vicdan wrote:Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Since they are living in the same area as the Kurds, many of them since many ages and while not minding being a minority in a shared territory they will rise up the moment the Kurds would declare a state in any manner.
Because, heaven knows, this is what all the ethnic minorities have always done when a nation-state is declared...
Not unless they became integral part of that nation-state to start with. What you're suggesting is that because land-grabbing, racism, ethnic relocation, ghetto policy and genocide always have been with us, we should just accept them in this day and age, just because we can give it new names and forms (or at times the other way around: genocide or threat of one developing, claimed in places were it's not really happening as defined).
It's a matter of writing oneself into ones own history and call it nationalism. That never works for long.
it undergirds the modern world. nationalism is a transitional stage of the state, the stage when it acquires geopolitical coherence. it is a condition which is arguably transcended eventually, but it does have a lot to offer in the process of development.
Nationalism is not good or bad in itself, it's a complex mechanism. But when it's mostly based on fantastic myth (election promises, war frenzy, mythology, racial motives, etc) it won't last for long resulting in a spiral of increasing outwards violence. This in opposition to nationalism based on some plain historical truth could, like having lived somewhere dominantly for a couple of recent ages.
That says not even one iota about "Jewish habitation in Israel".
Sure it does. Read it more carefully. The fact that the determinant used was one for nomadic people doesn't negate the fact of jewish
habitation (rather than statehood or settlement) in Israel; which was what i had claimed. If you disagree with the interpretation of the hieroglyphs as naming Israel, take that up with the egyptologists who seem to overwhelmingly interpret it thusly. neither you or I are competent to second-guess their analyses.
Speak for yourself, I have a strong enough background to say something relevant on the subject. Let me educate you a bit on modern archeology which came a long way from being dominated by Bible and Torah centered
interpretation way into the 1970's still even. While the initial translation of the glyph was from Flinders Petrie (pre WW2), the current consensus is
not overwhelmingly interpreting it like this anymore.
The secular scholars are more gravitating these days toward the
The Copenhagen School when it comes to
interpretation of archaeological finds in a Biblical context. This is a refreshing change from archaeologist who after finding something interpret from a classical Judeo-Christian assumption that Biblical scripture is a trustworthy source to some degree.
Perhaps you just do not realize how much the Judeo-Christian tandem has dominated much scientific research and publication for
centuries. Just like it still dominates certain nationalist claims here and there. The underlying hesitation in the archaeological community is akin to the Emperor's Cloths: one has to admit the possibility of past errors on such a grand scale the implications seem hell to some.
Then of course there is the
Mesha Stele, which predates your magical '700 BCE' date by about a century and a half, which is written in an ancient dialect almost identical to ancient hebrew, which explicitly mentions one 'Omri king of Israel', and which incidentally seems to mention the house of David (though this cannot be confirmed). The Mesha stele, BTW, implies that there had already been an established kingdom of Israel of some sort (not necessarily the 'one kingdom') probably a generation before 950BCE, and that by that time it was already strong enough to conquer at least parts of Moab.
Hahah! I've been waiting for you to bring that one up! The only thing approaching a fact to work with here is that there was a king ruling the Northern part of Canaan whose name is also mentioned in the same religious scripture that always likes to talk about a mythical past 'united kingdom'. Since the Northern Kingdom was dispersed later on (the 10 'lost tribes') these people are virtually out of existence and replaced by other imports. Sure, the ethnic Jew can claim genetic links to any part of the Canaanite melting pot, but this doesn't mean any emerging strong identity was there before the Babylonian capture, when the
need arose, and the stories.
By the way, you might appreciate this remark in the Wiki: "...a tendency since the 1990s, largely among European scholars, to question or dismiss the historical reliability of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). (...) In general, North American and Israeli scholars tend to be more willing to accept the identification of the biblical King David in the Mesha stele."
True or not, it would be
totally in line with the unscientific and speculative wiggle room this field of science gives and therefore not a surprise the most 'hot headed' ones keep running away with it.
Really, when it comes to these matter there's hardly any fact to base decisions or claims on.
What bullshit. The only disputation you make is of jewish presence
before 700BCE (which Mesha Stele proves pretty conclusively). However, even if jews had lived there only since 700BCE, that would
still be perfectly fine secular reason to call Israel 'the land of my fathers'. You are the one who is moving the goalposts -- you simply challenged my aside about the earliest known jewish presence in Israel, and now you seem to treat the disagreement about the
date as negating the reasons having nothing to do with the specific dates.
You seem to be arguing rather dishonestly here, dude.
