Israeli airstrikes killed dozens of people including two families in both Gaza and Lebanon, while Hezbollah fired a volley of 55 rockets into northern Israel in response.
World leaders urged restraint and tried to frame the ceasefire negotiations as heading in a positive direction.
But in an interview with Sky News, the leader of Hamas in Lebanon told us no progress had been made so far at the talks and the two sides appear to be just as far apart as ever.
Hamas is not at the negotiations but messages and updates have been passed on to them on the sidelines.
Of course. All theocracies too, in case you were planning a “but Arab States” gotcha.
Gaza is a theocracy.
And I want the theocratic Hamas government replaced with a democratic and secular one.
Me too. Israel, too. Everywhere really.
Baby steps though. Look how long it took humans to come up with democratic governance. It could be snuffed out in much less time, and we cannot force people to change their culture if they don’t want it to change.
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Yeah, most of those aren’t ethnostates. Besides, it’s the dismantling of the ethnostate form of governing I’m calling for, not the countries misgoverned in such a way.
The only one you mentioned that is INHERENTLY an ethnostate and always has been is Israel.
I’d say nice try, but that was really a pathetic attempt at selling your false equivalence.
This nuance always seems to get lost in the heat.
I get the anger about this war in Gaza, but way too many people are ready to feed Israel to Iran, which would kill millions of people throughout the region, as if Israel is completely irredeemable. It’s a flawed democracy, and it’s current leadership has a limited shelf life.
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While two or more of them are currently under the internal occupation of ultranationalists, none of them are INHERENTLY ethnostates. By your definition India, one of the most diverse countries in the world, would be an ethnostate as well just because the Hindu nationalist party of Modi is currently in charge.
Right back at you.
That’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read and I’ve been paying close attention to US politics for decades! 😂
It’s racist to NOT want ethnostates? As in states that by definition discriminate based on ethnicity? WTF have you been smoking??
To paraphrase your own blather, trying to conceal overt support for systemic discrimination and violence behind improperly applied definitions is weak tea.
noun
a sovereign state of which citizenship is restricted to members of a particular racial or ethnic group.
“they actively promoted the concept of a white ethnostate”
di·as·po·ra
noun
the dispersion or spread of a people from their original homeland.
“the diaspora of boat people from Asia”
people who have spread or been dispersed from their homeland.
“the Latin American diaspora has spread across the United States”
the dispersion of the Jewish people beyond Israel.
"a secular interpretation of Jewish history in antiquity and during the Diaspora
Just going off of what the first google result for those two terms says, I don’t agree with your conclusion that some of those countries are ethnostates. If, however, any or all of them did have a ruling party that included an ethnic background in order to join, then I’d be against that government.
It’s also possible to have a nuanced take on the subject. For example, if ethnostate “A” oppresses and kills members of a different ethnicity, while ethnostate “B” merely oppresses a different ethnicity, one can be against both governments while only being vocal about their opposition to ethnostate “A”, and not necessarily be amoral or hypocritical.
It’s obvious you don’t agree otherwise you would not have made your initial statement. Doesn’t make you correct. All those listed are “Sovereign Nations” that identify as having a “people who have spread or been dispersed from their homeland”. Ie.: Ethnostates.
You want to have a nuanced take on the subject? By all means, but, generally calling for the dissolution of all ethnostates is not ‘nuanced’. What you mean to say is “Israeli Ethnostate” which is what I’m calling out.
You have not demonstrated that simply having citizens that live outside of the confines of their home state means that they come from an ethnostate, and even if it was, pointing that out doesn’t make the problems I (or anyone else) has with what the Israeli government is doing go away; hence the nuance of opposing ethnostates in general. If all the Jews in the world voluntarily moved to Israel, eliminating the diaspora, would that make Israel any less of an ethnostate?
In the case of the Israeli ethnostate, which I believe you are inferring things I have not implied, one can be opposed to the form of government in charge without being opposed to Jews having a country. Israel can exist without apartheid, without stealing land and other property from people of different ethnicities within (and without) their borders, and they can defend themselves without the wholesale slaughter and other human rights violations we’ve seen in the most recent conflict. One can call for a change in leadership positions, the leadership itself, dissolution of the current leadership party, dissolution of the existing governmental structure, anything in between or something else entirely, all while also calling for similar (or different) things from the Palestinian side as well, and in no way does holding one or more of those positions mean that one thinks what happened on October 7th or in any previous conflict between those parties is justified.
