#davidf

1. You state:

"I prefer justice to acceptance of unjust legal precedents"

The rule of law is deeply embedded in democratic countries.

You are apparently only prepared to comply with it when it meets your standards of justice.

The PLO follows your example.

It has declared everything that happened since the Balfour Declaration to be "fraud" in 1964 - as amended to "null and void" in 1967.

Throwing international law out the window and has proved a recipe for disaster.

2. You err in claiming:
"The establishment of a Jewish state served the interests of the British Empire at the time although the British later prevented Jewish emigration to Israel"

All 51 Nations of the League of Nations - not Britain alone - unanimously endorsed the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home under the terms of the Mandate for Palestine.

Had the Arabs accepted the Mandate in 1922 - a Jewish State in 22% of the land covered by the Mandate and an Arab State in the remaining 78% would have become a reality instead of a source of ongoing conflict 95 years later.

3. You conclude:
"No Country should discriminate among its citizens on grounds of religion, ethnicity or race"

I agree.

Israel with a population comprising 80% Jews and 20% Arabs is a shining example in a region where discrimination is rife in so many other countries surrounding it.

That is not to say that Israel cannot do better - but Israel's achievements in having given everyone the right to vote, the right to a tertiary education, to exercise freedom of speech, an unfettered press, and to reach high positions of authority in Israeli society and the Israeli parliament should be applauded not denigrated.

Compare that to Gaza and Areas "A" and "B" in the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Yemen and you will understand what I mean.

4. A "mensch" is defined as being a person of integrity and honour.

Respecting the law - not belittling or demeaning it or substituting your own version of justice - is a necessary prerequisite.

Dear David,

We can set the law up as an idol. Sometimes it serves justice. Sometimes it doesn't. I don't think Israel is a shining example. You do. We disagree.

I think no state can be just and represent only part of the population. At one time I thought Israel could do that. I no longer think so. In some ways it imitates the states which oppressed Jews. I think there is no good substitute for a democratic state.

Anybody can attain high office? When a non-Jew can become president or prime minister of Israel I will believe that.

#davidf

1. You state:
"We can set the law up as an idol. Sometimes it serves justice. Sometimes it doesn't."

Who then decides what "serves justice"?

Does the law of the jungle supersede the law of the judges?.

2. You state:

"I think there is no good substitute for a democratic state."

I agree.

But in democratic states the rule of law is supreme.

Israel is uniquely a Jewish and democratic State - as Ben Gurion explained when he told the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine on 7 July 1947:

“What is the meaning of a Jewish State? As I told you before, a Jewish State does not mean one has to be a Jew. It means merely a State-where the Jews are in the majority, otherwise all the citizens have the same status. If the State were called by the name “Palestine,” – I said if, – then all would be Palestinian citizens. If the State would be given, another name – I think it would be given another name, because Palestine is neither a Jewish nor an Arab name. As far as the Arabs are concerned, and we have the evidence of the Arab historian, Hitti, that there was no such a thing as “Palestine” at all: Palestine is not an Arab name. Palestine is also not a Jewish name. When the Greeks were our enemies, in order not to annoy the Jews, they gave different names to the streets. So, maybe the name of Palestine will be changed. But whatever the name of the country, every citizen of the country will be a citizen. This is what we mean. This is what we have to mean. We cannot conceive that in a State where we are not in a minority, where we have the main responsibilities as the majority of the country, there should be the slightest discrimination between a Jew and a non-Jew.”

This is the Jewish and democratic State its two Arabs-only undemocratic neighbours in Gaza and the West Bank want to eliminate.

However this racist twists and turns, a state for an ethnic group of overlords, established by armed violence, maintained by armed violence and expanded by armed violence including gun-protected encroachments outside its borders, is a racist blot on the face of the earth and owes its temporary existence to its current value as a cat's paw for American colonial interests.

The temporary withdrawal of America's veto power, itself a product of a wartime role long past, left a glimpse of what the world thinks of Israel.

