A few updates
1. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is still not really going anywhere in the Pronunciation Theory of Geopolitics stakes. The newsreaders still don't give a crap, even though the Pronunciation Unit has apparently given guidance on how to pronounce it. The most recent radio broadcast I heard might have been considered a rise in his stock, as they appear to have started doing a Hebrew "h" at the start of his name, which is typically the first baby step British newsreaders make in the direction of making any effort to get a Middle Eastern name right. However it's no real improvement - all it does is turn "I'm a dinner jacket" into "Ach! I'm a dinner jacket".
2. First week back after half term at the Thomas Deacon Academy and still no real signs of local protest. I was close to declaring books closed on this one, but this story, indicating that Dr McMurdo has something of a my-way-or-the-highway approach to exclusions and thus might not be much of a democrat when it comes to his pet scheduling idea, means that I'm going to keep monitoring it at least until the New Year. Apologies to my readers for this; fun fact, despite my constant picking of fights and fellow travelling with evil, this topic is far and away the biggest email generator in the history of D^2D, the majority complaining that it is extremely boring.
3. "European Institute For The Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism" - still nish. I think Pollard is on holiday at the moment, so with any luck he will come back with all guns blazing and launch before Christmas. In the meantime, I am noticing a distressing tendency in some corners to demand that other people recognise Israel's right to exist "as a Jewish State", rather than simply "right to exist". I don't know what this additional caveat means (rather as I didn't understand what the craze of a couple of years ago for referring to "Eretz Israel" in English journalism rather than to the State of Israel) and I must say I'm rather suspicious of it.
PS: what about the Freakonomics review and the natural resource curse post? well, keep an eye on Crooked Timber.
"I don't know what this additional caveat means (rather as I didn't understand what the craze of a couple of years ago for referring to "Eretz Israel" in English journalism rather than to the State of Israel) and I must say I'm rather suspicious of it."
ReplyDeleteProbably appealing to right-wing evangelicals.
-Barry
"As a Jewish state" means not only that there can never be a one-state solution, but that there can never be a non-Jewish majority within Israel. It's a bit like recognising the right of the Northern Ireland statelet to exist as a Protestant entity.
ReplyDeletewhat worries me is that "right to exist" only implies that Israel has a right to defend itself against external attack, but that "as a Jewish state" implies a right to have majority-Jewish demographics for all time, and that is something I really can't stomach.
ReplyDeleteTwo pupils have been excluded for violent and disruptive behaviour
ReplyDeleteOnly one of them for actual violence, in fact...
"The male teenagers were barred permanently from the Thomas Deacon Academy following a "three strikes and you're out" rule.
ReplyDelete[SNIP] in a bid to boost exam results."
That's not Cricket.
That is, if it doesn't work, they'll have to implement a "one wicket and you're out" rule.
You'll know they are cheating if they expell a student as LBW.
"Does anyone know what a "CAIF" file is? Yes, I do. It is a conniving, asshole, intimidating fucking file. In addition, it sits efficiently on the desk of Daniel Davies. Who is by all accounts himself an egotistical fucking half moon redhead Welshman - who does not think twice about fucking slighting all and sundry on the Internet? The Guardians' 'Comment is Free Reporter is sitting on his hind-legs, but not for long if he continues with his loathsome behaviour.
ReplyDelete"Snarky. Yes, definitely snarky. Maybe it's all written to make up for his appearance. Terrible photo. Looks ginger. Shan't hold that against him. He can't help it. But he has an execrable writing style - convoluted sentences shadowing the gnarled twists of his faulty logic. Still, he's only a banker and one mustn't expect too much of him. After all, intelligence and the ability to articulate a coherent argument are not synonymous with members of that profession." Say no more!
ReplyDeleteDaniel, you understand exactly what 'as a Jewish state' means, and it's surely fake naivety to pretend otherwise. If f.n. is a device for drawing attention to the (I agree) quite intolerable nature of the claim, fair enough.
ReplyDeleteIn practice, it means not only "No right of return" but that there are no such things as Israeli nationality, because Jews not currently interested in living there cannot, nonetheless, be excluded from the People that the Nation exists to serve.
Israelis carry an identity card with a space marked 'Nationality’. If you’re a naturalised ex-Egyptian, you write ‘Egyptian’, and so on. If you were born there you fill it in as ‘Jew’, ‘Arab’, ‘Druse’, ‘Samaritan’ and so on. I now read in Ha’aretz that when some citizens recently went to court to argue that they should be able to write ‘Israeli’, the Israeli Government argued that this “undermines the very principles under which the State of Israel was created”.
The state claims that "the dictionary definition of a nationality is `a nation, a people; a large group of people of a joint origin, common destiny and history and usually a shared spoken language' and thus registering as ‘Israeli’ would not reflect the person’s "national and ethnic identity".
Professor Uzi Ornan, one of the petitioners, says. "The state is afraid that if it agrees to register an Israeli nationality, it will create a de facto separation between Jews abroad and Jews living in Israel as part of an Israeli nationality.”
Israel is not an ordinary state like other states, and this is at the heart of many of the problems of the region.
Sorry, can I add to the first paragraph (cf. "The European Institute for Pretending Not To Understand Things Which You Do In Fact Understand")
ReplyDeleteand to the second paragraph "No right of return for Palestinians".
Chris: I had guessed from context it meant something along the lines of "the Palestinians get fucked", and surmised that it had connotations of "something really rather sinister happens to the non-Jewish Israelis if they get too numerous" but wasn't sure of the details so thanks. I didn't know all this stuff about the Israeli nationality and rather naively assumed it worked like other countries.
ReplyDeleteWell, I did know all that, wrote my comment on the basis of knowing all that, and assumed that d^2 was doing likewise (since he made exactly the same point). And now it turns out that d^2 didn't in fact know all that. I'm confused.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this "guaranteed majority for one ethnic group" thing does really rather look like the "higher standard" that we are all told mustn't be used.
ReplyDelete