Balkinization: Being Like Other Nations

Comments:

Samuel was displeased when they asked for a king to judge them. He prayed to the LORD, however, who said in answer:

"Grant the people's every request. It is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their king. As they have treated me constantly from the day I brought them up from Egypt to this day, deserting me and worshiping strange gods, so do they treat you too. Now grant their request; but at the same time, warn them solemnly and inform them of the rights of the king who will rule them."

Samuel delivered the message of the LORD in full to those who were asking him for a king. He told them:

"The rights of the king who will rule you will be as follows:

He will take your sons and assign them to his chariots and horses, and they will run before his chariot.

He will also appoint from among them his commanders of groups of a thousand and of a hundred soldiers. He will set them to do his plowing and his harvesting, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.

He will use your daughters as ointment-makers, as cooks, and as bakers.

He will take the best of your fields, vineyards, and olive groves, and give them to his officials.

He will tithe your crops and your vineyards, and give the revenue to his eunuchs and his slaves.

He will take your male and female servants, as well as your best oxen and your asses, and use them to do his work.

He will tithe your flocks and you yourselves will become his slaves.

When this takes place, you will complain against the king whom you have chosen, but on that day the LORD will not answer you."

1 Samuel 8:6-18

# posted by

Charles Gittings : 12:19 PM

I had no idea god was so passive-aggressive.

# posted by

John : 1:52 PM

Israel is well entitled to live up to its fundamental right of self-defense, even when the other side uses human shields.

I've never understood this point in the context in which it's usually stated. I concede the basic right of self-defense, of course. I have it, you have it, members of Hamas have it, George Bush has it. Every person has it.

But do governments? I'm not so sure. The Declaration of Independence says we have a right "to alter or abolish" them. I guess they don't.

What about nations? A harder question, to be sure, but what gives a "nation" the right to exist? Did the Soviet Union have a right to exist that would have justified armed force against its former "republics"? The usual source for the right of self-defense is nature or God in some sort of natural rights theory or under natural law. It's hard to see these as applying to nations. What do you see as the source of this "right"?

Then there are the conditions for self-defense. In CA, at least, the first condition is that there be "reasonable" fear of "imminent danger" of "great bodily injury". It's hard to see that the kidnapping of two soldiers met this standard for the whole nation of Israel. (Obviously, it did for the two soldiers.)

Next, the means used must be reasonable under the circumstances. Excessive force is not justified, nor is punishment or revenge after the initial assault has been repelled. That seems to be the crux of the debate, so merely repeating "right to self-defense" isn't very helpful under the circumstances.

Those who purport to call Bush a "king," a "tyrant," or worse show a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is to be any of those things.

Pretty much the same was said about the colonists' outcries against George III.

Let's not forget that the Ten Commands were a pretty strong example of an executive uses inherent authority!

If God wants to listen in to my conversations without first obtaining a warrant, I promise not to sue. George Bush doesn't get to make his own laws, though, he has to faithfully enforce those made by others.

# posted by

Mark Field : 5:26 PM

"Jews and Israel are expected to be 'a light unto the world.' "
By that logic the true Jewish exceptionalists were the anti-zionists.

"Jewish survival may depend in part on the survival of Israel..."

Bullshit. Why do I have a 'right of return' to a place I've never been? Why do I have that right and 4 million Palestinians who lived on that land do not?
Jews will be safe in Israel when they give up their bullshit moral superiority that allows them to believe they have the right to treat everyone else with contempt.

Watch Josh Marshall and MJ Rosenberg make the Dixiecrat defense of a crime. It doesn't work. When Israelis stop relying on the logic of Haidar and Le Pen they'll have peace.

# posted by

D. Ghirlandaio : 6:21 PM

And I hear ad nauseam of how Israel is a “democratic” society.

Would any of you learned folks care to explain how so?

In my incessant effort to question received ideas, I’ve stumbled on a couple of claims , which I’d like confirmed or trashed:

(1) Israel self identifies as a Jewish state.

And (2) non-Jews cannot vote, which may be as much as twenty percent of the otherwise qualified residents.

If either one of these claims are true, then for me, Israel is less than a democratic society, let alone state.

# posted by

redwood : 10:07 PM

Most nation-states, for better and distinctly for worse, identify themselves in more-or-less ethnic terms. See, for starters, Germany, Japan, and Switzerland, among modern states that would, I think, be regarded as "democratic" even if far from perfect.

More to the point, it is an utter falsehood to say that non-Jews are not allowed to vote. There are Arab parties represented in the Israeli Knesset. I am often critical of Israel on all sorts of grounds; there is, for example, far too much discrimination against Israeli-Arabs in the allocation of resources (for starters), but no one should believe for a second that the discrimination extends to the disallowance of the suffrage.

