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This paper will examine the relationship between morality, nationalism and state loyalty. Using contemporary Israel as a case study, the paper will explore the current right-wing Israeli opposition to Prime Minister Sharon's Gaza disengagement plan, questioning the process by which overall state identity is mediated through splinter ideologies, and the results of those competing nationalist visions for defining loyalty to carrying out state policies. Specifically, the paper will ask whether refusal to obey state-issued orders based on a particularist view of the national interest is, in any way, less moral than the traditional forms of conscientious objection exhibited in the context of opposing "unjust" wars. The issues also touch on the question of the relationship between individual and communal forms of ethics and morality in the context of the concept of the national interest. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On May 14, 2008 Israel turned sixty. For the Israelis, the object of memory was the 1948 ‘War of Independence,’ where a numerically smaller but technologically superior power faced down a larger but inferior one. For Palestinians, the memory of ‘al Nakba’ ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces the concept of rhetorical capital, which is defined as the aggregate persuasive resources inherent in entities. It then proceeds to apply the concept to the study of theories. By focusing on the democratic peace thesis and its mobilization by the Israeli right, the article seeks to identify which resources of theories? rhetorical capital render theories vulnerable to political and rhetorical abuses. It concludes by outlining some normative and metatheoretical implications. With reference to Robert Goodin?s conceptualization of ?task responsibility,? it is suggested that theoreticians have a collective moral responsibility to modify the work of theorizing in a way that would minimize theories? vulnerability to political and rhetorical abuses. This modification should begin by renouncing the objectivity claim and introducing a normative ethic as a substitute to the existing objective ethic: a normative ethic that acknowledges the moral basis of theories and commits theoreticians morally. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]