[dragonwriter]

> Zionism is the notion that the state of Israel has the right to exist.

No state has a right to exist; people have a right to self-determination, and a state of a particular form, and territorial extent may or may not be an realization of such a right, so even in that minimal framing (which I would say is more the motte Zionists retreat to when challenged than the bailey of the actual substantive meaning of the term in practical use by them), Zionism is a flawed and problematic proposal at best.

[atemerev]

Well, if your logic is pretending to be universal, then it should apply to Palestinian Arabs as well. Why they should have the right to their state and Israeli Jews don't? (Or vice versa)

[myrmidon]

I think there is a big disconnect in this debate, and a lot of it comes from framing and conflicting definitions.

I'll try to describe this from my PoV: Zionism, to me, is just jewish-flavored nationalism. To me, the question "has Israel (the state) the right to exist" is almost nonsensical; I don't think that Italy, Germany, France or the US have any inherent "right" to exist, and the same would be true for Israel in my view.

The people that a state governs, however, do have an inherent right to fair representation of their interests (in my view), and this is where Israel often falls short.

There are a lot of non-jews living within Israels borders, and Israel (as a state) fails those people regularly (and, arguably, by design: it does not really want to protect interests of citizens that deviate from that jwewish national identity).

So I think questioning "western logic" with "why should Palestine (the state) have more of a right to exist than Israel?" is unhelpful framing that misses the main point ("citizens have a right to have their interests represented").

[s1artibartfast]

>There are a lot of non-jews living within Israel's borders, and Israel (as a state) fails those people regularly (and, arguably, by design: it does not really want to protect interests of citizens that deviate from that jwewish national identity).

I dont think this is well supported, or the source of conflict. The state seems to do a fairly good job of providing for citizens within boarders. Arab Israeli citizens have the right to vote in Israeli elections, run for office, and serve in the Knesset. They make up roughly 1.9 million people (about 20% of Israel's population).

You can argue that these people have civic representational differences as minority group, but this is a very different situation than people living Gaza or the west bank, and their representational rights.

[myrmidon]

Do you consider Westbank and/or Gaza a full state independent from Israel?

Because to me, those are (somewhat) autonomous regions under Israels control-- so still responsible for people living there.

[s1artibartfast]

I think that is the central question: Can you exert control while avoiding representational responsibility, and how much?

Nation states influence each other all the time. They threaten, sanction, and impose restrictions, especially when in conflict without invoking responsibility.

Now I agree that isnt a very accurate characterization of this situation. It is much more of an occupation. I still dont think that invokes a responsibility of enfranchisement, but it certain invokes some responsibility for the occupier. The US occupied Japan following WWII, but that doesnt mean Japanese became US citizens, but there are moral obligations.

I model the Palestinian situation as a failed occupation where there is no progress towards end of occupation criteria. Neither party want integration, nor are they ready for peaceful coexistence.

I dont think Israel has a responsibility to enfranchise or integrate, but it does have a obligation to provide and maintain an option for coexistence, and perpetually put real effort towards achieving it. That means giving 2nd, 3rd, or 100th chances.

[dragonwriter]

> Do you consider Westbank and/or Gaza a full state independent from Israel?

Whether or not a legally independent state exists with some or all of that territory within its borders, that area is effectively controlled by, and in large part (including all of the West Bank, though the exact administrative details differ in different locations in the WB) under military occupation by, Israel.

[dragonwriter]

> Well, if your logic is pretending to be universal, then it should apply to Palestinian Arabs as well.

It applies to the State of Palestine as much as to the State of Israel, correct.

Of course, while I have heard many arguments for recognition of a State of Palestine with twrritory including some parts of the area bounded by the Mediterranean Sea and the internationally recognized borders of Egypr, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, none of them have been that that State has a “right to exist".

And I haven't, in this discussion, stated a position on whether either Israel-within-some-borders or Palestine-within some-borders are proper realization of the right of self determination of some people living in the area described above. You’ve just assumed a position out of nowhere because I argued that a “right to exist” if the State of Israel is a fundamentally flawed and problematic position, with a reasoning that on its own terms applies equally to the same argument if it were made for the State of Palestine.

FWIW, I think the best realization of the self-determination rights of the people in the region would probably, in the near term at least, involve both a Jewish and a Palestinian Arab State within some borders, a situation to which there are many obstacles, not least of which is Israel’s long (consisting of most of the time since 1968 at least) campaign of genocide against the Palestinian Arab people, callibrated largely to avoid excessive blowback from the West (and particularly the US), with strategies enggaged in to preserve pretexts for continuing and escalating that campaign with reduced resistance, both direct and dippomatic (which includes, among other things, fostering the formation of Islamist network that gree into Hamas to split Palestinian resistance and have a less sympathetic organized opposition during the occupation of Gaza.)