Some points to add to your framework. Israel was not established by Jews alone. Zionists worked closely with the British. The Balfour Declaration displayed the cooperation between British elites and Zionists. The Ottoman Empire was recently taken down, and the British saw a way to get a foothold in the region. So modern Israel was created partly as a result of Britain's imperial ambitions.
Judaism is not an ethnos, it is a religion. The attempt to create a Jewish State is making it a religious state. The Zionist argument regarding ethnicity is wrong, first, because most Jews today have no genetic connection to the ancient Hebrews. A good source on this point is Arthur Koestler's The Thirteenth Tribe where he details the history of the Khazars who converted to Judaism while in their homeland between the Black and Caspian Seas. They were the origin of eastern European Jews. At the very least one needs to be keeping this caveat in mind when talking about ethnicity.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Hamas was a creation of Israelis. They didn't like the POW, so they murdered Arafat and created Hamas. This fact plays into what actually happened on Oct. 7. Another is that rich reserves of fossil fuels have been discovered just off the coast of Gaza. This provides a motive for Israel to take over Gaza and remove the Palestinians. Oct. 7 could have been a false flag operation.
Regarding nationalism, it's been getting a bad name, predominately from the left. Nationalism gets equated with fascism, but what it's really about is sovereignty. The EU is a testing ground for this. The EU wants to dominate member nations. Joining the EU, and especially the Eurozone, has been a major sacrifice of sovereignty for many nations. It is in the EU where sovereignty is said to be an undesirable thing, but that is because the leaders there want to establish control over member nations, imposing policies the people did not vote for. In a clearer context, I deal with the issue of national sovereignty in the last essay in my book, Threefold Steps Out.
The problem in Palestine is the leadership on both sides. Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. One reason Arab countries don't want to take Palestinian refugees is that they don't want any part of the Muslim Brotherhood. You can see the trouble they caused in Egypt in the aftermath of that psyop called the Arab Spring. But the leadership of Israel is also very bad. The Likud Party should be voted out. Of course, they are not the only expansionist political group in Israel in favor of extermination. The good news is Israelis have taken to the street in protest.
Hey John - these are really interesting points. I do have a couple questions though. Can you say more about why you think it matters that Jewish people are, or aren't, an ethnic group? I know you're versed in threefolding, so in terms of what I'm writing about with the separation of nation and state, the actual overarching ideal is the separation of culture and state. So from my perspective it wouldn't matter if we're talking about ethnicity or religion or any other aspect of culture. Do you think it does matter?
Regarding nationalism, yeah it gets a bad name from the left and gets equated with fascism, but it is also gets a bad name from Steiner. I've never seen him say a positive word about nationalism. In Fall of the Spirits of Darkness he says:
“A man who today speaks of the ideal of races and nations and of tribal affiliation speaks of decadent impulses of mankind… Because through nothing will mankind be brought more into decadence than if the ideals of race, nation and blood continue to hold sway.”
I think it might be too hard to get into the details here (I'm thinking especially of the pictures he brings in The Social Future, Architecture as Peacework, and other lecture cycles), but I'd be interested in what your take is on this. I'll try to read the essay you mentioned, but I'm also super busy traveling over the next month, so if you want to share a condensed version of your view, I'd be appreciative.
And I do recognize that there is an abstract internationalism that can live especially in the left, which is also devoid of real love. It's overly cold like the nationalism of the right is overly hot. I don't think either side is connected to the ideals that Steiner espoused. Anyways, I'd be interested in hearing about your thoughts on this.
The reason ethnicity is an important issue with regards to Israelis is that refutes the Zionist narrative. The Zionists wanted to establish the Jewish state, and to justify it they claimed historical precedence on ethnic grounds. I refer you to The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand. Two main points here. One is that many if not most Jews are descendants of the Khazars who were converts a thousand or more years ago. Sand's view is similar in this regard to Arthur Koestler mentioned previously. Secondly, the diaspora never happened. Again I refer to Sand. There is no Roman record of Jews ever being exiled from Judea. Rather than a diaspora, the fact seems to be that Jews proselytized every bit as much as the Christians. That's how Judaism spread. Converts, of course, don't share in a genetic connection to the ancient Hebrews.
