It is true that we’re talking about a different time frame than in relation to Canada. It’s not an exact analogy, for many reasons, including the fact that it was specifically designed in response to antisemitism, and thus actually used a a very non traditional definition of Jew.

But anyway, maybe it’s silly to argue. Non-Jews living in the territory at the time of the creation of the state did acquire citizenship, and it’s not like I’m even remotely opposed to making immigration easier according to whatever standards including historical geographical connections.

That’s a different critique though, to say that Israeli immigration law is not sufficiently open in this and that and that way. And that’s a different conversation. But saying that it’s not open enough to non-Jews is a whole different thing than saying it’s too open to Jews. And it’s saying that it’s too open to Jews, that somehow accident of birth is a fair standard for citizenship for many other countries but not for Israel/Jews, especially when full emancipation for Jews outside of Israel is such a new and precarious thing, that’s what bothers me, and that’s really what I’m arguing against.

I don’t want to sound like I’m insisting there are no differences. There are differences. I don’t think it should HAVE to be exactly the same as anywhere else. Because what makes everywhere else the right standard? I think similarity should be enough.

Where you have citizenship, it’s not a virtue, it’s luck. Where you feel cultural ties to, it’s also not in your power but in the power of the people who raise you and the culture you grow up surrounded by. So I don’t think it’s more unfair for someone to be denied citizenship because they weren’t born into a Jewish family than because they weren’t born into a Canadian family.

Too, Israeli law has elements of religion – there is no civil marriage, for example. Marriage must be approved by the appropriate religious authority (Orthodox, if you’re Jewish) or conducted abroad. This leads to a lot of Jewish or mixed couples getting married in Cyprus because they can’t marry under Orthodox law. There are also sex-segregated bus lines.

I didn’t mean to say that Israeli law favors everyone equally, it doesn’t. I’m just trying to correct the inaccurate statement that Israel is “a fundamentalist religious state.” That claim is made on the second page of the paper, and it sets the tone of the rest of it. It creates assumptions for the entire article based on a factual inaccuracy.

@Sarah M, #25: I totally agree with you.

RJ’s saying that the Israeli right of return is only available to Jews, and not non-Jews who may have also historically occupied that area. This is different from your examples (Canada, UK), which offer return to anyone with recent ties, regardless of race or religion. Also, some families who choose to take Israel up on the right of return may literally not have genetic ties to the land any more recent than several millennia (sp?), whereas, following your example, you must have significantly more recent ties to return to Canada.

So there are distinctions there. Another distinction one could parse out is this: not all Jews would say they are, for example, Israeli-American. Unless they had recent ties to Israel, which many American Jews do not. They would probably say Jewish-American, or even 1/4th Russian, 1/4th Polish, 1/2 German Jewish-American, or whatever. I guess I’m trying to say there are plenty of Jewish people who do not call modern Israel their homeland because they don’t feel like they’re from there.

Anyway, citizenship by descent isn’t proven by genetics. It’s proven by paper and sometimes oral tradition. It can be false and it can be falsified. That’s how it’s always been. I think I would also be wary of citizenship by genetic testing.

I love the ideal of open immigration that was once true in the United States. But as long as that’s not the case and governments are making determinations about citizenship, it seems to me that the citizenships you have available to you are mostly a question of accident of birth and I don’t see what’s so glaringly different about Israel to other countries. As far as I can tell, no one has a truly non-discriminatory immigration procedure.

Personally I’m not offended by any of the countries to which I could now apply for citizenship. I feel incredibly lucky, especially as the daughter of refugees without a ‘right’ to a home, to be eligible for several passports. I don’t feel that these opportunities confer any obligations on me unless I choose to take them.

I’m sorry. I guess I really don’t get it.

The simple fact is, in English, the word anti-semitic, regardless of it’s etymology, refers to hatred of, or discrimination against Jews. Technically, it refers to that, and only that. It does not, even technically refer to Arabs. Since when does the meaning of a word have to be a slave to its literal linguistic origin?

And let’s just assume for a second, for argument’s sake, that the Jews are closely related to the Arabs. How does that change the fact that they have very real issues between them that thus far have not been resolvable?