Comment by siltcakes
3 days ago
Returning land to the people it was brutally taken from is not “ethic cleansing”. The right of return is still valid.
3 days ago
Returning land to the people it was brutally taken from is not “ethic cleansing”. The right of return is still valid.
While I agree that the land has been taken by force, unfortunately returning the land is no longer an acceptable option.
The land of Israel has been developed in such a way that it has become completely different from what it was one century ago, and there is no doubt that its previous owners could have never succeeded to do a similar development, due to a combination of lacking both the financial means and the skilled labor capabilities.
While I believe that returning the land would be unjust at this time, I also believe that the never-ending war between Israelis and their neighbors can be stopped in only 2 ways, one of which is not acceptable in the modern world and which would bring eternal shame on Israel if they would ever succeed to realize it.
The second option is for Israel to do the same that Israel has demanded and has obtained from states like Germany. This means that Israel should admit that they have occupied the land by force and they should repair this by paying a just compensation to the remaining descendants of the former inhabitants, exactly like Israel has received from countries responsible for the oppression against Jews during WWII.
You need to take into account that Zionists are aging out of the population. The younger generations in the West absolutely support military action against Israel. If it was taken by force, it can be returned by force. I would definitely support US military action against Israel to defeat Zionism.
> younger generations in the West absolutely support military action against Israel
The West–and America in particular–has always had a contingent that believes in drawing foreign borders through force. Particularly in the Middle East. It goes back to Sykes and Picot.
I wouldn't put a war with Israel out of the cards in my lifetime. But it’s not happening in the next two decades—our neo-imperial ambitions have found purchase closer to home.
Do you not understand the irony of what you are saying?
I’m speaking historically, not ironically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun
No land was stolen. All land was purchased before the war. All land taken after wars was taken after wars started by the Arabs.
That's always been the case with nations who lost wars. Germany lost the war and lost land because of it. Should Germany take back land that was "brutally taken from them"?
Or should they maybe just accept that they shouldn't have started the war? The Germans certainly have accepted that.
If a war has finished, should the victor still be able to keep taking land off the loser? What’s the duration of that right?
> If a war has finished, should the victor still be able to keep taking land off the loser? What’s the duration of that right?
Practically? In 2026? As long as you can keep it. We're back to deciding borders through force versus treaty. Which, based on the rhetoric around Gaza, is ambiguously worse.
Largely yes. That is a risk of starting a war.
If an aggressor is defeated, the victor gets to make demands and set terms for ending hostilities.
1 reply →
At some point, all land has been taken either by direct force, or by the threat of force.
All land, everywhere. It is NOT a natural right that anyone owns any land, nor that any countries exist. That is something everyone's ancestors fought each other for and created as a system of human society.
Of course that's written in the past tense. Facing reality rather than the fantasy presented in history books and documentaries; not only did our ancestors do that, it hasn't stopped. The bloodshed still happens today in so many places. Those we might hear about in the news, and others forgotten even in the news because it is considered normal and thus ignored.
We are not yet a species of plenty. Scarcity still exists, at the very least in the real form of land where people want to be.
Seems overstated and contrived to use 'all land'.
~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica
There was no one to "take it from" and when it was divided up by "Great powers" that was more by competition (race to open routes) and some notion of good sport:
~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Antarctica
Then there are the more remote parts of Australia, nominally "taken" by the English (despite not being reached for some time) and later returned (post Mabo) to the descendants of what seems likely to be first settlers some tens of thousands of years past (the multiple waves of settlement arguments and other aspects of the History Wars in the Black Armband / Quadrant circles are looking thin in these days of genetic markers).
But that one's a complex can of worms that takes some time to unpack.
> At some point, all land has been taken either by direct force, or by the threat of force
You're broadly correct. But there is land that was settled within the historical record.
The Levant, obviously, is not that. It was settled prior to the historical record. It is the coast closest to our cradle of civilisation. Every human with ancestry outside Africa has some sort of claim to lineage to that land.
You're sort of making the point though.
'within the historical record' -- No one still makes a big deal about it because it happened long enough ago.
There are places that are not widely contested today, generally most of their present borders are assumed to be generally stable. Or places with obvious natural geographic bounds and mostly internal conflict through history.
Yet at some point were those places not battled over? Even the internal conflicts count, even if as a whole the majority of a country's population of today considers themselves of one people.
The regions that remain in conflict are considered such largely because of the people who have, at some point, lived in an area long enough for it to become a notable part of their history, they have not unified as a people OF a place, but as a distinct ethnic group (be that religious or otherwise) who happened to have at some time lived in some area.
They have all been 'wronged', and all* (generally an assumption but likely to be true) have 'wronged' others (at least in 'aggressive self defense' if not in some other way) at some point.
-- put into a metaphor --
There's a public park owned by the people (earth) which has a single tree that many children have made memories with. However two or more groups of childhood friends want to continue making memories with that tree and disagree with each other and how each other interact with the tree.
What is the solution?
The evil answer from a fiction writer is to destroy the tree to remove the problem. However that does not make a right.
Using any method to give the tree to one group would be a wrong to the other groups.
The groups cannot agree on how to share, nor how to all be full adults and make memories with the tree in peaceful coexistence.
Thus, lacking an accepted answer, the problem remains unresolved.
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