Regarding nationalism, I refer you to my book, Threefold Steps Out. In the last essay I deal with the issue of nationalism and why national sovereignty is important. Outside of Steiner, those who would do away with sovereignty and nationalism are those wishing to exploit. The EU, for instance, wishes to exploit its member nations. Nations with imperial designs wish to exploit their colonies, and do so by prohibiting certain things, like manufacturing. Or from issuing their own currency. These prohibitions have a profound impact on an economy. In that essay I bring in references to things Steiner said, as indeed I do with each of the essays. Generally speaking, when Steiner speaks of Threefold, he speaks of an ideal way in which society should function. Steiner speaks of free trade as an ideal, for instance. But if a nation is trading with an imperialistic, exploitive nation, then a nation that has adopted threefold is justified in using methods that run counter to pure free trade.
I like the concept and in a world that held more sanity, it would work. I’m just not sure how we get to a place like that. There would be lots of kinks to work out. For instance, how do you fashion laws for a society that embraces differing cultural beliefs? If one culture favors a male dominate marriage in which the wife has no voice, and domestic abuse (in order to maintain cultural norms) is widely accepted, but surrounding cultures find the practice to be dangerous and worry that their own daughters may eventually fall in love with one from this male dominated culture, how do you protect citizens without favoring one culture over the other in governing decisions? If in one culture a crime is punishable by death or the loss of a limb, but another culture finds it abhorrent, how is a decision for recourse made?
These are great questions. Thanks for them, they help draw out an important distinction — laws that infringe on culture, and laws concerning violence (about which we all have different views because of our culture).
You ask: “How do we fashion laws for a society that embraces differing cultural beliefs?” First, just to be clear, we already do this. This isn’t so clear from my article because I emphasize culture in terms of distinct ethnic groups, but of course we all have a culture — we all have different beliefs and worldviews, they just don’t always fit into one single box. And then, of course, we all have to live together in society and make laws that everyone can abide by, regardless of all our different cultural beliefs.
That said, what I’ve focused on in this article and the ones preceding it, are specifically laws that infringe on culture. If you look into history we’ve already made a huge amount of progress overturning such laws and protecting culture, especially with the separation of church and state and free speech. More and more we recognize that people should be free to develop and express themselves how they see fit. But there’s still a long ways to go — we’re still violating people’s cultural development and expression, and it creates a huge amount of social strife.
Just in America, we still favor certain traditions (by making them official holidays) and certain languages (by making everyone speak them) and generally certain worldviews (by teaching them in public schools). We also take away people’s autonomy over their own bodies (abortion and vaccination laws). These things are major, MAJOR cultural issues that have the country hugely divided, and they also all have to do with people’s personal lives and choices — their culture. Yes, these choices still affect other people - it’s a pain if not everyone speaks English, and it might be hard to know when businesses would be open if we had different holidays, and if everyone learned different things in school then maybe we’d have less civic unity (there’s nothing like forced uniformity to unite people!), and if people are unvaccinated they could potentially endanger others, and when a woman gets an abortion she stops another person from entering the world, and if someone says hateful things they certainly hurt people’s feelings —but nonetheless, these are still primarily individual choices. You could argue that they’re not as private as religion, but people 200 years ago would disagree - religion for them was all about the morality of society and the salvation of souls, they felt they had to impose it on others. It was crucial for the well-being of society.
So there are fine arguments for why we should infringe on all these individual rights, but we should realize that people won’t be happy when we do, and they’re probably fight back.
But your main point is about something slightly different: the fact that, even though we have different cultural beliefs, we still have to make laws about what level of outer violence is acceptable. So right now we make laws that certain groups find incredibly offensive (allowing capital punishment, or solitary confinement which some view as torture) and then there are also laws about violence in the home (domestic abuse and corporal punishment). Different people will have different views of these things, and different religions and ethnic groups will have different views, but also different churches, mosques, and synagogues within the same religion will have different views. But these things have less to do with individual cultural freedom and more to do with outer violence and safety. And such things are right for everyone to have a voice in deciding. Not everyone should be able to decide what the social studies teacher teaches, but they should have a say in whether one person can attack another one and what the consequences are.
