| I decided to lay aside a detailed exchange for the moment, and to challenge a conceptual error. The territory of Palestine was held by the Byzantine Empire, then passed between various Muslim and Christian princes during the period of the Crusades, then was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire until the end of the First World War. The Ottoman sultan threw in his lot with Germany and Austria, and therefore was subject to punitive measures as an enemy power after the war. The British and French were given administrative power in various territories that had been Ottoman, under the mandate of the League of Nations. It was under this legal arrangement that the British, for a time, looked favorably upon Zionism. The United Nations, as the successor to the League of Nations, proposed the partition scheme, and sanctioned the idea of an independent Israel. Now, you may call this "colonialist", but it all took place under the auspices of legitimate international bodies and in accordance with international law as it existed at the time. To invalidate the state of Israel on that basis would be like saying that Idi Amin was right to dispossess and force out of Uganda persons of East Indian origin, who had entered that territory under the colonial authority of the British, or like saying that the Louisiana territory should be returned to France, since Napoleon was a dictator without the standing to sell it to the United States. We cannot unsettle all legal transactions because they were made under different rules than we currently operate under. |
