Feeling the loyalty to the Jewish State of Israel

[shaayecanaan]

(snip)

The loyalty oath was one of the main platform issues for Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s far right Yisrael Beitenu party when it campaigned in 2009. “No citizenship without loyalty,” was among Lieberman’s most effective campaign slogans (his other slogan: “Only Lieberman speaks Arabic”), helping guide his party to an astonishing third place, with 15 of the 120 seats in Israeli Parliament. The draft bill currently debated in the Parliament would allow the Interior Ministry to strip even native Israelis of their nationality if they refused to swear allegiance to the Jewish state and “its symbols and values,” and failed to profess their willingness to perform military service. Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, has expressed support for Yisrael Beiteinu’s loyalty crusade.

After the proposed law failed its first reading in the Knesset due to opposition from a handful of liberal members of the ruling Likud party, Yisrael Beiteinu released the following statement: “Yisrael Beitenu will continue to act for Israel’s basis as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic state and will fight against disloyalty and the negative exploitation of Israeli democracy.” In July, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet has approved a similar bill requiring all new citizens to take an oath of loyalty to the Jewish state. The measure would make attaining citizenship nearly impossible for Palestinians residing inside Israel.

http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/09/feeling-the-loyalty-to-the-jewish-state-of-israel/

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mc: some of the comments in the clip are hilarious.

[RandomThoughts]

1. If God is in your heart, your light.

Why would you need to swear loyalty to a state, or a group that says that is true for them also?


And the problem with loyalty and oaths is they presume something will stay the same, if someone turns from good to bad, a loyalty oath can hinder staying on the right path of light.

So no oaths, and instead, attempts at loyalty to God as can be best determined by the mind body and heart of each person that has access to feelings of love openness and kindness of light.

I would not want someone loyal to me, so why would I be loyal to someone else, that is a trap, a trade of followship for some perceived lack of persecution. Such a loyalty to a state, could be used to get a person to act against what they think of as the spirit of truth and love that is God.


To make that request, that state must make the claim that they are always right with God, and always follow the exact teachings of God with best interpretations. Something many parts of the Old Testament shows is not always true.

[aquart]

2. I pledge allegiance to the flag....

[Hardrada]

3. My country right or wrong...

Same BS.

[RandomThoughts]

5. That is not a pledge to a state.

That is a pledge to a concept the flag represents as you see it.

So it is an affirmation of values you hold, not a pledge of loyalty to something else.


So the problem is not those that pledge to Israel if they think it has those values they in their heart agrees with, the problem is a state claiming they have those values. Since a person could pledge to a state, if it was to the concepts of values of that state from their heart.

But requiring someone to do that is a different statement.

If someone pledges to uphold some set of values something represents to them, that is one thing.

If a person is told what they have to pledge to, and that something else defines those values, that is something else.



It is the concept of a pledge to the flag for one day and not one day longer, so it is to the values they represent, not to someone else that might change those values and try to extract something from that.

[Chulanowa]

7. And what does that actually mean to you, Aquart? n/t

[azurnoir]

4. well at least most of the folks in the vid

put the old canard about "dual loyalties" to rest no two ways about it:sarcasm:

[shaayecanaan]

8. Would you swear allegiance to the Christian state of America?

A: "No, because America is not a Christian state."

B: "But what if they asked you?"

A: "Then it wouldn't be America."

B: "Why not?"

A: "Because the US is freedom for all, freedom of religion."

B: (silence)

Classic.

[Loudmxr]

6. My reply would be no loyalty without nationality.

Establish Israeli nationality and maybe you would have something to be loyal to. There is by law Israeli citizenship but not "nationality". That is a crucial concept for nation building. But without a concept of actual nationality the Israelis are adrift and without identity.

The reason why, I think, they refuse to acknowledge nationality is that it would damage the concept of a "Jewish State". On the other hand what is a Jew? Race or Religion? Some Jews are not Jews and some Jews are not Jews. Some Jews don't consider other Jews ... Jews. So in essence the reality of a "Jewish State" is all ferkaktahed already.

[Shaktimaan]

9. Ugh.

Loyalty oaths and nationalist pledges have historically been signposts on the road to oppressive and anti-liberal periods of time. The anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy hearings, Soviet bloc state politics, the antithesis of the kind of honest discourse that could possibly resolve some of Israel's schizophrenic identity issues.

The fact is that Israel has a complex and at times contradictory nationality. For 20% of the population their Independence Day is a recognition of defeat, not victory. There are conflicting narratives, histories and ideologies at play. And a still active conflict split down ethnic lines that serves to further scramble its citizens' already conflicted loyalties and identities. There is no easy solution. And it certainly isn't to insist on some brainless loyalty oath that practically defines "tyranny of the majority."

Who exactly gets to define what the "symbols and values" of the Jewish state even are? Would disagreement on this point equal dissent? Israel, like all free nations, is in a constant process of defining itself. Any attempt at squelching this process is a step towards tyranny. It makes me very sad and scared to see ideas like this being tabled in Israel today.