The Dual Citizenship Problem, Cte'd
Last week at the Brit Tzedek event at the Village Temple, the Israeli veteran said that if the West Bank settlements were uprooted tomorrow, most of the settlers would quietly take compensation and move to Israel. But the religious crazies might leave the country. Many of the Gaza settlers had moved back to the U.S., he said. "To New Jersey," someone in the audience called out, knowledgeably. "To Brooklyn," another man cried.
These people were talking about a real issue: the extent to which dual citizenship has allowed religious nutbags from this country with messianic visions to inflame the politics of the Middle East, then when things don't work out, just to come back here.
I dream about a day when national borders will vanish and we'll all sing Kumbaya. That hasn't happened yet; in the meantime, the U.S. and Israel need to clear some of these issues up. The problem came up on Democracy Now yesterday in a forum on the (disgusting) fact that "the Israeli government has effectively frozen visitation and re-entry of foreign nationals of Palestinian origin to the West Bank and Gaza."
Israeli human rights lawyer Leah Tsemel went right to the dual citizenship issue:
I wanted also to mention one very important point. We get information that there are... a half-million Israelis who live in the United States and have dual nationalities. Those, and most of the Israelis, have a second passport and third passport and third nationality, just to kind of -- to be on the safe side. I think that there should be a demand for mutuality. The same [rights should be afforded by] Jewish Israelis toward our American citizens, as we, the Americans have to your Israeli citizens. Because Israelis can come and go with the re-entry permit... into the United States, and at the same time, there is no mutuality, and [Arab] Americans are not allowed in here.
Exactly. There's a revolving door between Israel and the U.S., for Jews. Neocon Max Singer moves to Israel and continues to work for a Washington thinktank, pushing us to go to war in Iraq. Nutbag settlers move from here to the West Bank with religious visions. This freedom (and absence of freedom) is distorting our politics. Yes I dream of a day when there will be no borders. But not just for Jews.
P.S. John Fonte of the Hudson Institute (a principled guy) takes exception to my recent item on dual loyalty:
I read your comments related to my phone interview with you, and your conversation with Max Singer. It is, as we discussed, perfectly legal at the present time to vote in two countries. The implicit subtext of your comments is that Max as a "neo-con," (horrors, hide the children) should somehow be chastized. Why? Because after serious thought he changed his mind and arrived at a new understanding on the basis of principle? On the contrary, Max should be commended for his principled decision to vote only in the country in which he is most politically active. Many dual citizens have not been as principled.
A related issue, although I am not sure about the citizenship status of those involved, was the "Clean Break" policy document written by Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser for Benyamin Netanyahu in 1996. This document was very hawkish and advocated, in the context of Israeli national interest, the removal of Saddam Hussein, the end of a "land for peace" approach to the Palestinian issue, the direct engaging of Hizballah, Syria, and Iran among other issues.
The original plan has been described as an "US-Israeli neoconservative manifesto" by Jason Vest of The Nation. Others have referenced it as well. Everyone knows that later on in the Bush administration, both Richard Perle and Douglas Feith played prominent roles in the rush to the Iraq invasion, and Bush also adopted a hands off policy towards the Palestinian issue.
This isn't so much a dual citizenship issue as it is a specific neoconservative thing. Dual citizenship, if it is in the service of making it easier for nations to cooperate towards widely desirable goals, is a good thing -- trade and economic cooperation between Israel and the US helps all. It is more tricky though when it is used to create alliances that may not result in clear gains for all involved -- in such situations it can appear as if one party is being "used", especially if open debate is suppressed in the apparent service of preventing such policies from being properly analyzed.
With all this talk of dual loyalty, I've suddenly developed this problem:
What is there about dual loyalty -- besides the label, which is, of course, just a label -- that would ever make anyone ever connect it with loyalty?
Here's Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, talking at you:
loyal
1 a : faithful to the lawful government or to the sovereign to whom one is subject : unswerving in allegiance.
So if that's what loyal is, then what would being dually loyal look like?
faithful to two different lawful governments
But then that denies the meaning of faithful:
2 : true and constant in affection or allegiance: e.g., a faithful friend, a faithful dog.
3 : firm in adherence to promises, oaths, or undertakings : firm and thorough in the observance of duty:
In the definitions of faithful appear firm, constant, thorough, true. There's no connotation here of alternative, vacillating, wavering, temporary or convenient to be found in faithful. It's a solid and very monolithic, collected, unitary word.
And if we try the second phrase of the definition -- unswerving in allegiance-- there's no relief here either: for unswerving is a pretty uncompromisingly definite adjective. There's not a lot of wiggle room in unswerving, which, you can probably guess by now means
1 : not swerving or turning aside, e.g., a straight narrow clay road ... tree-lined and unswerving across the far-reaching lowlands -- American Guide Series: Vermont>
2 : steady, unremitting, e.g., unswerving loyalty, unswerving integrity.
And if you do try to express it anyway, you get the downright silly
unswerving type of allegiance of the swerving variety
which is a contradiction in terms. Nothing is X and is not X at the same time -- that violates the Law of Non-Contradiction. And that's not a law lightly to be broken, as Aristotle -- who gets downright spiky on this matter -- says:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contradiction/
In Metaphysics Book Gamma, LNC [the Law of Non-Contradiction]the most certain of all principles is defined as follows:
It is impossible that the same thing can at the same time both belong and not belong to the same object and in the same respect, and all other specifications that might be made, let them be added to meet local objections (1005b19-23). Metaphysics Book Gamma
For Aristotle, the status of LNC [the Law of Non-Contradiction] as a first, indemonstrable principle is obvious. Those who stubbornly demand a proof of LNC simply lack education: since a demonstration of EVERYTHING is impossible, resulting in infinite regress, at least some principles must be taken as primitive axiomata rather than derived from other propositions -- and what principle more merits this status than the Law of Non-Contradiction? (1006a6-12).
In first philosophy, as in mathematics, an axiom is both indemonstrable and indispensable; without LNC, a is F and a is not F are indistinguishable and no argumentation is possible. While Sophists and even many physicists may claim that it is possible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same time and in the same respect, such a position self-destructs if only our opponent says something, since as soon as he opens his mouth to make an assertion, any assertion, he must accept LNC. But what if he does not open his mouth? Against such an individual it is ridiculous to seek an argument-- for he is no more than a vegetable (1006a1-15).
Thus there is a strict and monolithic structure to the concept of loyalty. Like monogamy or monotheism or mononucleosis. The root meaning is singleness; if you've got dual -- whether its loyalty or disc brakes -- you've got TWO of something, and that something ain't loyalty, whatever it is, for there is nothing duplex -- or duplicitous -- about loyalty.
So if it's not single, then it's sure not loyalty.
But if there's no part of loyalty in dual loyalty, then what the heck IS dual loyalty?
Inquiring Minds Want to Know.
I need some help from my elders on this.
Loyalty means paying your taxes and not breaking the law.
You poser moron.
Loyalty means paying your taxes and not breaking the law.
In less politcally-correct times, wouldn't this be described as a "talmudic" mindset?
Yeah Douchebag,
You're right, you have to jerk off on the flag and pray that gas prices don't go to high too...
Let's talk about Dual Loyalties in the so-called "Homeland Security" industry...