Middleman

Nationalists in the Western world who go so far as to place the nation above law-and-order value Israel because it is predicated on Jewish nationalism, while Diaspora Jews in their midst are an alien element. Those who hold by a rule-governed order see the Diaspora Jews as a test case for it: this is why Manuel Valls says “France would not be France without her Jews.” Society should be so diverse as to include all kinds, even elements that from the point of view of the ethnic French are indeed foreign to what they do, in nostalgic moments, regard as their land. Nationalism is outside the charmed circle as a threat to that order, which is why the secular Left can be so hostile to Israel: the Jews are supposed to rejoice in their acceptance, rather than pick up and leave this rule-governed order to set up a nation-state of their own the very existence of which is a rebuke. For the secular Left, the nation-state should be a thing of the past. It is ideas that matter, which can unite all minds, rather than flesh and blood, which is partial to its own kind. For the nationalists of the Right, the nation-state should indeed be united by flesh and blood, and ideas, especially those that would intervene in this model of long standing, are anathema.