It’s true, if every ethnic group had its own state then we’d have very different laws around these things, and maybe domestic violence would be totally permitted in some countries. But how could you keep your daughter from falling in love with someone from that country and moving there anyways? I can’t think of a way of avoiding that scenario.
I like your optimism but I see some problems with your diagnosis and proposed remedy: How do you account for the 21% of the Israeli population being Arab Muslims? Did you know that Arab Muslims who are citizens in Israel even serve on the Israeli Supreme Court and have sentenced prominent Israelis to prison, and have more human rights than their counterparts in many other Arab nations?
Also, the schools in Palestine raise the children to hate Israelis of all ethnic backgrounds and to celebrate death and martyrdom; how do you reason with that? how do you make peace and/or at least contain the violence? You can watch recordings of kindergarten plays that glorify shooting Jews. https://youtu.be/1sDZlo_hllI?si=t_-gE4eUR-TA_nva Here is only one example, there are many more
I am not Jewish or Israeli or a zionist but I know that Israel is already a multiethnic and multi-religious state.
Your approach here, diagnosis of the situation and remedy seems a bit oversimplified.
This situation is very complex.
Of course, one cannot simply make assumptions about the nature and motivations of the nations and states involved in this, and other, conflicts without also considering the proxy nature of all of the wars mentioned above and the international corruption that fuels wars and terrorism and without taking into account of the major players who are behind Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah etc, in the case of the Middle East.
In the case of Ukraine which you mentioned in passing, we should also consider the interested parties involved behind the scenes in funding this war and sabotaging peace agreements. It is common knowledge now Putin and Zelensky had agreed to a Peace process, a diplomatic solution in April 2022, and it was undermined by the West. 18 months later, and 100,000 deaths later and we are no closer to a solution.
There is a lot more at stake in both of those examples than self-determination and nation-statehood, in my humble opinion.
Hey Sharon - thanks for writing in. I wasn't trying to say that the separation of nation and state would magically erase the hate in people's hearts and atone for the violence done on both sides. Not at all. I assume there will need to be significant Peace and Reconciliation processes and all sorts of other things.
My main point is simply that as long as Arab Muslims are second class citizens (or third or fourth class, depending on where they live), then there will always be the conditions for violence to erupt. But I'm not sure if you disagree with that basic point?
If you think they're not second class citizens, then I would refer you to my other article about the Nation State Law (thewholesocial.substack.com/p/nation-state-law). The simple fact is that you can't have a Jewish state and a democratic state. A Jewish state, by definition, means that it favors one people, one group and identity, over all others (and therefore has to suppress the growth of other groups so they never become the majority). Do you see this differently? Do you think the nation-state doesn't lead to those consequences? And if you agree that it does, do you think other groups won't be resentful and potentially violent?
I'm definitely not saying that all acts of violence can be attributed to this, but only that violence is inevitable until it is addressed.
And I don't think it matters if they have more human rights than their counterparts in other Arab nations. I don't think that will placate them, if they even know about it at all.
Thanks for your thoughts on this challenging topic! All the best.
I agree with your framework that the nation state is a problem. It's an idea from centuries ago that has worked well enough until now. That said, some of these inter ethnic disputes are more complex than power struggles. For example, Israel isn't just fighting Palestinians for power over some land, but rather they are also fighting Hamas which is an idea, one which believes in the world-wide domination of Islam.
The Gaza slaughter and ethnic cleansing is not going to stop until Israel is de-Nazified. That means that Zionists should be chased out of Israel, these Zionists should return to their Nations of origin, a new secular non religious non ethnically state should be installed with a constitution mirroring the US. The country should be renamed to Palestine, a 2state solution is not available option. And let's not overlook the support and influence of the Anglo_US empire, using Israel as spearhed in the (oilr-ich) middle-east.