# posted by

Sandy Levinson : 11:15 PM

Thank you for clarifying Sandy Levinson.

You say that Arabs are represented through parties in the Knesset.

Are you satisfied that the legislative, executive, and judicial rules are not rigged in favor of Jews?

I guess I'm wondering if the US should not take a more neutral policy toward her alliances with nations self-identifying in ethnic terms.

In my view, multi-culturalism is proving divisive.

I'm longing for the melting pot.

# posted by

redwood : 12:59 AM

"Most nation-states, for better and distinctly for worse, identify themselves in more-or-less ethnic terms"

Israel is a modern invention following premodern logic, and onthat logic alone will not allow the Palestinians the right of return to their land. And there can be no doubt that morally it remains the Palestinian's land, even if the present population is not going to leave.

A bi-national state, includinig the loss of a Jewish demographic advantage is the only fair and "modern" solution to the problem. Israeli logic is racist on its face. It has always been so. A state for the jews is not necessarily a jewish state.
redwood, you should read more.

Mark Field et al.
The term is the right of self defense under law not under god. Laws are man made. Adam is confusing the two. Lincoln had the right to defend the Union. Did the US have the right to defend itself against the Apache?

# posted by

D. Ghirlandaio : 10:18 AM

Redwood asks, "Are you satisfied that the legislative, executive, and judicial rules are not rigged in favor of Jews?" No, alas, I am not so satisfied, as I indeed suggested in my previous posting. I would also add, incidentally, that the rules are "rigged" in favor of Orthodox Judaism, as against the distinctly secular variety with which I personally identify. All of that can be easily conceded. My point is that it is a canard to suggest that Israeli Arabs do not enjoy the right to vote and, therefore, representation in the Knesset. Israel is a highly imperfect democracy, but it looks like Athens compared with any of its neighbors in the Middle East. That, of course, is the tragedy of the entire region.

I am not a big fan of ethnically-organized states. But it should be clear that repudiation of that vision requires rethinking, if not repudiation, of the Wilsonian emphasis on the "self-determination of all peoples," which has turned out to be one of the most dangerous notions of 20th (and now 21st) century politics. It is unclear why one should be more sympathetic to calls for self-determination by, say, Kurds, Scots, Palestinians, or the East Timorise, than by Jews who believe that their own self-determination can be best realized in an Israel where Jews remain a majority.

# posted by

Sandy Levinson : 11:05 AM

To add:
Those who defend a demographic advantage for Jews in Israel make arguments that would right wing in any other country: in the Netherlands, in Germany, or France.

American liberals who would never admit to concern over the transformation -the Latinization?- of North American culture defend the Israeli position.
And of course it's the Israelis who imported 3 million Russians.
This is hypocrisy. This is racism

This is simple hypocrisy.

# posted by

D. Ghirlandaio : 11:07 AM

Mark Field et al.
The term is the right of self defense under law not under god. Laws are man made. Adam is confusing the two. Lincoln had the right to defend the Union. Did the US have the right to defend itself against the Apache?

I don't much care for use of the word "right" when applied to governments or nations. IMO, people have rights, governments/nations have powers (and sometimes, as Adam noted, duties). In particular, the right of self-defense has been generally treated as a "natural right" at least since Hobbes. It's that usage which I don't think proper when applied to governments.

As for governments having "rights" under law, they can in some sense. But those "rights" remain subordinate, IMO, to "the right of the people to alter or abolish them".

In the case of the US in the Civil War, the whole issue is complex, as both Radicals and Rebels ended up taking contradictory positions. In my view -- and I'm not sure legal analysis is worth much in cases of "recurrence to first principles" -- the issue boils down to this: who should we consider the relevant "people" for purposes of altering or abolishing? Lincoln's view was that those in America were all one "people"; Confederates took the view that a particular subset could treat itself as distinct and therefore exercise that right independent of the rest. I'm with Lincoln. Please note, though, that I don't rely on any governmental right, but on the right of people.*

As for the Apache, they had just as much right to defend themselves as Americans did. Are you really asking me who the aggressors were in that particular case? Remember that a claim of "self-defense" provides no justification for the attacker.

*On less fundamental issues such as ownership of Fort Sumter, the federal government had clearly enforceable legal rights.

# posted by

Mark Field : 12:28 PM

Thank you Sandy Levinson. The logic of your last paragraph moved a little fast for me. So, I will have to contemplate it.

But I think that there are at least two good, competing ideas about ‘culture,’ specifically the extent to which culture is “bounded.” If it is, it can be transformed.