Yuyutsu's description of his own family's need of Israel not as an expression of racial overlordship but as a haven from racial injustice accords with everything I learned from my friend whose Jewish family had lived side by side with the Arabs for generations and for whom the Nakba was a disaster that led him to move to Australia and to detest Israel with a passion.

As applies in all probability to Yuyutsu's family who it seems had lived alongside the Palestinian Arabs for many generations without threat and hopefully will continue to do when the poisonous state of Israel has been dismantled.

Don't set too much store by Donald Trump's current policy towards Israel, Mr Singer. His goal is "making America great" and cozying up to its strategic toe-hold in the Middle East serves that objective. For now.

Dear David,

Israel is not democratic since a Jewish state only represents part of the population. The decisions deciding that Palestine should be a Jewish homeland are flawed because the people in the area were not consulted.

Israel has no civil marriage. Why should clergy of any religion decide who can get married?

In 1952 the US Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in schools. Segregation by religion is no better. In Israel not only non-Jews are segregated but all Jews don’t even go to school together. The ultra-orthodox schools lack the secular subjects necessary for a person to make a living in an increasing technological world. The education of boys and girls is different in that milieu. I think only eight schools in Israel have both Jewish and non-Jewish students going to school together. It sure sounds like apartheid.

However, you asked a good question. “Who then decides what "serves justice"?” Sometimes it happens through a legal progress sometimes through civil disobedience. Sometimes it happens through violence. Sometimes injustice wins out.

We can only decide what is right for ourselves. If injustice is trivial we live with it. If it is not trivial we are obligated to oppose it. In Yad Vashem righteous gentiles who refused to obey the Nazi laws and saved Jews are honoured. Laws may be unjust whoever makes them.

Thoreau thought it unjust for the government to tax people to support the Mexican War. He refused to pay that tax and went to jail. He wrote about civil disobedience.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER2/thoreau/civil.html contains his essay. Both Gandhi and Martin Luther King jr. practiced civil disobedience – Gandhi against the Salt Tax – King against racial segregation. Eventually India became an independent country free of British rule. . Eventually the laws in the US maintaining racial segregation were eliminated. Civil Disobedience is not the law of the jungle. It incorporates non-violence and means refusing to obey unjust laws..

To end slavery in the USA took the violence of Civil War. If the South had won they would have continued to keep slaves. There is no sure way to justice.

#davidf

You repeat a classic piece of false Arab propaganda with this one sentence throwaway doozy:

"The decisions deciding that Palestine should be a Jewish homeland are flawed because the people in the area were not consulted."

Take the time to read the following:
https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/48A7E5584EE1403485256CD8006C3FBE

Moreover the Jewish homeland was restricted to 22% of what had been promised to the Jews at the San Remo Conference and by the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 as a result of article 25 being inserted in the Mandate for Palestine. This was the direct result of the representations by the Palestine Arab Delegation undertaken with the British Government as set out in the above correspondence.

The Jews accepted that decision - but the Arabs did not.

78% was not enough for them in 1922 and it is still not enough in 2017.

The Arabs wanted 100% then and they still want 100% now. It has dominated their decisions in refusing to accept further compromises in 1937, 1947, between 1948 to 1967, in 1993, 2000/2001 and 2008.

You have outed yourself as a pathetic pawn in swallowing this propaganda whilst seeking to denigrate and delegitimise Israel and help its enemies achieve their nefarious objective.

You would have made far more sense and been more relevant if you had stated:

"The decisions deciding that Israel should not be recognised as a Jewish homeland are flawed in 2017 because the people in the area are not being consulted."

Abbas in the eleventh year of his four year term as President continues to spew his Jew-hatred by refusing to accept a Jewish state among 22 Arab States - whilst holding captive a population that has not been consulted because no elections have been held for the last 10 years.

Yet this outrage is not on your radar.

Why not?