# Ethics of Israeli settlements **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 17, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116 "2010-09-17T19:15:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/41 "2010-09-17T22:59:19Z")
> [@yelimS](#): > > [ > It’s a bit late to clean up all that mess now. I don’t know much about Hawai’i, but I would hazard a guess that most people living in California, Texas and Alaska feel they belong to the US. What’s done is done, and frankly, we don’t have room for all of you back in Europe, even if it would be nice to give the native Americans their lands back. But it IS possible not to expand on Palestinian soil, because that’s happening right now. You might notice that conquering has generally gone down worldwide, because most nations are at least adolescent now. Horrible things happening in the past is no excuse to let them keep happening. Also, lead by example goes for Israelis, too, you know. That’s kind of convenient, though, isn’t it? “Oh, all the injustices **we’ve** committed, it’s too late to do anything about, but the injustices **you’ve** committed, you need to fix.” I’m not entirely seeing what Israel is doing as that unethical. It seems like the sequence of events is like this vis a vis the West Bank. 1. Israel declares independence. 2. Jordan, along with Israel’s other neighbors, invade it. 3. A ceasefire is declared, and Israel’s provisional borders are established on the cease fire line. Jordan controls the West Bank 4. Jordan annexes the West Bank, grants citizenship to the inhabitants. 5. Jordan invades Israel 6. Jordan loses and Israel occupies the West Bank. 7. Israelis start setting up settlements in the West Bank. 8. Jordan renounces its right to the West Bank and strips the inhabitants of their citizenship So, the West Bank doesn’t belong to Jordan anymore. They renounced their rights. The West Bank Palestinians don’t have an independent country, so it can’t belong to them. So, who does it belong to? It seems like it belongs to Israel. They won it in a war they didn’t even start, and Jordan has renounced its claim. So what’s unethical about Israelis settling there? It might be bad policy, in that it looks like the Palestinians are going to get their own state someday, and that land will have to be evacuated by the settlers. And its certainly bad for Israel’s international reputation. But those are practical considerations, not ethical ones. And here’s the thing. There’s no Palestinian state yet, so we don’t know what the Israeli-Palestinian border is going to be. We know what the current Green Line border is; what the ceasefire line is, but that doesn’t mean that’s what the final border will be. So we don’t even know that all of these settlements are on Palestinian land. Some of the land the settlements is on might well be Israeli land when Palestine is created. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/42 "2010-09-17T23:01:21Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@John\_Mace](#): > > > > The point of debate here is whether or not the private, Israeli citizens are criminals, as you have claimed. > > It was not a defense for Nazi war criminals that killing Jews was legal under Nazi law. How many private citizens were convicted of war crimes in the Germany after the war? I’ll also note that all these Israeli “criminals”, including government officials and politicians travel freely to Europe without fear of being arrested and tried by the ICC. Why do you thin that is? Besides, it’s not like the Nuremberg trials were universally accepted as just. There was a lot of [criticism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials#Criticism). Not to mention the absurd comparison of living in an West Bank Settlement to killing people. So, I’m still waiting for your cite, not a lot of hand waving and Godwinizing. ---
**Author:** ![yelimS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/54ee81/32.png) [@yelimS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yelimS)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/43 "2010-09-17T23:01:24Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > > [@yelimS](#): > > > > It’s a bit late to clean up all that mess now. I don’t know much about Hawai’i, but I would hazard a guess that most people living in California, Texas and Alaska feel they belong to the US. What’s done is done, and frankly, we don’t have room for all of you back in Europe, even if it would be nice to give the native Americans their lands back. But it IS possible not to expand on Palestinian soil, because that’s happening right now. You might notice that conquering has generally gone down worldwide, because most nations are at least adolescent now. Horrible things happening in the past is no excuse to let them keep happening. Also, lead by example goes for Israelis, too, you know. > > You don’t think most of the people liviing the settlements think they belong to Israel? As for it being too late, what was the cut-off date? Just because Europe and the Americas had their wars a relatively long time ago doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to operate on their our time table. > > I’ve already said I think Israel should stop building settlements. But that’s purely from a