BSDetector,

Your writing style appears very similar to David Singer's, intriguing.

Ha, ha. No I am not David Singer.

Dave f, there is a difference between a subjective and an objective racist. A subjective racist attributes negative character and other traits to people by virtue of their ethnic or national background, and believes that those negative traits are in some sense typical of the ethnic or national group to which they belong. An objective racist may harbour no stereotyped views about people of any particular ethnic or national background but will act or speak in a way that treats members of one particular ethnic or national group, and by virtue of that membership, less favourably than the members of another.

Thus, if a person were to contend that Palestinians are not an authentic nation and do not have the right to national self-determination and to their own state, I suspect that that person would be widely denounced as a racist, with Dave f leading the charge. Yet Dave sees no irony in contending, expressly or by implication, that the Jewish people (despite centuries of nationhood and statehood, amply attested by their own records and the writings of neighbouring civilisations) are not an authentic nation and do not have the right to national self-determination and their own state. He may not put it in the following terms but he is saying, in effect, that it’s ok for the Jews to live once again as vulnerable minority communities within States which each give expression to the language, culture and history of their majority community, but this would never do for the Palestinians!

Dave f has at least given the matter some thought. Ciara o’Loughlin’s disappointingly shallow analysis has not. She has just returned from studying in one of Israel’s finest universities but seems to have learned nothing and thought nothing about Jewish history, the nature of Jewish peoplehood and her complicity in the denial of both. And the legal issues of alleged discriminatory treatment that arise under the RDA are something else again, regardless of whether BDS as a movement is antisemitic. But in her muddled young mind all these matters are conflated.

Dear BSDetector,

As I tried to make plain I am against ethnic nationalism or self-determination for anybody. Whether Jews, Palestinians or any other are an 'authentic nation' is irrelevant.

I repeat: "I see no reasonable substitute for a state which makes no distinction among its citizens on the basis of ethnicity, religion, ideology, sex, gender identification and any other matter which should not be related to citizenship."

The Palestinians are not entitled to a piece of land where they can discriminate against Jews, and the Jews are not entitled to a piece of land where they can discriminate against Palestinians.

I know it's hard to grasp that a person is against the idea of ethnic nationalism or self-determination where an 'authentic nation' can claim a territory. I believe any country should be for all its citizens. There should be no Palestinian state, Jewish state, Christian state, Muslim state, Buddhist state, Hindu state, Marxist state or any other state where the state is identified with a subset of its citizens.

Two peoples, whether authentic nations or not is irrelevant, are at odds over the same piece of land. The solution is not two separate states - one for each. It is one state which does not discriminate on the basis of ethnicity or religion. The religion or ethnicity of its citizens should be no business of any democratic gov't.

Ethnic nationalism whether pan-slavism, Zionism, the risorgimanto or the like arose in the 19th century. In the 18th century the 'Rights of Man' of the French and the 'all men are created equal' of the United States formed those two nations. As result of the Civil War the excluded black people were admitted to citizenship and through the civil rights movement to equality. I believe all nations should be formed in a similar manner.

david f,

"I know it's hard to grasp that a person is against the idea of ethnic nationalism or self-determination where an 'authentic nation' can claim a territory."

It's indeed impossible to grasp if one is an ethno-religious chauvinist and who also claims special privileges for a specific group, of course Zionism is predicated on that doctrine.

My bs detector is off the scale.

Dear Davf
For a definitive demolition of the ‘one-State’ illusion please read last Monday’s piece in the New York Times by Roger Cohen, “One-State Dream, One-State Nightmare”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/opinion/one-state-dream-one-state-nightmare.html?_r=0

As for Mac, every nation State in Europe and the Middle East is based on a claim by a majority language-culture group that it constitutes an authentic nation with a right of self-determination in its own territory. That is precisely what the Palestinians now claim. Even those Palestinians who seek a 'secular' State will tell you that it will be no less 'Palestinian' and no less 'Arab' for being 'secular'. It will join many other expressly "Arab" republics as a member of the Arab League and also the 56 States of the Organistion of the Islamic Conference. Arabic alone will be its official language and Islam will have a role to play in law-making. The right of self-determination is a fundamental human right, not a special privilege.

Dear BSDetector,

The right of self-determination is not a fundamental human right. It is a consequence of ethic nationalism which arose during the Romantic period as a reaction to the Enlightenment. A single state containing both Jews and Arabs with equal rights is of course impossible in the Middle East at this time. Both sides contain many who are imbued with hate for the other. Ethnic nationalism promotes such hate. I hope a single state will be possible in the future.

Self-determination as a political concept was invented by Woodrow Wilson at the Versailles Conference at the close of WW1. It broke up the Austro-Hungarian Empire into nation states which with the exception of Czechoslovakia became fascist between the two World Wars. Wilson was a racist born in the antebellum South which revolted against the United States largely to preserve slavery. He was extremely prejudiced against black people and was also prejudiced against the immigrants from eastern and southern Europe who were pouring into the US. By breaking up the Empire into national units he hoped to see Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks and other 'inferior' people less likely to come to the US. That is my interpretation of Wilson's self-determination. It is a political formulation and not a human right.

I favour nations which make no distinction among its citizens on the basis of ethnicity, religion, ideology, sex, gender identification and any other matter which should not be related to citizenship. Nations formed by self-determination make such distinctions.