates them

Sand goes much further than rejecting religious zionism.

http://forward.com/culture/206656/how-i-stopped-reading-shlomo-sands-crackpot-memoir/

Mondoweiss is a RW hate site BTW.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/04/mondoweiss-is-a-hate-site/

[rug]

4. I don't know Haber but despite his dislike, he concedes:

And yet, if I am to be honest, Sand does raise a question of grave importance. For Sand, there is a “close link” between an essentialist Jewish identity and how Israel treats its non-Jews. Many, of course, will argue that Israel is a haven for Muslims and everything’s hunky-dory in Gaza. But those of us who strive for intellectual honesty must acknowledge the contradiction between Western ideals and an ethno-religious government that humiliates and brutalizes people under its jurisdiction. American Jews, in particular, need to ask themselves why they support a situation in Israel that they would never countenance in their own country.

David Bernstein is a Scholar at the Cato Institute BTW.

https://www.cato.org/people/david-bernstein

Of course he thinks Mondoweiss is a hate site.

It's not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondoweiss

[Mosby]

5. DU thread about Mondoweiss

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1134102897

Interesting how many of those posters ( I count 4) post at JPR now.

[rug]

6. I don't post in I/P. Reading that thread, I know why.

The determination there of whether something is or is not a hate site - or anything else for that matter - is in direct proportion to how one feels about the State of Israel.

It's not persuasive. Neither is a Scholar at the Cato Institute.

To return to the OP, it is about the validity of basing a modern state on religious antecedents.