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> Would you consider ethno-nationalists of other nations (far) left, based on (speculating) their economic/women's rights/LGBT/other social stances? If your im

by edanm 1y ago

> Would you consider ethno-nationalists of other nations (far) left, based on (speculating) their economic/women's rights/LGBT/other social stances? If your implication is that I'm an ethno-nationalist, I don't think that characterizes Israel or my thoughts about it, however much "ethnostate" is a favorite slur of people to use against Israel.

leereeves 1y ago
Ethnostate is not a slur, it's an accurate description of a country that itself passed the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. (A basic law in Israel is roughly like a constitutional amendment in the US.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law%3A_Israel_as_the_Nation-State_of_the_Jewish_People https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law%3A_Israel_as_the_Nat...
- throwaway3060 1y ago
  Ethnostate is an ambiguous word. Does it mean ethnically homogenous? Israel is certainly not that. Does it mean, essentially, a nation-state whose "national group" is an ethnicity? Israel is that - but so is much of Europe and some parts of Asia.
  - leereeves 1y ago
    How many of those have declared themselves to be the Nation-State of the X people? (at least after the 1940s)
    - throwaway3060 1y ago
      Many former Soviet and former Yugoslavia nations did this. I ran the question by AI, and it seems to think that somewhere between 30-50 since WWII have done so explicitly.
      - leereeves 1y ago
        Seems fair to call those ethnostates as well. Edit: I asked ChatGPT "How many nations have declared themselves to be the Nation-State of a people?" earlier and got the same answer as you. I asked again just now and got "Israel is the only nation in the world that has legally declared itself the “Nation‑State of the Jewish People.”" [I didn't specify Jewish] Can't rely on AI.
      - peppers-ghost 1y ago
        You should consider that AI is often wrong and stop using it as a source of truth.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
kulahan 1y ago
I think it might be a slur on, say, reddit, but isn’t most of the world a bunch of ethnostates? Isn’t that kinda one of the things that makes the US stand out, is that it’s explicitly not one? I’m asking this unironically, but I guess I thought e.g. Ireland was pretty homogenous, as is Japan, Ethiopia, Cuba, Peru, and Denmark. (Maybe some of those examples aren’t perfect but you get my point I hope)
- skissane 1y ago
  > I’m asking this unironically, but I guess I thought e.g. Ireland was pretty homogenous In the 2022 census, only 76.5% of people in Ireland were ethnically Irish. Over 20% of the population are foreign-born, with the most common countries of foreign birth being Poland, the UK, India, Romania and Lithuania. So Ireland is far less homogeneous than you perceive it to be. But the real issue here isn’t how diverse the state’s population is in practice, it is how the state defines itself in its own founding documents (such as the constitution) - as a state for all its citizens, or as a state for a people (ethnos) which is only a subset of the state’s citizens? Israel is (2) but essentially all Western nations nowadays are (1). Even though the French and German constitutions still express the idea of a “national people” for whom the state exists, they consider anyone who is naturalised as a citizen as joining that people (“ethnos”). By contrast, a non-Jew can immigrate to Israel and become an Israeli citizen-but the state will still not consider them a member of the people for whom the state exists-only conversion to Judaism does that, and only if their conversion is accepted as valid by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate-non-Orthodox conversions will not be accepted, but they sometimes even reject conversions by overseas Orthodox Rabbis whom they don’t consider “rigorous” enough. So Israel is actually unique in this regard - no Western nation makes becoming “not just a citizen of the state, but a member of the people for whom it exists” contingent on religious conversion. If you want a parallel, you’d have to look at the Islamic world, where non-Muslims are sometimes (not always) permitted citizenship, but are denied membership in the category of “nation for whose sake the state exists”
  - throwaway3060 1y ago
    Israel is not at all unique in this regard. Your (1) is essentially limited to Western Europe ("civic" nation-states) and non-nation-states.
like_any_other 1y ago
I do not use it as a slur, nor do I think Israel is an exception in this regard - China, Japan, Korea, Ukraine, Poland, Sudan, Finland, Egypt, are all effectively ethno-states. They may host a few minorities, but they are primarily vessels for the self-determination and preservation of their nations.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
like_any_other 1y ago
If you're not an ethno-nationalist, would you be okay with Jews becoming a minority in Israel? The usual retort is that you can't because all your neighbors hate you - but there's no requirement immigrants come from neighbor countries, as immigration to England, Germany, and France shows.
- edanm 1y ago
  I think that's a valid question. The answer is - no, I wouldn't want Jews being a minority in Israel; I think Jews need at least one homeland where they are a majority, especially given how Jews have been treated throughout history. But also, it's complicated, and really depends on how we get there. France, US, England etc allow immigration. But all of them put caps and conditions on immigration. All of them also have fierce internal debates around the topic of immigration, because of the fear of a fundamental change in the character of the country.
  - like_any_other 1y ago
    > I think Jews need at least one homeland where they are a majority, especially given how Jews have been treated throughout history. Both those points apply to most nations, not just the Jewish one. (This reply may seem curt, but I'm not disagreeing)
    - edanm 1y ago
      And indeed, most "nations" have their own homeland. That's exactly what happened in the 19th and 20th century - a new nationalism was taking hold in the world, and many nations created a national homeland - hence the creation of so many countries in the 20th century. The Zionist movement started because early Jewish leaders saw this phenomenon gaining traction, and understood that as these national identities were created and states started being created for them, many wouldn't consider Jews part of their "nationality", therefore Jews also needed a national homeland. This was, in retrospect, the exactly correct analysis, given the pogroms that happened in the 19th century and given the Holocaust. Despite so many people claiming otherwise, there's not much different about Israel than many other European nations.

