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I agree that Jews should have a majority state, but I don’t think it follows that other groups should be prevented from such a state. The list of genocides in history is long and the subjects are totally random. The unifying theme is that groups that fall out of dominance are at risk of genocide. It’s reasonable, then, for every group to desire a clear majority territory in order to decrease their risk of being genocided. It’s unreasonable to say, “because this group has already been subject to genocide, they should have an eternal homeland”, because that’s an arbitrary rule that favors the groups that happen to survive the genocide. It arbitrarily hurts the groups who are totally eliminated (now or in the future), or who lack the global capital and political pull to demand an ethnostate post-genocide. (It’s not as if former genocided peoples have commiseration for other genocided peoples; Israel refuses to recognize the Armenian genocide last I checked). Ironically, this standard favors the groups that are least likely to be genocided in total, because only an already-influential group can demand an ethnostate and then supply the necessary funds to establish it. (Eg, the richest family in the world supplied the funds for Zionism). If our wish is to decrease the number of genocides, then a preventative approach is better than a survivorship bias approach.
That follows from the principle of "Ethnonationalism Considered Harmful" leading to the notion that, usually, it is not justifiable to take coercive measures to keep certain ethnicities in the majority.
Not totally random. Some groups have been dis-proportionally targeted; this pattern becomes more visible with a data-set that includes sub-genocidal persecution.
No, because not every group has the same risk.
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that "Because this group has been subjected repeatedly to genocidal and lesser persecutions, and were turned away and sent to their deaths when they tried to flee the most recent attempt, they should have a homeland as long as there is widespread animus against them and government control over immigration."
If the passengers on the MS St. Louis, and all the other Jewish people fleeing the Nazis, had been allowed into America, there would have been a lot less impetus for the formation of a Jewish State.
If all other countries had open borders, showed no sign of any desire to change this, and that situation continued for several decades, it would be reasonable to urge Israel to follow suit.
(Often cast is the accusation of wanting 'open borders for every country except Israel'. I think a better description, at least of those whose political opinions reside on Level 1, would be open borders for every country, with Israel bringing up the tail end of the process. [Those on Level 3, on the other hand, {if their social circle consists of the kind of people in the Respectable Media} will oppose immigration enforcement in the U. S. because their friends do, support Israeli policies because their friends do, and give no more regard to resolving any apparent contradiction in their ideas than they would give to ensuring that their ideas are expressed in sentences ending in words with an odd number of letters. {The same applies to people whose social circle consists of college radicals yelling "From the river to the sea" without any knowledge of the bodies of water to which that slogan refers.}])
The principle “usually, it is not justifiable to take coercive measures to keep certain ethnicities in the majority” has a big exclusion for “unless it prevents genocide”. Just a cursory look through the annals of history shows that every group which lacks dominance over a territory risks genocide, and that these happen at mostly unpredictable times. Therefore, it is justifiable to take coercive measures to keep an ethnic group in the majority of some territory (or subsection thereof) to prevent its genocide, as this is the best way to protect against genocide. To reiterate my original point, it’s silly to only have a principle in place for when a genocide is currently ongoing, because at that point annihilation has the greatest odds, and surely our interest is in reducing the amount and extent of genocide in total. With all this said, there are ways to reduce the amount of coercion involved in majority-fying a territory, like with payments and subsidities. Additionally, we frequently supersede the right to property when there is a distinct majority interest as in the case of eminent domain, and there is no majority interest greater than not being genocided.
If Jews have the greatest risk of genocide, it doesn’t follow that we should ignore the 90%+ of genocides which will happen to other groups (going by history). There’s so much randomness that it’s impossible to divine who will face genocide. Who would have guessed that Anatolian Greeks would have been genocided, or the Armenians? The Iraqi Turkmen had no expectation of genocide by ISIS, or the Darfuri people. You can’t go by pure “number or recency of past genocides” because this has little predictive value. For instance, it’s only recently that white people have lived alongside other people in racially-blind democracies, so the absence of past white genocides doesn’t tell us about the future. South Africa does not exactly paint an optimistic future of what happens if they become a minority.
This is an argument for why, if we had to pick one group to give a homeland to, we should all pick Jews getting one. But this is not an argument for why other groups should not get a homeland. Because again, if you look at a list of genocides in history, the vast majority of genocides happen unpredictably to formerly safe populations which aren’t Jewish. If we only protected Jews from genocide, going by history we would be allowing 90%+ of genocides. Shouldn’t our interest be in reducing genocides down to 0%?
The exception is more 'unless a group has been repeatedly been persecuted by many other groups, to a degree greatly above background, and given no refuge when they tried to escape a mad-man bent on their extermination.'
Such a plan would be very destructive to human freedom and well-being; furthermore, even if it had been accomplished fifty years ago and every ethnic group had their own country, the division between ethnicities is not a constant throughout history.
Therefore, to prevent genocides from occurring, the best method is to
Once this has been accomplished, and the ideas that 'an individual is less worthy of concern because they are of a different ethnicity' or 'we have the right to send an individual back to a country where they will be murdered rather than risk them causing some inconvenience² to us' are taken no more seriously anywhere among the Nations than the idea that '2.00 + 2.00 = 5.00', then we can discuss whether the State of Israel is justified in limiting the number of Arab citizens to less than the number of Jewish citizens.
¹'Distant' meaning 'far enough apart that even the Medieval Church wouldn't object to them marrying.'
²Such as 'they're poor enough that they might cost us money in social support', 'letting in 10,000 of them might contain one or two people who might wish us harm³', or 'we can't distinguish which ones are in actual danger, so avoiding type II errors (deporting someone who will then be murdered) will cause type I errors (some people might move here for economic opportunity, even if we have told them not to!).