practical standpoint as an effort to bring peace. Ethically, I think they’re just doing what everyone else does or has done. They are under no more ethical obligation to stop than the Brits are to get out of Northern Ireland or th US out of Hawai’i. There’s no cut-off date. If we were hundreds of years back, I’d be against Brits invading Northern Ireland, US invading Hawai’i, Europeans invading America, and all sorts of adventurism. Except I probably wouldn’t, since the sort of understanding required to see how such acts are wrong, had to evolve. But now it has, and we can see why taking other people’s lands from them, or even provoking them in case of disputed territories, is wrong. It’s not to late to stop further settlement - it is too late for the US to get out of California and Texas. Perhaps not Hawai’i, but I don’t know anything about the situation there. You even say you agree that the settlements are disturbing the peace process, why do you have to defend them with a kid’s argument like “I want what he’s got?” Perhaps you won’t mind me coming to hunt you down with a spear - our stone age ancestors all did. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/44 "2010-09-17T23:14:26Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > It was not a defense for Nazi war criminals that killing Jews was legal under Nazi law. Oh please . I rather doubt there ever was a law in Germany that legalized the killing of Jews. ---
**Author:** ![yelimS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/54ee81/32.png) [@yelimS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yelimS)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/45 "2010-09-17T23:14:32Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > That’s kind of convenient, though, isn’t it? “Oh, all the injustices **we’ve** committed, it’s too late to do anything about, but the injustices **you’ve** committed, you need to fix.” It can perfectly well be both convenient and right. I would have said the same if I were living in some imaginary country where none of my ancestors had ever gone to war against anyone. Also, I’m not part of “we” in that sentence - I’ve never endorsed invasion, even though my ancestors did. And what they did was just as wrong, in fact worse, than settling on the West Bank, but I can’t really unrape any long dead nuns or depillage the villages, can I? If I were considering settling on the west bank, however, I could perfectly well decide that it would be unethical and not do it, to prevent further upsetting of the situation - even if I thought I had some claim to living there just because some people, now long dead and gone, who incidentally used to wave the same sort of flag as I do once fought over it and happened to win, ie kill more people than the others. ETA: The flaw in your reasoning should become apparent once you rephrase the sentence to “Oh, all the injustices we’ve committed, it’s too late to do anything about, but the injustices **you are committing, you need to end**.” What’s more - whatever injustices committed in the past that it’s _not_ to late to do anything about, should be done something about. They’re just not the topic here. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/46 "2010-09-17T23:22:38Z")
> [@yelimS](#): > > The question was raised in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=578385), and partly continued in [this one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=578606), but it seems to me that the discussion drowned in all the name-calling and fuss about legalities. > **Diogenes** claims that the settlements are clear-cut illegalities (cites would be nice), and **Bryan Ekers** and **John Mace** disputes this (cites would be nice). Legalities aside, the real question remains unanswered - how does one defend these settlements, frowned upon by most of the world as they are? Even if it’s not illegal for individuals to settle, it’s still morally relevant that it’s illegal for Israel to allow the settlements. This would be a very interesting debate, if we didn’t just keep arguing about why not debate this. There is nothing illegal about how the Israeli government is administering the territories. The have the right, because the territories were abandoned by every other entity that could administer them. That is why there hasn’t been any proposal for a UN resolution to wrest the territories away. Reality rules. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/47 "2010-09-17T23:55:22Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > It was not a defense for Nazi war criminals that killing Jews was legal under Nazi law. > > Oh please . I rather doubt there ever was a law in Germany that legalized the killing of Jews. I gather there were laws specifically _against_ this sort of thing, and I’m sure they looked all pretty and official and binding written down in numerous leather-bound law books. I rather suspect Auschwitz didn’t have a law library on site… So, basically, I don’t get what the point is of this Nazi invocation. It probably _was_ against the law to kill Jews, concerned as the Germans were about keeping up the appearance of being a civilized modern nation, but the law did permit Jews to be “confined”, “detained”, “quarantined”, “evacuated”, “concentrated”… and I’m sure any number of things to get them rounded up and out of sight and delivered into the hands of people who cared nothing about law but were interested solely in the industrial process of corpse and ash production. ---
