03-07-2003, 07:15 AM
"The West was for it, as The West recreated it after WW II via the U.N. To then support its dissolution is a profound hyprocisy"
And I agree that the West generally bears some responsibility for this. I, however, am not the West. I am myself, and nobody else. We are also democratic, and hence have obligations to serve the current will of the people, not the past. There is a contract with the past, but that can only partially determine each nation's actions, balanced with the present and the future (to paraphrase Burke). It sure isn't going to determine my opinion, and I don't see why it should, or why I'm a hypocrite if I don't.
The Jews do NOT exist as a single coherent unit. They have coherence, yes, and vastly more than most races. But that's nowhere near enough to treat them as a single group, as if they spoke with a single voice and acted as one. Israel is NOT simply an appenage of the Jewish race. It is a nation state.
The Jews do not speak as one any more than Slobodan can justify himself by drawing false legitimacy from every Serb everywhere by their simple existence.
Perhaps there are nations which are not states, and perhaps there are states which cannot consider themselves nations, at least by that definition. To treat them as synonyms, even in the closest cases like Israel, is too easy a switch. It's just not accurate.
Jester
And I agree that the West generally bears some responsibility for this. I, however, am not the West. I am myself, and nobody else. We are also democratic, and hence have obligations to serve the current will of the people, not the past. There is a contract with the past, but that can only partially determine each nation's actions, balanced with the present and the future (to paraphrase Burke). It sure isn't going to determine my opinion, and I don't see why it should, or why I'm a hypocrite if I don't.
The Jews do NOT exist as a single coherent unit. They have coherence, yes, and vastly more than most races. But that's nowhere near enough to treat them as a single group, as if they spoke with a single voice and acted as one. Israel is NOT simply an appenage of the Jewish race. It is a nation state.
The Jews do not speak as one any more than Slobodan can justify himself by drawing false legitimacy from every Serb everywhere by their simple existence.
Perhaps there are nations which are not states, and perhaps there are states which cannot consider themselves nations, at least by that definition. To treat them as synonyms, even in the closest cases like Israel, is too easy a switch. It's just not accurate.
Jester