³During the interbellum period, some Unitedstatesian opinionists opposed the admission of Jewish refugees on the grounds that Germany might hide saboteurs among them.
Let’s suppose that Jews do indeed have the greatest past history of genocide, and that this makes them the most liable to be genocided again, and that as a consequence they ought to be first in line for a homeland. I can follow this line of thinking. What I fail to see is why any white person would be persuaded to abstain from forming their own homeland. It is reasonable to think as follows: genocides are the worst event that can happen to you; genocided nations eagerly wish to create a majority homeland; history tells us that 90% of genocides cannot be predicted (imo); without an influential and wealthy diaspora, it is difficult to create a homeland post-genocide. Given this, why would anyone abstain from forming a majority homeland? Genocides can happen to white people, history tells us they are hard to predict, and they are the worst thing that can happen. So, it’s entirely reasonable to hedge against an apocalyptic threat that can happen to your people.
But, as in the case of Israel, this is justified on the grounds of protection against genocide. Let us say that Israel has an 80% chance of protecting against a 500-year-
stormgenocide. Well, white people have no way to know their own risk of genocide because “gradual minority status” is new to them. Certainly, South Africa doesn’t look too good. I would say that a homeland is justified even if protects against a 5% chance in a 500-year period. After all, it’s the worst thing that can happen to a population. So I fail to see why Israel’s uniquely strong interest in a homeland in any way negates white people’s very apparent interest in a homeland. A starving man should get food, and he should get food first, but this has nothing to do with my interest in eating for my nutritional needs.Sure, but this applies to Israel as well. Perhaps in a century, some subsection of Israeli Jewish society will no longer be considered Jewish. It’s hard to predict this stuff. What if DNA finds a hiccup in the maternal line?
Because maintaining an ethnostate involves discriminating on the basis of ethnicity, which has major costs, almost always greater than the benefits (if one is primarily concerned with the well-being of individual humans.) In the case of Israel, past events create a sufficient threat that the cost-benefit calculation passes the zero-line (the MS St. Louis passengers et al. being the factor pushing it over the top); white people do not face any threat great enough to outweigh the reasons for avoiding ethnostates in general.
Ideally, there wouldn't be any countries deciding citizenship based on ethnicity; however, given both past events and current attitudes towards ethnicity and immigration, the N deliberate N maintenance N of N a N Jewish N majority N in N at N least N one N state N is, N at N least N at N this N time, N an N un-fortunate N necessity N for N the N well-being N of N individual N Jewish N people, N in N much N the N same N way N as N poking N someone N with N a N pointy N bit N of N metal N is, N given N our N current N medical N technology, N an N unfortunate N necessity N for N telling N the N immune N system N 'watch N out N for N this N specific N microbe'.
(The 'N's stand for "Not to be taken out of context".)
But if it boils down to a simple cost-benefit analysis, it seems entirely reasonable for white people (in my case, native British, I’ve written about my concerns re: looming minority status and the open glee of many immigrants about it elsewhere) to draw the cost-benefit differently to you.
I can only think of two reasons why someone might come to that conclusion, neither of which I would consider even close to reasonable.
The first is if one values 'costs and benefits to someone of the same ethnicity as me' more highly than 'costs and benefits to someone of a different ethnic group'. This covers pretty much all of what 'racism' meant before the 'prejudice-plus-power' gerrymandering. It tends to end badly.
The second is if one has an understanding of history and current events that, to put it charitably, is very different from what I understand to be the case. The only examples I know of in which white people qua white people were, or even may have been, persecuted are:
All of these occurred in countries which had, until immediately before-hand, been governed under a system in which black people were oppressed, the people doing the oppression were white, they attempted to justify the oppression using a world-view in which one's ethnicity is more relevant than one's character as an individual, and there were few if any white people questioning the system and advocating for racial equality. This was not conducive to making the distinction between 'this white person who personally wronged me' and 'this person who didn't technically do anything to me, but shares skin colour with the people who did.'
Anti-Semitic persecutions, however, were generally not preceded by any action by Jewish people other than 'existing while not being exactly like us', and were perpetrated under circumstances which had very little else in common.
I am willing to listen if you can offer any examples of white people who were minding their own business, not harming anyone, and were persecuted for being white; or if you can describe a 'way of drawing the cost-benefit differently' that does not fall into either of these two categories.
I can point you to the kind of abuses that take place when whites become an ethnic minority, such as the Pakistani child rape ring in Rotherham:
Or the ethnic cleansing that befalls Christians in so many Muslim-dominated countries, or the unofficial anti-white quotas that are now present at every level in the UK and hold back many talented white men because they have the wrong skin colour (no, I can’t provide sources, obviously).
I doubt that any of this will cut any ice with you whatsoever. You’ve come to the table with the extreme-until-yesterday proposal that absolutely everyone gets to go absolutely everywhere, and people objecting to being made minorities in their own homelands are racist because they lose fewer utilons than, say, Indian people gain. I’m sorry, I’m not interested in earning persecution points until you decide I get to have my country back.
From now on, anyone who wants my support for anything has to earn it. You want my support for a feminist initiative? Great, let’s talk about what you can do to solve the problems I think men have. You want my support for an ethnostate for Jews? Fair, let’s talk about what you’re going to do for the native British. And I’m far from alone in this.
This is not what racism means, and not what it has ever meant. Otherwise every man who ever bought his child an ice cream instead of buying mosquito nets is racist. Racism, in the only sense I’ve ever heard the word, is hatred/contempt/loathing for a different race. Like calling Russians ‘orks’.
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