ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by jumpinjarhead

You had me until you showed your hand with the pejorative "Zionism."

Depends doesn't it? Jewish mate of mine used to get highly annoyed with people coming over to Israel, getting over-excited in a yeshiva making life awkward and not really contributing much.

Now, he may agree with a religious and secular split. That's what I understood by the term "Zionism", the religious imperative to determine a country based on biblical boundaries and so forth. So, secular Jews may not agree with Zionists (who may not be classed as "real jews"?)

(Actually, maybe this is Wales I am thinking of with the Welsh-speakers and the whole North/South thing?)

But then, I've also just finished reading "A Line in the Sand", which has much about the early escapades in Palestine. There were plenty of people proud to call themselves Zionists then.

I guess a word means what a person wants it to mean at the time that they use it.

(A friend wiser in the ways of the middle east north africa area than me tells a good story of being asked whether he was a friend if Israel or a friend of the Palestinians. He replied he was a "friend of peace").

Words, need interpretors even in your own language I have often thought.

Originally Posted by Boumer

Depends doesn't it? Jewish mate of mine used to get highly annoyed with people coming over to Israel, getting over-excited in a yeshiva making life awkward and not really contributing much.

Now, he may agree with a religious and secular split. That's what I understood by the term "Zionism", the religious imperative to determine a country based on biblical boundaries and so forth. So, secular Jews may not agree with Zionists (who may not be classed as "real jews"?)

(Actually, maybe this is Wales I am thinking of with the Welsh-speakers and the whole North/South thing?)

But then, I've also just finished reading "A Line in the Sand", which has much about the early escapades in Palestine. There were plenty of people proud to call themselves Zionists then.

I guess a word means what a person wants it to mean at the time that they use it.

(A friend wiser in the ways of the middle east north africa area than me tells a good story of being asked whether he was a friend if Israel or a friend of the Palestinians. He replied he was a "friend of peace").

Words, need interpretors even in your own language I have often thought.

Very insightful. I derive meaning for such "weasel" words from the context in which they are used or in this case in the context of the thread.

Originally Posted by jumpinjarhead

You had me until you showed your hand with the pejorative "Zionism."

Zionism, the quest for a Jewish state, is something most Israelis I've met are as confortable with as Septics are with manifest destiny.

A secular Jewish state is certainly not an oxymoron, the Zionists who created Israel mostly focused on their racial identity and modern Israel is largely a Leftist colonial adventure out of the Russian Pale. Jews after all had long been persecuted by the Goyim mainly because of their blood, not faith, cursed by the Church as Deicides on which the sins of te fathers must be visited.

The Jewish state very nearly ended up in central Africa. It has always been conflicted with the Jewish religious identify and many of the devout are as uncomfortable with the secular Israeli state as Catholic Falangists were with Republican Spain.

Originally Posted by alib

Zionism, the quest for a Jewish state, is something most Israelis I've met are as confortable with as Septics are with manifest destiny.

A secular Jewish state is certainly not an oxymoron, the Zionists who created Israel mostly focused on their racial identity and modern Israel is largely a Leftist colonial adventure out of the Russian Pale. Jews after all had long been persecuted by the Goyim mainly because of their blood, not faith, cursed by the Church as Deicides on which the sins of te fathers must be visited.

The Jewish state very nearly ended up in central Africa. It has always been conflicted with the Jewish religious identify and many of the devout are as uncomfortable with the secular Israeli state as Catholic Falangists were with Republican Spain.

The Jewish state already exists so many now use it as an epithet when railing against Israel or worse, it's right to exist similar to the meaning intended on the Arab street as a euphemism for "Jewish dog" or similar pejorative.

Originally Posted by alib

i may not have been paying attention as this thread does have a lot of rather obvious bollox in it, could you provide supported examples?

You should have been taught this as part of LOAC, but I'll dig out a link to the relevant article in the UN charter later.

