Can anything or anyone self determine ? Can I self determine ? Would I not have to be the only agent in the world and everyone and everything else in the world be a great mass of passivities ?
Where is this " right" to self determination located, in what is it grounded ? And if one person, one thing or one country/people has it does not every person, every thing and every country/ people have it too ? What an unholy mess if all these rights, many conflicting with each other, were exercised. As the saying goes, German cemeteries are full of motorists that had the right of way.
Now we are endlessly told that to come down too heavy on Israel is a denial of the right of the Jewish people to self determination, and therefore anti semitic. Hard to make any sense of this. Are all Jews included in the " Jewish people " or just some ?
How is Israel an expression of the right of self determination of non Zionist Jews or Zionist Jews that feel strongly that there ought not to be a political expression of Zionism, even that such an expression is idolatry? Do these Jews have the right of self determination too ?
Take the case of the comfortable New York Jew who thinks about Israel from time to time but not often. He likes his life and is happy self determining on Wall Street. If Israel ceased to be or never had been how would this person be less self determined ?
The problem with these lazy sound bites whose main purpose seems to be intimidatory, is that they embroil us in a morass of contradictions. Just one example...
We are told that it is anti semitic to hold Jews collectively responsible for the actions and policies of the State of Israel. We are also told that Israel is the exercise of the right to self determination of the Jewish people and to deny this is anti semitic. Now these things cannot be true together. One or both of them must be false.
Take Joe Cohen down the street. If the State of Israel enterprise is the exercise of HIS right to self determination how can HE not be responsible ? When I exercise my right of self determination do I do so with no responsiblity whatsoever ? Unless you want to say " the Jewish people " doesn't include Joe.
Dont miss tomorrows exciting instalment....What is the purpose of these lazy sound bites ?
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