Comment by weatherlite
2 days ago
Great, why don't we start with the United States which is the richest most privileged country in the world?
"Mexican Cession (1848): The most significant event was the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). Mexico lost the war, and through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, it was forced to cede a vast amount of territory to the United States. This territory included present-day California, Nevada, Utah, most of New Mexico and Arizona, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Texas had already declared independence from Mexico in 1836 and was annexed by the U.S. in 1845, a major cause of the war."
"Displacement and Dispossession: While the treaty promised to protect the property rights of Mexicans who stayed, in practice, many lost their land through legal maneuvering, fraud, or outright violence. This forced displacement would have driven some south to Mexico."
Whatever doesn't belong to Mexicans surely belongs to Indians.
Sounds like a good place to start. After that - Australia and Canada. Once that's done let's do Israel.
There are land-back movements in the US. In addition, all native Americans have US citizenship. If Israel gave citizenship, equal rights, and the right of return to all those that were displaced since the 1940s and their descendents, then I imagine a one-state solution would be possible and a lasting peace could be achieved.
> In addition, all native Americans have US citizenship.
Yeah easy to do since almost all of them were exterminated. Why shouldn't all their old lands be brought back to them? Why do they have to settle in a few tiny reservoirs?
What about all Mexicans ? Plenty of them would like to move to the U.S, and as we saw some of them have legitimate territorial claims - why won't you allow them - are you pro apartheid? Because that's what the word means - separation. Let me guess - it's way easier to abolish other people's countries than your own for the sake of impossibly high morals right? It's way harder when you have actual skin in the game.
Whataboutism is not an effective rhetoric device, and is unlikely to win any arguments nor to convince anyone. We can also talk about Tibetans who were annexed but not displaced, we can talk about Chagossians who were displaced but given citizenship. We can talk about Japanese Americans who were displaced, given the right of return, and payed reparations (in my opinion too small of a reparation). And we can even talk about Cyprus, I‘m not very well versed in that history, but I’m sure there is something to talk about there.
Point is human rights have been violated in multiple occasion throughout history, all around the world. We can talk about any of those all day, but it won‘t get us anywhere. Point is also that Israel is one of the current violator of human rights, and deserves to be called out as such, irregardless of other human rights violations throughout history. But the main point is Palestinians deserve to have their human rights, which they have been denied for 77 years, and are still being denied.
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