Edit: Two minutes on google on my phone threw this up: http://www.cfr.org/international-law/legal-basis-preemption/p5250

It's worth noting that this interpretation has never been invoked (except in the questionable case of Vietnam) and therefore remains untested.

Originally Posted by jumpinjarhead

The Jewish state already exists so many now use it as an epithet when railing against Israel or worse, it's right to exist similar to the meaning intended on the Arab street as a euphemism for "Jewish dog" or similar pejorative.

I assure you that the Arab Street is quite happy to use the term "Jewish Dog", US style PC hasn't reached them and they are often as openly anti-semitic as Poles or Greeks. When they talk about Zionism the intentions political not explicitly racial. In context it may be hurled as an insult but it's not like calling Clinton a "socialist" for affect, Israel really is at heart Zionist.

Your thinking of "The Zionist Entity", this has phrase much in common with Irish Republicans refereeing to N.Ireland as an "Orange Statelet" and its fair to say this identifies a sectarian system of rule they were indicating they didn't accept the legitimacy of, the Protestant Ascendancy. Zionism really is as neutral as say Thatcherism or Pan-Arabism and you can't really talk sensibly about Israel without recognizing the Jewish nationalist ideology the state was founded on and the fears behind that. It's also intertwined with the romance of religious Zionism and the ancient attachment to the classical Jewish homeland.

Most Pals now accept they won't be rid of Israel any time soon and accept coexistence as a reality. However they choke on the core secular Zionist idea of "A Jewish State" just as Irish Catholics refused my tribes now discarded definition of N.Irelands as "A Protestant State". The place was a democracy, we even had one man one vote by the 70s, but as Jews do in Israel we Prods had many institutional preferments that we jealously protected. This definition was an obstacle to setting up the sectarian power sharing where both tribes are allocated representation and the majority Prods can't simply dominate the place that brought some peace to the place.

Israelis have a more difficult problem, secular Zionism asserts that the Jewish people will never be safe in a state that they do not dominate. The Goyim are haters and can't finally be trusted. Given what happened to the very well assimilated population of Weimar Germany it's understandable. Unlike, say triumphalist Dixiecrat white supremacy, a real fear of pogroms underlies this. Israeli Zionists do assert even the 21st century USA with all its protections and civil rights is no safe haven for Jews, this does seem slightly crazed to most of their now very secure US brethren.

Zionism practically puts power sharing with a larger Pal population off the table. Israelis are also keen democrats, but clearly Zionist principles impose limits. While Septics have found themselves with a son of a Kenyan Muslim in charge very few Israelis can imagine their state with a non-Jewish leader. Even setting up a semi-autonomous Pal state to (temporarily given Israeli Pal birth rates) gerrymander a Jewish majority in Israel seems to be too big reach. That's been unstated US policy since Camp David and an explicit goal since George W. Bush came to power.

Yet Israel through lingering decency and a desire not stir up a shit storm hesitates to follow the logical consequences and expel the remaining Pals. The result is a squalid spectacle of walled camps, simmering hatreds and low intensity terrorism. For the Pals it is not anywhere near as bad as say the likely fate of Syrian Alawites but that's liable to make Israel look rather tawdry for a long time. Many people are perplexed by what is a very progressive country in many ways behaving this way, but the Israelis are trapped by ideology.

What makes it worse is any genuinely Muslim state is obliged by scripture to ensure the Holy Land is held under Sharia which puts Zionist Israel fundamentally at odds with much of the worlds population, whatever treaties they sign.

This makes any enemy of Israel becoming a nuclear power as Pakistan did not just a security question but also an ideological threat to the very purpose of secular Zionism. It's main existential utilitarian argument is reduced to nonsense if the existence of Israel merely exposes the majority of the worlds Jews to a second Shoah in a nuclear war. That would be as idiotic as creating a refuge state to save India's Muslim minority from the Hindu and then menacing the whole place with nukes.

