Israel's right to exist

Great Debates
41

Too many pople have this strange idea that “Palestine” was some sort of free and happy land. Then, after WW2 all kinds of vicious, hateful Jews showed up, took over, and killed them all or drove them out. I’m not certain who started this lie, but I’ve got a few suspects (both western and islamic).

Regardless, the situation was much more complicated. There were some Jews who did pretty bad things. The difference is, they were (fairly quickly, policitcally speaking), disavowed and forced to be still. Their Arab counterparts are still working.

And I’m pretty sure a famous American did say just that. Probably several. Though we may not have been the first.

42

Israel: “I say we have a right to exist!!”
Arab Countries: “Yeah?!! You and what army? Oh…the Israeli Army…”

43

Read the Wikipedia article about the British Mandate of Palestine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_mandate_of_Palestine

A combination of both Arab and Jewish terrorism made the British fed up with dealing with it, and handed the question over to the UN.

44

I SAID it was a problem with the logic.

Honestly, this is why I almost never come into this forum to even read the titles. I can’t stand the attacking nature of the arguements that happen here. It turns into the Pit Lite.

As naive as it may be, I meant only the political aspect. I know that many countries kept Jews as a practice out of the front of politics. But I have been led to believe that at the least, they were often involved in ways that did give them influence. I’ve always been told that one of the very ironic things about the Nazis is that so many of the Jews they attacked thought of themselves as Germans first.

What I meant about the “telling” comment, is that while there are other severe problems in other countries, I never hear about a philosophical debate as to whether there should even BE a political state in a form remotely resembling the current one. So the Denmark and Rwandan examples don’t apply. That’s the only aspect I was trying to address here.

This whole lack of ability to have a calm discussion just tells me again to not come back here. People assume the worst, instead of trying to work through to an agreement, hoping that the other person also is reasonable, until it has been firmly established otherwise.

45

Cardinal, you drew negative responses because your Op has holes in it and because Israel in particular is a hot button topic.

You are right about GD however, quite often it is less polite than the Pit.

Jim

46

And you were largely right, in terms of perhaps the past hundred years. Alessan, however, interpreted your remark as applying to diasporan Jews “over the past two millennia”. And on that time scale, it’s quite true that the average level of political and cultural integration of Jews into other countries (especially Christian countries) left a lot to be desired.

Well, one hears it sometimes from Indians when discussing Pakistan. The parallels between Pakistan and Israel are worth considering: both formed at almost exactly the same time out of a partitioned former British territory, both established partly as a protective homeland for what used to be a religious minority in the larger region, both surviving numerous conflicts and continuing tensions with their bigger neighbors.

But I think one of the biggest differences, and one of the driving forces behind the continued challenges to Israel’s “right to exist”, is the lack of a Palestinian state. There isn’t a comparable displaced population next to Pakistan that envies its secure possession of territory and statehood and considers them rightfully its own. (Yes, there are revolutionary separatists in Jammu and Kashmir and in Panjab, but they’re fighting over chunks of territory currently controlled by India, not Pakistan. India is too old, as a recognized geographical region if not as a modern nation, and simply too damn big for any group to plausibly challenge its “right to exist”.)

47

Well, that, and that every time the Arab states have gone to war with Israel, even though the combined Arab states (and most of the individual states) are far bigger, the Arabs have lost.

Imagine if the United States went to war with, say, Cuba, and Cuba won. Imagine Cuba not only threw back all American attacks, but occupied Florida and refused to hand it back until they were damn good and ready. How popular would Cuba be in the United States? My guess is it would be almost universally hated, denounced frequently, accused of all manner of gruesome atrocities, blamed for all or most of America’s problems, and made the subject of lurid conspiracy theories to “explain” how this tiny place came to have such disproportionate power. Sound familiar?

Never underestimate the corrosive power of humiliation. And being licked, repeatedly, by a geographic and demographic pipsqueak is pretty damn humiliating.

(And before you start replying, no, I am NOT suggesting the Israelis should have lost so the Arabs could feel good about themselves. That would be insane. In the long run the solution is for the Arabs to either get over the humiliation, or find some other way to feel good about themselves, something that doesn’t involve smashing Israel. Neither one is going to happen quickly, and the Arabs have to find other sources of pride for themselves; no one else can find it for them.

