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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (120439)	11/26/2003 10:39:53 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

You know perfectly well that the Jews a) had some problems living in Europe, since most of the Europeans wanted them out I don’t see how that justifies an arbitrary declaration of sovereignty over an occupied area, against the wishes of the prior inhabitants. It’s noble to offer the oppressed refuge in your own house, somewhat less noble to offer somebody else’s house as a refuge – especially if those taking refuge have expressed their intention to kick out the prior occupants and take over b) did not take the Torah as a land deed, but tried to buy a country in a run down neck of the woods. It may have been run down, but it was still somebody else’s home. The claim that the Zionists wanted to “buy a country” is of course farcical. The intent – expressed clearly in Herzl’s diaries, among other places – was to buy enough land to permit the settlement of a substantial number of Jews, and them petition the British for sovereignty (the British had already given clear indications of sympathy). There was never much doubt about the plans for the existing population – a draft charter prepared by Herzl in 1901 would have given the settlers the right to deport them. To whence they would be deported was not, of course, specified. The idea that the local Arabs were an existing population that made a sovereign nation whose rights had to be respected certainly didn't occur to anyone at the time, not the Jews, not the Brits, not the Turks, not even the local Arabs Whether or not they were a sovereign nation is completely irrelevant - how can one justify the notion that the rights of people who are not a sovereign nation need not be respected? They knew what was happening and they fought against it. What less could you expect, and what more could you ask? Is it permissible to expel people who don’t belong to a sovereign nation? The Zionists weren’t a sovereign nation either – why was their claim to sovereignty given priority? To prefer the rights of Palestinians to the land of Israel at this point is indeed to prefer the rights of refugees to return to lands neither they nor their fathers have every seen based on sentimental attachment - the exact same right you consider laughable when applied to the Jews. That’s not what I said. I said that if the Zionists are going to assert that they had a right to return after 2000 years, they can hardly deny that the Palestinians have at least an equal right after 60. I did not say that I preferred the rights of the Palestinians, only that their rights were by any objective standard equal. The argument I made was that the whole notion of a “right” to the territory based on the idea of “a people coming home” is ridiculous. Israels’s claim to the land is based simply on the fact that they had the strength to take it and hold it. That being the case, you can hardly fault the Palestinians for trying to assert a similar claim through similar means. My argument was simply a response to a preposterous notion proposed by the essay you quoted – the notion that the settlement of Israel was “the expression of a people coming home”. As long as the Israelis adhere to this myth, there is no chance whatsoever of a settlement. As a poet once said… I and the public know What all schoolchidren learn. Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return.