gershy

Completely agreed

Positive? I come off very robotic in text but I'm friendly in person! Realtime is much more effective for this kind of stuff.

- I assume you agree israel can't be physically displaced

- I assume you agree that as britain's displacement of the ottomans was valid, so too is the jewish terrorist/renegade displacement of britain

- I assume you agree britain was not acting altruistically, given its installation of a hitler ally as the jewish partner in diplomacy

From the jewish perspective, britain allowing jews access to their own homeland is not an act meriting a response of gratitude.

The remaining concern is regarding expulsion - I'd rather discuss this directly and not by analogy. Is there a particular large-scale instance of israel expelling some people which you feel is particularly unjustifiable?

I guess github is kind of a shared garden. Interesting that, like in game theory, if everyone is using it too much, no one gets to use it.

Also, would you be interested to continue this conversation by phone or video call? We've been at this for more than a month now and I admire your respectfulness and tenacity and perspective, and I think we could get to the core of our disagreement more quickly in realtime. If you were interested I'd post my email here and we could exchange contact details!

Israel is a nuclear power; it can't really be displaced.

It sounds like the terms "ingratitude" / "ingrate" are not relevant to your stance and are just emotive distractions; I suggest we avoid those terms.

Israel has a bunch of contested borders with varying levels of international recognition.

Britain displaced the ottomans, and it seems you feel they had a valid claim to the previously ottoman lands. Then jews displaced the british - why, to you, does that same validity not apply here?

Israel is physically immune to being displaced, and there is good reason to think it would be a fine western-style steward when not under duress. Even israeli jewish radicalism has historically been far less prevalent in peacetime.

On the settler accusation, we still haven't fleshed out the nature of property rights outside of any state. Without coming to an understanding here we have no framework in which to judge israel's "settler" activity. (Note I fully understand and accept stateless people's use of physical force to preserve and enrich themselves.)

I am aligned with and equally upset by your "immigrate and delay extradition" concerns.

Breadth-first discussion is not effective, and I'd like to focus on the significant remaining objection I see from you: this matter of ingratitude towards the british. I think this is a lazy or naive characterization - e.g. the british installed a hitler ally as the negotiating partner of zionist leadership in ~1920. What do jews owe britain?

I'm losing your overall point. You imply indifference when you say "it might as well be china".

My followup would be, "you don't seem indifferent about israel"

Then I would expect you to say, "well israel is particularly illegal"

And I would say, "how, particularly?"

And it seems you'd say "israel is illegally invading the west bank"

So I would say, "whose sovereign territory is it invading?"

And you would say "that of the former ottoman and/or british empire"

And I'd say "then the west bank has no sovereign authority; those you listed have exited"

Is that a fair portrayal of how our perspectives line up? To me, this establishes that specific reason for opposing israel is invalid. If you still feel opposed to israel there are plenty of other reasons you could find - but this specific reason is invalid, isn't it?

Justice (justification) and practical reality are fundamentally linked.

If no previous state is interested, the land stateless - correct?

I am not an antiabortion crusader. I'm offering what I understand to be the antiabortion position here. By ":(" I wanted to imply "Unfortunately there are seemingly lots of people who seem to hold this view genuinely and very strongly", which was not my greatest moment of clear communication.

And if none of the previous legitimate sovereign authorities of that territory are interested to administer its present-day property rights claims? The people of that land are effectively stateless, no?

Some would argue there are too many harms that occur if antiabortion measures aren't taken :(

Outside of states there is no law - only survival. I would expect stateless people to use force to preserve and increase their resources, and I would of course do so myself in such a situation. I'm not sure if the concept of private ownership exists without a sovereign state to enforce laws. I could "support" or "oppose" either side, but if that's just in terms of emotivism there is no authority to sway with my emotions, and it therefore seems moot (in such a scenario I likely wouldn't ever even consider such things, as such considerations would be inapplicable and meaningless). I could also support or oppose by contributing force, in which case I would be doing so in terms of my own survival, with ethical/legal perspectives/judgement remaining inapplicable. Does that make sense? What do you think?

(I'm canadian - not israeli.)

"Would you disagree with shooting illegal settlers who are right now robbing others lands?" Who is doing the shooting?

That's a remarkable position, thanks for being honest about it. So israel is currently pursuing what is in your eyes the only possible route to legitimacy - i.e., maintaining ownership while the ~200-year clock counts down?

So we just need to wait, and you'll reverse your stance on israel?

Would you argue that most states worldwide are false/invalid and should be relitigated? (As just about all of them were constructed in areas containing prior people, and against the will of some of those people.)

