"Achievement" posted by Richard Seymour

From the archives: colonialism and ethnic cleansing as a baccalaureate:

[I]s there anything of, let's just say, achievement in the fact that the Jewish people, after what befell them in Europe and surrounded by enemies, created a Jewish homeland, and a democracy at that in a region not exactly brimming with democracies?

By the way, as far as I know, "the Jewish people" didn't 'create' Israel. Some Jewish people did, most didn't. Most of the Jewish survivors of the Nazi holocaust created decent communities in America and Europe that did not depend on the ethnic cleansing or subordination of others. Many participated in an historic coalition that brought American segregation to an end: a project that I admit I find far more admirable than that of Ben Gurion and his confederates. By another way, is it reasonable to refer to any polity as a "democracy" when most of the inhabitants of the land are expelled, refugees, scattered to the four corners of the earth, denied their right to return, and thus denied any vote?

Labels: Israel, palestine, zionism