Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumAmerican Jews Don’t Have To Choose Between Liberalism and Israel
....Support for equal pay, or health-care reform, or union rights, or abortion rights, or anti-discrimination laws, or protecting the environment, or the idea that corporations should pay their fair share of taxes—none of these are enough of a basis anymore for your liberalism. What now defines American Jews—and only American Jews—as liberals is whether they back the administration on Israel. If you don’t think Netanyahu is not just an opportunistic politician but also the devil; if you don’t see Mahmoud Abbas as a man singlemindedly committed to peace; if you don’t agree that John Kerry is doing God’s work bringing Israelis and Palestinians together; if you don’t think the leaders of Hamas are people who can be reasoned with—and even if you agree with all of the above but are perhaps a little unsure about the wisdom or the necessity of ever-closer U.S. ties with the Mullahs in Tehran—then you should accept that you aren’t a liberal anymore.
The problem is that we don’t believe that most American Jews actually felt forced to choose between their liberalism and Israel, until opinionators and politicians told them this is what they were feeling (or should be feeling), and that the time to decide is right now.
Most of us long for peace in the Middle East, and we at Tablet are happy to hear anyone’s ideas about how that can happen, as long as they don’t involve making excuses for how gun-toting religious extremists of whatever persuasion are in fact people who can be reasoned with, or why Jews should build a third Temple in the center of Jerusalem, or alternatively be prohibited from visiting a place to which they have a deep historical and emotional connection that predates the existence of nearly every single member-nation of the U.N. We also don’t want to hear about how either the Jewish population of Israel or the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza can be conveniently relocated somewhere else, or should disappear from the map.
In the meantime, we’re not sure why any Jew must have her political or emotional life or social identity reduced to her feelings about Bibi Netanyahu or Mahmoud Abbas any more than Chinese Americans should have their politics defined by their feelings about the current government in Beijing, or Episcopalians should feel forced to answer for their feelings about the tangled relationship between Prince Charles and his mother. Instead, we believe that American Jews should take back their right to assert whatever they reasonably believe about Israel as thinking, feeling people; they can and should do so as Democrats and as Republicans, and especially as Americans.
Whatever our feelings about Bibi—and they run the gamut—we don’t like being played by people on either side of the political spectrum looking for a quick advantage over the other side. The latest example, which came from the left, repulses us every bit as much as when evangelicals tell us that we are part of God’s plan to return Jesus Christ to Planet Earth, or right-wing billionaires declare us all to be Republicans in the hopes of getting a bigger break on their corporate taxes. Our feelings about Israel may contribute to the sense of who some of us are as Americans or as Jews, but the idea that we should all be reduced to those feelings is stupid—and offensive. We at Tablet would never let anyone else—from either side of the political spectrum—tell our story for us, and we don’t think our readers should either.
more:
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/186839/american-jews-liberalism-israel
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shira
(30,109 posts)<snip>
Imagine a politician ascending to the governorship of a small southern state. Having campaigned on a platform of extreme patriotic fervor and religious zeal—in his stump speech, he thundered that by the grace of God, America will last as long as there exist Heaven and Earth—the governor wasted no time translating his beliefs into law. Because the governor believed that homosexuals were “a minority of perverts and the mentally and morally sick,” he outlawed them, instructing his police officers to seek, capture, beat up, and imprison every gay individual in the state. Similarly, women were deemed better off tending to their families than wasting their time with such corrupting pursuits as jobs. A special educational program was devised and approved to teach young girls the fundamentals. These future wives and mothers, read the governor’s statement, “must be fully capable of being aware and of grasping the ways to manage their households. Economy and avoiding waste in household expenditures are prerequisites to our ability to pursue our cause in the difficult circumstances surrounding us.” The men of the state reveled in this new way of life, asserting themselves as lords of their manors; before too long, nearly half of them took to regularly battering their wives.