**Author:** ![godix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/278dde/32.png) [@godix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/godix)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/48 "2010-09-18T00:11:08Z")
Ethically speaking, there needs to be given some consideration to what the alternatives are. Now I think most reasonable people will agree what Israel is doing to the Palestinians is bad. I don’t see anyone actually arguing persecuting a group, denying them rights, repeatedly invading their homes, etc is good. We can argue if it’s justified or ethical, but I don’t think there’s an argument to be made it isn’t bad. So lets look at the alternatives. Israel could withdraw from the disputed areas entirely. However, part of why Israel wants to keep control of those areas is that if they don’t, they are attacked from them. Despite that, Israel has withdrawn from disputed areas before. In the semi-recent past they left Lebanon and the Gaza strip. Both areas were subsequently used in attacks against Israel. Clearly Israel’s fears are right, if gives back disputed land then that land will be used to stage attacks on Israel. So which is worse, a people denied their rights under Israeli rule or a nation repeatedly being attacked, including several major wars? Israel could give Palestinians full rights, equal to Israelis. Which would mean Palestinians would outnumber Israelis in elections and there goes the Jewish state. That may or may not be a bad thing, depends on your perspective. However, lets ask ourselves which is worse: giving control to a people who have vowed for decades to exterminate a minority and have actively worked to do so, or leaving control with a minority which for decades has refrained from genocidal massacres when they have the capability to do so? Israel could just deport the Palestinians. Many nations in the area say they are very concerned about Palestinian well being. So Israel could just line em up and send em to those other nations. Not ideal obviously, but at least it ends the violence. Except none of those other nations which express so much concern are willing to take in the Palestinians. Several of those nations have been even crueler to Palestinians than Israel has. So which is worse, things as they are now or a forced mass extradition of a people to countries which don’t want them and treat them even harsher? Israel could try negotiating with the Palestinians to find a peaceful solution. Which they’ve been doing for decades. You’d think if it was going to work then it would have by now, but it is probably the closest to ideal solution ethically speaking so it’s worth trying. Fortunately, Israel is still trying it. So, ethically speaking, I mostly side with Israel. I hate what they’re doing, if I could think of any real alternative then I was support that, and I won’t even attempt to argue what they do is good. However, every alternative produces results even worse than the status quo. There’s only one exception, and that one exception is constantly being explored but has yet to work out. ---
**Author:** ![Enuma\_Elish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5e9695/32.png) [@Enuma\_Elish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enuma_Elish)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/49 "2010-09-18T01:03:39Z")
[QUOTE=Acid Lamp;12926971 So if Canada decides to annnex the great lakes states, kick everyone out and can hold the territory, you’re good with that?[/QUOTE] You grossly underestimate the collective strength of the National Guard units of the Great Lakes States. Canada wouldn’t dare invade us. They know that we know where their breweries are! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/50 "2010-09-18T01:15:29Z")
> [@yelimS](#): > > This would be a very interesting debate, if we didn’t just keep arguing about why not debate this. Here’s my view on “why not debate this.” It’s a completely meaningless thing to debate. When someone says “action x is unethical,” all they are saying is “I don’t like action x.” Therefore, debating whether action x is ethical or not is the exact same thing as debating whether tomatoes are tasty or not. It’s a pointless exercise. People can disagree, and that’s OK. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/51 "2010-09-18T02:01:36Z")
