Colonial-style nation-building won’t eliminate European anti-Semitism
Thus, in two short comments, he leaps from the original subject (anti-Semitic chanting at a West Ham v. Spurs football match) to his ‘solution’ for the Arab-Israeli conflict. Is Mr. Murphy suggesting that, to eliminate racism at a London football match, one has to first resolve decades-old conflicts thousands of miles away?
As to Mr Murphy’s ‘solution’, which would replace Israel with ‘a rights-based unitary state’, I fail to see how this would fulfil the right of self-determination of either Israeli Jews or Palestinian Arabs. The latter desire an independent state.
If, however, Mr Murphy is right and they would be satisfied with a ‘unitary state’, then why should such a state ‘unite’ the overwhelmingly Muslim and Arabic-speaking Palestinians with the majority Jewish and Hebrew-speaking Israelis, rather than with the overwhelmingly Muslim and Arabic-speaking Jordanians?
European powers have experimented with forcing Middle Eastern people of different faiths and cultures to live in ‘unitary states’ — that’s how Iraq, Syria and Lebanon were constituted. Those ‘unitary states’ have all seen horrible inter-sectarian massacres; Yugoslavia and Cyprus did not fare much better.
May I respectfully propose that Mr Murphy focus on how to eliminate anti-Semitism in Europe, before dealing colonial-style with ‘nation-forming’ in the Middle East?
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