How many of those who define themselves as liberals would support the governor? Very few, if any. More likely, our hypothetical politician would have galvanized the left into action: The cleverly worded emails from progressive organizations, the fiery segments on The Daily Show, the pledges from celebrities to stop the menace—all would have been upon us before too long. And yet when the same politician appears halfway across the world, sporting a beard and proceeding far beyond the relatively tame scenario described above—sacrificing his own nation’s children and eager to murder innocent civilians across the border—all clarity seems to dissipate. All the homicidal zealot has to do is mumble something about justice and disproportionality and self-determination, and he’s transformed into a respectable, not to say sympathetic, figure.
Which boggles the mind. Never mind that Hamas’ charter specifically states that its goal is the utter destruction of Israel—“Israel,” it reads, “by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims”—and never mind that fundamentalist Islamic organizations like it have sprouted from different terrains and under different historical and political circumstances: For Hamas’ liberal apologists, it’s all still about the Israeli occupation. Israel withdrew nearly a decade ago? Please, that’s too confusing—as long as any conflict involving Israel anywhere is unresolved, any and all violence against Israelis, liberals now seem to believe, is justified.
Enthusiasts of nuance may argue that criticizing Israel isn’t the same as supporting Hamas. That is nominally true. It’s also largely irrelevant. Let’s indulge in one more thought exercise and assume for one moment that Israel accepted all the liberal critiques of its behaviors and acted accordingly. The force it was using was disproportionate? It withdrew most of its soldiers, curbed its artillery, and pulled back the deeply unfair advantage of the Iron Dome missile defense system. Gaza is an open-air prison, the responsibility for which lies solely with Israel and not with Gaza’s other neighbor, Egypt? Israel removed its naval and aerial blockade and opened wide its borders. You don’t have to be a three-star General to realize the outcome of such moves. Which leads us back to a terrible observation: wars are so ghastly in part because they crush so much of the ambiguity and nuance that permeates everyday life in times of peace. They’re so awful because often they force us to make stark choices that are scary and absolute, and annihilate so much of the space that exists in between polar opposites. War requires us to choose.
To my former friends on the left who see themselves as champions of progressive values while criticizing Israel’s attempts at self-defense I have this to say: You have already chosen. You’re all right-wingers now. You would probably want to cancel that monthly contribution to Planned Parenthood; the Gazan maniacs you tolerate don’t really go for that kind of stuff. And go ahead and give the membership department of the National Rifle Association a call, as you are now putting up with an organization whose passion for bearing arms at all costs far exceeds even that of the most fervent American survivalist. So please: Stop whining about the Koch brothers or the Tea Party or the Hobby Lobby ruling. In making excuses for Hamas, you’re endorsing a force of religious intolerance and a purveyor of oppression far, far more demonic than those benign forces at home you characterize as the destroyers of civil liberties and human rights.
<snip>
Alittleliberal
(528 posts)You know it's possible to support neither Hamas or Israel in their deplorable acts. And that's how most liberals feel.
shira
(30,109 posts)....is almost always given to Hamas and friends while Israel is always suspected of evil no matter what.
Liberals and Progressives shouldn't do that, agreed?
And while Hamas apologists certainly exist, the idea that Israel bears responsibility for their actions as well does not a Hamas Apologist make.
shira
(30,109 posts)Every benefit of the doubt is given to the Ayatollah. There's a trend here.
If it were Israel vs. Hezbollah, every benefit of the doubt would be given to Hezbollah.
SoS, different day here.
malokvale77
(4,879 posts)mighty military machine backing their ass.
shira
(30,109 posts)malokvale77
(4,879 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)malokvale77
(4,879 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)malokvale77
(4,879 posts)Thank you for participating.
cali
(114,904 posts)disgusting that anyone here would endorse this vile crap. Predictable that you'd approve.
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Wed Nov 12, 2014, 04:27 PM - Edit history (1)
Self-proclaimed liberals, progressives, or leftists who'd bash Israel even if Israel was the most liberal nation on the planet (BDS proponents who won't quit until Israel is gone). At the same time, these "liberals" go out of their way defending, excusing, denying, or deflecting from Hamas or the PA's ugly fascist tendencies.
