Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: The real 'invented' people

The real 'invented' people
Newt Gingrich's controversial statement begs the question: Who invented 
a nationality? The Palestinians or the Israelis?
Last Modified: 24 Dec 2011 12:57
 
It is hard to believe that anyone who defends Israel's legitimacy as a 
state would buy into former Speaker Newt Gingrich's argument that 
Palestine is an "invented nation".
 
The singular triumph of the Zionist movement is that it invented a state 
and a people - Israel and the Israelis - from scratch. The first 
Hebrew-speaking child in 1900 years, Ittamar Ben-Avi, was not born until 
1882. His father, the brilliant linguist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, created a 
modern language for him to speak by improvising from the language of the 
Bible.
 
The founder of the Israeli state was Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), an 
assimilated Viennese writer who was convinced by the Dreyfus trial in 
France - and the horrendous right-wing anti-Semitism that resulted from 
it - that Jews had to get out of Europe.
 
In 1897, he wrote the book that would essentially inaugurate the Zionist 
movement. It was called Der Judenstaat (meaning "the Jews' state" or 
"the Jewish State"), which was his proposal for moving the Jews out of 
Europe and into their own country.
 
He didn't specify where the Jewish homeland should be. He was more 
concerned about quickly obtaining territory anywhere for Jews to seek 
refuge.
 
Later, he decided that Palestine made the most sense because that was 
where the Jewish people both began and exercised self-determination in 
ancient times, and where there already was a small minority of Jews. But 
he also spoke of finding a place in Africa or the Americas if Palestine 
was unavailable.
 
The reaction to Herzl's idea was primarily that he was a bit crazy. Jews 
committed to assimilation insisted that Jews were not a nation, but a 
religious faith. Their nationalities were French, German, Polish, Iraqi 
or American - not some imaginary Jewish nationality that had not existed 
for 1900 years.
 
100 years ago: 'just an idea'
 
As late as 1943, during the worst days of the Holocaust, the American 
Jewish Committee - which adhered to the assimilationist view - resigned 
from the body created by American Jews to respond to the Nazi 
catastrophe over its "demand for the eventual establishment of a Jewish 
Commonwealth in Palestine".
 
Seventy-plus years later, it is impossible to argue that the Israeli 
nation is not as authentic and worthy of recognition as any in the world 
(more authentic than some, in fact).
 
The Hebrew language is spoken by millions of Jews and Palestinians. The 
Israeli culture is unique: Bearing little resemblance to any other in 
the world. In fact, diaspora Jews have as little in common with Israelis 
as African-Americans have with Africans.
 
Israelis are not just Jews who happen to live in Palestine, even though 
the concept of Israel-ness started just over a hundred years ago as 
nothing but an idea. They are Israelis, entitled to self-determination, 
peace and security in their own land.
 
And the Palestinians are every bit as much a nation. If the ultimate 
definition of authentic nationhood is continuous residence in a land for 
thousands of years, the Palestinian claim to nationhood is ironclad. 
They never left Palestine (except for those who either emigrated or 
became refugees after the establishment of Israel).
 
Those who deny that Palestinians have a nation base their case on two 
arguments, both of which are logically incoherent. The first is that 
Palestinians never exercised self-determination in Palestine; they were 
always governed by others from ancient times to the present day.
 
The answer to this is: So what?
 
What makes a people real?
 
Most nations in the world lacked self-determination for long periods of 
their history. The Polish nation existed between 1790 and 1918 even 
though the state was erased from the map - divided between Russia and 
Austro-Hungary. It achieved independence in 1918 only to again lose it 
to the Nazis, and then the Soviets from 1939 until 1989. Would anyone 
today argue that the Polish nation was invented?
 
The idea of it is ridiculous, especially when offered by Israelis or 
Americans (or Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians... ) whose national 
existence would have been unimaginable a few centuries ago.
 
The second argument is that Palestinians never thought of themselves as 
Palestinians until Jews started moving into their territory, that 
Palestinian nationalism is a response to Zionism.
 
Again, so what?
 
