This is so good at explaining the fundamentally flawed logic used as justification for actions that can't be justified! I sent it to relatives that don't find my arguments compelling. Thank you Noah!
This is very good. I don't think it's entirely correct to describe China and the USA as 'ethnonationalist' in the same way that Israel is ethnonationalist. In both--and in many other countries--there is a dominant group, and then there is a strong political current which conceives of citizenship as adhering more authentically to one ethnicity, resulting in many poisonous aspects to the politics that end up damaging the rights and welfare of other ethnicities. But Israel is much more explicitly identified as a Jewish state. They have explicitly excluded some from citizenship for overtly ethnonationalist reasons, and this wholly determines what can happen in that state and to those people without major shifts.
Ideology plays a large role in the former states when it comes to membership--people are lured to embrace a certain conception of the nation. It's harmful to minorities. But those minorities can participate and hold public office. China persecutes minorities as resistant to this larger state ideology. They are insisting on a kind of ideological and society unity that they see Uyghurs as a threat to--in addition to their ethnocentrism. (I'm less sure about Myanmar.)
Maybe we need a different category for what the US, most of Europe, and China are? Or maybe what Israel is? There's a distinction though I don't articulate it well.
::with that power, as the poet says, comes responsibility.::
I didn't realize Peter Parker's Uncle Ben was a poet!
I absolutely agree with "States do not have rights, States have duties. They have a duty to protect their citizens. And they have even more of a duty to protect those they do not consider citizens." The problem is, I don't think most *states* see it that way—they see it as "Us" versus "Them", and We're right but They don't deserve to exist here where WE do!
I've sort of distantly been following what's going on in India since Narendra Modi took power, and his ethnonationalist dream on an all-Hindu India by virtue of violently crushing Muslim Indian opposition troubles me greatly. I mainly known India through its movie entertainment ("Bollywood"), and one theme many of those movies (the ones that aren't rah-rah Hindu Nationalist thrillers!) include is how India's population is Hindu AND Muslim AND Christian, and all are part of India's family! (AMAR AKBAR ANTHONY being the most blatant example.) Even the thrillers often have the Muslim terrorist pursued by a Muslim intelligence officer (often a family member because...Bollywood), who ends the movie saying "Hindu, Muslim, or Christian—we are all part of India!"
I don't know if you can build a state where being exclusionary isn't part of its makeup. The U.S. tries periodically to embrace that, but then happily slides back into ethnonationalism like a pig into mud—and even at our most inclusionary, there's always what we did the the First Nations and to the Negros we enslaved for cheap labor in the background, and how hard we have to fight to even *acknowledge* that's what we did, let alone atone for it.
Right; I didn’t say the taliban was in charge in Iran! I guess I can see the confusion, but I was pointing to different parallel situations, not saying that the Taliban was in charge in Iran.
A powerful argument, Noah. Also, a reasonable discussion of these ideas by subscribers. Thanks, to all.
I would really like to see Harris/Walz separate from Biden’s policies dealing with Israel and Netanyahu. Too much appeasement and deference and money and weapons 😢 I realize that they first have to get into office. 💙
Overall I agree, though when saying "states do not have a right to exist" the modifier "ethnonationalist" is important. Most of us agree that Ukraine has a right to exist, although there was suppression of the rights of its ethnic Russian citizens at one point. That is the excuse the Putin is using; however, Ukraine as far as I can tell advanced quite away from that suppression by the time Putin invaded. Part of that advance resulted from the US using its economic power to rid the country of corrupt officials.
Apartheid is a way of treating people within the country. It really has nothing to do with whether the country has a "right to exist." Few people thought South Africa should have been dismantled utterly. The fight against apartheid there was to CORRECT the way of operating, not to destroy operation in general.
