The thread about the fate of Jerusalem got me thinking: why is the state of Israel’s existence justified in the first place? The invention of the Israeli state has led to 50+ years of interminable strife in the whole region, with (arguably) no end in sight.
The problem is remarkably similar to the results of European colonization all over the world. Europeans drew boundries wherever they went that bore little or no resemblence to the cultural realities of a given area, leading to horrible conflicts once the Europeans had left but their borders remained (Rwanda and Burundi are prime examples of this). The Israeli case is, in one sense, even more outrageously inappropriate since the British went out of their way to create such a situation.
I’ll grant that Judaism is different from most religions in the sense that it has become an ethnicity as well as a religion. Still, the Jewish situation is not unique, and applying the logic of the Zionist movement to all comparable cases would prove disastrous and unworkable.
As for the Arabs’ alleged aggression and attrocities, no one’s saying that they’ve been civil about the whole mess, but they have a legitimate historical beef and have been forced to the bargaining table not by sound logic or universal notions of justice, but by their own ineptitude on the battlefield. Imagine the American reaction if the U.N. decided to give the Black Hills in South Dakota back to the Sioux and Cheyenne (and the Indians seem to have a more legitimate, or at least more recent, claim to their land than the Israelis have to the Holy Land). The Arab’s insistence that the Jews keep their distance may not be the noblest position, but their anger is understandable.
I could go on (and get really offensive), but I think I’ll wait to see the responses.
I don’t have the time to go into massive details, but let’s just say that there has been reasonably sized Jewish settlements in that area CONTINUOUSLY since around 1200 BC. That’s the right of prior claim.
During the end of the 1800s and the early 1900s, the quest for a return to the Jewish Homeland led to many immigrants coming to the area. They bought the land from the Arabs, who thought they were cheating the Jews by selling worthless swamp and arid lands at high prices. The Jewish settlers farmed the land, irrigated the land, and brought prosperity to the land.
The decision to create Israel as a state in 1948 was mostly an affirmation of what had already happened over centuries… and certainly over the preceding 100 years.
You might as well ask what right Khazakstan has to be independent. Or what justifies the existence of the United States.
I’d have to agree with Michael Moore and say, “why didn’t we give them Bavaria?” I mean, Israel is a desert surrounded by people who really really hate them and have tried numerous times to kill them all. Bavaria is nice countryside rich with resourcess, surrounded by people who only tried to kill them all once (ok, I know, not a fair comparison on scale there at all). Still, the Germans have been pretty good about the whole “we fucked up royally” thing–we’d have actually be punishing the country by taking away that part after WWII. Frankly, if I were jewish, I’d probably feel a whole lot more secure next to Germany right now than next to Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and thousands of really pissed-off Palestinians.
This is of course, partly meant in jest; it does, however have a point (just don’t want anyone to take this completely the wrong way).
Being strongly pro-Israel, I agree with CK and basically the whole idea that “hey, who needs to justify it? It’s there now.”
But also, it’s there because nobody has been able to take it from them. Even though they’re vastly outnumbered, they have consistently repelled every military action against them.
Not to disagree with Michael Moore (Who’s right so often, even I feel intimidated ), but the reason the state of Israel wasn’t created in Bavaria was simply Israel wasn’t in Bavaria. Israel, to the Jewish people, is their homeland, a place where they lived thousands of years ago until various factors forced them out. I can’t imagine they would have been happy with ‘New Jerusalem’ on the Turks and Caicos.
There was a feeling at the time that given that the region had a couple of thousand years of continuous strife and couple of thousand more stored up, no one would notice an extra 50 years.
-a short hijack to address a tangent mentioned in the OP-
[quote]
The problem is remarkably similar to the results of European colonization all over the world. Europeans drew boundries wherever they went that bore little or no resemblence to the cultural realities of a given area, leading to horrible conflicts once the Europeans had left but their borders remained (Rwanda and Burundi are prime examples of this).[paste]
it is true that colonial boundaries imposed by europeans have created a great deal of trouble for Africa, but Rwanda and Burundi are not examples of this. They are among the very few places where traditional boundaries were followed. The ethnic horrors there have their roots in other causes.
-end of hijack-
Dealing with the main issue; I agree that the real justification is that Israel has existed there in that land long enough for several generatiosn to have had no other home.
Okay, let’s see how well they do with no US/UN support. We can still sell them things, but we no longer risk our lives to fight Arabs there. Israel may be tenacious, but it’s only so big. If everyone else decided to gang up on them, which they may well do, there’d be one less Jewish state on Earth. And probably a cloud of fallout a mile thick over the entire Middle East.