We have a name for those who bash liberals while defending rightwingers.
They're called rightwingers.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)the Palestinians.
*We also don’t want to hear about how either the Jewish population of Israel or the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza can be conveniently relocated somewhere else, or should disappear from the map.
Take your God damn chances in the courts then.
shira
(30,109 posts)Looks like fair warning to the radical extremes on both sides of the I/P debate.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)alleged security issues while they take more land.
WB does not belong to Israel, period...get out is what they need to do.
shira
(30,109 posts)....while supporting Israel (not all its policies but Israel in general). Just as a Chinese American can be a Liberal no matter his/her POV on the government of China.
Do you believe Israel has any legitimate security issues?
I agree, but not without a solid peace agreement first.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)is that Palestinians are entitled to their land, per international law.
They get less, then they will not have a viable state...how many times does
this have to be repeated?
shira
(30,109 posts)UNSCR 242 is International Law and Israel accepted it from the start.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)....they were asking for. And Arafat never came back with a counter-proposal. Just a flat no.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)That would've ended the occupation and settlements.
You're the one making excuses now to perpetuate the situation. Olmert's plan was even better for Palestinians than Clinton's, and I'm sure you're against that one too.
Turns out you're the one here b/w the 2 of us who wants the occupation and conflict to continue. What would you do without it?
Your advocacy is total bullshit.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)has been widely heralded as the definitive treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” from the 1993 Oslo Accords through the Camp David negotiations of July 2000.[2]
The “one overriding lesson from the story of the peace process,” Ross writes in his prologue, “is that truth-telling is a necessity” (p. 14). The “purpose” of his book as well as the “key to peace,” he similarly concludes, “is to debunk mythologies . . . to engage in truth-telling” (p. 773). Ross’s execution of this debunking and truth-telling enterprise, however, is problematic. His account of the peace process is based almost entirely on his memory and notes. Its authority derives chiefly from the fact that he was the “point person” (p. 106) for the Clinton administration on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Yet his “inside story” of the Camp David negotiations differs fundamentally on crucial points from what other participants have said and written. Rather than go over the ground already covered,[3] I will focus here on the cluster of assumptions informing Ross’s account of what happened during the negotiations and why, and the distortions that spring from these assumptions.
Ross’s interpretation of why Camp David failed gained wide currency almost immediately. His narrative, as is well known, assigns the lion’s share of blame for the summit’s collapse to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. Nonetheless, Ross situates the failure in a deeper Palestinian pathology.
The Root of the Problem
It is a central contention of Ross that Palestinians are in thrall to a victim syndrome. While acknowledging that they “surely have suffered” (p. 775), Ross maintains that the Palestinians’ “sense of being victims has . . . fostered a sense of entitlement” (p. 42; cf. pp. 200, 686). For instance, Palestinians harbor the belief that they had been “entitled to the land” on which they were born when Zionist settlers coming from Europe sought to displace them; that the land “was theirs and had been taken” (p. 35). In Palestinian “eyes,” Ross continues, “they were not responsible for what was done to the Jews in Europe” (p. 42). In their “eyes,” consequently, “ending the conflict and agreeing to live with Israel’s presence” constituted a significant concession (p. 44). Further, Palestinians chafed at the fact that it was Israel that determined the pace and parameters of withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territory because they “believed they were getting what was rightfully theirs” (p. 55) and that “the land is ‘theirs’” (p. 763). Their opposition to Israeli settlement expansion apparently sprang from this misapprehension as well: “it outrage[d] the Palestinians—absorbing land that they considered to be theirs” (pp. 82, 195), “perceived to be theirs” (p. 765), that “they believed was theirs or should be theirs” (p. 332; cf. 44, 55). Finally, Arafat “flew into a rage” and “ranted for several minutes” after seeing the Oslo map because of the “appearance” that the Palestinian areas comprised “isolated islands that are cut off from each other” (p. 205). It so happens, however, that what Palestinians “believed,” “considered,” and “perceived” to be theirs actually was theirs according to international law; that it was not just “in their eyes,” but in those of any rational person that, whatever sins Palestinians might be chastised for, causing the Nazi holocaust is not one of them; and that the Oslo map did in fact shatter the Palestinian territory into a maze of fragments.
