https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2022/01/is-israel-jewish-or-white-supremacist.html

Debate between Tony Greenstein and Israeli anti-Zionist Ronnie Barkan

Please join by Zoom here or access it via Youtube here

The debate about the nature of the Israeli state is an important one. In the IHRA misdefinition of anti-Semitism anti-Semitism is held to be

‘Applying double standards by requiring of it [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.’

Leaving aside the absurd wording ‘democratic nation’ which implies some nations are not democratic, in itself a racist phrase, the IHRA assumes that Israel is a normal democratic state. Of course we all know that Israel may be democratic for Israeli Jews but it is Jewish for Arabs.

The question though is what type of state Israel is. It is now accepted that Israel is a settler-colonial state much like Apartheid South Africa and Algeria. But that doesn’t tell us the specific character of Israel.

Israel describes itself as a Jewish Democratic state which is an oxymoron. A state can either be democratic or Jewish but it cannot be both and in practice Israel promotes the Jewish over the democratic. But Israel as Jewish state isn’t a religious or theocratic state Jewish ethnically.

When Netanyahu’s government introduced the Jewish Nation State Law in 2018 it gave Israeli Jews only national rights. Although in theory Palestinian citizens of Israel had equal rights on an individual basis, in practice this could not but help impinge on those rights.

Article 7 of the Act provides that ‘

‘the state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value, and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.’

What this means is being played out currently in the Naqab and East Jerusalem where the Jewish National Fund and Jewish settlers are ethically cleansing the indigenous Palestinian population.

Because Israel defines itself as a ‘Jewish’ state it allows Israelis the right to tell Palestinians, even those who are nominal citizens, that they should be grateful they are allowed to live in a Jewish state. Ctd....