MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : ISRAEL NATIONALISM = HOMELAND & FATHERLAND!
Seth J. Frantzman 5 Std. 11 May 2020
How Israel’s right wing argues with itself:
“We want to annex the West Bank.”
“Don’t call it annexation, it’s our historic homeland.”
“Yes, right, the issue is about extending sovereignty to these territories.”
“These are disputed territories, remember that.”
“Of course, disputed, with our historic rights dating back thousands of years.”
“Well, it is San Remo in 1920 that gave us rights, when the European victors met after the war.”
“Oh, I forget that, those Europeans were very helpful in securing our rights to this area.”
“Well, not anymore, they call it ‘occupation’ now, which is a lie.”
“Yes, exactly, which is why we need to annex.”
“Don’t say ‘annex,’ this is our land.”
“Right, I meant like…we’ve controlled it for 50 years, not occupied, it’s disputed and it’s ours because of ancestral rights dating back thousands of years, and then given to us by Europeans at San Remo, but since then Europe has no say over it…but it leaves me with one thing that I don’t understand, since it is ours and we have rights to it and it was ours since San Remo in 1920, then why didn’t Israel’s government extent its sovereignty or laws over it in 1967?”
“Oh…well I don’t know that.”
“But as you said, it’s not ‘annexation,’ it’s ours, so why didn’t we make it ours when we had 50 years to do so? Why did we treat it like land that isn’t ours.”
“But we had a right wing government for a decade and yet…there was no changes in laws in the West Bank. Also we don’t really want to give citizenship to the Palestinians living there.”
“They are not Palestinians, but rather Arabs. There is no Palestine.”
“Right, but then why isn’t it Israel, if there is no Palestine in the West Bank.”
“It is Israel, it’s the land of Israel.”
“But you don’t want Arabs there to have citizenship, right, when we extend our laws there.”
“No, they must not have citizenship.”
“So then it’s not part of Israel.”
“It is. We just don’t want the people living there, we want the land, but no people, we want to extend law just around those areas where Israelis live.”
“I see, so we don’t really want this disputed area in its entirety, but we also don’t want a Palestinian state, and it’s disputed, but we are disputing it with a non-existent state.”
“Right, there is no real dispute. It doesn’t exist. That’s why we can’t annex it.”
“So there is no West Bank.”
“Exactly, West Bank is a colonial term, it’s the land of Israel, it’s ours, but we don’t want it fully, and most of it doesn’t exist in the sense that we don’t want to apply laws there, just over some parts but then we had fifty years to do that but didn’t do it. But San Remo.”
“I see.”
“So what’s your point.”