Israel has a long history of Social Democracy (and experimentation with non-coercive socialism)

Do you get this pablum from a jar marked "pre-digested for your consumption"?

The Founding Myths of Israel: Nationalism, Socialism, and the Making of the Jewish State

By Zeev Sternhell

The well-known historian and political scientist Zeev Sternhell here advances a radically new interpretation of the founding of modern Israel. The founders claimed that they intended to create both a landed state for the Jewish people and a socialist society. However, according to Sternhell, socialism served the leaders of the influential labor movement more as a rhetorical resource for the legitimation of the national project of establishing a Jewish state than as a blueprint for a just society. In this thought-provoking book, Sternhell demonstrates how socialist principles were consistently subverted in practice by the nationalist goals to which socialist Zionism was committed. Sternhell explains how the avowedly socialist leaders of the dominant labor party, Mapai, especially David Ben Gurion and Berl Katznelson, never really believed in the prospects of realizing the "dream" of a new society, even though many of their working-class supporters were self-identified socialists. The founders of the state understood, from the very beginning, that not only socialism but also other universalistic ideologies like liberalism, were incompatible with cultural, historical, and territorial nationalism. Because nationalism took precedence over universal values, argues Sternhell, Israel has not evolved a constitution or a Bill of Rights, has not moved to separate state and religion, has failed to develop a liberal concept of citizenship, and, until the Oslo accords of 1993, did not recognize the rights of the Palestinians to independence. This is a controversial and timely book, which not only provides useful historical background to Israel's ongoing struggle to mobilize its citizenry to support a shared vision of nationhood, but also raises a question of general significance: is a national movement whose aim is a political and cultural revolution capable of coexisting with the universal values of secularism, individualism, and social justice? This bold critical reevaluation will unsettle long-standing myths as it contributes to a fresh new historiography of Zionism and Israel. At the same time, while it examines the past, The Founding Myths of Israel reflects profoundly on the future of the Jewish State.

It's on Google

"At Talk Left, Big Tent Democrat makes the case that Beltway media elites have lost the ability to define 'serious' and 'mainstream.'"

As you yourself have documented so well, the media elite have become nothing more than courtiers to the powerful. Reflected power is to each of them like sunlight is to a plant. Thus, it is completely unsurprising that the attributes "serious" and "mainstream" mean nothing more to these courtiers than "powerful".

To put it more prosaically, they are jock-sniffing armchair athletes, admiring the quarterbacks and wide receivers.

Dear Rapture,

Where the hell are you and why are you taking so long to get here?!? I've got this horrible rash that is driving me absolutely bat-shit crazy! The Dr. said it's called Evangelicalisraelieitis (oy, thatsa mouthful!). It spreads and spreads and nothing seems to help or make it go away... hoping you can.

See you sooner than later I hope!!

Love,

Gaia

PS - bring that tupperware back you borrowed.

"is a national movement whose aim is a political and cultural revolution capable of coexisting with the universal values of secularism, individualism, and social justice?"

I can't see a Liberal or Progressive in America being able to answer this question with anything other than a resounding YES!!!

"is a national movement whose aim is a political and cultural revolution capable of coexisting with the universal values of secularism, individualism, and social justice?"

I can't see a Liberal or Progressive in America being able to answer this question with anything other than a resounding YES!!!

"Klein and Bill Kristol are two of the featured columnists in Time Magazine. And, like Lieberman, they are both very very Serious."

How about Charles Krauthammer?

Isn't he Really Serious too?

(It's a good thing TIME doesn't demonstrate any obvious political bias in it's hiring...)

Be balanced and no appear drunk on H2o.

Dr. Bonner lives!

and thank god you did because he has gotten so much accomplished.

Krauthammer? You can't be serious.
There's a difference between dog star and dog sh*t.

Krauthammer used to be "serious," but I'm pretty sure his condition has been upgraded to "critical."

It's always a strange feeling when a person of almost bestial ignorance accuses you of not knowing what you're talking about. You can't find any "reputable" sources about Baathism's link to Nazism because Google is your library, as we can tell from your citation of the communist crank Lenni Brenner. This makes you about as credible on these matters as Amiri Baraka. Other people consult books. Start with Paul Berman's writings on the Baath and move on from there. No wonder, then, that in your ignorance of its basic intellectual history, you find it hard to believe that Baathism -- an ideology that produced states like Sadaam's Iraq and Assad's Syria -- is partially indebted to Nazism; but you find it easy to believe that Zionism has generated in Social-Democratic Israel a society "closely akin... to the Nazi and Fascist parties".

If you want to parrot Soviet distortions about Jewish collaboration with the Nazis (without, I'm sure, the slightest knowledge of the provenance of those claims), then that's fine, but don't compound your intellectual self-annihilation by claiming: "The Jews had far more dealings with the Nazis than any Arabs ever did." I'd refer you to actual books, but Google will suffice to present you with reams of information on Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Palestine and earnest collaborator with the Nazis.

Your claim that the whiteness of the Jews predisposed them to better treatment by the Nazis than the Arabs is a breathtaking masterpiece of stupidity. Have you heard of the Holocaust? I wonder with what fidelity you represent the nature and caliber of Greenwald's readership?

Sternhell is made of much sterner stuff than you, Brenner and your Soviet handlers, but his views about the nationalist corrosion of Zionist ideals are the views of one historian, and not incidentally far too complex for a sub-moron like you to adduce credibly in debate.