Compounding Palestinian misapprehensions regarding their legitimate claims on Palestine, according to Ross, were those regarding the United Nations and international law. For example, Ross writes:
Palestinians and many in the Arab world continued to see an American double standard. . . . They asked why was Israel permitted to effectively ignore Security Council resolutions while Saddam was forced to comply? They did not see the difference between the Security Council resolutions. Those against Iraq came as a response to Saddam’s eradication of a member state of the U.N.; the resolutions required his compliance, not his acceptance. Noncompliance carried sanctions, and led to the use of force against his absorption of Kuwait. The resolutions that Palestinians and Arabs more generally focused on with regard to Israel were resolutions 242 and 338. They were adopted after the 1967 and 1973 wars. They provided the guidelines or principles that should shape negotiations to resolve the conflict between Arabs and Israelis. The terms of a final peace settlement were not established in these resolutions and they could not be mandatory on either side. But drawing distinctions between Security Council resolutions involving the Iraqis and the Israelis was not satisfying. The Arab world generally rejected the idea that Iraq faced pressure to implement Security Council resolutions while Israel did not. They wanted equal treatment. They wanted to portray all Security Council resolutions as having the force of international law. For the Arab world generally, the resolutions were their face-savers. They would resolve the conflict with Israel, but only on the basis of international law, “international legitimacy,” as they called it. Here was their explanation, their justification for ending the conflict. If Iraq had to follow international legitimacy, so too, must Israel. (p. 43)
This argument poses some problems, however. Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq, we are told, focused on its violations of international law, thereby requiring “compliance” and carrying “sanctions,” whereas Security Council resolutions regarding Israel focused on “principles” for a settlement, thereby requiring “acceptance” and envisaging “negotiations.” Yet the international community over the last thirty years has reached broad consensus on the principles for settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict. They are embodied in UN resolution 242 and subsequent UN resolutions calling for full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza and the establishment of a Palestinian state in these areas in exchange for recognition of Israel’s right to live in peace and security with its neighbors.[4] Each year the overwhelming majority of UN member states votes in favor of this two-state settlement, while each year Israel and the United States (along with this or that South Pacific atoll) oppose it. It is unclear why principles that find overwhelming support in the UN require compliance and carry sanctions in the case of Iraq’s refusal to withdraw from occupied Kuwait but not in the case of Israel’s refusal to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territory. In fact, Israel’s refusal to abide by this longstanding international consensus apparently puts its occupation squarely in the same category as Iraq’s illegal occupation of Kuwait. “[A]n occupation regime that refuses to earnestly contribute to efforts to reach a peaceful solution should be considered illegal,” TelAvivUniversity law professor Eyal Benvenisti opines:
Indeed, such a refusal should be considered outright annexation. The occupant has a duty under international law to conduct negotiations in good faith for a peaceful solution. It would seem that an occupant who proposes unreasonable conditions, or otherwise obstructs negotiations for peace for the purpose of retaining control over the occupied territory, could be considered a violator of international law.[5]
“The continued rule of the recalcitrant occupant,” Benvenisti adds, should be construed “as an aggression.”[6]
in full: http://www.palestine-studies.org/jps/fulltext/41832
Your deception is noted, however..shira.
shira
(30,109 posts)Even the Arab Peace Plan these days calls for land swaps based on the '67 lines.
Anymore bullshit you're serving up for the day?
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)No worries.
You call for a viable Palestinian state, no more occupation, no more settlements. Israel offers it up, you reject it. You need this conflict to go on.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)...to the '67 lines. It's called UNSCR 242. Not that you're interested in International Law unless it can be used for your political purposes.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)What you're relying on now is not the advisory ruling from 2004..so stop selling it that
way in its entirety.