Some points to add to your framework. Israel was not established by Jews alone. Zionists worked closely with the British. The Balfour Declaration displayed the cooperation between British elites and Zionists. The Ottoman Empire was recently taken down, and the British saw a way to get a foothold in the region. So modern Israel was created partly as a result of Britain's imperial ambitions.
Judaism is not an ethnos, it is a religion. The attempt to create a Jewish State is making it a religious state. The Zionist argument regarding ethnicity is wrong, first, because most Jews today have no genetic connection to the ancient Hebrews. A good source on this point is Arthur Koestler's The Thirteenth Tribe where he details the history of the Khazars who converted to Judaism while in their homeland between the Black and Caspian Seas. They were the origin of eastern European Jews. At the very least one needs to be keeping this caveat in mind when talking about ethnicity.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Hamas was a creation of Israelis. They didn't like the POW, so they murdered Arafat and created Hamas. This fact plays into what actually happened on Oct. 7. Another is that rich reserves of fossil fuels have been discovered just off the coast of Gaza. This provides a motive for Israel to take over Gaza and remove the Palestinians. Oct. 7 could have been a false flag operation.
Regarding nationalism, it's been getting a bad name, predominately from the left. Nationalism gets equated with fascism, but what it's really about is sovereignty. The EU is a testing ground for this. The EU wants to dominate member nations. Joining the EU, and especially the Eurozone, has been a major sacrifice of sovereignty for many nations. It is in the EU where sovereignty is said to be an undesirable thing, but that is because the leaders there want to establish control over member nations, imposing policies the people did not vote for. In a clearer context, I deal with the issue of national sovereignty in the last essay in my book, Threefold Steps Out.
The problem in Palestine is the leadership on both sides. Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. One reason Arab countries don't want to take Palestinian refugees is that they don't want any part of the Muslim Brotherhood. You can see the trouble they caused in Egypt in the aftermath of that psyop called the Arab Spring. But the leadership of Israel is also very bad. The Likud Party should be voted out. Of course, they are not the only expansionist political group in Israel in favor of extermination. The good news is Israelis have taken to the street in protest.
Hey John - these are really interesting points. I do have a couple questions though. Can you say more about why you think it matters that Jewish people are, or aren't, an ethnic group? I know you're versed in threefolding, so in terms of what I'm writing about with the separation of nation and state, the actual overarching ideal is the separation of culture and state. So from my perspective it wouldn't matter if we're talking about ethnicity or religion or any other aspect of culture. Do you think it does matter?
Regarding nationalism, yeah it gets a bad name from the left and gets equated with fascism, but it is also gets a bad name from Steiner. I've never seen him say a positive word about nationalism. In Fall of the Spirits of Darkness he says:
“A man who today speaks of the ideal of races and nations and of tribal affiliation speaks of decadent impulses of mankind… Because through nothing will mankind be brought more into decadence than if the ideals of race, nation and blood continue to hold sway.”
I think it might be too hard to get into the details here (I'm thinking especially of the pictures he brings in The Social Future, Architecture as Peacework, and other lecture cycles), but I'd be interested in what your take is on this. I'll try to read the essay you mentioned, but I'm also super busy traveling over the next month, so if you want to share a condensed version of your view, I'd be appreciative.
And I do recognize that there is an abstract internationalism that can live especially in the left, which is also devoid of real love. It's overly cold like the nationalism of the right is overly hot. I don't think either side is connected to the ideals that Steiner espoused. Anyways, I'd be interested in hearing about your thoughts on this.
All the best - Seth
The reason ethnicity is an important issue with regards to Israelis is that refutes the Zionist narrative. The Zionists wanted to establish the Jewish state, and to justify it they claimed historical precedence on ethnic grounds. I refer you to The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand. Two main points here. One is that many if not most Jews are descendants of the Khazars who were converts a thousand or more years ago. Sand's view is similar in this regard to Arthur Koestler mentioned previously. Secondly, the diaspora never happened. Again I refer to Sand. There is no Roman record of Jews ever being exiled from Judea. Rather than a diaspora, the fact seems to be that Jews proselytized every bit as much as the Christians. That's how Judaism spread. Converts, of course, don't share in a genetic connection to the ancient Hebrews.
