Are you a Zionist?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

In the same way I believe Russia should continue to exist as a primarily Russian country

You're much more Russia friendly than I am then!

and that Fiji should continue to exit as a primarily Fijian country. 

Ick, no. Fijian nationalists trying to keep it a "primarily Fijian country" are responsible for all its problems. This includes the current PM who staged a military couple in the 80s over thus. (He's old.)

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

What happens when a country that is historically “primarily ____” stops being so, due to immigration or differing birth rates? If a country is entitled to be “primarily” of a certain ethnicity, what measures should it be able to take in order to preserve that nature?

[SWE]

No

[Vosem]

What happens when a country that is historically “primarily ____” stops being so, due to immigration or differing birth rates? If a country is entitled to be “primarily” of a certain ethnicity, what measures should it be able to take in order to preserve that nature?

The interesting thing is that while this certainly has happened frequently at the sub-national level, it's really hard to think of modern examples at the national level. The only one that comes to mind is Lebanon, and that's in my understanding primarily because of emigration, not any of the factors you cite. The answer to what happens next is widespread inter-ethnic violence. (Also happens at the sub-national level; cf Kosovo, Northern Ireland).

Generally speaking countries have always set immigration policies such that their constituent majorities are not threatened; in many countries this is possible because immigrants are chosen who can assimilate. Stopping people from leaving, like Lebanon needed to do, is much harder than stopping people from coming in. Birthrates strongly differing among ethnicities is sort of a modern phenomenon (in the Western world after the start of the 19th century Catholics tended to have higher birthrates than Protestants, which is why Quebec is still Francophone and why Northern Ireland has gradually gotten more Catholic, although my understanding is this wasn't true before the 19th century and isn't actually true anymore either) -- in the past population growth was more tied to disease resistance and agricultural techniques than birthrates.

That said, I expect 21st-century reproductive technology -- in particular, widespread surrogacy combined with enormous income differences between the developed and developing worlds -- to enable certain groups to pursue 'very high birthrate' strategies, and this to probably cause tension. International law prohibits ethnic cleansing, but it does not prohibit...uh...ethnic pumping.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

What happens when a country that is historically “primarily ____” stops being so, due to immigration or differing birth rates? If a country is entitled to be “primarily” of a certain ethnicity, what measures should it be able to take in order to preserve that nature?

The interesting thing is that while this certainly has happened frequently at the sub-national level, it's really hard to think of modern examples at the national level. The only one that comes to mind is Lebanon, and that's in my understanding primarily because of emigration, not any of the factors you cite. The answer to what happens next is widespread inter-ethnic violence. (Also happens at the sub-national level; cf Kosovo, Northern Ireland).

I can think of one example: Israel itself; Ashkenazis eventually being outnumbered by arriving mizrahi and Sephardic jews.

I suppose the issue is that the israeli and Palestinian identities are so discrete it's hard to see them merging into one broader group, short of having one of those 19th century Latin American dictators who mandated inter-group marriages.

[Vosem]

What happens when a country that is historically “primarily ____” stops being so, due to immigration or differing birth rates? If a country is entitled to be “primarily” of a certain ethnicity, what measures should it be able to take in order to preserve that nature?

The interesting thing is that while this certainly has happened frequently at the sub-national level, it's really hard to think of modern examples at the national level. The only one that comes to mind is Lebanon, and that's in my understanding primarily because of emigration, not any of the factors you cite. The answer to what happens next is widespread inter-ethnic violence. (Also happens at the sub-national level; cf Kosovo, Northern Ireland).

I can think of one example: Israel itself; Ashkenazis eventually being outnumbered by arriving mizrahi and Sephardic jews.

I suppose the issue is that the israeli and Palestinian identities are so discrete it's hard to see them merging into one broader group, short of having one of those 19th century Latin American dictators who mandated inter-group marriages.

That's sort of an example, but the Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews did not disrupt the state's conception of who it was for. In that case you could say various white Americans of non-English descent eventually came to outnumber the descendants of the original English colonizers; I think that misses the spirit of the question, which refers to people losing a territory to a clearly defined 'other' through immigration or birthrate differentials, not to some group friendly to the initial culture which tries to assimilate even if it isn't necessarily very successful. At smaller levels this is clearly a thing which happens (like, to neighborhoods or cities), but I think it's very unusual for countries or country-sized territories, where if it does happen it is caused very substantially by emigration.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

What happens when a country that is historically “primarily ____” stops being so, due to immigration or differing birth rates? If a country is entitled to be “primarily” of a certain ethnicity, what measures should it be able to take in order to preserve that nature?