(The same also applies to Iran, which needs to find a national destiny that doesn’t involve smashing “the Zionist entity”. But Iran is not a neighbor of Israel, and most Iranians are not Arab; I wonder if the average Iranian would care much about Israel if the ayatollahs in charge could shut up about the place.)

Anyway, the OP: The original UN resolution on the subject provided for the territory to be divided into a Jewish state and an Arab state. If Israel has no legal right to exist, then UN resolutions mean nothing. (Which in turn means Israel has no legal obligation to obey any UN resolution affecting it, including the famous one about evacuating the territories occupied after the 1967 war.) Absent a legal structure of some kind, “right to exist” can only be established by force. Force, so far, is working just fine for Israel.

48

Actually, the situation is more analogous to imagining that several South American states went to war with Cuba, and Cuba won with major support from its powerful backer, the Soviet Union.

Well, let’s not forget that the “geographic and demographic pipsqueak” had a lot of support from the mightiest military and economic power on earth. I like a good David-and-Goliath story as much as anyone, but just giving credit where credit is due.

Still waiting on that one, though.

For Israel plus the US, that is. Absent support from the US and its other current allies, Israel’s last act of force would probably be a death-spasm nuking of its neighbors.

49

I don’t remember any American armies coming to the defense of Israel when it was attacked in '48 by Palestinians and armies from surrounding Arab states. Nor do I recall any American troops fighting on Israel’s side in 1968 or 1973. I think you are overestimating the power of planes and guns, and forgetting that the Soviet Union had a major client in the Middle East (Egypt), supplying it with advisers and war materiel as well.

It’s still one hell of a good David and Goliath story.

And to think the Palestinians could have had that state over a half century ago, merely by avoiding a doomed attempt at exterminating the Israelis. Or a smaller state, had the West Bank been turned over to the Palestinians when it was in Arab hands.

Still waiting (for a reasoned historical perspective).

50

This is exactly true, and it’s exactly WHY there isn’t a Palestinian state. Displaced persons are nothing new. There have been refugees brought about by wars and revolutions since there have been countries. At the end of WWII, Europe was full of displaced peoples. Millions of them. Where did they all go? They were peacefully absorbed into surrounding countries or eventually went back home. But there were huge population shifts. Millions of Afghans fled the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and were peacefully absorbed into countries all around the world. Many have now gone back.

The Palestinians are victims, but they are victims of Arab obstinacy, aggression, and their own unwillingness to accept any sort of compromise. Palestians rejected the initial partition plan because the entire Arab world rejected it, and not only convinced the Palestinians to refuse, claiming that Israel would soon be destroyed and Palestinians would get it all, but also because Arabs have trapped them there by refusing to allow Palestinians to be absorbed back into other Arab countries. In fact, some countries in the region forced resident Palestinians out and into the occupied territories, which is exactly what they accuse Israel of doing. But no one talks about that. For example, after the first Gulf war, Kuwait forcibly expelled about 450,000 resident Palestinians as retribution for the Palestinian Authority siding with Saddam. There are only 9,000 left in Kuwait. I imagine many had lived there all their lives. They were just uprooted and thrown out of the country. That barely made the papers.

The Palestians were Arab pawns. As long as they sit there, stateless, the Arab world can continue to claim that Israel has no right to exist, and can therefore use the Jews as convenient whipping boys to deflect blame from their own miserably failed rule.

Not only that, but the Palestinians have a history of always siding with the most brutal, bloodthirsty allies they can find. They sided with the Soviet Union. They sided with Saddam, even when he invaded Kuwait. They cheered in the streets when the World Trade Center went down. A high percentage of them support terrorism.

As for Israel’s right to exist, it’s simply beyond dispute. They have as much right to exist as any other country on the planet.

51

Of course it is.

(Don’t you mean, if the Arab states had avoided that extermination attempt, not the Palestinians per se?) Yes, that would have been a much better solution and avoided a lot of misery. Failing that, though, it would have been good if they’d got that state twenty years ago, or ten years ago, or now.

Well, with patience and study I’m sure you’ll eventually develop one. :wink:

I don’t see why displaced Palestinians should have been expected to “absorb back into other Arab countries”, any more than Jews should have been expected to “absorb” back into European countries. Sure, the Jews had barely escaped genocide in European countries, but that wasn’t the Palestinians’ fault.

