# Israel and Civilian Kills **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 9, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-and-civilian-kills/538840 "2010-05-09T22:10:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 298
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-and-civilian-kills/538840/298 "2010-05-19T19:21:11Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > The definition that literally the entire rest of the world uses for determining refugee status defines a refugee as an _individual_ (not all of his descendants in perpetuity) who is “outside the country of his former habitual residence”. whereas Palestinian “refugees” are actual refugees plus “descendants of fathers fulfilling the definition [of a refugee]”. … The Palestinian refugee crisis is unique, that’s why the UN (whose definition of Refugee you seem to be adopting) created a special agency to deal specifically with Palestinian refugees. > [@](#): > > Yet again, you can’t “repatriate” someone who wasn’t a citizen in the first place, you can’t claim that people have a right to move back to land that they didn’t own in the first place and your logic for assigning “refugee” status means that if, 100 years from now, Lebanon still kept Palestinians in refugee camps, that someone born 150 years after the '48 war… would be a refugee of that war. I believe that is correct. If in the year 2100, people who used to live in Palestine (or their descendants) are still sitting in refugee camps because of the war of 1948, they would still be refugees of that war. If they assimilate or emigrate somewhere else and start a new life then they are no longer refugees but until someone steps up and takes them in (as the arab league seems to be contemplating at the moment), they are refugees. They are refugees from what is now Israel and it doesn’t matter whether you think they were ever citizens of Israel, that is where they came from. > [@](#): > > Right, and if Mexico denied you entry at the border…, …it seems you didn’t read the Ottoman Land Law I pointed out. communal ownership wasn’t valid for about 100 years before '48… My point was that land ownership isn’t really that relevant. If I had a 1 year lease on my home in the United States and because of war I fled to Canada and sat in a refugee camp, I would be a refugee from America regardless of my citizenship or whether my lease had expired. > [@](#): > > No, I’m not. A sovereign government would have to be able to provide a credible monopolization on the use of force. Hrmm, well, OK if they can exercise sovereign police powers I think it is reasonable to burden them with at least some responsibility. But aren’t you worried that the Palestinians will use their newfound police powers to launch attacks on Israel? > [@](#): > > Correct. The leap you’re making is to go from there, to “so they (or their great grandchildren) have a right to live in Israel, get Israeli citizenship and live on land there.” Well, I don’t know that they have to get immediate citizenship and I certainly don’t think everyone is entitled to land but they do get to live in Israel if they want, you don’t get to wait until the refugees die and then claim there are no more refugees when all the descendants of those initial refugees are still sitting in refugee camps. > [@](#): > > I just cited the UN’s own report. You cited it? Can you provide a link? The same UN that has a special agency for Palestinian refugees, the same UN that has a special definition for Palestinian refugees, the same UN that supports the right of return? > [@](#): > > Yet again, please learn the facts at hand. The British violated the BD with Churchill’s White Paper of 1922… Riiiight so when the Brits issued the 1937 white papers the Zionists got all upset because… Have you actually read the Balfour declaration because you seem to be reading several passages into it that don’t exist and reading out some words that are actually there. > [@](#): > > Fiction. The British supported a Jewish national home, in words only How did the Jewish population expand so rapidly in Palestine if British support was in words only? Did they have to get their army to drive out the Palestinians to make room for Jews before you think they actually did something real? > [@](#): > > 5 years. After which point they knuckled under to Arab pressure and put severe restrictions on Jewish immigration (for reasons they’d later admit were simply wrong) and then did their best to keep Jews who were fleeing the Holocaust out of the region and imprisoned them even after the UN partition vote and even after Israel already existed as a sovereign state. > We’ve been over this. I’m looking at the Jewish population charts during the period between 1917 and 1947 and either the majority of Jews in palestine were illegal immigrants or there was in fact significant jewish immigration and you are simply mischaracterizing the facts. I wonder which it is? > [@](#): > > It’s rather odd for you to provide text proving that I was 100% correct… You are holding the Brits to YOUR interpretation of THEIR words. > [@](#): > > I haven’t called you stupid, and it is rather odd of you to call the actual facts “rewritten”. Again, I don’t have a problem in principle with you Witnessing, but it’s a bit silly for you to allege that all the facts which contradict your narrative must be “rewritten”. Well ignorant and disingenuous at the very least. That seems to be your fallback position. > [@](#): > > Like the cite I provided that you’re ignoring… while demanding a cite? /sigh. Once again, I don’t think land ownership really matters when trying to resolve the refugee issue (it might matter in terms of reparations but thats a separate matter). But if you are going to hang your hat on land ownership please provide a cite that Palestinians did not own land. > [@](#): > > Because only mulk was privately owned and could not be taken away by the state. So? Fee simple is not the only form of land ownership. Even Fee simple is subject to condemnation, property rights are not nearly as cut and dried as you think they are. Even in the US where property rights are fairly well defined, things can get very very sticky. I still think this is a BS line of argument but it is especially BS because it is based on such a contrived distinction. > [@](#): > > The Arab states did not immediately attack Israel after the Partition plan. They attacked Israel after Israel declared independence. In the context of my post wtf difference does that make? My point was that Israel was (at least in part) created by the UN when almost every nation in the world approved the plan. > [@](#): > > you can Witness for your narrative I have no skin in this game, I am about as objective third party as it gets. Can you say the same? Why would I try to evangelize anyone? I have no reason to approach this issue with a specific result in mind, do you? > [@](#): > > This is what I mean when I talk about disingenuous arguments. I just quoted exactly what you said, and what you said it in response to. Rather obviously: > “when it was pointed out how the BD wsa violated by immigration restrictions, you responded and implied that anybody was saying that the BD itself attempted to limit Jewish immigration.” > > You’re challenging that saying that _you_ never claimed that the BD was an attempt to limit Jewish immigration when I just pointed out, and quoted you when you were implying that _other_ people said that. WTF are you getting at? I never claimed that the BD was an attempt to limit Jewish immigration, why the heck would I ever say that? > [@](#): > > Again this is fictional In your bizarro world, sure, I guess so. > [@](#): > > And as you yourself have already cited, the partition was drawn along ethnic majority lines and only 45% of the populace of the proposed Israeli state were Arabs. It is disingenuous for you now to claim that “most” were Arabs. WTF!?!? MOST OF PALESTINE WAS ARAB not most of the jewish part of the partition. You read stuff into what I say a lot. I don’t know if its straw man or psychosis. If you see something that might be contradictory to something I said before then try to read it in a way that makes it not contradictory rather than looking for ways to pick apart the words I use to look for typos and loose language. > [@](#): > > I haven’t diminished the role anybody actually involved in the creation of Israel played. You’re just claiming that writing words on a piece of paper is something akin to a magic spell Words have meaning, they have significance. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/israel-and-civilian-kills/538840)._