In a message dated 4/8/2002 7:35:41 AM Eastern Standard Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:

At the end of this message Martin writes:

> The
> point is that if the word Jewish in term "Jewish state" doesn't refer to
> religion, it doesn't refer to anything at all.


But in the body of his text he writes:

David also objects that the term "Jewish state" should not be used
because religious zionists use it for exactly the purpose that is
enabled when it is assumed that Israel actually is a Jewish state.  ie,
by referring to Israel as a Jewish state, I am, once again, validating
the view that Israel is a Jewish state, which is what religious zionists
want me to do.  I'm sure that's true in some cases, but it implies that
these religious zionists and other Israelis don't actually believe that
Israel is a Jewish state, that they secretly acknowledge that Israel is
*not* a Jewish state and they want to prevent the world from seeing that
fact by duping gullible people like me into  referring to Israel over
and over again as a Jewish state.  However, I think most religious
zionists actually believe that Israel is and ought to remain a Jewish
state, and it is not my duty to point out to the general population of
Israel how wrong they are in believing that their Israel is a Jewish
state and that they should stop referring to it as such.

For someone who believes that the term "Jewish state" "doesn't refer to
anything at all," why does he use the term 9 times in this paragraph
alone????

Martin's incessant conflation of ontology and axiology is sheer comedy. First
he asserts that the so-caleed "Jewish state" both exists on an ontological
level in the mind of Zionists, i.e. axiologically! (How he claims to know
what all Israelis think, we will never find out. I suppose he took a poll?)
Then he asserts, axiologically, that Israelis ought not to think of Israel as
a "Jewish state." How he plans to refute an axiology (i.e., an "ought") with
another axiology is beyond me! What a confusing mish-mosh of conflicting
ideas, reminiscent of only.... hey, the Zionist entity itself!

But, most importantly, he advances the notion that the socio-economic
realities in Israel emerge solely from subjective axiological dictates based
on textbooks and morality, rather than the objective ontological economic
demands of  the global economy, i.e. monopoly Capitalism. Thus Martin stays
safely within the realm of idealism and opportunistically skirts a
materialistic analysis at every turn.

(If it was really true that the realities in Palestine emerged from what
Israelis "believed," and that that "belief" is tied up in the Jewish
religion, then why is it that the Lord God Himself does not emerge Himself
from the sky and exert His Holy Wrath and Punishment on all that disobey him,
wreaking Fire and Flood on the Israelites? Because, after all, the conditions
in Palestine exist because Israelis "believe" they live in a "Jewish state,"
right Martin? I hope dear Martin is prepared to wait for God in order to
validate his "analysis"!!!!!)

What Martin continues to ignore-- by trying to divert the subject by
flame-baiting me about the time stamp on my email program and reciting
Humpty-Dumpty poems!-- is that the material conditions in occupied Palestine
are not occuring in Israeli's heads, or in his head, but in reality! The
United States does not keep Israel as a top foreign aid recipient, receiving
billions and billions of dollars annually, because some dude in Norway named
Martin "thinks" something about what Jewish people "think" or "secretly
acknowledge." The U.S. does this not because it cares about "Jews" but so it
can maintain geo-political dominance in the region and guarantee its access
to cheap oil. (According to Martin, OIL is just a sideline to some sort of
improvised religious "battle" reminiscent of the 12th century, or some
philosophical sparring that took place in Germany in the 18th....) Israel, in
turn, asks "how high" every time the United States says "jump." The United
States and Israel benefit from each other economically through hundreds of
corporations, resulting in HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars annually in
revenue. But these corporations are simply a marker for the DOMINANCE OF THE
CAPITALIST CLASS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, with the United States as its center.
But Martin cannot acknowledge the position of Israel sheerly as a U.S. client
state-- because he has no knowledge of global economics at all, and instead
prefers to revert to abstract talk about whether Zionism is Jewish, Jewish is
Zionism, and other issues which he tries to mask in some kind of
crypto-philosophical profundity.

Martin: What is the global economy? How does its function? Which
nation-states are at its center? How much of a role does the global economy
play in the politics of EVERY nation-state on the face of the earth? How does
the nation-states at the seat of the global economy employ client states and
neo-colonial regimes to meet its objectives? What would Israel be without the
existence of these economic imperatives?

How much does OIL as a natural resource in the Middle East drive the U.S.
economy? How does Israel play an important role in this?

These are the questions that Martin will constantly avoid in hopes of
changing the discussion into some abstract argument-- in which the one who
shouts the loudest inevitably "wins"-- of whether Judaism is "religion",
whether Zionism is a "Jewish state", etc.

-- David