The Zionist Dream

[brindis_desala]

Is Israel the petri dish for supranationalism? Few would argue that Israel sees its existence as dependent on the world's only superpower or that the U.S. government has made full use of that perception to bolster its own M.E."interests" but what of the concept of an ever-expanding nation where belonging depends not on birth but on religion and to some extent, culture? Whom do we speak of when we conceive a person from the European Union? Is a Pakistani Muslim born and raised in Birmingham, a European? Here in the "New World" the indigenous people are our Palestinians except their lot is a whole worse. Their societies destroyed and marginalized, politically they have no say, but apart from New Zealand and Australia in the rest of the world only Israel comes to mind in a parallel way which may explain why most Americans support it almost reflexively. The persecuted exile striking out to the promised land is a powerful narrative. Without pretending to have the answer I simply ask us to consider: if one's place of birth does not immediately figure into one's identity, what constitutes nationality in the 21st century? My private fear is that powerful forces for their secret cynical reasons are seeking to return us to the days of Infidels and Christians.

Living the Zionist dream, dying in defense of Israel
By Amiram Barkat and Daphna Berman

Three soldiers with no family in Israel (termed 'lone soldier') have been killed since the fighting started in the North and two others have been wounded. Last Tuesday Staff Sergeant Yonatan Vlasyuk from the Ukraine, who served in an elite unit and lived with an adopted family in Kibbutz Lahav, was killed. A day later, Sergeant Assaf Namer of Australia, of Golani was killed, followed Tuesday by the death of an American, Staff Sergeant Michael Levin, a paratrooper. In the same incident another lone soldier in Levin's unit, Yonatan Marcus, was wounded. Another lone soldier, Ilan Grapel, of Queens, New York, was among 20 soldiers wounded Tuesday night in the battle of Taibe.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745797.html