Regarding nationalism, I refer you to my book, Threefold Steps Out. In the last essay I deal with the issue of nationalism and why national sovereignty is important. Outside of Steiner, those who would do away with sovereignty and nationalism are those wishing to exploit. The EU, for instance, wishes to exploit its member nations. Nations with imperial designs wish to exploit their colonies, and do so by prohibiting certain things, like manufacturing. Or from issuing their own currency. These prohibitions have a profound impact on an economy. In that essay I bring in references to things Steiner said, as indeed I do with each of the essays. Generally speaking, when Steiner speaks of Threefold, he speaks of an ideal way in which society should function. Steiner speaks of free trade as an ideal, for instance. But if a nation is trading with an imperialistic, exploitive nation, then a nation that has adopted threefold is justified in using methods that run counter to pure free trade.
John, where can I find your book? Would the RS Library have it?
Thanks, Seth, and John too! I wish the rest of the world knew the history of this conflict. Before there are no Palestinians left . . .
I like the concept and in a world that held more sanity, it would work. I’m just not sure how we get to a place like that. There would be lots of kinks to work out. For instance, how do you fashion laws for a society that embraces differing cultural beliefs? If one culture favors a male dominate marriage in which the wife has no voice, and domestic abuse (in order to maintain cultural norms) is widely accepted, but surrounding cultures find the practice to be dangerous and worry that their own daughters may eventually fall in love with one from this male dominated culture, how do you protect citizens without favoring one culture over the other in governing decisions? If in one culture a crime is punishable by death or the loss of a limb, but another culture finds it abhorrent, how is a decision for recourse made?
These are great questions. Thanks for them, they help draw out an important distinction — laws that infringe on culture, and laws concerning violence (about which we all have different views because of our culture).
You ask: “How do we fashion laws for a society that embraces differing cultural beliefs?” First, just to be clear, we already do this. This isn’t so clear from my article because I emphasize culture in terms of distinct ethnic groups, but of course we all have a culture — we all have different beliefs and worldviews, they just don’t always fit into one single box. And then, of course, we all have to live together in society and make laws that everyone can abide by, regardless of all our different cultural beliefs.
That said, what I’ve focused on in this article and the ones preceding it, are specifically laws that infringe on culture. If you look into history we’ve already made a huge amount of progress overturning such laws and protecting culture, especially with the separation of church and state and free speech. More and more we recognize that people should be free to develop and express themselves how they see fit. But there’s still a long ways to go — we’re still violating people’s cultural development and expression, and it creates a huge amount of social strife.
Just in America, we still favor certain traditions (by making them official holidays) and certain languages (by making everyone speak them) and generally certain worldviews (by teaching them in public schools). We also take away people’s autonomy over their own bodies (abortion and vaccination laws). These things are major, MAJOR cultural issues that have the country hugely divided, and they also all have to do with people’s personal lives and choices — their culture. Yes, these choices still affect other people - it’s a pain if not everyone speaks English, and it might be hard to know when businesses would be open if we had different holidays, and if everyone learned different things in school then maybe we’d have less civic unity (there’s nothing like forced uniformity to unite people!), and if people are unvaccinated they could potentially endanger others, and when a woman gets an abortion she stops another person from entering the world, and if someone says hateful things they certainly hurt people’s feelings —but nonetheless, these are still primarily individual choices. You could argue that they’re not as private as religion, but people 200 years ago would disagree - religion for them was all about the morality of society and the salvation of souls, they felt they had to impose it on others. It was crucial for the well-being of society.
So there are fine arguments for why we should infringe on all these individual rights, but we should realize that people won’t be happy when we do, and they’re probably fight back.
But your main point is about something slightly different: the fact that, even though we have different cultural beliefs, we still have to make laws about what level of outer violence is acceptable. So right now we make laws that certain groups find incredibly offensive (allowing capital punishment, or solitary confinement which some view as torture) and then there are also laws about violence in the home (domestic abuse and corporal punishment). Different people will have different views of these things, and different religions and ethnic groups will have different views, but also different churches, mosques, and synagogues within the same religion will have different views. But these things have less to do with individual cultural freedom and more to do with outer violence and safety. And such things are right for everyone to have a voice in deciding. Not everyone should be able to decide what the social studies teacher teaches, but they should have a say in whether one person can attack another one and what the consequences are.