Response to the Resolution UNSCR -242
Drafters of the resolution stated clearly that Israel should not be asked to withdraw to the pre-war armistice lines as doing that would leave the Jewish state more vulnerable. The Soviets voted in favor of the resolution along with the Security Council after seeing Caradon’s resolution as a compromise and also the one that had the most chances of being passed. Jordan and Israel were next to readily vote for the resolution – with Israel insisting to meet the negotiating parties face-to-face. Syria, Palestine, Libya, Iraq and some other Arab countries plainly rejected the resolution while Egypt made an ostensible acceptance.
The wall was ruled illegal, and that is what Israel expects as their border, who
the hell do you think you're kidding.
EJ is occupied territory as well...no doubts about that.
shira
(30,109 posts)UNSCR doesn't demand full Israel withdrawal to the armistice lines. It calls for secure and recognized borders. Borders that cannot be secure unless first recognized (via negotiations). You're constantly making calls here for Israeli withdrawal without a negotiated settlement. Obviously you only use International Law like you use the cause of Human Rights, in whatever way they serve your interests.
You want more International Law, go to the ICC's Stephen Schwebel who ruled Israel has better title to the land than their enemies who were the aggressors in '67.
You're O for 2.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)lol@ defensive rather than aggressive conquest.
shira
(30,109 posts)And of course 1967 was defensive.
You should educate yourself on 242...
http://www.mythsandfacts.org/conflict/10/un-resolutions.pdf
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)It's certainly not International Law, is it?
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Try and at least listen to Israel on the matter..they do not want to take that
chance, they know how it would end up.
shira
(30,109 posts)Sure, you can rub your hands with glee hoping that a politically compromised court can render 242 obsolete. They might be able to do so.
That doesn't mean International Law is on your side. You're just using it for your purposes...
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)So long, shira.
shira
(30,109 posts)And now the denial from you.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)C'mon Shira, don't bring a football to a hockey game here.
shira
(30,109 posts)Of course you don't see the UN compromised in any way these days with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Cuba running certain human rights organizations (and other important committees) these days.
Wasn't always like that at the UN, but as I understand it the anti-Israel BDS crowd prefers how the UN operates these days.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)If you believe the UN to be the source of all evil... why does Israel remain part of it?
shira
(30,109 posts)....with the UN when it appoints such wonderful regimes like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Cuba to run some of its most important committees.
I'd imagine that as much as the UN is a joke on many matters, Israel has more to lose by quitting it altogether. It's not 100% broken. At least not yet.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Have a little perspective for a moment.
You live in the United States. The US is without a doubt a deeply racist and strongly sexist nation that has only very recently - within the last decade - discovered gay people are human beings. Due to its cultural foundations in some of the more extreme versions of Christianity, it's still coming to grips with that revelation. This nation acquired its territory through the genocide of the people who lived here, deliberate breaking treaty after treaty. It even continues to violate them. One of its states was acquired through a violent corporatist coup that under no law - US law, Hawaiian law, or the fragile framework of international laws at the time, was at all legal. In the second world war this nation was the only one on earth to use nuclear weapons. Twice. Both times against civilian populations. From that point to the present it has been a "Superpower" and has been instrumental in a veritable sea of coups, fascist and terrorist regimes, mass murders, genocides, invasions, and puppet governments. Very recently it flat-out obliterated two nations, Iraq and Afghanistan - not that either took much work to obliterate, after the US helped turn Afghanistan into the Taliban-run civil war-destroyed nation it was in 2001, and Iraq, after we urged Saddam to war with Iran, then his invasion of Kuwait, then followed by sanctions so brutal and insane that they can very honestly be labeled "genocidal."
This is a nation with a permanent veto on the UN security council. And it mostly uses this veto to shoot down resolutions that inform Israel of its obligations to adhere to international laws. So, we have one war criminal state, using its inexplicable seat on the security council, to protect the war crimes of a client state.
