So you'd have the Jews leave?

MJ, are you trying to prove Seth's point about illogic? Where did he say Jews should leave? Seth was talking about the logic of Jewish statehood--if you wish to establish a Jewish democracy in a land largely inhabited by non-Jews, you are going to have to get rid of some people. Lieberman's logic is the same.

My guess is that you accidentally misread him because his point is too painful for you to take in.

I'm not in favor of a one state solution for a simple reason having nothing to do with 19th century romantic notions about nationhood and peoples--look at Lebanon or Iraq and that might well be the future of a one state solution. But the two state solution isn't looking much better these days.

While I support the Israel in the sense that it is much more of an egalitarian and democratic govenment, vis-a-vis its citizens, than any current (or likely in the foreseeable future) in the region; but the idea of a "jewish state" rubs me the wrong way, just as the "islamic states" and the idea of America as a "christian nation" bother me.

Is it impossible to believe that arabs could be a part of a democratic nation with something akin to a separation of church and state? In other words, would it not be enough if all religious sects were guaranteed freedom from persecution? The argument could be made that this does not seem a likely outcome, but should the standard be a "jewish state" or nothing?

MJ: I agree that Lieberman is an abomination and a threat to peace. I have spent some time with Israelis since the elections and for most, the reaction is the same: they wonder what has happened to their country.

However, by positing a monolithic "right" opposed to territorial concessions or reconciliation with Arabs, your condemnation sweeps too broadly. As you are no doubt aware, Lieberman, for all of his jingoistic nationalism and xenophobia is not a proponent of "Greater Israel" and favors ceding parts of Jerusalem and the West Bank for a Palestinian state. More controversial, he proposes retaining some Jewish settlements outside the 67 borders in exchange for portions of the Galilee with an Arab majority being subsumed within the Palestinian State (in my mind, not totally unreasonable, though curiously the Arabs would prefer to stay in Israel).

Being somewhat pressed for time here, I will quote Bradley Burson in today's Haaretz for a different, in my view more compelling, take:

"A closer examination of the much-vaunted Gush HaYamin, or Bloc of the Right, suggests that it qualifies neither as a bloc, nor, strictly speaking, as the Right.

The longer Netanyahu's ostensible natural partners continue to hold out demands and conditions, the more the fundamental ideological differences between the parties - and the distance between those factions and the traditional Israeli Right - become more pronounced.

* * * *

In fact, if the 2009 election has conclusively demonstrated anything, it is the overwhelming consensus across Israeli society for the rejection of the bedrock right-wing principle of a Greater Israel encompassing and annexing all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Shockingly, the Israeli public may have voted for the right not because it rejects the idea of peace deals, partition, and a two-state solution, but because it believes the right is better qualified to find a way to carry out that undeniably painful process.

* * * *

Avigdor Lieberman, the hands-down success story of the election, has repeatedly outraged the far-right by suggesting in the past that some heavily Arab-populated East Jerusalem neighborhoods and refugee camps be ceded to an eventual independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. He has consistently alientated the ultra-Orthodox - an essential building block of any right-wing dream coalition - by demanding civil-marriage and modified Jewish conversion legislation favored by Lieberman's ultra-secular constituency.

Netanyahu's Likud, the anchor of a potential rightist coalition, has been on record for years as favoring an eventual Palestinian state in the territories, as long as strict security guarantees were met. The Likud is also the only party ever to have headed a government which dismantled established settlements.

Only two parties, representing just seven seats in the 120-seat Knesset, still argue for a Greater Israel. Not even the fringe-right National Union with its frankly pro-Kahane wing, dares come out in public for a return to permanent Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, stating in its platform only that "There will be no uprooting of Jewish communities and no surrender of parts of the Land of Israel in any subsequent Israeli government led by the party."

"In other words," Alkalai concludes, "the majority vote was cast for a leadership - the right wing - that the public thinks can end the relationship with the most assets for Israelis and preferably no alimony at all for the spouse."

So you'd have the Jews leave?

No one is keeping MJ Rosenberg silent! He will always speak out!

I find this baffling. Liebermanism will destroy the Jewish state by making it an international pariah. And why is the end of the Jewish state such an abhorrent eventuality? The "Jewish state" is an anachronistic fantasy anyway. How can there be a modern, democratic government that also maintains the rule of one religious group? The end of the "Jewish state" is demographically inevitable if Liebermanism fails, and politically inevitable if it wins (as Rosenberg points out).

Does nobody get this? The Jewish state just ain't gonna keep on happening. Calling Israel a "Jewish state" is like calling Great Neck a "Jewish municipality." Both may be majority Jewish now. But nothing makes this state of affairs inevitable or eternal. I don't know the demographic trends in Great Neck, but I have some awareness that Israel isn't going to stay majority Jewish for long, without some severe gerrymandering.