Few things in this word are are good or evil without qualification and those few evils are commonly connected to Israel. The settlements are one of these. **Rand Rover** has a point of course that ethics are indeterminate. For example the argument is before us that settlements are OK because Jews/Israelis can only be asked to meet a much lower standard than anyone else. But we do not need to get into this because as \*\* R R \*\* intimates we have laws to deal with these cases where ethics are unhelpful, laws which in this case are clear. The West Bank is under military occupation. The occupiers obligation is to preserve property therein. Looters of the property are to be shot on sight. That means settlers. Despite a campaign to obscure this basic truth it remains clear. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/52 "2010-09-18T02:55:29Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > The occupiers obligation is to preserve property therein. Looters of the property are to be shot on sight. That means settlers. Despite a campaign to obscure this basic truth it remains clear. It remains clear that you’re wrong. Settlers don’t “loot property”. The settlements are built on unoccupied land, and nobody’s property is being picked up and carried off. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/53 "2010-09-18T03:07:16Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > [QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] > It was not a defense for Nazi war criminals that killing Jews was legal under Nazi law. That’s 'cause, you know, they LOST THE FREAKING WAR. Had they won, there wouldn’t have been trials of Nazis for war crimes…instead, there might have been Brits and Americans being tried for war crimes due to bombing of civilians. And you can be sure that Stalin et al would have been put up against a wall or shown a rope for ‘war crimes’ had Germany won. [/quote] So you’re saying if Germany hadn’t lost then the holocaust wouldn’t have been criminal? Are you serious? ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/54 "2010-09-18T03:12:50Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I just don’t understand why every other country on earth gets a pass at having done the annexation thing in the past, but only Israel gets heat for it. Two others off the top of my head: China over [ul] [li]Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia and Manchuria. [/li][li]Indonesia finally[/li][/ul]got the boot in East Timor only a few years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/55 "2010-09-18T03:21:38Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@xtisme](#): > > > > That’s 'cause, you know, they LOST THE FREAKING WAR. Had they won, there wouldn’t have been trials of Nazis for war crimes…instead, there might have been Brits and Americans being tried for war crimes due to bombing of civilians. And you can be sure that Stalin et al would have been put up against a wall or shown a rope for ‘war crimes’ had Germany won. > > So you’re saying if Germany hadn’t lost then the holocaust wouldn’t have been criminal? Are you serious? Define “criminal.” ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/56 "2010-09-18T03:25:40Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] So you’re saying if Germany hadn’t lost then the holocaust wouldn’t have been criminal? Are you serious? [/QUOTE] Yeah…essentially that’s exactly what I’m saying. It wouldn’t have been counted a ‘war crime’, and no Nazis would have been strung up (not for that anyway…I have no doubts that Hitler or whoever was in charge would have done another Long Knives event at some point, since that was just how they rolled). But ok, you disagree. Lay out for me a scenario where Germany wins and the folks (including Hitler) would have been tried and executed for the crime that was the Holocaust. Would the Germans have done this themselves? Of course, this is all academic, since it’s only you and possibly Sevastopol who see some sort of similarity between Nazi Germany killing millions of Jews, and Jews building settlements on land that they won through force of arms. I’m sure it appeals to your sense of irony, but it’s not exactly on the same plane, even if we want to say that the Jews are stealing the land and forcing the indigenous inhabitants off it at bayonet point. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/57 "2010-09-18T03:35:15Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > > [@John\_Mace](#): > > > > I just don’t understand why every other country on earth gets a pass at having done the annexation thing in the past, but only Israel gets heat for it. > > Two others off the top of my head: > China over [ul] > [li]Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia and Manchuria. [/li][li]Indonesia finally[/li][/ul]got the boot in East Timor only a few years ago. Nobody’s condemning China in the UN or engaging in widespread boycotts against it because of Tibet. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/58 "2010-09-18T04:02:01Z")
We also went to war to force Iraq out of Kuwait. Israel is the only country in the world that gets special rights to practice apartheid, ethnic cleansing and aggressive expansion with the full blessing and economic assistance of the west. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/59 "2010-09-18T04:18:42Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > We also went to war to force Iraq out of Kuwait. Israel is the only country in the world that gets special rights to practice apartheid, ethnic cleansing and aggressive expansion with the full blessing and economic assistance of the west. Israel doesn’t practice apartheid, ethnic cleansing and aggressive expansion, and I’m pretty sure you know that. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116/60 "2010-09-18T04:24:16Z")
I’m pretty sure you know it damn well does. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-of-israeli-settlements/554116.md?page=4)