These two are the "heroes" in your narrative.
shira
(30,109 posts)Actually, you make free liberal democracies appear worse than fascist terror states.
There's no reasoning with you on this.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)You know we tortured people, right Shira? A lot of people, as it turns out. We even farmed them out to be tortured by other states, it turns out. We would kidnap them from other nations, like Italy, and send them to an undisclosed location where we would put their testicles into a waffle iron or whatever the latest fad was. In Afghanistan we literally bought people just to torture them. Even now we're keeping a bunch of them locked away in Guantanamo, where they are protected by exactly no laws whatsoever.
This is all stuff that the United States has actually done. And in every case, it's stuff for which there have been no prosecutions. No restitution. Nothing.
shira
(30,109 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)It's vague enough to be meaningless.
shira
(30,109 posts)...whose very existence appears to be negotiable.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)But again, "supporting its existence" is such a vague phrase. How, exactly, does one actually support the existence of something that exists> Do you "support the existence" of bottlenose dolphins and those weird square Subaru SUV's too?
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)Those who believe Israel has no right to defend itself from fascist terrorists.
Israel has no right to exist in peace, etc.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)With 500k illegal settlers.
"Exist in peace" is a convenient lie.
shira
(30,109 posts)...state is established. BDS works to establish a racist, apartheid Hamastan that is the antithesis of everything progressive and liberal.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)
shira
(30,109 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)
shira
(30,109 posts)....they do, say, and are all about.
Thanks for that.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)We should support BDS since Israel is a repressive regime practicing apartheid.
But you know this...
shira
(30,109 posts)R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Live with it.
shira
(30,109 posts)....even after the Palestinians have their own viable state minus the occupation and settlements. They will continue to work to destroy Israel.
You support such a goal?
=====================
BDS supports genuine apartheid, but let's pretend they don't.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Israel is an apartheid state. It needs to end that part of its history.
BDS.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Do you have any Republican relatives? If you're like most of us, you have a few. And odds are, you're fairly close to at least one of 'em. Would you characterize this Republican loved one as a nasty, sociopathic canker on the body poltiic of US politics? Are they an angry, hateful, beet-faced little fuck who screams about Gay Jewish Muslim Mexicans born in Kenya taking our jobs and spreading Ebola?
Probably not, right? Odds are they're a fairly normal, even lovable person, who has bad voting habits. I have an inherited grandmother like that. Sweet woman. Raised her two granddaughters with about the lightest hand I've ever seen. Has people from every walk of life imaginable over for thanksgivings. And yet, there's a Romney sticker on the ass end of her SUV. She votes straight-ticket Republican and is probably hteonly person in our town who had a Keller sign in her yard.
Does the fact that my inherited grandmother is a decent, caring, thoughtful human being change the fact that the Republican platform is pretty much the absolute opposite of any of that? Nope. Despite my grandmother being a reliable Republican voter, the Republican party is still a corrupt and sociopath organization whose principles lie on exploiting the poor to benefit the rich and dragging the poor voters along for the ride by exploiting their fear of "the other." Granma Ruth isn't going to change any of that. Nor is your (possibly hypothetical) decent republican relative.
And if you run into someone who's talking about how much of a Republican they are, what do you do? Fall back on your knowledge of the Republican party, its philosophies and beliefs, and presume that the person in question supports that shit? or do you assume that they're babbling nonsense and are nothing like the philosophy they say they ?
In the same vein, do I think every self-proclaimed Zionist out there is "like a white KKK nationalist"? Nope. The law of odds is against such a premise, frankly. Hell, I'm sure there's at least one dude out there who insists he's a Zionist, knowing only that he really loves Bob Marley's "Zion Train."
If he exists - and out of 7.5 billion human beings, there's gotta be at least ONE - then there's bound to be plenty of decent, thoughtful, nice people who also call themselves Zionists.
That there are such people calling themselves Zionists does not actually change what Zionism is, however. Just as the decent Republicans out there don't change what Republicanism is.