The Jews Have No Right to a State

Commenter James Schipper makes an argument that I have made many times - that the Jews had no right to a state. I would still argue that they have no right to one now. I would add that the Jews have no right to a state, unless someone wishes to donate one to them. As people without a territory similar to the Gypsies, there is no way that territory-less ethnics have a right to a state.

The Gypsies don't have a right to one either. The persecution of the Jews was lamentable to horrifying, depending on the period, but it was close to the same for the Gypsies too. As it stands, the only way for the Jews to get a state was to steal one, and it's the only way the Gypsies will get one either. He coins the phrase "non-territorial nation" to describe both Jews and Gypsies. It's a nice phrase.

Ilan Pappe, the Israeli scholar, makes a similar argument. Pappe says that the Jewish nationalist movement had two positive aspects: it argued for Jewish self-determination and it offered a way for the Jews to protect themselves by means of a state with an armed forces. Both of these are commendable.

But Pappe also states that as soon as Jews decided to make their state in Palestine, Jewish nationalism became an objectively colonialist movement. Even to this day, Zionism is not characterized as a colonialist movement, and it ought to be by the norms of political science.

At the very least, the world should acknowledge that Zionism was and is a colonialist movement. Israel is actually one of the few states on Earth that is continuing to engage in an actively colonialist project. That is the reason for the endless UN resolutions, not some notion of the world being bristling with anti-Semites.

James also points out that language and culture are the usual determinants for making a state out of a nation and religions generally do not get their own state, although Pakistan was an exception.

One of the main problems of the Israeli state is that it is one of the few states on Earth that is not a state of its people. Instead, it defines itself as the state of all of the world's Jews, even those who do not live in Israel. Israeli Arabs seem to be excluded from being full citizens in light of this definition alone, which seems to give more rights to Israeli citizenship to some Jew in New York than an Israeli Arab in Haifa.

James' comments begin here:


The French in North America number between 6 and 8 million, depending on how one does the counting. They are only about 2% of North America's population, but they are overwhelmingly concentrated in the province of Quebec, which can be called their homeland. They are a territorial minority.

Now suppose that those French were spread out all over North America and did not constitute more than 10% of the population of any of the 60 states and provinces in North America, then they would be a non-territorial minority.

The Jews in Europe around 1890 were like that too. They were about 2% of the European population and in no European country were they more than 10% of the population. They were a non-territorial nationality. Unlike other stateless nations, such as the Finns, Poles and Slovenes, they didn't have a homeland.

The difference between a territorial and non-territorial nation is that the non-territorial one can't have a state of its own because it doesn't have a homeland. A nation-state is simply a national homeland that has become sovereign.

The Zionist argument that Jews were like other stateless peoples in Europe is absurd. The Finns and Poles, for instance, already had their homeland, although drawing the right borders for their respective homelands wasn't easy. What the Finnish and Polish nationalists wanted was simply to separate their homeland from Russia and create their own state.

What the Zionist had to do was first to create a homeland, which is something quite different. Jews in Europe should not be compared to Finns and Poles but to the Gypsies. The Gypsies too are a non-territorial minority. Are they also entitled to a country of their own. If so, where should it be located?

To say that the Zionist project was illegitimate from the start does not imply of course that Israel today is illegitimate. For better or worse, there is now a Hebrew homeland in Palestine, and terminating it would be a grave injustice.

If the Zionists in Israel really want to be a normal people, they should call themselves Hebrews and start seeing all non-Israelis, Jews and Gentiles alike, as foreigners. A normal nation is defined by language and culture, not by religion.

I really have no problem with Zionists in Israel. They committed crimes of course, but none of their crimes were unique. Strictly speaking, it is quite possible to be a Hebrew nationalist without being a Zionist. A Hebrew Israeli could take the position that Israel is the country of the Hebrew nation and an Arab minority, and not the sacred homeland of all Jews.

I have zero sympathy for Zionists outside of Israel. If they really believe that Israel is the homeland of all Jews, why don't they go and live there? I wouldn't mind as much if they supported Israel privately, but they want our governments to support a foreign country in which we have absolutely no interest.

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