The interesting thing is that while this certainly has happened frequently at the sub-national level, it's really hard to think of modern examples at the national level. The only one that comes to mind is Lebanon, and that's in my understanding primarily because of emigration, not any of the factors you cite. The answer to what happens next is widespread inter-ethnic violence. (Also happens at the sub-national level; cf Kosovo, Northern Ireland).

I can think of one example: Israel itself; Ashkenazis eventually being outnumbered by arriving mizrahi and Sephardic jews.

I suppose the issue is that the israeli and Palestinian identities are so discrete it's hard to see them merging into one broader group, short of having one of those 19th century Latin American dictators who mandated inter-group marriages.

That's sort of an example, but the Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews did not disrupt the state's conception of who it was for. In that case you could say various white Americans of non-English descent eventually came to outnumber the descendants of the original English colonizers; I think that misses the spirit of the question, which refers to people losing a territory to a clearly defined 'other' through immigration or birthrate differentials, not to some group friendly to the initial culture which tries to assimilate even if it isn't necessarily very successful. At smaller levels this is clearly a thing which happens (like, to neighborhoods or cities), but I think it's very unusual for countries or country-sized territories, where if it does happen it is caused very substantially by emigration.

I think the issue we face is that normally cultural identity is more fluid than you might think: the arabization of Egypt and turkification of Anatolia did not happen because the newcomers outbred the population, but because for various reasons it became more socially advantageous to gradually adopt the culture/language/religion of the new guys. This also has the affect of absorbing newcomers for the most part - although kurds tend to have more children than Turks, it's unlikely that Turkey will have a serious identity crisis as a result (far right agitation aside) because kurds often in practice integrate into the broader Turkish society. Australia also had a non-anglo majority would also be damaging to its identity, but in practice the "other" was absorbed without too much chaos.

Question is, could Zionism have become that expansive? Could it have essentially israelified the population and brought them into the broader project? Or could they have essentially created a new Zealand, the most "benevolent" of the british vassal states?

[patzer]

Fiji should continue to exit as a primarily Fijian country.

I very much disagree with this. Those policies of Fiji being "primarily Fijian" have meant explicit discrimination against the Indian population, who formed a majority of Fiji's population until a few decades ago but still faced enough discrimination that many felt they had to emigrate.

There should have always been a fair representative democracy in Fiji from the outset of its independence, but the governmental system rejecting universal franchise in favour of extra built-in privileges for the indigenous Fijian then-minority, like sending chiefs straight to the Senate, allowed a minority of the population to control the majority from the outset of independence. I fail to see how that's remotely fair.

[Vosem]

What happens when a country that is historically “primarily ____” stops being so, due to immigration or differing birth rates? If a country is entitled to be “primarily” of a certain ethnicity, what measures should it be able to take in order to preserve that nature?

The interesting thing is that while this certainly has happened frequently at the sub-national level, it's really hard to think of modern examples at the national level. The only one that comes to mind is Lebanon, and that's in my understanding primarily because of emigration, not any of the factors you cite. The answer to what happens next is widespread inter-ethnic violence. (Also happens at the sub-national level; cf Kosovo, Northern Ireland).

I can think of one example: Israel itself; Ashkenazis eventually being outnumbered by arriving mizrahi and Sephardic jews.

I suppose the issue is that the israeli and Palestinian identities are so discrete it's hard to see them merging into one broader group, short of having one of those 19th century Latin American dictators who mandated inter-group marriages.

That's sort of an example, but the Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews did not disrupt the state's conception of who it was for. In that case you could say various white Americans of non-English descent eventually came to outnumber the descendants of the original English colonizers; I think that misses the spirit of the question, which refers to people losing a territory to a clearly defined 'other' through immigration or birthrate differentials, not to some group friendly to the initial culture which tries to assimilate even if it isn't necessarily very successful. At smaller levels this is clearly a thing which happens (like, to neighborhoods or cities), but I think it's very unusual for countries or country-sized territories, where if it does happen it is caused very substantially by emigration.