If your objections are that parties are elected rather than leaders, and that non-israelis can't vote, it sounds like you are straining very hard to deny that israel is a democracy.

I don't understand how you can disagree that generally, "territory unencompassed by anything strongly resembling a state is a favourable place to construct a state". Surely you don't agree with its negation?? I'm guessing you meant to say that you do agree in general, but in israel's specific case you have a list of "grievances" which, in sum, outweigh this general principle?

If that's correct, then it sounds like your grievances are (1) the builders of israel used terror against the british and were ungrateful to them (2) local arabs were opposed to the construction of the state of israel (3) since the construction of israel, the rights of arabs there have been impacted (4) the territory of israel was not fully purchased from some other entity (5) the right of diaspora jews to return to the land of their ethnogenesis "expired" over the course of ~3000 years (6) you don't support ethnostates.

I want to understand if this is a nearly exhaustive list, and I would like to know the nature of how these points sum together in such a way that opposes you to israel: e.g., is there any single point that alone would maintain your opposition to israel? (Imagine you somehow changed your mind on all points but one of them at random - is there any chance you still remain opposed to israel?) Is there any single point on which your entire opposition to israel hinges? (Imagine you somehow changed your mind on just one random point - is there a non-zero chance you now generally support israel?) Understanding how these grievances sum together will let us know which points are worth discussing, and will give a nice sense of the scope of our disagreement.

You're branching off in a lot of directions. Is there a specific point you'd like to focus on? Do you agree "territory unencompassed by anything strongly resembling a state is a favourable place to construct a state"?

I think there are plenty of ethnostates that function well internally, and do little unjustifiable harm to others.

So your question is "how to justify the movement of newcomers into the midst of former residents of british palestine and the ottoman empire"? The obvious initial answer - and I'm sure you'll have a pointed followup which I look forward to and will likely cause me to disavow israel in various ways - is that the lack of any state apparatus there (due to disintegration of the ottomans and withdrawal of the british) creates an environment in which there is a lack of formal resistance to the construction of a new state.

Essentially territory that is unencompassed by anything strongly resembling a state is a favourable place to construct a state.

Breadth-first discussion is not effective.

Are citizens of israel able to vote for their leadership?

I'm interested in your very general stance ("seeds of harm") as I suspect it either classifies too many or too few states as undesirable, but I want to let you push your questions too.

No sane (and non-ideological) person will defend israel at every turn. I want to avoid answering your question with a question but I also want to make sure we're talking about the same thing - whose land would you argue israel is settling?

It sounds like you don't specifically oppose ethnostates, but rather more broadly, any state which contains "the seeds of harm". What test do you use to determine whether or not a state has "the seeds of harm"?

What right/justification do you have to prevent people from organizing on any basis they determine is important to them (so long as they aren't unjustifiably harming others in the process)?

Any non-convert jew (the vast majority of jews are non-converts) will have a lineage going back to ancient israel / judea.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "don't believe in ethnostates"? Are you saying that you personally would never attempt to start one? That you don't like when others engage in building ethnostates? That you would, if you had the power, deny others the right to do so?

Caveman speak make compression not brevity

You say you don't understand "the literature" well enough to know if jews have a valid claim to israel, but when you describe early jewish zionists as "ingrates" it seems like you're saying you do understand, and have concluded there is no valid claim. Am I mistaken? Would you concede that your use of the label "ingrate" was perhaps unreasonable? What level of gratitude vs entitlement should indigenous populations manifest towards living on their own indigenous land?

Have you searched "are jews indigenous to israel?", and did you find any interesting information? Would you like me to recommend some sources on the subject which are not blatantly pro-jewish?

There are two points here: 1. Do jews have an arbitrary or valid interest in israel/palestine? 2. Do other peoples have a valid, nonzero amount of interest in the same land?

On #1 we seem to agree - of course the jewish interest in their indigenous land (the land of jewish ethnogenesis) is valid.

And of course the answer to #2 is a clear "yes". If muslim passion for and capability to seize israel increased sufficiently, it could of course become a muslim state. It seems we entirely agree here, and you return to this point most often - but it's also a completely moot point as it applies evenly to all parties - isn't it?

Jews have a unique claim to israel - they're the only people existing today which tightly trace their ethnogenesis to that region. Can you name another? (E.g. not palestinians - their ethnogenesis is strongly linked to islam / arabia.)

(If we agree here, which I think we do, I'd love to discuss your "relitigation of israel" idea because I think it's interesting and bananas)

Jewish ethnogenesis occurred in ancient israel plus judea. Yes or no?