I've read enough now** about the treatment of Arab citizens of Israel--including Bedouins, and of course Palestinians both within Israel and for sure in its "occupied territories" like the West Bank and East Jerusalem-- to believe now that apartheid is the right word for the structure of Israeli society under its current government--and frankly many of its past governments. There are people of good will in Israel who opposed the apartheid; they have a voice in, amongst other things, Haaretz. But Netanyahu has USED the Hamas attack to clamp down even within Israel, and to keep too many Israelis ignorant of just how horrific the expanded war is. Brainwashing, gas lighting, controlling the media. So long as people claim that criticism of Israel is denial of its "right to exist" the US will be immobilized from exerting its power and obeying its own laws about use of American weapons.
Netanyahu is one with trump in using fear to control his society for his own personal ends. I can easily see trump declaring war on Mexico should a cartel carry out some sort of attack across the Southern border, blaring a "right to defend itself" to justify rains of missiles on Mexican cities. And an alarming proportion of the country would go "yes, SUH!."
The treatment of Arabs in Israel as second class citizens is longstanding, long before Hamas or Hezbollah were even created. So long as people claim that criticism of Israel is denial of its "right to exist" the US will be immobilized from exerting its power and obeying its own laws about use of American weapons.
The same whupping up of fear was used way back in 1982, resulting in the the massacre of refugees in the Sabra and Shatila camps. The war was originally about the PLO operating in Lebanon, but by the end of August the PLO had withdrawn and there was presumably going to be an international peace keeping force to protect Palestinian civilians. Instead, the US withdrew its forces and the Israelis showed the Lebanese Christians (who actually carried out the massacre) pictures of the Holocaust and claimed the same would happen to them if Palestinians were not eradicated from Lebanon. Again, USING horrors from the past to obliterate people not considered really people.
The Holocaust was horrific. On a much smaller scale, the 10/7 attack was horrific. Neither justifies horrific responses on innocent people. Does anyone really believe that, despite their rhetoric, either Hamas or Hezbollah on their own are capable of destroying Israel? Again, using an unreasonable fear for personal aims (either immunity from prosecution or the claims of the far right that Israel has a right to the whole region--I've been calling their position "manifest destiny" for some time-- is the bane of the world today: here, in Hungary, in the far right rise in the Eurozone, and in the Middle East--and though I haven't looked into the reasons closely, the persecutions in India, Myanmar, and Western China.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" was inspiring at the time, but doesn't take into account the USES of fear to achieve power by corrupting the will of the people.
__________________________________________
**my sources, besides Haaretz and even some articles in the Times of Israel, include a damning report last summer by the NYT and the book "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama" by Nathan Thrall, an American Jew living in Jerusalem. Of course Al-Jazeera also documents this behavior, but trying to cite it raises unjustified cries of antisemitism.
I think the issue with Ukraine is less that "Ukraine has a right to exist" and more that it's people have the right to self-determination; they have created a democratic state, and have made it very clear they don't want to be annexed by an imperial fascist asshole.
so, more or less, has Lebanon. It doesn’t want to be annexed either. The Palestinians in Gaza had no choice after Hamas’s coup, which was supported by Bibi. Same goes for the villages in the west bank. Self determination CAN be something other than what we see as democracy, (in the sense of, for example, tribal government by elders)—so long as the people agree with the structure.
Exactly—if we understand “rights” as uniquely belonging to human individuals, so much becomes clear. No country, territory, state or municipality has rights—only the humans residing within the place have rights. I’ve spent the majority of my life in a time and place where the notion of “states’ rights” has ratcheted up and each turn of the crank has only ever tightened state control over the inhabitants of these states. The rights of the individuals—especially those in the minority, but honestly anyone who gets in the way of state power—are trampled in the name of an entity that cannot, by its nature, have rights.
And the state does all kinds of crazy acrobatics to figure out justifications for obfuscating the distinction. Remember “corporations are people”??
This is so good at explaining the fundamentally flawed logic used as justification for actions that can't be justified! I sent it to relatives that don't find my arguments compelling. Thank you Noah!
