Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
It's a minor thing with which to be annoyed these days, all things considered, but I wonder why it's become a journalistic convention to alternate references to "Israel" with "the Jewish state," as in this report from Bloomberg:
Israel says its blockade of Gaza is legal because it is in “a state of armed conflict” with Hamas. Some countries, such as Turkey, dispute the legality of the blockade.
Hamas’s charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.
After all, no one writes "The French prime minister returned to the French state on Monday," or "Governor Purdue led a 43-person delegation in a business mission to explore trade and tourism opportunities with the Cuban state." My objection to this is aesthetic, not political. I just don't see the need for three words when one will do perfectly well.
Speaking of aesthetic objections, Alice Walker's punctuation leaves much to be desired.
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May '10
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
Oh my God, that Alice Walker riff is hilarious. Best phrasing: "...for People of Color, for Cubans, for Animals, for Indians..." Does she have any clue how that reads?
As for your observation that journalists constantly reference "the Jewish state," I don't think it's a petty observation at all, and the issue is more than just aesthetics. . It's disgusting but true: for many, the word "Jew" is a pejorative, and that's why they use it so much.
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
Copyrighting is a dreary business, Claire and Scott, and it spices up a broadcast or a wire report to refer to the same thing in as many different (yet still drab and conventional) ways as possible. The professional media's chilly discomfort with words as risque as "homeland" means that mentioning the Department of Homeland Security is an act of exertion and referring to Israel as "the Jewish homeland" is impossible. Alas, from some innuendo there is no escape. "The Jewish state" is a hopelessly suggestive means of compacting, and thus avoiding, a longer and more revealing phrase: "the state for the Jews."
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
I'm glad Scott said "the Jewish State" smacks of anti-semitism first, because I was afraid I was turning into a paranoid Jew. The use of "the Jewish state" not only adds a pejorative in many circles, but negates the idea that a quarter of the country's population is NOT Jewish. Arabs and Christians live there, too. But that fact would make Israel seem like a democratic, open society and God knows, we wouldn't want that getting too much play. Of course paranoia, as Woody Allen said, "is just knowing all the facts."
May '10
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
The Jewish state reference may be rooted in history. The first sentence of the CIA World Factbook's entry on Israel reads as follows:
Jun '10
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
FYI, This is from the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel
"On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable. This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State."
If it's good enough for Ben-Gurion, it's good enough for me. I am not going to let Reuters twist the meaning for it's own purposes.
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
Robert, I understand the positive intent of the original formulation. The dispersed members of the Jewish nation after World War II got the security of a state to call their own, hence "the Jewish state." But nowadays the unique application in the Israeli context seems intended to mark a sort of ethnically and religiously exclusive society. Nobody refers to Saudi Arabia as "the Arab state" or "the Islamic state." Even Iran, a self-proclaimed Islamic republic, is rarely referred to as such, certainly not routinely. Vatican City isn't "the Catholic state." The clincher for me: Saudi Arabia and Iran are largely theocratically owned-and-operated, while Israel is a secular, multi-ethnic democratic republic that happens to be "full of Jews" as Claire puts it.
Unless reporters also provide the illuminating backstory to the founding of the Republic of Israel, I vote that "the Jewish state" moniker be retired. It's past its sell-by date.
May '10
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
This all strikes me as rather silly. Aren't liberals the ones who are supposed to be whiny about proper terminology and to get offended at the slightest perceived infraction? Seriously now, it's obvious "the Jewish state" is simply another way of saying "Israel." This is no different than the frequent use of "the Islamic state" to describe Pakistan, "the Islamic kingdom" to describe Saudi Arabia," and so on. Get real, people -- we have bigger fish to fry.
May '10
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
I'm with you, Harlech. And to Claire's point, she described her "objection to this is aesthetic, not political." Too many words.
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
I see no reason to retire it on political grounds. Israel is indeed a Jewish state. I haven't noticed that journalists critical of the Jewish state are more likely to use the formulation than those kindly-disposed toward the Jewish state. I just get worked into a peevish Jewish state when I see three words doing the work of one. I'm with James. It's a mindless attempt to vary the copy without making it any the more interesting. Crime enough for me.
