The Exigent Duality
Israeli Conflicts of Interest - 12:30 CST, 12/30/20 (Sniper)
My brother sent me the following discourse regarding Israel, and with his permission I decided to just turn it into a blog post. The first section is what he wrote me, while the second section is my first shot at trying to answer the questions. Enjoy!


Original Message

Unfortunately, I was exposed to some article by Ben Shapiro the other day, and it got me thinking about his favorite country, Israel (not America). My mind wandered down this train of thought, and I was wondering what you'd think of it:

  • Regarding the "nation of Israel" - is this the same thing as the "Jewish nation", or not?
    • If not, then what is it? What authorizes this country's existence, if not a historical/religious Jewish claim to land?
    • If so, then what does it mean to be a "Jewish nation"? Are the Jews a religion or a race?
      • If a religion, then is Israel a state founded on religious law, i.e., a theocracy? If not, then what is it?
      • If a race, then is Israel a racial state? If not, then once again, what is it?
  • To my knowledge, everything outlined in points 1. and 2., such as theocracies and racial states, are completely illiberal - and if that's the case, then why is Israel called "our greatest ally"? Are we supporting a theocratic/racial state, or a synthetic liberal-democrat puppet state, or is there a third option that justifies the existence of the so-called "Jewish nation"?

  • In any event, if we assume Israel to be a legitimate country, and this country belongs to all Jews, and all Jews belong to this country, then haven't we conflated Judaism with the nationhood, citizenship, politics, sovereignty, etc. of a foreign country (Israel), in which event Jews are no longer protected by America's laws of freedom of religion, as Judaism is, by our own admission, no longer simply a religion?
    • If so, then shouldn't we demand that all Jews in American government positions renounce their Judaism or else be expelled from those positions? Would we allow a citizen of Communist China to be elected to the US government?
    • The same question applies to all so-called American Jews: are they Jewish or American? Or does some sort of dual-citizenship apply to them?
      • If dual citizenship applies, then should they, as foreign interests, be allowed to vote in US elections? Elected to office? If so, why?


My Thoughts

I've often heard nations described as "groups of like-cultured people", not necessarily tied to a given landmass. But a couple of dictionary checks insist that a "nation" is tightly coupled to a geographical territory. This could be a case of dictionary activism though, since they seem to grant a seemingly random exception for Native Americans.

Let's take a look then at what a "The Times of Israel" author has to say about the matter:

"Like most nations, Jews have a national language, a shared history, which is much longer than most nations, and a style of cooking and thinking that is as distinctive as that of most other nations.

But the Jewish People is a a very unusual kind of nation: a transnational mobile nation; what Russian Communists used to call 'unrooted cosmopolitans'.

From the very beginning. when Abraham and Sarah left their families and homeland to immigrate to the Land of Israel, the majority of the Jewish People has been subject to major geographic relocations.

What the Jewish People have lacked for most of their 4,000 year history was an independent Jewish State located in one geographical area."


A-hah! So here we have a perspective that the "Jewish nation" is separate from the geographical landmass of the nation state known as Israel. Further, he cites several pieces of research showing observable genetic commonalities between "transnational worldwide Jewish People", from as disparate places as Georgia, Yemen, and Iraq.

Even though the author also discusses that Jews-- as in, the religious ones-- accept outside converts as being "Jewish", and that it's not generally acceptable to ask people if they are-- and these are my words now-- "real" Jews or not, the implication is clear: being a "Jew" is mostly a genetic or ancestral function, since even non-practicing or even atheistic "Jews" are still considered to be "Jewish".

The short answers then: "Jews" are a race. Which means that Israel is a racial ethnostate. And, yes, ethnostates are generally considered to be "illiberal" by just about everyone; I don't even feel compelled to cite sources for that claim, just ask anyone.

Thus, the United States government is supporting an ethnostate.

Of course, we already know by now that their claims of wanting to "spread Democracy"-- i.e. "liberalism"-- are false, first in the sense that "Democracies" don't typically seem to result in liberal outcomes over time, which can be a topic for another day, and second one can quickly find long lists of the US State overthrowing duly elected foreign leaders: incidentally, a fact upon which even Anarcho Capitalists and Marxists agree.

As for the relationship between the two countries-- the US and Israel-- it seems to me that it's symbiotic: powerful Jews in the US collude with non-Jew politicians and military contractors to provide both defense for Israel, at US taxpayer expense, and a foothold for covering US oil interests in the region.

The next part is interesting: should Jews be allowed to vote or hold office in the United States, if they are technically "citizens" of an alternate global "nation"?

There are black people and even Middle Easterners in Congress, so the idea of having a variety of "races" in elected office has precedent. Regarding the "nation" bit however, I've always phrased the question in this way: can one serve two masters?

From my experience, the Jews in charge of most of the major banks, most of the major media companies, who essentially invented and propagated Feminism and other far-Left social theories, seem to consistently do their utmost to attack Western institutions by donating obscene amounts of money to radical political candidates.

Just like I wouldn't be a fan of having a Chinese Communist voting or holding political office-- even though we're essentially about to get just such a person in Creepy Bejing Biden-- I often question whether Jews should be allowed to hold elected office in the United States or potentially vote, in the sense that-- rationally-- they would prioritize Israel's interests over the those of the United States, where the two sets of interests are in conflict.