John Minto has written a first-rate article in the New Zealand Herald about the ridiculously one-sided American proposal for a Palestinian state. That’s a far more sensible approach than for example, his disgraceful wrecking of Auckland’s wonderful annual tennis tournament a few years back, by standing outside megaphoning cruel abuse at an innocent Israel teenage lass playing. It was following that disgrace when I dubbed him the Screaming Skull.
Rob Berg, President of the Zionist Federation of New Zealand, wrote a counter-argument on the same page.
Zionism, a Jewish word for Palestine, was utterly immoral. To claim ownership of a land (not a nation but part of the Roman Empire) Jews were forced from 2000 years ago, was simply outrageous. But what’s done is done and the status quo sensibly must now be acknowledged, which Minto tacitly does.
That said, the sad aspect of this situation is the Zionist founder Theordor Herzl, foresaw the potential problem and was open to alternatives for a Jewish state. That should have been pursued although not in Kenya as the Brits offered but in Paraguay, a lush land desperate for migration after a ludicrous war wiped out most of its male population. Imagine how rich that Jewish state would be today, without the massive waste of money on military primitiveness.
Rob Berg correctly claimed the Palestinians have always been belligerent towards any peace proposal. “The first war it (Israel) loses will be its last one,” he observed. Therein lies the problem.
The resistance to Israel is not just Palestinian, but to varying degrees is fanatical Islamic, and thus will not go away. Their sole goal is to wipe out Israel. All in all it’s an irresolvable terrible state of affairs for both factions.
Is there any hope?
I believe so. The nation-state is a relatively modern concept. New Zealand for example, is one of the oldest states out of the circa 200 existing, older indeed than Germany and Italy.
Mass travel, migration and internationalism is steadfastly weakening the concept of states as young travelers in particular wake up that people are all the same. Thus states are gradually becoming territorially administrative but otherwise losing their broader functions in any practical sense.
Hope to end this primitive stone age animosity lives in a borderless world and total freedom of movement. The trend is that way but it’s gradual and several life-times away.
But only when that occurs will the constant warfare Israel is immersed in cease. That said, they may not survive long enough to reach that nirvana.
4 Comments
” . . .borderless world . . ”
Sounds a bit like the horrors of one world government, an idea I’m not a fan of, if only for the same reason I’m not a fan of monopolies in business – it’s a situation in which you have nothing against which to judge the merits of the purchase or deal you’re signing up to. More than one country means you can judge the performance of your government against others.
If anyone’s interested I’ve on a couple of occasions suggested that there should be two forms of government, one geographically based and entirely in charge of geography related government functions – and nothing else, and one totally decoupled from geography and geography related government functions.
In such a system people could move around the globe and take their non-geography based government with them, or not move and switch their allegiance, voting, taxation and social welfare to another non-geography based government.
There are obvious questions about the stability of such a system, but the effect would be to put governments in competition with each other for citizens in the same way that car makers are in competition.
Interesting observations Bob but I tend to think the opposite in terms of the borderless world outcome. Without addressing the outcomes of history and the “1984” idea of only a few regional alliances running the world, in our lifetimes the efforts to de-border the world have failed, may well fail soon or have been the subject of prolonged violence and are under constant threat. As a current example, what will happen to China before this current virus epidemic ends and if it is another revolution what form of government, let alone state or states will it be? This may be academic but it could be world changing and I don’t see any outcome from it moving towards a borderless world. As a further example only but important from a ‘peaceful’ outcome perspective, where will the EU be in 10 years? My bet is it will have shrunk but to what degree I don’t know. The next financial crisis will see the financially weaker members not able to cope this time around and they will be forced/choose to fall away from the single currency for nationalist (forget it guys we won’t pay our debts) reasons. While a currency argument might seem politically shallow, it is the one aspect that nearly lead to the collapse of the EU in 2008 and the years of structural uncertainty that followed, for reasons of a lack of national sovereignty. The control from ‘outside’ forces is real and Brexit attests to that. My bet is the UK will prosper from exiting the EU rather than languish. The rise of (let’s call them) nationalist parties across the EU (and in many other jurisdictions) is a forerunner to some sort of fundamental change that we all see across the western world – Sinn Fein fgs being the latest example and also Merkel now loosing her grip. While you can see the borderless world life-times away, what has developed politically over the last 10 years has shown us that history, people, their tribes and what that means to continuity in all its forms will repeat itself.
Total freedom of movement would certainly put paid to the welfare state in the West. If you look at Sweden the unemployment rates for non-Swedes are significantly higher than the natives. Economist Tino Sanandaji has written about this dilemma they face.
Not sure whether I can agree with your sentiment, even far into the future, as it strikes me a bit Utopian.
I’m tempted to draw a parallel between open borders and open office plans, though that would be mostly in jest…
Still many things could be said, and many sides/angles to consider.
One of the first things that come to mind is an article I once read referencing a book that makes a distinction between ‘anywhere people’ and ‘somewhere people’.
I’d be very interested to hear what you make of Fractal Localism, which is the most cogent set of principles I have encountered.
https://www.academia.edu/38433249/Principia_Politica (scroll down)