thread: 2007-01-04 : Self-identification vs. Membership
On 2007-01-13, Avram wrote:
Wundergeek: That being said, look at Zionism and the political policies of Israel.
Are you aware that Zionism is a secular movement, and that most Israeli Jews are not religious?
And that Arab Israelis enjoy privileges as citizens of a western-style democracy that Arabs don't enjoy anywhere else in the middle east? That, expressed as a percentage, there are more Arabs in the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) than there are blacks in the US Congress?
I don't mean to defend Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, which I find appalling, just as I find American treatment of American Indians and blacks appalling, just as I am appalled by a wide variety of horrible ways that ethnic minorities have been treated by a wide variety of nations throughout history. Portraying this as something specific to Judaism, or Israel, or Zionism, is absurd, and trying to tie it in to the Jewish notion of the Chosen People is pretty shaky.