This is very good. I don't think it's entirely correct to describe China and the USA as 'ethnonationalist' in the same way that Israel is ethnonationalist. In both--and in many other countries--there is a dominant group, and then there is a strong political current which conceives of citizenship as adhering more authentically to one ethnicity, resulting in many poisonous aspects to the politics that end up damaging the rights and welfare of other ethnicities. But Israel is much more explicitly identified as a Jewish state. They have explicitly excluded some from citizenship for overtly ethnonationalist reasons, and this wholly determines what can happen in that state and to those people without major shifts.
Ideology plays a large role in the former states when it comes to membership--people are lured to embrace a certain conception of the nation. It's harmful to minorities. But those minorities can participate and hold public office. China persecutes minorities as resistant to this larger state ideology. They are insisting on a kind of ideological and society unity that they see Uyghurs as a threat to--in addition to their ethnocentrism. (I'm less sure about Myanmar.)
Maybe we need a different category for what the US, most of Europe, and China are? Or maybe what Israel is? There's a distinction though I don't articulate it well.
I think it’s a continuum. Trump’s vision is very wthmonationalist, and if he wins he’s promised to engage in an ethnonationalist genocide…
::with that power, as the poet says, comes responsibility.::
I didn't realize Peter Parker's Uncle Ben was a poet!
I absolutely agree with "States do not have rights, States have duties. They have a duty to protect their citizens. And they have even more of a duty to protect those they do not consider citizens." The problem is, I don't think most *states* see it that way—they see it as "Us" versus "Them", and We're right but They don't deserve to exist here where WE do!
I've sort of distantly been following what's going on in India since Narendra Modi took power, and his ethnonationalist dream on an all-Hindu India by virtue of violently crushing Muslim Indian opposition troubles me greatly. I mainly known India through its movie entertainment ("Bollywood"), and one theme many of those movies (the ones that aren't rah-rah Hindu Nationalist thrillers!) include is how India's population is Hindu AND Muslim AND Christian, and all are part of India's family! (AMAR AKBAR ANTHONY being the most blatant example.) Even the thrillers often have the Muslim terrorist pursued by a Muslim intelligence officer (often a family member because...Bollywood), who ends the movie saying "Hindu, Muslim, or Christian—we are all part of India!"
I don't know if you can build a state where being exclusionary isn't part of its makeup. The U.S. tries periodically to embrace that, but then happily slides back into ethnonationalism like a pig into mud—and even at our most inclusionary, there's always what we did the the First Nations and to the Negros we enslaved for cheap labor in the background, and how hard we have to fight to even *acknowledge* that's what we did, let alone atone for it.
I think it's always a struggle. The US has at various points done better in embracing multiethnic democracy...and then sometimes it's done less well.
As brilliant feminist, Sarah Ahmad once pointed out, “to name the problem is to be made the problem.”
Maybe it's because I'm still on my first cup of coffee, but I'm NOT sure how that applies...?
EDITED: Oh, I got it now!
::pulls the Nitro Cold Brew IV out of my arm::
Sorry—
Sara Ahmed is correct.
I posted from on the road and did not spellcheck.
One small correction. The Taliban is in power in Afghanistan. Iran is also an oppressive Islamic state with an Ayatollah as Supreme Leader.
Right; I didn’t say the taliban was in charge in Iran! I guess I can see the confusion, but I was pointing to different parallel situations, not saying that the Taliban was in charge in Iran.
Bravo!
A powerful argument, Noah. Also, a reasonable discussion of these ideas by subscribers. Thanks, to all.
I would really like to see Harris/Walz separate from Biden’s policies dealing with Israel and Netanyahu. Too much appeasement and deference and money and weapons 😢 I realize that they first have to get into office. 💙
Overall I agree, though when saying "states do not have a right to exist" the modifier "ethnonationalist" is important. Most of us agree that Ukraine has a right to exist, although there was suppression of the rights of its ethnic Russian citizens at one point. That is the excuse the Putin is using; however, Ukraine as far as I can tell advanced quite away from that suppression by the time Putin invaded. Part of that advance resulted from the US using its economic power to rid the country of corrupt officials.
Apartheid is a way of treating people within the country. It really has nothing to do with whether the country has a "right to exist." Few people thought South Africa should have been dismantled utterly. The fight against apartheid there was to CORRECT the way of operating, not to destroy operation in general.