Which is one reason, IMO, it’s been so unwise of Israel to delay for so long in relinquishing its claims to their territory and thereby establishing that state.

Sure. But that doesn’t give them the right to prevent the existence of Palestine.

52

Are they preventing the existence of Palestine? They accepted the initial partition plan, which called for two states. Israel’s opening bargain with Arafat last time around was a pretty good starting point towards negotiating a two-state solution. Arafat didn’t even attempt to bargain. He simply walked away and started the second intifada.

The Palestinians have been unreasonable and obstinate in the face of an absolute reality which is that Israel isn’t going anywhere. This puts Israel, which in the end is a civilized, moral nation, in an impossible position, which is right where the Arab world wants them.

If the Palestinians had had the bad luck to be in this situation against pretty much any other country in the region other than Israel, they would long ago have been invaded, occupied, and either assimilated into the population or dead. They’d be just another mistreated ethnic minority living within the boundaries of another state, like other ethnic minorities throughout the Middle East.

53

No Sam, you are mistaken. Israel has not declined to assimilate the Palestinians from the goodness of its national heart, or from any civilised, moral position.

Had Palestinians the rights which are their due under the assimilation model, they would present a potential voting bloc or consituency, which the Israeli governments fear.

Indeed, one of the observations frequently made is that given Palestinian and Arab population growth, Israel will have to elect between being democratic, or Jewish. Bearing this in mind, the position that ‘Israel isn’t going anywhere’ is not entirely secure.

54

“Rights due under the assimilation model”? I never said anything about the Jews assimilating the Palestinians. Nor are they under any obligation to.

Israel made a deal to have its own state, and for the Palestinians to have theirs. Not to have the Palestinians ‘assimilate’ and become a majority so that they can take the state away from the Jews.

However, other Arab countries pushed the Palestinians into rejecting the two-state deal, and left them a stateless people so that the ‘Israel’ issue would not and could not be settled. Their own record of treatment of Palestinians is shabby.

55

Actually, while you said nothing about any obligation of Israel to assimilate Palestinians you did bring up the issue of the “assimilation model.” Specifically, the idea that most counties in the area would have employed either genocide or assimilation.

Now, admitted you didn’t explicitly bring up the idea of Israel itself employing such a model it seems a bit silly to deny the inference given the context of this thread. After all, if it wasn’t an option for Israel why even bring it up since that’s what we’re talking about?

56

Surely you’re not attempting to claim that Palestinians were just innocent bystanders in the 1948 war. Example, from this site (the same information is available elsewhere):

In the first phase of the war, lasting from November 29, 1947 until April 1, 1948, the Palestinian Arabs took the offensive, with help from volunteers from neighboring countries. The Jews suffered severe casualties and passage along most of their major roadways was disrupted.

The historical record is indisputable that Palestinians joined forces with troops from other Arab nations in an attempt to destroy Israel at the time of its founding.

To have some semblance of a reasoned historical perspective it is necessary to know history.

57

First of all, they could have been assimilated into Arab countries, but many Arab countries explicitly refused Palestinian refugees.

Second, the ‘assimilation’ I’m talking about is not one of first-class citizen. In other countries in the middle east that have ethnic minorities, they are often oppressed, and since most of these countries are dictatorships, they have no say in how to run their lives.

58

How dare they defend their homes from seizure! And themselves from expulsion! They certainly waived the right to have their own country by fighting back, right?

And from more than one viewpoint.

Sam, do you really consider the entire region’s Arab population fungible, that one country is as good as another for them to live in and why didn’t they just move? You’re serious, right?

59

Uh… Isreal didn’t start the agression… the defended themselves, then captured an area for buffer between themselves and their agressors… as is accepted under international laws of war

The ‘Arab population’ with the execption of Turkey and Egypt… did not exsist as such prior to WWI and the dissolution of the Ottoman state… then 30ish years later Isreal was founded out of an area still (more or less) controlled by the UK…

Just as a point of reference… those of palistian descent were NOT welcomed into the neighboring countries… and when they are/were housed there, they were put more or less into gettos… Isreal is NOT the only ones guilty of even THAT crime… perhaps we need to talk to Egypt, Syria, and Lebonon about their treatment of these deplaced persons

60

I found the number of serious errors in Sam’s posts too many to debate. You can try this one at home if you like: