The question, “Does Israel have a right to exist?” is frequently posed by those who unconditionally support the destructive and death-dealing actions of the Israeli government in Gaza, the Occupied West Bank, and elsewhere. According to filmmaker and social commentator Matthew Cooke, this question is “a little rhetorical trick designed to make the rights of certain people [i.e., Palestinians] disappear.”
Cooke them goes on to ask, “Does any nation state have a right to exist?” In responding to this question, Cooke notes that “the concept of nations, with standardized language, culture, identity is brand new – less than 250 years old. Albert Einstein called nationalism a disease; the 'measles of mankind.’”
“Instead of providing human rights and protections,” says Cooke, “nationalism has locked the world into an escalation trap, at a time when we need to cooperate more than ever.”
Cooke’s full 14-minute video commentary on the “death cult” of nationalism and alternatives to it, can be viewed below. It’s well worth watching.
Our survival depends on cooperation between our cities, neighborhoods, communities – the places human beings actually live.
The word nation, which comes from the word “natio,” means a people born together. So for this concept to actually reflect reality, we have to recognize that the earth is the home of humankind. This world is our nation, where we are born together. Our individual identities are a patchwork of interconnected cultures whose family lines trace back hundreds of thousands of years.
All of us are related, one bloodline. All the land, holy. All the people, chosen. All of them, our people, with a right to exist.
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
MATTHEW COOKE
• Matthew Cooke on the Fallacy That Socialism “Doesn't Work”
• “MAGA Just Lost Everything . . . Now It’s Only a Matter of Time – and Each of Us Doing Our Part”
• “Trump Did Not Change the Office of the Presidency. He Exposed It”
• Matthew Cooke on the Real “Mamdani Effect”
ISRAEL AND GAZA
• Two Years of “Indescribable Horror”
• The Only Difference
• No Justice, No Peace
• Progressive Perspectives on Hillary Clinton’s Comments on Pro-Palestine “Propaganda” and TikTok
• Qasim Rashid: Quote of the Day
• “It Is Up to Us”
THE DEPRAVITY OF THE EPSTEIN CLASS
• Anand Giridharadas: “The Epstein Class Is Defined by Amorality”
• Lee Camp: “The Epstein Scandal Has Revealed the Revolting Depravity of the Ruling Elite”
• Anand Giridharadas on the “Elite Network” Around Jeffrey Epstein
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