I've read enough now** about the treatment of Arab citizens of Israel--including Bedouins, and of course Palestinians both within Israel and for sure in its "occupied territories" like the West Bank and East Jerusalem-- to believe now that apartheid is the right word for the structure of Israeli society under its current government--and frankly many of its past governments. There are people of good will in Israel who opposed the apartheid; they have a voice in, amongst other things, Haaretz. But Netanyahu has USED the Hamas attack to clamp down even within Israel, and to keep too many Israelis ignorant of just how horrific the expanded war is. Brainwashing, gas lighting, controlling the media. So long as people claim that criticism of Israel is denial of its "right to exist" the US will be immobilized from exerting its power and obeying its own laws about use of American weapons.
Netanyahu is one with trump in using fear to control his society for his own personal ends. I can easily see trump declaring war on Mexico should a cartel carry out some sort of attack across the Southern border, blaring a "right to defend itself" to justify rains of missiles on Mexican cities. And an alarming proportion of the country would go "yes, SUH!."
The treatment of Arabs in Israel as second class citizens is longstanding, long before Hamas or Hezbollah were even created. So long as people claim that criticism of Israel is denial of its "right to exist" the US will be immobilized from exerting its power and obeying its own laws about use of American weapons.
The same whupping up of fear was used way back in 1982, resulting in the the massacre of refugees in the Sabra and Shatila camps. The war was originally about the PLO operating in Lebanon, but by the end of August the PLO had withdrawn and there was presumably going to be an international peace keeping force to protect Palestinian civilians. Instead, the US withdrew its forces and the Israelis showed the Lebanese Christians (who actually carried out the massacre) pictures of the Holocaust and claimed the same would happen to them if Palestinians were not eradicated from Lebanon. Again, USING horrors from the past to obliterate people not considered really people.
The Holocaust was horrific. On a much smaller scale, the 10/7 attack was horrific. Neither justifies horrific responses on innocent people. Does anyone really believe that, despite their rhetoric, either Hamas or Hezbollah on their own are capable of destroying Israel? Again, using an unreasonable fear for personal aims (either immunity from prosecution or the claims of the far right that Israel has a right to the whole region--I've been calling their position "manifest destiny" for some time-- is the bane of the world today: here, in Hungary, in the far right rise in the Eurozone, and in the Middle East--and though I haven't looked into the reasons closely, the persecutions in India, Myanmar, and Western China.
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" was inspiring at the time, but doesn't take into account the USES of fear to achieve power by corrupting the will of the people.
__________________________________________
**my sources, besides Haaretz and even some articles in the Times of Israel, include a damning report last summer by the NYT and the book "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama" by Nathan Thrall, an American Jew living in Jerusalem. Of course Al-Jazeera also documents this behavior, but trying to cite it raises unjustified cries of antisemitism.
I think the issue with Ukraine is less that "Ukraine has a right to exist" and more that it's people have the right to self-determination; they have created a democratic state, and have made it very clear they don't want to be annexed by an imperial fascist asshole.
so, more or less, has Lebanon. It doesn’t want to be annexed either. The Palestinians in Gaza had no choice after Hamas’s coup, which was supported by Bibi. Same goes for the villages in the west bank. Self determination CAN be something other than what we see as democracy, (in the sense of, for example, tribal government by elders)—so long as the people agree with the structure.
Exactly—if we understand “rights” as uniquely belonging to human individuals, so much becomes clear. No country, territory, state or municipality has rights—only the humans residing within the place have rights. I’ve spent the majority of my life in a time and place where the notion of “states’ rights” has ratcheted up and each turn of the crank has only ever tightened state control over the inhabitants of these states. The rights of the individuals—especially those in the minority, but honestly anyone who gets in the way of state power—are trampled in the name of an entity that cannot, by its nature, have rights.
And the state does all kinds of crazy acrobatics to figure out justifications for obfuscating the distinction. Remember “corporations are people”??