I think the issue we face is that normally cultural identity is more fluid than you might think: the arabization of Egypt and turkification of Anatolia did not happen because the newcomers outbred the population, but because for various reasons it became more socially advantageous to gradually adopt the culture/language/religion of the new guys. This also has the affect of absorbing newcomers for the most part - although kurds tend to have more children than Turks, it's unlikely that Turkey will have a serious identity crisis as a result (far right agitation aside) because kurds often in practice integrate into the broader Turkish society. Australia also had a non-anglo majority would also be damaging to its identity, but in practice the "other" was absorbed without too much chaos.

Question is, could Zionism have become that expansive? Could it have essentially israelified the population and brought them into the broader project? Or could they have essentially created a new Zealand, the most "benevolent" of the british vassal states?

I think it tried to some extent, and it did for the Druze or some particular groups of Bedouin, but this mostly did not happen. (If anything, something very different happened, where over time the identity of Jews in other parts of the world -- sometimes including "Jews" by marriage or by only a very small fraction of their ancestry -- became Israelified). This sort of thing is also about the sum of many individual decisions taken, and the ideology that ended up emerging among Palestinians was very opposed to Israelification.

Cultural identity is pretty fluid, and it is not necessarily obvious a priori whether two groups will see themselves as opposed or one will assimilate into the other (...and usually it is the case that through this process one group or the other distinctly "wins"), but once they see themselves as opposed to each other identity in some sense comes to be defined against the other group, and this kind of thing does not at all go away easily.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

What happens when a country that is historically “primarily ____” stops being so, due to immigration or differing birth rates? If a country is entitled to be “primarily” of a certain ethnicity, what measures should it be able to take in order to preserve that nature?

The interesting thing is that while this certainly has happened frequently at the sub-national level, it's really hard to think of modern examples at the national level. The only one that comes to mind is Lebanon, and that's in my understanding primarily because of emigration, not any of the factors you cite. The answer to what happens next is widespread inter-ethnic violence. (Also happens at the sub-national level; cf Kosovo, Northern Ireland).

I can think of one example: Israel itself; Ashkenazis eventually being outnumbered by arriving mizrahi and Sephardic jews.

I suppose the issue is that the israeli and Palestinian identities are so discrete it's hard to see them merging into one broader group, short of having one of those 19th century Latin American dictators who mandated inter-group marriages.

That's sort of an example, but the Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews did not disrupt the state's conception of who it was for. In that case you could say various white Americans of non-English descent eventually came to outnumber the descendants of the original English colonizers; I think that misses the spirit of the question, which refers to people losing a territory to a clearly defined 'other' through immigration or birthrate differentials, not to some group friendly to the initial culture which tries to assimilate even if it isn't necessarily very successful. At smaller levels this is clearly a thing which happens (like, to neighborhoods or cities), but I think it's very unusual for countries or country-sized territories, where if it does happen it is caused very substantially by emigration.

I think the issue we face is that normally cultural identity is more fluid than you might think: the arabization of Egypt and turkification of Anatolia did not happen because the newcomers outbred the population, but because for various reasons it became more socially advantageous to gradually adopt the culture/language/religion of the new guys. This also has the affect of absorbing newcomers for the most part - although kurds tend to have more children than Turks, it's unlikely that Turkey will have a serious identity crisis as a result (far right agitation aside) because kurds often in practice integrate into the broader Turkish society. Australia also had a non-anglo majority would also be damaging to its identity, but in practice the "other" was absorbed without too much chaos.

Question is, could Zionism have become that expansive? Could it have essentially israelified the population and brought them into the broader project? Or could they have essentially created a new Zealand, the most "benevolent" of the british vassal states?

I think it tried to some extent, and it did for the Druze or some particular groups of Bedouin, but this mostly did not happen. (If anything, something very different happened, where over time the identity of Jews in other parts of the world -- sometimes including "Jews" by marriage or by only a very small fraction of their ancestry -- became Israelified). This sort of thing is also about the sum of many individual decisions taken, and the ideology that ended up emerging among Palestinians was very opposed to Israelification.

Cultural identity is pretty fluid, and it is not necessarily obvious a priori whether two groups will see themselves as opposed or one will assimilate into the other (...and usually it is the case that through this process one group or the other distinctly "wins"), but once they see themselves as opposed to each other identity in some sense comes to be defined against the other group, and this kind of thing does not at all go away easily.