However, by positing a monolithic "right" opposed to territorial concessions or reconciliation with Arabs, your condemnation sweeps too broadly.

No surprise as his essay starts out citing an infamous pop book of 1973, a work of sophistry. Serious historians consider "Wisconsin Death Trip" a casebook example of how to turn history into propaganda. It attempted to debunk the selective history of rosy-colored olden small town days by cherry-picking old photos and newspaper articles about a single town in Wisconsin, creating an opposing narrative of lives filled with death, violence, depression and nothing else.

So basically, I took Rosenberg's introduction as an announcement that he was going to go on to tell a story made up from cherry-picked facts which would intentionally not be the whole truth and would give an intentionally inaccurate picture.

Folks don't cry over mistreatment by the headliners. They blovate for their own benefit, not because they are part of the party.

Frankly, I'm not sure the difference between Rosenberg and Lieberman is as great as Rosenberg imagines. Both think it's vitaly important that Israel remain a Jewish state. Both are therefore committed to preserving a Jewish majority in Israel. And both therefore want to limit the number of Arabs within the Israeli polity. The only difference is that Rosenberg seems content with the amount of expulsion that has already taken place since 1948 and is willing to let the 1.5 million or so Arabs who remain in Israel continue to be citizens. Lieberman wants to go all the way and get rid of those 1.5 million too. It's worth noting though that, as a percentage of total citizens, the Arab minority in Israel is about 50% larger than the African-American minority in the US. How does Rosenberg think, therefore, that maintaining Israel as a Jewish ethnocracy can be any more just than maintaining the US as a white ethnocracy? It seems to me that Rosenberg and Lieberman are both proponents of ethnocracy and therefore of injustice against the Arab minority. The only difference is that one would have the Arabs stay and suffer injustice as citizens while the other would make them leave. I'm really not sure whose idea is better. But I'm pretty sure both aren't any good.

I am with MR.

"One state" may have a nice sound to it, but I would give you example how harmoniously two Catholic ethnic groups share single state of Belgium. It is not a pretty picture. (More precisely, not when you read about political conflicts, shunning of Valoons in Flemish suburbs of Brussels etc. Belgium as such is very pretty.)

There is a number of reasons to suspect that Palestinians and Jews would share one state with even less harmony than the Valoons and the Flemish. Think Sri Lanka.

Currently, Netanyahu is not a PM yet but a major expansion of settlements was just announced, and Netanyahu keeps elaborating his condition for Palestinian state: all external traffic, including electronic, has to be controlled by Israel.

So Lieberman can make more sense then Netanyahu. But basically, no political party in Israel is quite sane. Israel as a nation defined its goal in a way that are logically impossible, and thus it cannot capitalize on the current period of unmatched local hegemony. E.g. they want to tightly control Palestinians and isolate themselves from them. Achieve total security via total insecurity of everybody else in the region (done, check) and making it a stable system (good luck with that).

The most heroic social engineering in history is how Israel is re-fashioning Palestinians. You select among your populations folks that basically do nothing else but (a) pick fights, (b) outdo each other with religious fervor, (c) make immense amounts of children. Then you ensure very extensive contacts of that group with your subjugated helots, so in time they do all (a,b,c).

Strangely enough, Israeli are unhappy with the results and, imagine that! they feel insecure. So they will now increase the number of settlements, and I guess they will try to reduce contacts of Palestinians with non-(a,b,c) Jews. That actually can work because Palestinians have no friends outside, in part because of (a,b,c). Except for ...

Aha. The problem of external friends of Palestinians can be solved by attacking Iran. It kind of assumes that (a) Iran needs nukes to retaliate, (b) attack will make nuclear program impossible forever, (c) it will cow Iranians to Egypt-like docility.

But no one in Israeli (or American, for that matter) establishment says that this is arrant nonsense.

Slightly off point, but how could ANY progressive want to see Netanyahu form a cabinet? I know that some hope that Israel will SO box itself in politically that the US will be forced, under Obama, to diverge seriously. But that kind of 'worse is better' argument is like Marxist historian Genovese supporting W Bush in a backhanded way, as W's imperialism was unsustainable, while (at that time Kerry's) was not. But the logic would have progressives continually support the RW (eg McCain). Sooner or later more rational leadership has to come in within the system and clean up the mess, or the whole thing collapses, and that is ALWAYS ugly.

Frankly, I don't know that the future holds a progressive utopia at all. Rather, a kind of RW elite anti-Constitutional society "in pig latin" as it were, as outlined by Walt Whitman in "Respondez! Respondez!" seems more likely, and the kind of reality towards which the elite is (underground) pushing the society, suppressing authentic progressives systematically.