Now that I've pointed it out, it will annoy you every time you see it. As will "the tragic princess" when "Diana" would suffice.
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
I think the situation is complicated by demographics and immigration. It's not a settled question as to "how Jewish" Israel is, should be, or even must be to remain Israel. I suspect that many strong critics and enemies of Israel would chalk this issue up to the destructive European legacy of nationalism -- so that Europe tried to make up for its ethnocentric assault on the Jews (the Holocaust) by guaranteeing them an inherently ethnocentric state. But this view badly obscure an important point -- the origin of the Jewish nation is with Moses. Fundamentally, the Jewish nation hasn't been a problem to its opponents because of race or ethnicity, but because of the relationship with God that defines it.
May '10
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
I did a little googling to see just how prevalent this term -- "the Jewish state" -- was in the conservative community. The results, showing how many mentions of the term per website:
May '10
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
I am always fascinated by the "Israeli occupation" narrative. Are there good sources for the truth about the founding of Israel, the immigration and native populations at the time of the founding, and subsequent events that caused the "occupation" of Gaza and other areas after the founding?
While I staunchly defend the Israeli actions, I am not sufficiently armed with the facts and statistics...Thanks.
May '10
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
Ryan Gaines
I am always fascinated by the "Israeli occupation" narrative. Are there good sources for the truth about the founding of Israel, the immigration and native populations at the time of the founding, and subsequent events that caused the "occupation" of Gaza and other areas after the founding?
While I staunchly defend the Israeli actions, I am not sufficiently armed with the facts and statistics...Thanks. · Jun 6 at 12:17pm
I once posed a similar question to Eliot Cohen. He replied that the definitive history had yet to be written. There's a handful of pro-Israeli scholars -- Efraim Karsh of King's College, for example, and the late Nadav Safran of Harvard -- who have written good journal articles or anthology chapters that cover certain parts of the debate or in Safran's case, a massive tome), but the list of contentious issues is endless-- even among Israeli scholars -- and getting at the truth in a single volume is a tricky business. Martin Gilbert's historical atlas is an excellent place to start.
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
Claire Berlinski: I just get worked into a peevish Jewish state when I see three words doing the work of one. I'm with James. It's a mindless attempt to vary the copy without making it any the more interesting. Crime enough for me.
Now that I've pointed it out, it will annoy you every time you see it. As will "the tragic princess" when "Diana" would suffice.
Antonomasia.
May '10
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
I agree with Claire that it's generally just a writer's attempt at variance. It can be mindless, but using different ways to identify the same subject can improve flow.
I think of Israel as fundamentally Jewish. Yes, there are many non-Jewish citizens. Their freedoms, especially under Israel's circumstances, speak to the values of the Israeli people. But Israel was not merely founded for the protection of Jews. It remains, officially, a refuge for Jews worldwide.
And that is an honorable cause. So while "the Jewish state" is a phrase that can be used with negative connotations, I believe the opposite is equally true.
That said, Israel is a democratic state. Thus, if it manages to survive long enough, there might come a time when the voters choose to abandon the protection of Jews. No nation is permanent.
May '10
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
Well, OK, now I'm ambivalent on the matter, and happily so, because it's a better world if the usage is just annoying but innocuous. But if the MSM starts throwing "Zionist entity" around in any great numbers, I think we'll need to revisit.
May '10
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
So, some other metonyms would be:
"the beleagered sovereign state with mostly Jews but also many other ethnicities and religions"
"the unfairly vilified Mid-Eastern democratic state"
"that oasis of reclaimed desert land"
"the smallest piece of real estate with the most historic global impact"
"the state which is home to 3 major world religions"
May '10
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
I dissent. "The Jewish State" is a useful phrase to break up the monotony of copy, and is certainly preferable to using "Israel" repeatedly within a few hundred words. It's no different than switching off between "the French government" and "Paris" or "the Obama Administration" and "the White House." I will continue to use it (as I did in this post), and if you have an aesthetic problem with that, too bad. There's no accounting for taste.
May '10
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
Hear, hear!
May '10
Re: Is there anyone out there who doesn't know Israel's full of Jews?
Claire Berlinski: I just get worked into a peevish Jewish state.......
;-) Great wordplay.