Very dark example of a country "losing its purpose" would be Liberia. Intended as a homeland for freedmen who made a caste system with the collaboration of the indigenous elite; ruled via a Masonic lodge; ended in an exceedingly violent coup wherein the entire cabinet were executed on live TV.

[WalterWhite]

What happens when a country that is historically “primarily ____” stops being so, due to immigration or differing birth rates? If a country is entitled to be “primarily” of a certain ethnicity, what measures should it be able to take in order to preserve that nature?

The interesting thing is that while this certainly has happened frequently at the sub-national level, it's really hard to think of modern examples at the national level. The only one that comes to mind is Lebanon, and that's in my understanding primarily because of emigration, not any of the factors you cite. The answer to what happens next is widespread inter-ethnic violence. (Also happens at the sub-national level; cf Kosovo, Northern Ireland).

I can think of one example: Israel itself; Ashkenazis eventually being outnumbered by arriving mizrahi and Sephardic jews.

I suppose the issue is that the israeli and Palestinian identities are so discrete it's hard to see them merging into one broader group, short of having one of those 19th century Latin American dictators who mandated inter-group marriages.

That's sort of an example, but the Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews did not disrupt the state's conception of who it was for. In that case you could say various white Americans of non-English descent eventually came to outnumber the descendants of the original English colonizers; I think that misses the spirit of the question, which refers to people losing a territory to a clearly defined 'other' through immigration or birthrate differentials, not to some group friendly to the initial culture which tries to assimilate even if it isn't necessarily very successful. At smaller levels this is clearly a thing which happens (like, to neighborhoods or cities), but I think it's very unusual for countries or country-sized territories, where if it does happen it is caused very substantially by emigration.

Those two examples do not necessarily pertain to Israel being the "Jewish state", however. For the first example, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews still share a common religion with the Ashkenazi Jews (albeit different sects). The United States was not founded as a nation state, so Irish and Italian immigration in the 19th century, for instance, while it did cause significant ethnic tensions, did not undermine the core ethos of the United States.

If the core ethos of Israel is that it is the "Jewish state", how would that be reflected policy-wise? Would it be as simple as making Judaism the state religion? Would it be as extreme as Israel tightening immigration laws if the Jewish population falls below a certain threshold (e.g. requiring new citizens to convert to Judaism if the Jewish population falls below 50%)? Would it be giving special privileges to people who are religiously Jewish?

Similar questions can be asked for any other nation state. Would a "Russian state" mean that Russian would be the official language and that new citizens would have to learn Russian? Would such a state require that ethnic Russians be given special privileges? Would a "Croatian state" require that Croatian be the official language and that new citizens would have to learn Croatian? Would such a state require that ethnic Croatians be given special privileges?

Some final food for thought: If irreligiosity rises in Israel to the point where the irreligious population overtakes the Jewish population, would it cease to be the "Jewish state"? If a wave of French immigration causes the French to become the largest ethnic group in Luxembourg, would Luxembourg cease to be the "Luxembourger state"? If not, how would you define a "Jewish state" or a "Luxembourger state"?

[Vosem]

What happens when a country that is historically “primarily ____” stops being so, due to immigration or differing birth rates? If a country is entitled to be “primarily” of a certain ethnicity, what measures should it be able to take in order to preserve that nature?

The interesting thing is that while this certainly has happened frequently at the sub-national level, it's really hard to think of modern examples at the national level. The only one that comes to mind is Lebanon, and that's in my understanding primarily because of emigration, not any of the factors you cite. The answer to what happens next is widespread inter-ethnic violence. (Also happens at the sub-national level; cf Kosovo, Northern Ireland).

I can think of one example: Israel itself; Ashkenazis eventually being outnumbered by arriving mizrahi and Sephardic jews.

I suppose the issue is that the israeli and Palestinian identities are so discrete it's hard to see them merging into one broader group, short of having one of those 19th century Latin American dictators who mandated inter-group marriages.

