# The case for Israel **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 21, 2008, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163 "2008-03-21T00:33:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![danbar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bc8723/32.png) [@danbar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danbar)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/21 "2008-03-21T14:21:07Z")
Canaanites - BrainGlutton, show me one of them. OTOH, Jews are 14M of them, now and here. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/22 "2008-03-21T14:32:52Z")
> [@](#): > > _danbar_ > Next, another ch. of the document. Must we? ---
**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:** [March 21, 2008, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/23 "2008-03-21T14:40:03Z")
Nevertheless, all the praying imaginable won’t help one to take and keep territory. That requires the entirely practical matter of securing the cooperation of your neighbors (i.e. they recognize the territory is yours and won’t try to take it) and/or maintaining a military that can make it painfully expensive for them if they _do_ try to take it. Actually, if old-school biblical rules were still in effect, Israel would be quite a bit larger than it is now, covering all conquered territory from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, the entire Sinai Peninsula, large pieces of southern Lebanon and Syria, etc. The conquered populations could’ve been driven out or forcibly converted or put the sword or whatever. I mean, if we’re using history as a guide, that’s how things were done, right? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/24 "2008-03-21T16:13:11Z")
[QUOTE=danbar] Canaanites - BrainGlutton, show me one of them. OTOH, Jews are 14M of them, now and here. [/QUOTE] Silberman and Finkelstein’s thesis is that Jews **are** – or at least the Old Testament Hebrews were – Canaanites – that is, indigenous inhabitants of Canaan, not immigrants/conquerors from Mesopotamia or Egypt as the Bible says. They consider that version national propaganda from a time when conquest was deemed to confer better title to territory than indigenous status would. ---
**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:** [March 21, 2008, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/25 "2008-03-21T16:18:50Z")
[QUOTE=danbar] Canaanites - BrainGlutton, show me one of them. OTOH, Jews are 14M of them, now and here. [/QUOTE] Both Jews and modern Palestinians are descended from Canaanites. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/26 "2008-03-21T16:20:26Z")
…were to find modern Ashkenazik jews and palestinians closely related? Would they stop shooting at eachother? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/27 "2008-03-21T16:23:07Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Both Jews and modern Palestinians are descended from Canaanites. [/QUOTE] And also from Philistines, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Macedonians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Europeans (Crusaders), Turks – every people that has ever conquered or held Canaan for a significant period or even passed through it in significant numbers. H.G. Wells, in his _Outline of History,_ compared the Jews in ancient Palestine to “a man who insists on living in the middle of a busy highway.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/28 "2008-03-21T16:24:20Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] ..were to find modern Ashkenazik jews and palestinians closely related? Would they stop shooting at eachother? [/QUOTE] Doubtful. There’s no quarrel more bitter than a family quarrel. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/29 "2008-03-21T16:27:06Z")
I thought that the biblical claim is that the Palestinians are the children of Ishmael, and so are already closely related to the twelve tribes? So, why would more evidence towards close relations between the two groups cause peace to break out? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/30 "2008-03-21T16:39:14Z")
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki] I thought that the biblical claim is that the Palestinians are the children of Ishmael, and so are already closely related to the twelve tribes? [/QUOTE] There’s a native tradition among the **Arabs** – that is, those of what is now SA – that they are descendants of [Ishmael.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael) The Bible says only that Ishmael had twelve sons who settled everywhere from Assyria to the border of Egypt. The modern Palestinians, of course, are of mixed descent, as noted above. And to avoid confusion: There’s also [Esau,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esau) son of Isaac, brother of Jacob/Israel, who became legendary ancestor of the [Edomites.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edomites) And [Canaan,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaan_%28Biblical_character%29) son of Ham, grandson of Noah, legendary ancestor of the Canaanites. The verse “a slave of slaves shall Canaan be to his brothers” may be Hebrew national propaganda to justify oppression/displacement of non-Hebrew Canaanites. (The Hebrews might have been indigenous to the region but their was always some cultural distinction between them and their neighbors; for one thing, you’ll never find pig bones at a Hebrew archaelogical site, however ancient.) This [“Curse of Ham”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Ham) much later was invoked to justify black slavery (Africans being identified as Ham’s descendants.) Ain’t history som’n? ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/31 "2008-03-21T16:48:22Z")
Thanks for breaking that down for me, **BG**. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/32 "2008-03-21T20:47:05Z")
