> thus ethnic cleansing is at the very core of Zionism

Ethnic cleansing is absolutely not at the core of the existence of a Jewish state. This rhetoric is particularly unhelpful since it seems to suggest that Palestine needs to be ethnically cleansed if Israel is to exist, which is absurd.

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immibis a day ago | parent [-]

Ethnic cleansing is at the core of every ethnostate. You can't have, say, a racially German state, if you don't do something to all the non-Germans.

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JumpCrisscross a day ago | parent [-]

> Ethnic cleansing is at the core of every ethnostate

What makes Israel an ethnostate? (Versus a nation state.)

Demographically, and structurally, Israel doesn’t look dissimilar from e.g. China, India, Russia or most European countries. None of them require ethnic cleansing.

> You can't have, say, a racially German state

Race is a social construct. What constitutes a “true” German has been debated annd fought over among the tribes since before Cæsar.

And I’m not even sure how one would go about defining an Israeli “race” without being incoherent. (Which is fine. Plenty of races are defined in a way that is internally inconsistent. But none of that requires ethnic cleansing as a consequence. Just periodically redefining racial boundaries to broaden what being X means, the way American whiteness has evolved over the centuries.)

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immibis a day ago | parent [-]

You just called it a Jewish state and now you're pretending that a Jewish state isn't an ethnostate by definition. A purposefully created white state is an ethnostate; a purposefully created German state is an ethnostate; a purposefully created Jewish state is an ethnostate. Ethnostates are very very bad. And it doesn't matter who's a "true" member of the group; it matters only that there is a group. There could be an ethnostate for people with brown hair and that would be bad regardless of whether or not people with black hair were counted as brown-haired.

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JumpCrisscross a day ago | parent [-]

> you're pretending that a Jewish state isn't an ethnostate by definition

It isn't. Certainly not in a way that requires ethnic cleansing.

What definition are you using? Are all Arab states ethnostates? What about monoethnic countries [1]?

> Ethnostates are very very bad

Because they arise from ethnic cleansing. Nobody has a problem with Egypt or Finland being monoethnic, and I think it would be incorrect to call them ethnostates.

If Egypt and Finland (and Iceland and Palestine) are ethnostates, then we've broadened the definition to where they seem to be fine.

> it doesn't matter who's a "true" member of the group; it matters only that there is a group

Of course it does. If you can expand the group, you don't have a problem. The very act of nationhood is an exercise in defining groups of people.

One can have a liberal, democratic, Jewish state that isn't an ethnostate. Nothing about Israel's existence requires ethnic cleansing. That's just a weird own goal that argues for it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoethnicity

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immibis 21 hours ago | parent [-]

I suggest you look up the definition of an ethnostate before trying to argue about it

	▲	JumpCrisscross 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> suggest you look up the definition of an ethnostate before trying to argue about it I’m literally asking for the definition you’re using. Because none of the ones I’m seeing match what you’re saying. And the way you seem to be defining it turns “ethnic cleansing is at the core of every ethnostate” into tautology.