Originally Posted by alib

I assure you that the Arab Street is quite happy to use the term "Jewish Dog", US style PC hasn't reached them and they are often as openly anti-semitic as Poles or Greeks. When they talk about Zionism the intentions political not explicitly racial. In context it may be hurled as an insult but it's not like calling Clinton a "socialist" for affect, Israel really is at heart Zionist.

Your thinking of "The Zionist Entity", this has phrase much in common with Irish Republicans refereeing to N.Ireland as an "Orange Statelet" and its fair to say this identifies a sectarian system of rule they were indicating they didn't accept the legitimacy of, the Protestant Ascendancy. Zionism really is as neutral as say Thatcherism or Pan-Arabism and you can't really talk sensibly about Israel without recognizing the Jewish nationalist ideology the state was founded on and the fears behind that. It's also intertwined with the romance of religious Zionism and the ancient attachment to the classical Jewish homeland.

Most Pals now accept they won't be rid of Israel any time soon and accept coexistence as a reality. However they choke on the core secular Zionist idea of "A Jewish State" just as Irish Catholics refused my tribes now discarded definition of N.Irelands as "A Protestant State". The place was a democracy, we even had one man one vote by the 70s, but as Jews do in Israel we Prods had many institutional preferments that we jealously protected. This definition was an obstacle to setting up the sectarian power sharing where both tribes are allocated representation and the majority Prods can't simply dominate the place that brought some peace to the place.

Israelis have a more difficult problem, secular Zionism asserts that the Jewish people will never be safe in a state that they do not dominate. The Goyim are haters and can't finally be trusted. Given what happened to the very well assimilated population of Weimar Germany it's understandable. Unlike, say triumphalist Dixiecrat white supremacy, a real fear of pogroms underlies this. Israeli Zionists do assert even the 21st century USA with all its protections and civil rights is no safe haven for Jews, this does seem slightly crazed to most of their now very secure US brethren.

Zionism practically puts power sharing with a larger Pal population off the table. Israelis are also keen democrats, but clearly Zionist principles impose limits. While Septics have found themselves with a son of a Kenyan Muslim in charge very few Israelis can imagine their state with a non-Jewish leader. Even setting up a semi-autonomous Pal state to (temporarily given Israeli Pal birth rates) gerrymander a Jewish majority in Israel seems to be too big reach. That's been unstated US policy since Camp David and an explicit goal since George W. Bush came to power.

Yet Israel through lingering decency and a desire not stir up a shit storm hesitates to follow the logical consequences and expel the remaining Pals. The result is a squalid spectacle of walled camps, simmering hatreds and low intensity terrorism. For the Pals it is not anywhere near as bad as say the likely fate of Syrian Alawites but that's liable to make Israel look rather tawdry for a long time. Many people are perplexed by what is a very progressive country in many ways behaving this way, but the Israelis are trapped by ideology.

What makes it worse is any genuinely Muslim state is obliged by scripture to ensure the Holy Land is held under Sharia which puts Zionist Israel fundamentally at odds with much of the worlds population, whatever treaties they sign.

This makes any enemy of Israel becoming a nuclear power as Pakistan did not just a security question but also an ideological threat to the very purpose of secular Zionism. It's main existential utilitarian argument is reduced to nonsense if the existence of Israel merely exposes the majority of the worlds Jews to a second Shoah in a nuclear war. That would be as idiotic as creating a refuge state to save India's Muslim minority from the Hindu and then menacing the whole place with nukes.

Thanks for the added insight--another collateral benefit of ARRSE!

As I said, my reaction to the word was in the context of the anti-Israel/Jewish tone of some posts in this and other threads where the term is used in the manner I suggested.

Originally Posted by Caecilius

One poor example doesn't chage the fact that the UN recognises pre-emptive attacks as a legitimate method of national defence. Furthermore, Op Telic (or Iraqi Freedom) wasn't actually brought before the UN as a pre-emptive attack; it certainly wasn't acknowledged by the UN to be such, so I'm afraid it isn't really a relevant example.

In which case a pre-emptive strike by Iran on Israel due to their sabre rattling would be entirely justified.