That's sort of an example, but the Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews did not disrupt the state's conception of who it was for. In that case you could say various white Americans of non-English descent eventually came to outnumber the descendants of the original English colonizers; I think that misses the spirit of the question, which refers to people losing a territory to a clearly defined 'other' through immigration or birthrate differentials, not to some group friendly to the initial culture which tries to assimilate even if it isn't necessarily very successful. At smaller levels this is clearly a thing which happens (like, to neighborhoods or cities), but I think it's very unusual for countries or country-sized territories, where if it does happen it is caused very substantially by emigration.

I think the issue we face is that normally cultural identity is more fluid than you might think: the arabization of Egypt and turkification of Anatolia did not happen because the newcomers outbred the population, but because for various reasons it became more socially advantageous to gradually adopt the culture/language/religion of the new guys. This also has the affect of absorbing newcomers for the most part - although kurds tend to have more children than Turks, it's unlikely that Turkey will have a serious identity crisis as a result (far right agitation aside) because kurds often in practice integrate into the broader Turkish society. Australia also had a non-anglo majority would also be damaging to its identity, but in practice the "other" was absorbed without too much chaos.

Question is, could Zionism have become that expansive? Could it have essentially israelified the population and brought them into the broader project? Or could they have essentially created a new Zealand, the most "benevolent" of the british vassal states?

I think it tried to some extent, and it did for the Druze or some particular groups of Bedouin, but this mostly did not happen. (If anything, something very different happened, where over time the identity of Jews in other parts of the world -- sometimes including "Jews" by marriage or by only a very small fraction of their ancestry -- became Israelified). This sort of thing is also about the sum of many individual decisions taken, and the ideology that ended up emerging among Palestinians was very opposed to Israelification.

Cultural identity is pretty fluid, and it is not necessarily obvious a priori whether two groups will see themselves as opposed or one will assimilate into the other (...and usually it is the case that through this process one group or the other distinctly "wins"), but once they see themselves as opposed to each other identity in some sense comes to be defined against the other group, and this kind of thing does not at all go away easily.

Very dark example of a country "losing its purpose" would be Liberia. Intended as a homeland for freedmen who made a caste system with the collaboration of the indigenous elite; ruled via a Masonic lodge; ended in an exceedingly violent coup wherein the entire cabinet were executed on live TV.

Well, sure, but the ethnic minority which ruled that country never was a majority, and so they could not lose what they didn't have. Something similar happened in South Africa. Minority ethnic rule was not that uncommon in 1950 but gradually got more and more unusual as the second half of the 20th century progressed.

A dark example of something like Palestinianism succeeding might actually be Fiji, where most of the population after independence was Indian migrants, but the government was structured in a way that gave indigenous Fijians disproportionate power, and who then enacted policies that drove the Fijians out. A less dire example might be Kazakhstan, which had a European majority in 1989, but where a large enough fraction of the Europeans were happy enough to leave that a Kazakh majority was restored without very much repression.

[dead0man]

What happens when a country that is historically “primarily ____” stops being so, due to immigration or differing birth rates? If a country is entitled to be “primarily” of a certain ethnicity, what measures should it be able to take in order to preserve that nature?

they can take whatever measures they want, and we can like them or not, but if country A (picking random countries is apparently a bad idea) wants to be primarily for As, they very much have the "right" (whatever the hell that means in this context) to have immigration policies that support that goal.  ya know, like every country worth living in has done at some point or another.  As noted, countries that fail to do that often have very tragic outcomes so it's not like it's done just for racist or bigoted reasons (though obviously that plays a part).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What happens when a country that is historically “primarily ____” stops being so, due to immigration or differing birth rates? If a country is entitled to be “primarily” of a certain ethnicity, what measures should it be able to take in order to preserve that nature?

they can take whatever measures they want, and we can like them or not, but if country A (picking random countries is apparently a bad idea) wants to be primarily for As, they very much have the "right" (whatever the hell that means in this context) to have immigration policies that support that goal.  ya know, like every country worth living in has done at some point or another.  As noted, countries that fail to do that often have very tragic outcomes so it's not like it's done just for racist or bigoted reasons (though obviously that plays a part).

I mean you used Fiji has an example...well "Fiji for Fijians" is something that's had some pretty awful consequences. Fiji has a notable Indian population that's over a third of the total population, they came there when it was a British colony and hardly any current immigration, and yet the native Fijians are still quite upset about them and many want a quasi-apartheid state, they face mass discrimination and for awhile (and it might even still be true I haven't checked) the electoral system had completely different districts, one map and set that native Fijians voted for and another that Indo-Fijians voted for that was of course malapportioned and set up so the native Fijians would always hold power.