But if, as I understand it, culture is constantly negotiated, constantly resisting and yielding to pressure to transform, then it’s not such a big deal that we adopt a word or institute a latin practice. We'll resist others.

On the other hand, a group that says, for example, no one who doesn’t read the books we read shall be allowed to talk, as poster D. Ghirlandaio would have it, is trying to enforce a bounded sense of culture. That’s spooky.

In any event, I truly appreciate this website. In twenty years of trying to teach my dyslexic self how to read the law, I’ve never encountered a better bunch of writers. Thank you.

# posted by

redwood : 12:40 PM

Mark Field,
I wasn't reallt arguing with you, I was being more blunt in my description.

"...the issue boils down to this: who should we consider the relevant "people" for purposes of altering or abolishing? "

That's the important question of the Middle East crisis, and one which even liberal Israelis and liberal defenders of Israel refuse to ask.

# posted by

D. Ghirlandaio : 1:42 PM

Mark Field,
I wasn't reallt arguing with you, I was being more blunt in my description.

Fair enough. No problem.

"...the issue boils down to this: who should we consider the relevant "people" for purposes of altering or abolishing? "

That's the important question of the Middle East crisis, and one which even liberal Israelis and liberal defenders of Israel refuse to ask.

I agree that that's one of the critical questions. I'm not so sure that liberals "refuse" to ask it, though. Prof. Levinson's second post in this thread seems evidence to me that they do. I'd consider myself a (much less prominent) counterexample too.

# posted by

Mark Field : 2:03 PM

"It is unclear why one should be more sympathetic to calls for self-determination by, say, Kurds, Scots, Palestinians, or the East Timorise, than by Jews who believe that their own self-determination can be best realized in an Israel where Jews remain a majority."

It seems to me that offering a 'right of return' of people like me is weighting ideology before geography. The US is full of people who by that logic, could claim a right of return to somewhere.
The argument for the racial character of Israel is that the jews are a special case. It also appears to many to be based on an assumption that Europeans are also a special case. I might agree, if only in the European capacity for conquest. The Zionist argument is affirmative action as absurdity. It is defended not only as payback for European crimes but Muslim ones as well, though Muslim mistreatment of Jews is roughly equivalent to the crimes of Christianity against itself. Zionism? I'll take half of Germany. That would have been appropriate, if not even the dissolution of the German state itself.

Israel as a fact I understand; but it is also an ideology. The rights of 3 millions Russians who have a genetic affiliation to a distant land can not trump either logically or morally, the rights of 4 million Palestinians who lived on that land until they were thrown out 50 years ago. One can not make any other argument and claim to be either a Modern or a Liberal.
The choice a liberal can make and be worthy of that name is for a bi-national state in idea or in fact.
When people begin to accept that, we'll all be a lot better off.

# posted by

D. Ghirlandaio : 3:38 PM

4 million includes descendants and who knows how many would return?
"It's the thought that counts" and the opportunity.

# posted by

D. Ghirlandaio : 3:42 PM

"Young liberal Jews, who will intermarry and vote for Ned Lamont were not exactly the future of Israel."

Oy, what a racist. But you may be right. That's why I don't argue with people who call themselves Likudniks, just those who pretend they aren't. Peace Now's response to the invasion is as grotesque as anyone's.
Israel has almost succeeded in doing what the Germans and the rest of Europe failed to do: destroy Jewish culture. Lawpolprof, if I had any generosity left in me, I'd call your pride a tragic flaw.
But I have none.

# posted by

D. Ghirlandaio : 2:21 PM

DG, of those 4 million Palestinians, only a few hundred thousand, and dwindling, ever lived on the land. Their descendants are just irredentists.

# posted by

David Bernstein : 9:56 AM

Gee Adam, the point is plainly stated in the text by the Lord himself:

"It is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their king. As they have treated me constantly from the day I brought them up from Egypt to this day, deserting me and worshiping strange gods, so do they treat you too."

Or as a noted rabbi once observed:

"The Kingdom of God is within you."

But let me see if I can spell it out for you. God is saying: "I've given these people everything they need, and all they ever do is squander my gifts and go chasing after follies. But I'm tired of wasting my breath on these fools, so tell them, fine, they can have their silly king -- just make sure they understand that when they finally figure out that they need a king about as much as they need a plague or a drought I'm not going to hear any complaints."

The message is that foolishness and vanity lead to bad results, and we are responsible for the consequences of our actions.

And I might add that superpowers, being superpowers, are more responsible than any one else is.

# posted by

Charles Gittings : 8:24 PM