Israel-Palestine Part III: The Jewish State

In Part II of this series, I tried to explain how I think of the Palestinians. In this part, I'll try to do something similar explaining how I think of Israel, the Jewish state. I should mention that in this issue, I summarily reject all religious claims to land on all sides. They are simply nonsensical, unconstructive and irrelevant. Similarly, I reject all claims of who was in the land "first." People lived in what is presently Israel before both Judaism and Islam existed. Borders change over time -- through war, the rise and fall of empires and so forth. A serious proposal to return every land to its "original" inhabitants cannot be constructed. I consider both the "here first" and religious arguments to be illogical and irrelevant and won't discuss them here.

Let's start simple. Israel is a democratic Jewish state in the Middle East. According to nationmaster.com, Israel is roughly 80% Jewish and 20% Arab. Confusingly, the "Jewish" figure includes those who are not Jewish by religion because the three biggest religious groups are 77% Jewish, 16% Muslim and 2% Christian.

These statistics belie the complexity of nailing down what exactly it means that Israel is a Jewish state. I suppose the best definition is that it is a state where Jews handle their own affairs. But what Michael Neumann condescendingly called the "shell game" of Jewish identity (Is it religion? Is it race? Is it both?) is even more apparent when it comes to the many different definitions of that identity that are used in different capacities for different purposes.

Although Israel is technically a democracy, with an elected parlimentary style government based on the English system, Jews are favored in statutes such as the "Law of Return" which guarantees Israeli citizenship to any Jew who wishes to emigrate to Israel.

Contrary to the misinformed popular opinion, Israel is not on "American life support." It has one of the world's strongest armies and is one of the largest exporters of military equipment in the world. However, it is true that the United States is Israel's biggest trading partner and benefactor.

Prior to Israel's Declaration of Establishment (independence), the aquisition of land closely resembled the colonial conquest of what is now the United States. Horrible terroristic acts were committed on both sides, the details of which I don't care to describe here. Please note that I am writing this without bias, and I don't believe that how Israel came into being has any bearing on it today. Many, many nations were born in blood, and Israel is no exception. To deny Israel a right to exist or to criticize it on that basis would require that I also deny the United States a right to exist, as well as countless other nations.

Today, Israel faces a crisis even more dire than an invading army. Israel occupies, by military force, the Gaza strip and the West Bank where the vast majority of Palestinians live in abject poverty. According to the Jewish Virtual Library and the Palestine Red Crescent Society 3007 Palestinians and 950 Israelis have been violently killed since the beginning of the second intifada in September of 2000. In addition, 26,296 Palestinians have been injured in violence, although I was unable to find a statistic of Israeli injuries.

The continuing violence itself is the extreme threat to Israel. No country can afford to maintain an occupation force for long, nor can it tolerate terrorist attacks in its midst. The Palestinians are starving in poverty and cannot tolerate their own people being killed either. Like an earthquake, the longer the tension builds, the more catastrophic the resulting release will be. The entire situation is extremely unstable, not just for Israel and the Palestinians, but for the entire world considering the fact that Israel is known to have nuclear weapons, and has come close to using them on several occasions. I believe that part of the reason that the United States often acts in Israel's security interests is because we are afraid that if we don't, we might find ourselves in a situation where Israel would use those weapons.

I have written the past three articles setting up the situation as I see it, attempting to be as free from bias and relying as much on logic as possible. The next segment will focus on the failed peace process and why I believe that the two-state solution cannot succeed. In the final segment I will discuss possible solutions.