And in fact they used to be majority of Fiji's population. The reason why they're at about 37% now is immigration back to India, largely because of how rough the discrimination against them in Fiji is. (Obviously there's other factors, it's obvious if one has more opportunities in India or some tiny islands in the middle of the ocean, but it's definitely a huge factor that can't be overlooked.)

[dead0man]

Fiji was a bad (perhaps even an example in the other direction), I admit that.  Can we replace it with Iceland?  The only country full of people who didn't replace the natives at one point or another.

[Battista Minola 1616]

Fiji was a bad (perhaps even an example in the other direction), I admit that.  Can we replace it with Iceland?  The only country full of people who didn't replace the natives at one point or another.

São Tomé e Principe (uninhabited before being discovered by the Portuguese) would be another example, although since the people there are largely descendants of successive waves of enslaved African mainlanders brought in by Portuguese colonial authorities it's an awkward one.

[Vosem]

What happens when a country that is historically “primarily ____” stops being so, due to immigration or differing birth rates? If a country is entitled to be “primarily” of a certain ethnicity, what measures should it be able to take in order to preserve that nature?

The interesting thing is that while this certainly has happened frequently at the sub-national level, it's really hard to think of modern examples at the national level. The only one that comes to mind is Lebanon, and that's in my understanding primarily because of emigration, not any of the factors you cite. The answer to what happens next is widespread inter-ethnic violence. (Also happens at the sub-national level; cf Kosovo, Northern Ireland).

I can think of one example: Israel itself; Ashkenazis eventually being outnumbered by arriving mizrahi and Sephardic jews.

I suppose the issue is that the israeli and Palestinian identities are so discrete it's hard to see them merging into one broader group, short of having one of those 19th century Latin American dictators who mandated inter-group marriages.

That's sort of an example, but the Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews did not disrupt the state's conception of who it was for. In that case you could say various white Americans of non-English descent eventually came to outnumber the descendants of the original English colonizers; I think that misses the spirit of the question, which refers to people losing a territory to a clearly defined 'other' through immigration or birthrate differentials, not to some group friendly to the initial culture which tries to assimilate even if it isn't necessarily very successful. At smaller levels this is clearly a thing which happens (like, to neighborhoods or cities), but I think it's very unusual for countries or country-sized territories, where if it does happen it is caused very substantially by emigration.

Those two examples do not necessarily pertain to Israel being the "Jewish state", however. For the first example, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews still share a common religion with the Ashkenazi Jews (albeit different sects). The United States was not founded as a nation state, so Irish and Italian immigration in the 19th century, for instance, while it did cause significant ethnic tensions, did not undermine the core ethos of the United States.

If the core ethos of Israel is that it is the "Jewish state", how would that be reflected policy-wise? Would it be as simple as making Judaism the state religion? Would it be as extreme as Israel tightening immigration laws if the Jewish population falls below a certain threshold (e.g. requiring new citizens to convert to Judaism if the Jewish population falls below 50%)? Would it be giving special privileges to people who are religiously Jewish?

No -- in fact there is a great deal of fear in Israel around very orthodox Judaism becoming too common, and while the state did give special privileges to religiously Jewish people early in its history these have become intensely controversial as there have become more of these people. 'Jewish' in this sense is an ethnic identity.

Similar questions can be asked for any other nation state. Would a "Russian state" mean that Russian would be the official language and that new citizens would have to learn Russian? Would such a state require that ethnic Russians be given special privileges? Would a "Croatian state" require that Croatian be the official language and that new citizens would have to learn Croatian? Would such a state require that ethnic Croatians be given special privileges?

Maybe. My understanding is that, as a fluent Russian speaker, I could pretty easily seek Russian citizenship if I wanted it (and, indeed, per Wikipedia, you cannot become a naturalized citizen of Russia without demonstrating proficiency in the Russian language). These rules are pretty common across eastern Europe.

Some final food for thought: If irreligiosity rises in Israel to the point where the irreligious population overtakes the Jewish population, would it cease to be the "Jewish state"?

Well, Israel has been majority 'secular' for all of its history ('irreligious' not really being a concept applicable to the Israeli situation). It would cease to be the Jewish state if it were not mostly ethnically Jewish.

