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Zionism and Political Liberalism: The Right of Scattered Nations to Self-Determination

  • Yitzhak Benbaji
Published/Copyright: September 18, 2020
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Theoretical Inquiries in Law
From the journal Theoretical Inquiries in Law Volume 21 Issue 2

Abstract

This Article offers a defense of egalitarian Zionism that, unlike Chaim Gans’s argument for this view, does not appeal to the Jewish problem in justifying the Zionist requirement for a state with a dominant Jewish community. The argument extracts from the egalitarian principles that underlie John Rawls’s political liberalism, a conception of global justice according to which members of a scattered nation are entitled to a fair opportunity to establish a new state within which they enjoy the advantage of demographic dominance

* The Law Faculty, Tel Aviv University. I would like to thank Chaim Gans, Dana Gur, Ofer Malcai, David Miller, Alan Patten, Victor Tadros and, in particular, Arthur Ripstein, for helpful comments and discussions. Cite as: Yitzhak Benbaji, Zionism and Political Liberalism: The Right of Scattered Nations to Self-Determination, 21 Theoretical Inquiries L. 229 (2020).

Published Online: 2020-09-18
Published in Print: 2020-07-28

© 2020 by Theoretical Inquiries in Law

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Introduction
  3. “Wretched Nurseries of Unceasing Discord”: Nationalism, War, and the Project of Peace
  4. Zionism and Political Liberalism: The Right of Scattered Nations to Self-Determination
  5. In Pursuit of Political Imagination: Reflections on Diasporic Jewish History
  6. Territorial Justice in Israel/Palestine
  7. Constructing “Private” Historical Justice in State-Building
  8. Inheriting the Right of Return
  9. Justifying the Right of Return
  10. Inclusion and Representation: The Settlement of Property Claims of the Dispossessed in the Aftermath of an Armed Conflict
  11. Disentangling Displacements: Historical Justice for Mizrahim and Palestinians in Israel
  12. How the Law of Return Creates One Legal Order in Palestine
  13. Historical Justice: On First-Order and Second-Order Arguments for Justice
  14. The Idea of Israel as a Jewish State
https://doi.org/10.1515/til-2020-0013

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Introduction
  3. “Wretched Nurseries of Unceasing Discord”: Nationalism, War, and the Project of Peace
  4. Zionism and Political Liberalism: The Right of Scattered Nations to Self-Determination
  5. In Pursuit of Political Imagination: Reflections on Diasporic Jewish History
  6. Territorial Justice in Israel/Palestine
  7. Constructing “Private” Historical Justice in State-Building
  8. Inheriting the Right of Return
  9. Justifying the Right of Return
  10. Inclusion and Representation: The Settlement of Property Claims of the Dispossessed in the Aftermath of an Armed Conflict
  11. Disentangling Displacements: Historical Justice for Mizrahim and Palestinians in Israel
  12. How the Law of Return Creates One Legal Order in Palestine
  13. Historical Justice: On First-Order and Second-Order Arguments for Justice
  14. The Idea of Israel as a Jewish State
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