When European Jews docked in Jaffa, Palestine in the early immigration 
waves of the late 19th century, there were Arabs waiting at the port. 
When the Jews purchased land, it was Arabs who had to move out.
 
And if those Arabs didn't call themselves Palestinians until the Zionist 
movement began, neither did the Jews call themselves Israelis. Until 
1948, they were just Jews. But each of the two peoples knew who they 
were and who the other was.
 
The bottom line is that today, the Palestinian nation is as authentic as 
the Israeli nation - and vice versa. Those who think either is going 
away are blinded by hatred.
 
To put it simply, the first part of the phrase self-determination is the 
word self. Both nations have the absolute right to define themselves as 
two nations which, hopefully, will evolve into two states. The 
alternative is national catastrophe not for one nation, but for two.
 
But why would Newt Gingrich care about that?
 
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/12/2011122495928144388.html
 
-- 
Sostieni Rete ECO
 
http://rete-eco.it/it/sostienici.html
 

 word self. Both nations have the absolute right to define themselves
 
e difatti c'e' chi non vuole riconoscere che Israele e' uno Stato
ebraico. Solo l'odio puo' spingere a una tale stolida negazione della
realta'
 

 a nationality?
 
la questione è un'altra. Chi ha deciso che la nazionalità è una realtà
effettuale, e non una costruzione artificiale ideologica?
http://books.google.it/books/about/Nazioni_e_nazionalismi_dal_1780.html
 

 effettuale, e non una costruzione artificiale ideologica?
 
Bombacci, esattamente dove starebbe la differenza, dal momento che ne'
la costruzione artificiale ideologica "ebrei" ne' la costruzione
artificiale ideologica "palestinesi" vogliono saperne di crearne una
nuova, ibrida tra le due?


stato e nazione sono cose diverse.


non stai rispondendo.

 non stai rispondendo.
 
la risposta è che bisogna smontare il mito della nazione, a favore
della lotta di classe, che unirà proletari sedicenti ebrei e sedicenti
palestinesi nella lotta ai plutocrati che fanno affari con Ahmacoso (e
quindi aiutano anche Hamas, puntellando il regime di Ahmacoso).
http://attualissimo.it/azienda-israeliana-vende-sistemi-di-spionaggio-all-iran/
 

 della lotta di classe, che unirà
 
ti ripeto che, al momento, nessuno ha voglia di unirsi. Torna a
manipolarti il coso, che quando provi con le seghe mentali risulti
perfino piu' noioso.

 ti ripeto che, al momento, nessuno ha voglia di unirsi.
 
perchè i plutocrati pagano i mass media e i politici per dividere.

 
 
stalinist dandy ha scritto:

Wow, il controllo ebraico dei media, ecco un argomento originale.


none, i plutocrati non sono nè ebrei nè altro, amano solo i danè, come
dimostra quell'azienda che esporta sistemi di sicurezza per Hitle
Ahamcoso

 effettuale, e non una costruzione artificiale ideologica?
 
Stalin non sarebbe d'accordo con te.


Nella sua forma politica a me sembra un relitto del tribalismo 
primitivo, di quando la necessità di occupare nel modo più adeguato le 
nicchie ecologiche disponibili con i mezzi del tempo.
 
Questo non significa che sia necessario disconoscere il patrimonio 
comune di usi, cultura ecc.



falso, tant'è vero che le mischiava col frullatore

 falso, tant'è vero...
 
... che obbligava i cittadini a dichiarare la nazionalità sul
passaporto... e dovevano ottenere un permesso di polizia per muoversi
dalla repubblica d'appartenenza.

 dalla repubblica d'appartenenza.
 
spostamenti di massa imposti a parte...


cosa molto buona, no?


dimostrazione che delle nazionalità fregava poco a Stalin, e
giustamente.


ma non potevi dirlo.


ovvio, altrimenti finivi dentro come cosmopolita. :D


Non potevi nemmeno affermare di essere di una nazionalità che Stalin
non aveva incluso nel catalogo.
 
Per esempio, per Stalin i ruteni non sono mai esistiti. O sei ucraino
o sei slovacco. Fine.

 comune di usi, cultura ecc.
 
Senza dimenticare i balli tipici.