Spot the interesting phrase:
"These four anniversaries [31/10/17 Beersheba; 2/11/17 Balfour; 29/11/47 Partition; Sadat in Jerusalem 19/11/77] outline an amazing story - perhaps the 20th century's most successful and inspiring story of self-determination and an ethnic people building a thriving new nation-state." (Out of the Great War was born a great new democracy, Colin Rubenstein, The Australian, 29/11/17)
IOW, providing one accepts, against all the evidence, the Zionist claim that Jews are an ethnic group, Israel is an ethnocracy. If, however, one insists, correctly, that Jews are a religious group, then Israel should be defined as a theocracy. Either way, its polity is completely at odds with our own multi-ethnic and multi-religious conception of the state, a matter our Israel-loving politicians seek to gloss over at every turn.
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In any case, while googling the term 'ethnic group', I noted this downright peculiar definition on Wikipedia: "An ethnic group is a group of people who are considered to be the same in some... ways. They may all have the same ancestors, speak the same language, or have the same religion."
The same Wikipedia entry also goes on to refer to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976), and specifically Article 27, as "ensuring the rights of ethnic groups." One may be forgiven, therefore, for assuming that Article 27 of the ICOCAPR supports Wikipedia's definition of 'ethnic group' as including religion.
If, however, we look up Article 27, we read: "In those states in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist... " As can be seen, ethnic minorities and religious minorities are clearly separate categories.
The question arises, therefore: has this particular Wikipedia entry been the subject of a Zionist makeover? (Note too, Rubenstein's reference to "self-determination." This fundamental political right (routinely denied the Palestinians) is the thrust of ICOCAPR's Article I(1): "All peoples have the right of self-determination.")
Finally, compare the Wikipedia definition with that of the Encyclopedia Britannica: "Ethnic group, a social group or category of the population that, in a larger society, is set apart and bound together by common ties of race, language, nationality, or culture." (britanicca.com)
Religion is nowhere to be found.
FYI: See my 11/3/17 post Wikipedia Warning.
2 comments:
"was born a great new democracy"? I nearly choked on my coffee.
The New Statesman is not noted for anti-Zionism but here's one by Ben White that does a pretty good job of demolishing any idea that Israel is a democracy:
https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/02/jewish-state-citizens-israel
"As Israeli jurist and founding member of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel Ruth Gavison put it, the Jewish state is:
'an enterprise in which the Arabs are not equal partners, in which their interests are placed below those of a different national group - most of whose members are newcomers to the land, and many of whom are not even living in the country.'"
Some democracy.
Based moreover on the greatest act of gerrymandering in modern times - the ethnic cleansing and exile of Palestine's Arab majority, who, apart from everything else, have been disenfranchised.
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