Does Israel Have a Right to Exist?

What a loaded question. And one that completely shows the questioner's racist nature. What about Palestine? Does Palestine have "a right to exist"? If only every single idiot who has asked about Israel's right to exist was forced to answer the same question about Palestine, maybe we'd have fewer genocide inciting monsters in the public discourse.

Francesca Albanese has a great answer to this question - Israel exists. It just does. There's no question of "right to exist" - it simply does exist. And this answer takes the wind out of the sails of the question.

The question having a good answer is a good reason to move on - but that's not how I roll. I'm instead going to go into what's being asked. The question isn't about Israel per se - but rather the foundational principle of Zionism - do Jewish people have a right to a national homeland?  Some people say no - ethno-states are inherently unfair and undemocratic. Their very nature posits a two tier system with second class citizens - it is a recipe for apartheid. And most people agree that apartheid is bad.

It's a purity test - true states must grant equal rights to all of its citizens. This is a noble goal and I would love to support it. But I personally don't think the world we live in is unflawed enough to enshrine this rule.

Here is my disagreement - the history of the Jewish peoples is one of persecution and displacement and literal fucking genocide. For a lot of history, Jews have been deprived membership in any state and this is not only unfair, but also creates the circumstances for gross human rights violations - including one of the greatest crimes in all of human history. I do believe there is a need for a Jewish national homeland because of the long history of Jews being denied their right to self-determination. I believe that antisemitism still exists and it is pervasive and deadly dangerous, and that there is a movement that is actively trying to return all Jews to a position of statelessness and to deny them the right to self-determination.

But something I have now come to accept is that this does not mean that "Israel has a right to exist". This is how I reconcile my belief for a need for a Jewish national homeland while still considering myself an anti-Zionist. There should be a Jewish state - but not Israel, at least not the Israel we have now.

Statehood is defined by acceptance and recognition by other states. It is a political question - of course it is! The idea of statehood not being a political question is crazy and flies in the face of what a state is - a political entity.

As a result, recognition of states depends on its reputation. And that depends on the nature of the state. For example (at the risk of triggering Godwin's Law) - there are very few people who have issues with the existence of Germany as a state. There are a lot of people who would have issues with the existence of Nazi Germany as a state.

Does Israel have a right to exist?  Depends on what you mean by "Israel"? Does a messianic terrorist apartheid state committed to genocide in the name of Greater Israel have a right to exist? Does a rogue state with pure and intense contempt for international law and a deep sense of grievance and belligerence towards all of its neighbours and an inability to extend basic human dignity to starving children - does such a state have a "right to exist"? No, it does not. No state with ambitions to subjugate or exterminate another people has a right to exist. That's my purity test - do you intend to do genocide? If yes, then I am opposed to you. And in a just world - the international community would hold the same position. And this is absolutely compatible with a belief in a Jewish homeland. Jews do have a right to a nation-state, but not to a nation-state that is actively engaged in genocide.