by edanm 1y ago

leereeves 1y ago

Ethnostate is not a slur, it's an accurate description of a country that itself passed the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. (A basic law in Israel is roughly like a constitutional amendment in the US.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law%3A_Israel_as_the_Nation-State_of_the_Jewish_People https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law%3A_Israel_as_the_Nat...

throwaway3060 1y ago
Ethnostate is an ambiguous word. Does it mean ethnically homogenous? Israel is certainly not that. Does it mean, essentially, a nation-state whose "national group" is an ethnicity? Israel is that - but so is much of Europe and some parts of Asia.
- leereeves 1y ago
  How many of those have declared themselves to be the Nation-State of the X people? (at least after the 1940s)
  - throwaway3060 1y ago
    Many former Soviet and former Yugoslavia nations did this. I ran the question by AI, and it seems to think that somewhere between 30-50 since WWII have done so explicitly.
    - leereeves 1y ago
      Seems fair to call those ethnostates as well. Edit: I asked ChatGPT "How many nations have declared themselves to be the Nation-State of a people?" earlier and got the same answer as you. I asked again just now and got "Israel is the only nation in the world that has legally declared itself the “Nation‑State of the Jewish People.”" [I didn't specify Jewish] Can't rely on AI.
    - peppers-ghost 1y ago
      You should consider that AI is often wrong and stop using it as a source of truth.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

kulahan 1y ago

I think it might be a slur on, say, reddit, but isn’t most of the world a bunch of ethnostates? Isn’t that kinda one of the things that makes the US stand out, is that it’s explicitly not one? I’m asking this unironically, but I guess I thought e.g. Ireland was pretty homogenous, as is Japan, Ethiopia, Cuba, Peru, and Denmark. (Maybe some of those examples aren’t perfect but you get my point I hope)

skissane 1y ago
> I’m asking this unironically, but I guess I thought e.g. Ireland was pretty homogenous In the 2022 census, only 76.5% of people in Ireland were ethnically Irish. Over 20% of the population are foreign-born, with the most common countries of foreign birth being Poland, the UK, India, Romania and Lithuania. So Ireland is far less homogeneous than you perceive it to be. But the real issue here isn’t how diverse the state’s population is in practice, it is how the state defines itself in its own founding documents (such as the constitution) - as a state for all its citizens, or as a state for a people (ethnos) which is only a subset of the state’s citizens? Israel is (2) but essentially all Western nations nowadays are (1). Even though the French and German constitutions still express the idea of a “national people” for whom the state exists, they consider anyone who is naturalised as a citizen as joining that people (“ethnos”). By contrast, a non-Jew can immigrate to Israel and become an Israeli citizen-but the state will still not consider them a member of the people for whom the state exists-only conversion to Judaism does that, and only if their conversion is accepted as valid by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate-non-Orthodox conversions will not be accepted, but they sometimes even reject conversions by overseas Orthodox Rabbis whom they don’t consider “rigorous” enough. So Israel is actually unique in this regard - no Western nation makes becoming “not just a citizen of the state, but a member of the people for whom it exists” contingent on religious conversion. If you want a parallel, you’d have to look at the Islamic world, where non-Muslims are sometimes (not always) permitted citizenship, but are denied membership in the category of “nation for whose sake the state exists”
- throwaway3060 1y ago
  Israel is not at all unique in this regard. Your (1) is essentially limited to Western Europe ("civic" nation-states) and non-nation-states.

like_any_other 1y ago

I do not use it as a slur, nor do I think Israel is an exception in this regard - China, Japan, Korea, Ukraine, Poland, Sudan, Finland, Egypt, are all effectively ethno-states. They may host a few minorities, but they are primarily vessels for the self-determination and preservation of their nations.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

like_any_other 1y ago

If you're not an ethno-nationalist, would you be okay with Jews becoming a minority in Israel? The usual retort is that you can't because all your neighbors hate you - but there's no requirement immigrants come from neighbor countries, as immigration to England, Germany, and France shows.

edanm 1y ago
I think that's a valid question. The answer is - no, I wouldn't want Jews being a minority in Israel; I think Jews need at least one homeland where they are a majority, especially given how Jews have been treated throughout history. But also, it's complicated, and really depends on how we get there. France, US, England etc allow immigration. But all of them put caps and conditions on immigration. All of them also have fierce internal debates around the topic of immigration, because of the fear of a fundamental change in the character of the country.
- like_any_other 1y ago
  > I think Jews need at least one homeland where they are a majority, especially given how Jews have been treated throughout history. Both those points apply to most nations, not just the Jewish one. (This reply may seem curt, but I'm not disagreeing)
  - edanm 1y ago
    And indeed, most "nations" have their own homeland. That's exactly what happened in the 19th and 20th century - a new nationalism was taking hold in the world, and many nations created a national homeland - hence the creation of so many countries in the 20th century. The Zionist movement started because early Jewish leaders saw this phenomenon gaining traction, and understood that as these national identities were created and states started being created for them, many wouldn't consider Jews part of their "nationality", therefore Jews also needed a national homeland. This was, in retrospect, the exactly correct analysis, given the pogroms that happened in the 19th century and given the Holocaust. Despite so many people claiming otherwise, there's not much different about Israel than many other European nations.