Problem with your theory Derelth: Israel makes better weapons than anybody else except America. Also, they have the best spy operation, the third-best air force, and are masters of what we regard as terroristic tactics.
They already have had the entire Arab world jump on them. Israel wound up capturing parts of Jordan, Syria Egypt and Lebanon in a matter of 6 days. If they were go to war against Israel today, it may take, hmm, about 20 days for them to take over the entire Middle East, and there would have burning oil fields all over the place. The US is as restraining them from doing that as much as helping them.
I remember a discussion I had witha pro-palistinian. he asked me if I could think of “just one thing that gives Isreal the right to that land”, and I said “Well, their tanks are parked there; and in the long run, that’s the only ‘right’ that really counts”. It is their homeland. They have a right to it. They also won it by their sweat, tears and blood. What else do you need?
Now as it is the palestinians homeland, too, the Israeli have to share, and be “reasonable”.
I don’t buy the notion of prior claim. A brief look at the history of humankind with the incessant migrations, conquests, diasporas, colonizations, mixings, and so on makes the idea of prior claim as a principle for parceling out land to particular ethnic groups ridiculous, IMO.
I give more credence to the idea that Israel’s existence is derived from the pragmatic ability to exist than with any abstract “right”. I’m not sure I’d extend a “right” to exist to any nation! What the heck is that supposed to mean, anyway?
Where does, say, China derive its right to exist if not from the fact that the people living there have decided that they constitute a nation called “China”? I guess that’s the closest I can imagine to a nation’s “right to exist”: the group of people who occupy a land have a feeling of nationality identity. Israel’s problem is, or at least was before partition, that it was a nation where a large percentage of the people under the control of the national government did not have any such feeling of identity. I suppose that made their right to exist questionable. Now with the partition, that may be different, but I’m not sure just how things work over there anymore. The whole region is AFU now and I don’t pretend to have any insight into what’s going to screw it up next.
This is an interesting mental exercise - justifying the existance of one’s own country. I bet none of you Americans have ever had to do that! Still, I think I’ll stay out of this argument, if only because I seem to have enough non-Israeli support. It will be interesting to see where this goes.
A few notes:
We’re very greatful for U.S. military assistance (thanks again, guys!), but the fact is that we won the wars in 1948, 1956 and 1967 without any foreign help, and the American airift in 1973 mainly served to counter a much more massive Soviet airlift to Syria and Egypt. If U.S. support ever stopped, we’d be very unhappy, and we’d probably have to tighten our belt a bit, but we’d manage.
The difference between us and the Crusaders is that they acted as colonial governments, much like the British and French in Africa. There were never more than a few thousand Europeans around here at any one time; they tilled no fields, founded no cities, did not establish trade and commerce. The Crusaders came as feudal lords, not citizens. They laid down no roots, and were thus swept away.
There are currently over five million Jews in Israel. We have agriculture, industry, a active stock-market, arts and literature, and more start-up companies per capita than any other nation on the planet. Most Israelis - incuding yours truly - were born in Israel. We’re here to stay.
And if you say that no Arabs can be pushed away for long, then have a talk with the Spanish.
For the record, most Israelis agree that the Palestinians have a right to their own country. The only question is will such a state endanger the existance of our own. We feel no need to act objectively - like any other nation, our first obligation is our own ass. If we can work out a deal which guarantees our security, great. If not, then sorry. You’re welcome to fight us, but you’ll lose.
Let’s make that without any significant foriegn NATIONAL help. There were massive donations from private sources here in the USA, and elsewhere. I beleive by 1967 Israel had also started getting US aid, but I am not sure. And I think for the '48 the brits had given you folks some outdated weapons. Still, without ANY foriegn NATIONAL aid, I believe you would have made it anyway.
You’r right, Daniel. I stand corrected. It would be presumptuous of me to claim we did everything on our own.
By the way, the British spent moast of 1947-1948 shooting at Jews (as well as at Arabs - they were pretty even-handed). I doubt they gave us much weaponry, although we may have seized some stuff they left behind. No, besides an extensive backyard industry, most arms used during the War of Independence were in fact Czech - a little-known but fscinating bit of history. They were trying to unload a whole bunch of leftover WWII weaponry, and we basicaly bought them out on credit.
), but the reason the state of Israel wasn’t created in Bavaria was simply Israel wasn’t in Bavaria. Israel, to the Jewish people, is their homeland, a place where they lived thousands of years ago until various factors forced them out. I can’t imagine they would have been happy with ‘New Jerusalem’ on the Turks and Caicos.