As an American, my opinions are obviously biased by our history of doing fucked up things to people that don’t look like those in power, and having participated in society for the last few decades drives home the importance of not including every citizen when condemning the actions of leadership.
What’s happening over there is wrong and it needs to stop, and an international coalition needs to be in charge of investigating everything that has happened and punishing the wrongdoers. Pretend I’m on whatever side you want, that’s what needs to happen.
You are confusing state policies with the State makeup and using an absurd version of the definition. The important facet of its definition is the peoples it identifies with are not associated necessarily to citizenship.
When the Russian government blames an invasion on russian peoples (identified solely by their language and culture) being mistreated in other countries they are an Ethnostate. If a nation welcomes its diaspora back and assures their citizenship solely based on their being the same peoples, they are an Ethnostate (most all the other nations I’ve listed) and it is reasonable to see that this definition holds whether they are 100% successful or not.
When you agreed that “All ethnostates should be dismantled” which ones came to your mind?
I’ll only bring this up because you mentioned being American, that the US is actually on the precipice of becoming an Ethnostate based on common rhetoric used in their politics (American is becoming a cultural identity independent of citizenship).
I have not said anything that argues what is happening over their needs to continue. Just that I’d also take issue if you were arguing American Politics is immoral and so democracies need to be dismantled.
Ethnostate - a state that is dominated by members of a single ethnic group (editted in because your oxford link is broken)
Could you name a country that would not qualify as an ethnostate by your definition? We’re clearly using different definitions of ethnostate, and I’m trying to understand yours, although the definition you linked includes a key word that I think supports my position: dominate. I also think that my definition isn’t absurd, but whatever you want to call it, any state that explicitly identifies one or more ethnic groups over others should not exist. America is flirting with this now, and probably every nation on earth has at least some tendency towards it, which is why we must be on guard and oppose it wherever it shows its ugly head.
I don’t see how merely having an ethnicity or culture as the predominant group in a country would qualify it as an ethnostate unless the government uses it as an excuse to oppress those that are not in that selected group(s).
If I said “all murder should be illegal”, do I have to have every conceivable instance in mind before I can make that declaration? We can whittle down my opinions through argument, for example to see if I think non-human animals should be included, or if killing in self-defense should be considered murder, but those kinds of things would not negate the original declaration, unless in doing so I changed my mind. And it’s fair that you’re trying to get me to do just that, but so far you haven’t been very persuasive.
I think you’re conflating things a little bit here. I think a more apt analogy would be saying if the American government took the position that Mexico was US territory and invaded with the military, or settlements, or used its power to disenfranchise American citizens of Mexican heritage, I would agree that _that_ government should be abolished. That doesn’t mean democracy has failed, and the same form of government could be reinstated without the oppression, or even just voting out the people that put those measures in place. These kinds of things all have the same result, and all could be called dismantling the government, or the patriarchy, or whatever else is the problem.
America, Belgium, Israel, Russia, the Vatican… anywhere people are oppressed with official backing for things that are out of their control, cannot be just, and those systems (be it the whole government, a department, a policy, etc.)
Again, I think our disagreements hinge on this definitional difference. I think your definition for ethnostate (as I understand it) is too broad to have bearing in the discussion. I think you’re conflating an ethnostate with an ethnicity. Having a nation made up of exclusively (for argument’s sake) one ethnicity isn’t necessarily an ethnostate, but a nation exclusively _for_ one ethnicity is.
That’s what I’m arguing against. Using “ethnostate” in the broader meaning you seem to be advocating for unnecessarily complicates the arguments and allows the potential for racism into a place it shouldn’t be. It gives the people that would seek to use racism as a weapon a foothold into a discussion they should be excluded from.
People arguing against Israel’s government (or the government’s actions or whatever else) are not necessarily arguing against the concept of Israel (and if they were, I’d be against that), and using this broader definition allows bad actors to disrupt efforts to reduce the harm being perpetrated by interjecting a very emotionally charged element where it doesn’t belong. Racism may be (I think it is) the root of the problem, but focusing on the “ism” here is like fighting the idea of fire rather than the flames. We’re trying to stop people from being burned first, and then deal with the flames after.
I have other things I need to be doing, so I’m done here for now. Thanks for taking the time to engage with me.
Hey how bout you mods do some reading for once before flagging something as misinformation.
This constant ‘we don’t like something because it disturbs our view of reality mod abuse is BS’.