David B. Shemano wrote: > "Ethnic nationalism" can be mundane, if not redundant of the nation-state > itself, as Jim Devine appears to agree with in a later post.
Of course! If you hadn't jumped on the bandwagon of equating any anti-Zionist opinion with Nazism (as I assume you did), you would have seen this right away. > Try and become > a citizen of Japan if you are not ethnically Japanese. There are very few > nation-states that are not ethnically based. So calling Israel an example > of ethnic-nationalism is in one sense entirely trivial. Right. Exactly. > But that is not how > it was intended in context. The "worst example" is an accusation of excess > that is off the charts. Let's follow a lawyerly practice and ask the court stenographer to read back the record. I said the following: >It should be made clear that Israel represents one of the worst kinds of ethnic nationalist regimes currently on earth -- and that US taxpayers help pay for it.< Note that my phrase is "_one_ of the worst" (emphasis added). Why should I be careful with my prose if people jump to misinterpret it? "One of the worst" is NOT the same as "the worst." > And we all know the examplar of the worst example > of ethnic nationalism is Nazi Germany. This is illogical. Israel is an ethnic-nationalist state. It's one of the worst "currently on earth" (see the quote from me above -- or do I need to ask the stenographer to read it again?) That does NOT "one of the worst that has EVER been on earth." The present is not the same thing as all of history. Combining these points, "one of the worst kinds of ethnic nationalist regimes currently on earth" is not the same as "the worst ethnic nationalist regime ever." An element of a set is not the same as the set it belongs to. > Comparisons of Israel and Nazi > Germany are common discourse, both in the Arab world and the Western > anti-Zionist world. I am not "common," nor is my discourse. But, as is "commonly" said, turnabout is fair play. What if I assert that it "common" for libertarian lawyers to believe that it was absolutely wrong for the FDA to put strict restrictions on the use of Thalidomide, since market forces would have solved the problem (as if an Invisible Hand were at work). Would that perspective automatically apply to David Shemano? I think not. > Why deny the implication of the statement? I stand by > my reasonable reader comment. This "reasonable reader" hasn't studied Israel very much and has likely been severely infected with official propaganda. He/she/it has not studied how to read prose enough. BTW, no apologies are needed. I don't feel insulted at all. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
