Sunday, February 3, 2013

How Jews Should Relate to Palestine












pabelmont said...

Very good analysis and statement. since both sides hope to continue to exist, both have hopes of some sort of "return" by people presently outside the land (I'd call "The Land" "Palestine", because Mandatory Palestine had borders and today's Israel does not declare borders -- as I understand it -- with Lebanon, Syria, or Palestine, although, as a measure of progress, today's israel does declare borders with Egypt and Jordan.

As to whether the "Land of Israel" is a geographic concept or merely a love object, I recommend the excellent new book, "The Invention of the Land of Israel" by Shlomo Sand, which makes a very complex argument the simplest part of which, as I understand it, is that the modern concept and semantics of "homeland" has nothing to do with how that term was understood even 300 years ago in Europe and less to do with how it was understood in the days of the Greek city states or of the two ancient Jewish kingdoms of Israel and Judea, the two located in the Egyptian-named and often Egyptian-ruled larger region of Canaan. IN SHORT, Jews venerated a non-geographically-delimited "homeland" over two millenia roughly situated near Judea; from a purely Biblical perspective, there was no need for modern Israelis to confiscate so much of Palestine for the limited reason of a return to "the" Jewish "homeland". (Of course, there were other reasons.) God's promise -- if any to the sinful Jews -- was not to all of Palestine.

Richard Witty said...

I suffer from typical 58 year-old inability to remember people's names.

"I'll take care of you in your hour of need, my dear friend .... (I forgot your name, how embarrassing)"

It's an important play on the dual meaning of the term "our".

"Our" or "my" can refer to what I claim exclusively, "That woman is mine".

Or, it can refer to what I love most dearly, "That woman is mine."

The question is in the usage. It is an irony when either that claim exclusivity treat the land, themselves, and their neighbors that live on the land with the trivial meaning.

Politically correct often do that as well, apply the trivial and not the substantive.