It’s true, if every ethnic group had its own state then we’d have very different laws around these things, and maybe domestic violence would be totally permitted in some countries. But how could you keep your daughter from falling in love with someone from that country and moving there anyways? I can’t think of a way of avoiding that scenario.
I like your optimism but I see some problems with your diagnosis and proposed remedy: How do you account for the 21% of the Israeli population being Arab Muslims? Did you know that Arab Muslims who are citizens in Israel even serve on the Israeli Supreme Court and have sentenced prominent Israelis to prison, and have more human rights than their counterparts in many other Arab nations?
Also, the schools in Palestine raise the children to hate Israelis of all ethnic backgrounds and to celebrate death and martyrdom; how do you reason with that? how do you make peace and/or at least contain the violence? You can watch recordings of kindergarten plays that glorify shooting Jews. https://youtu.be/1sDZlo_hllI?si=t_-gE4eUR-TA_nva Here is only one example, there are many more
I am not Jewish or Israeli or a zionist but I know that Israel is already a multiethnic and multi-religious state.
Your approach here, diagnosis of the situation and remedy seems a bit oversimplified.
This situation is very complex.
Of course, one cannot simply make assumptions about the nature and motivations of the nations and states involved in this, and other, conflicts without also considering the proxy nature of all of the wars mentioned above and the international corruption that fuels wars and terrorism and without taking into account of the major players who are behind Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah etc, in the case of the Middle East.
In the case of Ukraine which you mentioned in passing, we should also consider the interested parties involved behind the scenes in funding this war and sabotaging peace agreements. It is common knowledge now Putin and Zelensky had agreed to a Peace process, a diplomatic solution in April 2022, and it was undermined by the West. 18 months later, and 100,000 deaths later and we are no closer to a solution.
There is a lot more at stake in both of those examples than self-determination and nation-statehood, in my humble opinion.
FYI
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel
Hey Sharon - thanks for writing in. I wasn't trying to say that the separation of nation and state would magically erase the hate in people's hearts and atone for the violence done on both sides. Not at all. I assume there will need to be significant Peace and Reconciliation processes and all sorts of other things.
My main point is simply that as long as Arab Muslims are second class citizens (or third or fourth class, depending on where they live), then there will always be the conditions for violence to erupt. But I'm not sure if you disagree with that basic point?
If you think they're not second class citizens, then I would refer you to my other article about the Nation State Law (thewholesocial.substack.com/p/nation-state-law). The simple fact is that you can't have a Jewish state and a democratic state. A Jewish state, by definition, means that it favors one people, one group and identity, over all others (and therefore has to suppress the growth of other groups so they never become the majority). Do you see this differently? Do you think the nation-state doesn't lead to those consequences? And if you agree that it does, do you think other groups won't be resentful and potentially violent?
I'm definitely not saying that all acts of violence can be attributed to this, but only that violence is inevitable until it is addressed.
And I don't think it matters if they have more human rights than their counterparts in other Arab nations. I don't think that will placate them, if they even know about it at all.
Thanks for your thoughts on this challenging topic! All the best.
Actually, the Ukrainian death toll is now at half a million.
I agree with your framework that the nation state is a problem. It's an idea from centuries ago that has worked well enough until now. That said, some of these inter ethnic disputes are more complex than power struggles. For example, Israel isn't just fighting Palestinians for power over some land, but rather they are also fighting Hamas which is an idea, one which believes in the world-wide domination of Islam.
The Gaza slaughter and ethnic cleansing is not going to stop until Israel is de-Nazified. That means that Zionists should be chased out of Israel, these Zionists should return to their Nations of origin, a new secular non religious non ethnically state should be installed with a constitution mirroring the US. The country should be renamed to Palestine, a 2state solution is not available option. And let's not overlook the support and influence of the Anglo_US empire, using Israel as spearhed in the (oilr-ich) middle-east.