Talk:Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel
From Academic Kids
On these matters, timings and cutoffs etc., I take a view that is actually based on external criteria: mainly, self consistency. I do not accept that the USA became independent in 1776, Indonesia in 1945 - or Israel on precisely this date in 1948. Rather, I regard those as moments of conception, with independence being like a birth attained sooner or later but always after conception. I take this view, as any other implies (say) that the Confederate States of America attained independence in 1861 only to lose it in 1865 - something that is in fact true of Texas' time as the Lone Star State. For me, US attainment of independence was in 1783 - as any earlier point was capable of being overtaken by events. This in no way affects the real significance of 1776 as a mythic event, an input to the people of the USA; it's just that it's only the declaration, not the achievement.
This approach is criticised in some quarters - for instance newsgroups, where the coincidence of my applying the approach to Israel is sometimes misread as being antisemitic. But I am actually applying something more general. However, rather than jump straight in, I am going to canvass this sensitive area and outline examples of the sort of specific change I want this article to reflect. For instance, the declaration was not based on the views of the Israeli public - there was no such public until after everything had taken effect. And, to me, independence was only really attained at one of two possible points: UN recognition, or the end of that war itself (analogues of 1783 and 1781 for the USA respectively, so I prefer the later of the two dates).
Now, with a view to making this self consistent and consistent with other things (like the possibility that there would have been no state of Israel, whether because of the Arabs or Hillel Kook and the like), what changes of wording and/or of cutoff dates would work and not be felt as antisemitic? In this sensitive area it is far too easy for people to feel a different rational approach is simple prejudice, and I want to head off that form of anti-rationalism as much as I can in advance. A vain hope, I'm sure. PML.
Surely this page should be moved to "Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel" . ed g2s • talk 19:54, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