"Proves pretty conclusively". Man, which planet do you live on? This is not computer science, perhaps you should stay with the things you know and not drone on about things you don't even grasp the 101.
But really, you don't get my point. I
never was questioning any Jewish presence. That's you moving the posts and blaming me. Cute. My point was that there was no evidence at all, apart from some religious documents and highly speculative research (in the order of finding WMD in a Middle East state) that shows Jews as distinct or relevant ethnicity populating any
Israeli state, apart from a Judean Kingdom for a few centuries, while being carried off now and again. This suggests an ongoing desire to rebuild a mythical past of a state or kingdom called "Israel" which - if it existed at all - would unlikely be Jewish, religious
or ethnic in its origin and nature.
For the Jewish presence as being distinctively
Jewish - it's really hard to put a timeline on this at all. It's more like some of the frenzied Nazis reaching for an "Aryan" link to trace back to. Yes, there are 'kernels' of historical truths here and there in many theories but it shouldn't be used to fuel nationalism. It should be discouraged by wiser individuals.
Your 'average uninformed bible basher', dude, uses bible as a historical source. Surely that fact didn't escape your attention when you made this disingenuous jibe. You seem to be deliberately deceptive in order to support your predetermined point.
No, the meaning just escaped you here: they end up using exactly this type of "external evidence" to beef up a belief without foundation. Or a nationalist viewpoint, whatever. And when showed how all of their resources are at most speculation or a very disputed minority opinion in the respective fields, the weirdest quantum leaps in logic arise, if they even stay in the discussion.
What's more, not only did you not even bother to explicitly lump me in together with them before ascribing to me guilt by (non-existent) association, you had accused me personally (not just my 'brothers' the rabbis and bible teachers, WTF?!.) of having walked away before when someone called my bluff.
First of all, like I said above, you were throwing
exactly the same contrived evidence (in the sense it cannot be used as such) as many believers I meet, while the scholars never do somehow. And secondly I remember you also suddenly disappeared in another discussion after your rant about "mathematical planes with curvature" was proven to be bullocks. Not even an apology. I haven't really followed much other debates with you involved so I guess it's a prejudice based on minimal exposure, sure. You're welcome to surprise me. :)
If you want to maintain that this talk doesn't belong in the discussion you're right of course, but your abusive language doesn't exactly set the standard very high so far.
The nationalist movement had everything to do with the supposed glory days and its heroes. They were its very fuel, totally merged with Jewish national identity and pride.
Great. Then palestinians have even less of a claim to statehood than jews do, and the case is resolved -- we can all go home, secure in our knowledge that palestinians are not a people deserving of a nation, right?..
Actually I agree here. I think their claims are not very strong at all. They are doomed to share the land, as are the Jews I'm afraid.
Yeah, the two-state solution really addressed this antisemitism.
yes, it did. It let us
defend ourselves. '
Never again', have you heard those words?
So to escape a varying hostile population around the globe, they organize themselves between even more hostile nations and claim a piece of land with almost impossible to defend borders? And one starts defending "oneself" by becoming totally depending on the good-will of super powers to keep the peace? It's a highly contrived state of affairs and it's not difficult to see it won't last. Any perceived anti-antisemitism becomes just a more distinct anti-Israelism and anti-Zionism. Fueling the thought that there's something incredible tragic and above all
human about the Jew.
Anyway, I meant to imply that all of your 'fathers' claimed any form of Israel historically on religious grounds and inspiration, and that it was not just about living there and sharing the land.
Not the jews who founded modern israel now, no?..
If that's who you mean with 'fathers' as in 'founding fathers', sure, we can have a different discussion. Their inspiration and motivation is another item for discussion though and should be scrutinized.
And the most famous forefathers in the Jewish culture are still mythical, religious icons, not historical.
So what? most peoples have their history intertwined with religion. plus, we have had no nation for two millenia (khazaran kaganate doesn't count as 'our nation'), so our national history is kinda long in the tooth. There's not much to be expected that far back except for myth, now, is there? But the ethnicity is real, and now Israel once again is real.
You're ignoring the
fact that a notion of having had a
nation two millenia ago is a pure religious idea until proven otherwise. You're introducing a non-religious "national history" where there's only the tiniest glimpse of indirect evidence.
So the ethnicity is real, so what? There are many ethnicities without nation and many nations without a distinct ethnicity and it doesn't seem to bother them much. An extra drive is needed to let people demand for a State in a hostile area with neighbors that reject their claims, becoming totally dependent on a changing handful of remote donors to fuel the economy and guarantee safety. If it's not the need for resources that causes this behavior then it must be religious concepts, the other great fuel for these movements.
