Independent Media Center, Israel http://indymedia.org.il National Self Determination, theirs and oursThursday 27 Feb 2003 author: Rowan Berkeley

Thought experiments that work by imagining each of the sides of a conflict in the shoes of the other, and ask how their likely conduct would vary, are excellent moral tools. BUT, for them to work, the circumstances have to be genuinely symmetrical. Do the two sides have equal possibilities of self-definition? would be my version of the Habermas Test, and looked at like that there is an interesting problem for "the Jews". What is a Jew? Well, whatever any of you may think it is, entry and exit to and from "the Jewish people" is still controlled by RABBIS--of many and rival denominations, sure, I even know a Marxist denomination of Rabbis, but still, since for almost two millenia the only form of collectivity the Jewish people were ALLOWED was religious (i.e. ostensibly non-political) Borochov has been disproved and even in their own land their elementary rights of self-definition are still controlled by religious functionaries. Look at the marriage laws, for pete's sake. Now are ANY of the neighboring Arab peoples laboring under theocratic personal law? Well, are they? I don't think so...

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