If a wave of French immigration causes the French to become the largest ethnic group in Luxembourg, would Luxembourg cease to be the "Luxembourger state"?

Probably, yes, unless the Luxembourgeois people resort to violent or undemocratic methods of retaining control, like white South Africans or indigenous Fijians.

[Mopsus]

There are plenty of ethnostates in that region (Arab Muslims have about 20 of them), so I don’t consider it a special crime against humanity that there be one for Jews.

[LBJer]

There are plenty of ethnostates in that region (Arab Muslims have about 20 of them), so I don’t consider it a special crime against humanity that there be one for Jews.

This is a tired argument that ignores the fact that the Palestinians don't just have a generic "Arab" identity that would make them feel equally at home in Morocco or Saudi Arabia.  While they are Arabs, their identity is also specifically tied to the land of historic Palestine, and any reasonable solution to the conflict has to acknowledge that.  

[Mopsus]

There are plenty of ethnostates in that region (Arab Muslims have about 20 of them), so I don’t consider it a special crime against humanity that there be one for Jews.

This is a tired argument that ignores the fact that the Palestinians don't just have a generic "Arab" identity that would make them feel equally at home in Morocco or Saudi Arabia.  While they are Arabs, their identity is also specifically tied to the land of historic Palestine, and any reasonable solution to the conflict has to acknowledge that.  

The only people whose identity is tied to that land, as I understand it.

[LBJer]

There are plenty of ethnostates in that region (Arab Muslims have about 20 of them), so I don’t consider it a special crime against humanity that there be one for Jews.

This is a tired argument that ignores the fact that the Palestinians don't just have a generic "Arab" identity that would make them feel equally at home in Morocco or Saudi Arabia.  While they are Arabs, their identity is also specifically tied to the land of historic Palestine, and any reasonable solution to the conflict has to acknowledge that.  

The only people whose identity is tied to that land, as I understand it.

Then why did the Zionist movement become intent on Palestine as a Jewish national home?

[Electric Circus]

No, but I am categorically against "decolonization" or "resistance" when it is consonant with ethnic cleansing or genocide.

I'm so revolted by what Hamas has done over the past month that my prior, more ambivalent views on the conflict were nullified. No country should be expected to tolerate the existence of a neighboring government that behaves like that, and calls for a ceasefire are Munich-level delusional.

[Mopsus]

There are plenty of ethnostates in that region (Arab Muslims have about 20 of them), so I don’t consider it a special crime against humanity that there be one for Jews.

This is a tired argument that ignores the fact that the Palestinians don't just have a generic "Arab" identity that would make them feel equally at home in Morocco or Saudi Arabia.  While they are Arabs, their identity is also specifically tied to the land of historic Palestine, and any reasonable solution to the conflict has to acknowledge that.  

The only people whose identity is tied to that land, as I understand it.

Then why did the Zionist movement become intent on Palestine as a Jewish national home?

I was being facetious. The Jewish connection to Israel is so obvious as to not need any explanation.

[Electric Circus]

I think I am a Zionist, but my real opinion is something like 'it is good/praiseworthy/morally right/legitimate for [people] to build a homeland of some sort [far away from where they're currently stuck]', and I think the case of the Jews and Palestine is one example of a broader phenomenon.

Even as someone a couple of generations removed from the passage to the United States - Italian and German Catholic, not Jewish - this resonates with me.

Three out of my four grandparents knew enough about the lives their parents had left just a few years before having children to make all of this clear. And the much higher quality of life in the United States was not just because it was a wealthier, freer, and safer place to live. It was also because they lived in neighborhoods full of similar immigrants, many of them family, who worked together to build ladders into business, politics, and every other institution that didn't outright exclude them.

Any rhetoric that implies that there's something illegitimate about this is unconscionable to me. It's an implied threat to my own right to exist, and that of anyone else descended from similar immigrants, as far as I'm concerned.

[WalterWhite]

There are plenty of ethnostates in that region (Arab Muslims have about 20 of them), so I don’t consider it a special crime against humanity that there be one for Jews.

No ethnicity is entitled to an "ethnostate". Palestinians are not, and neither are Israelis. Israel and Palestine have rights to exist simply because treaties dictate that they do.