Israel’s right to exist has absolutely nothing to do with who occupied that territory hundreds or thousands of years ago. Nor does the Palestinian’s claim to that land. If you want to start giving back the land in the middle east to the people who occupied it even 100 years ago, well… good luck to you. Many of the ME borders are artificial in exactly the same way that Israel’s was - drawn up by fiat by occupying powers. The Kurds, for example, aren’t exactly happy with the breakup of their state into three parts, and they’ve suffered horribly as a result of losing their autonomy. Yet I don’t see a lot of support around the world for Kurdish terrorists attacking Turkey, Iran, and Syria, or for that matter much support for Kurdish independence from Iraq. Can you imagine the uproar if the Kurdish government supported launching rockets into cities full of civilians in Turkey or Iran? Israel has every bit as much right to secure its borders and live in peace as any other country. It maintains that right through force of arms, as do other countries. The real problem Israel has is that its neighbors want to destroy it, and its neighbors, through virtue of having a lot of oil, have money and wield a lot of influence in the world. Therefore, they have big sponsors in the U.N. As a result, Israel gets the shaft unless America or a couple of other countries stand up for it, and then America gets hated too. None of this has anything to do with the legitimacy of the Israeli state. It’s as legitimate as any other country on the planet. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/33 "2008-03-21T21:05:39Z")
The greatest argument for the state of Israel is that they are there now and they have the military capability to stay there. The historial and Biblical stuff is moot. Who has the authority to “give back” Israel anyway? There is no World Government. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/34 "2008-03-21T21:16:40Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] The Kurds, for example, aren’t exactly happy with the breakup of their state into three parts, and they’ve suffered horribly as a result of losing their autonomy. [/QUOTE] Actually, they never **had** an autonomous state (though they were [promised one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_S%C3%A8vres#Kurdistan) in the Treaty of Sevres). ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/35 "2008-03-21T21:17:14Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] The greatest argument for the state of Israel is that they are there now and they have the military capability to stay there. The historial and Biblical stuff is moot. Who has the authority to “give back” Israel anyway? There is no World Government. [/QUOTE] Well, in theory the Israelis could give it ‘back’. They don’t seem too inclined to do so, though. ---
**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:** [March 21, 2008, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/36 "2008-03-21T21:21:53Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] Well, in theory the Israelis could give it ‘back’. [/QUOTE] They have no more ability to give back Israel to the Palestinians than America has to give back the US to the native Americans. There is no way enough of a majority of Israeli’s would ever feel strongly enough to basically cut their own throats…or leave their homes to, what? Go live in some other country? :dubious: -XT ---
**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:** [March 21, 2008, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/37 "2008-03-21T21:55:10Z")
[QUOTE=Tamerlane] Speaking as someone who supports the continued existence of the state of Israel as, at the very least, an appropriate fait accompli, I have to say that the “ancient historical association” ( i.e. “We were here first!” ) argument cuts no ice with me. Never has. [/QUOTE] Seeing as you support the right to exist for Israel, historical association doesn’t really matter, but do you believe in the concept of special rights for aboriginal people in general ? ---
**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:** [March 21, 2008, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/38 "2008-03-21T22:00:37Z")
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki] How do you explain the Yom Kippur War, then? I think it was a brilliantly planned attack by disparate forces which couldn’t consolidate their gains… The opposing military forces did fail to exploit or even maintain the gains from the first strikes, but that the first strikes did succeed so devastatingly goes a long way to denying the simple title “doofuses” for their enemies. [/QUOTE] This sounds familiar. Only they never got to say “mission accomplished”. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/39 "2008-03-21T22:26:32Z")
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman] Seeing as you support the right to exist for Israel, historical association doesn’t really matter, but do you believe in the concept of special rights for aboriginal people in general ? [/QUOTE] This is such a hard statement to make sense of, though. Rights that are “special” in what way, and who is or is not “Aboriginal”? ---
**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:** [March 21, 2008, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163/40 "2008-03-21T23:58:22Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] This is such a hard statement to make sense of, though. Rights that are “special” in what way, and who is or is not “Aboriginal”? [/QUOTE] Perhaps I should use the term “indigenous” instead of aboriginal. Here’s some Articles in The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I can’t seem to cut and paste the long url. these special rights are collective rights. For example they don’t apply to immigrant groups like say the ehtnic groups in Canada. Article 3 Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. Article 4 Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to self-determination, have the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions. Article 5 Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the State. Article 6 Every indigenous individual has the right to a nationality. I’m not sure that the UN has a sanctioned list but a loosely defined criteria is a historical presence in the region, Jews have lived in Palestine for 3000 years have they not? So if this ethnic group pursues their right to self determination declares independance from Britain and they’ve been there for 3000 years, I don’t see why they don’t qualify for the indigenous people’s right to self determination. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-for-israel/442163.md?page=3)