Nice overview and yes, a great opportunity for the cultural-political-economic distinction.
Might be worth noting that it's not just the political that trumps the cultural all the time, it's the economic that controls the political. In the US "business" is still fighting the New Deal, and it has been quite comfortable with the cultivation of a white-supremacist "alt-right" in order to shore up a "conservative" party which, as the Senator from Florida recently affirmed, wants to destroy not just Obamacare but Medicare and Social Security. Why? Because crony/selfish capitalism depends on inequalities to make "opportunities" for the "free" (unrestrained) marketers. [Yes, jamming a few points together there.] So... does Israel have an economic sector? What's it up to?
There's a good book for the Anglo background from which, unintended, independent Israeli statehood emerged:
'The cool, aloof Balfour was anything but an Old Testament character himself. But of all the Englishmen who at one time or another helped along the Return he was possibly the only one interested in it from the point of view of the Jews. To him they were neither tools of the Christian millennium nor agents of a business imperialism, but simply exiles who should be given back, in payment of Christianity’s “immeasurable debt,” their homeland. Not just any land, but the old land. Why Palestine? “The answer is,” he wrote, “that the position of the Jews is unique. For them race, religion and country are inter-related as they are inter-related in the case of no other religion and no other country on earth.' [Tuchman, Barbara W.. Bible and Sword (p. 339). Random House]
Thank you Seth. As an Israeli I can tell you that this is very inspiring. The light of threefolding is shinning bright and clear, and I feel that there is significance just in seeing a clear vision, just in feeling it as a comprehensive answer, even if the situation today seems so far from all this - there is still power in the very feeling, which is similar to the feeling of finding an answer to a complicated and confusing riddle.
I love, as well, the way you start from what may look like a "regular" political opinion, but then slowly move into a meta-political sphere - a sphere from which, I believe, real answers come.
Nice overview and yes, a great opportunity for the cultural-political-economic distinction.
Might be worth noting that it's not just the political that trumps the cultural all the time, it's the economic that controls the political. In the US "business" is still fighting the New Deal, and it has been quite comfortable with the cultivation of a white-supremacist "alt-right" in order to shore up a "conservative" party which, as the Senator from Florida recently affirmed, wants to destroy not just Obamacare but Medicare and Social Security. Why? Because crony/selfish capitalism depends on inequalities to make "opportunities" for the "free" (unrestrained) marketers. [Yes, jamming a few points together there.] So... does Israel have an economic sector? What's it up to?
There's a good book for the Anglo background from which, unintended, independent Israeli statehood emerged:
'The cool, aloof Balfour was anything but an Old Testament character himself. But of all the Englishmen who at one time or another helped along the Return he was possibly the only one interested in it from the point of view of the Jews. To him they were neither tools of the Christian millennium nor agents of a business imperialism, but simply exiles who should be given back, in payment of Christianity’s “immeasurable debt,” their homeland. Not just any land, but the old land. Why Palestine? “The answer is,” he wrote, “that the position of the Jews is unique. For them race, religion and country are inter-related as they are inter-related in the case of no other religion and no other country on earth.' [Tuchman, Barbara W.. Bible and Sword (p. 339). Random House]
Thank you Seth. As an Israeli I can tell you that this is very inspiring. The light of threefolding is shinning bright and clear, and I feel that there is significance just in seeing a clear vision, just in feeling it as a comprehensive answer, even if the situation today seems so far from all this - there is still power in the very feeling, which is similar to the feeling of finding an answer to a complicated and confusing riddle.
I love, as well, the way you start from what may look like a "regular" political opinion, but then slowly move into a meta-political sphere - a sphere from which, I believe, real answers come.