Some time back, I asked a question that was perhaps a spirtual cousin of this one.
This question’s immediate inspiration is the Palestine/Israel brouhaha ignited by Helen Thomas’ unfortunate ejaculation, but as that discussion has shown, it’s a question that comes up for any land conquered by force. Should the U.S. return Texas to Mexico? Hawaii to the native Hawaiians? Should the island of Britain be returned to the Celts?
Obviously those are extreme examples.
Or are they?
It’s undeniable that for much of human history, gaining title and authority to govern land was accomplished by conquest, and this was done without much in the way of hand-wringing over the rights of the conquered. I am no history expert, but I’m willing to bet that we won’t find William the Conqueror penning pensive asides about how he’d interfered with the native landholders.
I think it’s pretty much undeniable to acknowledge that we cannot now unwind the clock and undo the results of every known conquest.
At the same time, it seems clear that today, we stand pretty squarely against the idea that a nation-state may expand its territory by right of conquest.
So … if both of these are true, then the question is obvious: where do we draw the line?
I can’t imagine the idea even appearing in people’s minds vefore the 16th century, and that’s being generous. I’d go for late 18th early 19th.
Damn good question, though.
Where it’s always been drawn. right about the point where I, or my allies, can inflict enough hurt on you through multiple points (ie physical, economic, reputational etc.) of attack. to make this a non-profitable exercise. In the final equation your “right” to be unmolested as a nation state is entirely dependent on how strong a defense you can muster. A right of any kind between states only exists to the degree you can make others respect it.
I think “we” draw the line where we practically can. And that almost always happens as the conquest is taking place, not 10, 20 or 50 years later.
As for Israel, as I said in the Pit thread, I can’t see the Israeli Jews leaving Israel without there being a full blown war in the Middle East, into which much of the West would be drawn. Ain’t gonna happen. Israel is a fait accompli, and the only question is how the Palestinians are going to live in peace with that state.
I’m not sure exactly what I think, but here are some thoughts.
The first is that descendants should not be punished for the crimes of their ancestors. If we’re going to live together peaceably on this planet, then we need to have some amount of forgiveness.
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Second thought: right by conquest is still a valid method of holding territory (or other property; see Elgin marbles and others). After all, if you can hold the territory against anyone willing to try to take it and it is in your possession to do as you wish, then it is yours for all practical purposes.
The caveat is that by claiming possession by right of conquest, you can hardly complain when another state takes it from you via conquest. That is the real reason states do not use right by conquest anymore.
So while we can rightfully condemn a state for conquering territory and asserting its right by conquest, I don’t think we can deny that the right does exist.
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Third thought: in any case, the right of a state to control territory must be subservient to the sovereign right of its residents to determine their own government. There may be accommodation on both sides (for example, independence vs limited autonomy), but a state that is not supported by the people it governs is illegitimate.
Ultimately, a state’s right of conquest is limited by the people’s right of revolution.
Is the OP asking how far back from today we should “grandfather” ownership by conquest? Is Israel illegal by our current standards? How about the present day boundaries of Poland? The Dakotas?
I’m not against it, at least, i’m not against it in terms of it being based upon right of conquest. I have no issue with conquest, in and of itself, being a means by which to expand territory.
Really it seems to me that when we say we’re against expansion via conquest a lot of the time we’re saying we’re against those things which often occur in such an event; general horrifying acts towards the native populace, motivations for some shallow or only leadership-improving measures, the manner in which war is waged as regard the effects to opposing military and civilians. Those things, to me, seem to be a pretty good measure of “cut-off” right of title by conquering. It’s less what you do and more how you do it.
Depending on how you count it, Britain’s conquests in Ireland can be said to start as long as 800 years ago.
Even if you count it as later, they still held much of it for centuries, yet it always, IMO, belonged to the Irish. Mrs. Winsor never held valid title.
I would have to say that the Palestinians have a right to their land and the Israeli’s don’t (except maybe Tel Aviv - that was pretty much desert).
Except “Palestine”, as an autonomous political entity, has never existed. Like most countries in the Middle East, the two states were set up somewhat arbitrarily by powers outside the region. In that sense, “Palestinians” are anyone living there when the UN partitioned the area.
Within living memory they lived there and their land was given away without their consent, an act which has created a collective identity known as Palestinian.
The idea of Ireland and Irish only really came into being when outside forces came into the country, before that there were several clans - do you doubt the validity of the Irish identity?
The answer appears to be ‘Riiiiiight around the end of WWII’. I’m not sure if it was Israel or if it was the Communist Menace that caused the sea change, though.
Funny, there were a whole hell of a lot of absentee german and polish and russian landlords for centuries that were not collecting the rent from those pesky brown skin palistinian types…so obviously back in the late 40s they got fed up and decided to turf them buggers out of their homes and businesses so they could get out of the german death camps and move in with the Brits help. :rolleyes:
How do you explain this funny area known as Palestine, inhabited by Palistinians, that suddenly by british and UN decree changed to european heritaged people moving in that wore funny little hats and prayed in hebrew… :dubious:
Because the thread is about Israel. It’s not an auto-derail, it’s the point of the thread.
Back at the end of WWII, there were some pretty serious boundary changes instigated by the winners. Both the western and eastern borders of Poland were shifted to the west, Poland gaining former German territory and the USSR gaining former Polish territory. You didn’t hear too many complaints from the Germans at the time, because that was the whole point of the war they started, and now the shoe was on the other foot.
No one’s land was taken away. There was a transfer of political authority in an area that had never been politically autonomous. Some of the locals didn’t like it and fought a war. They lost. Boo-hoo. That’s what happens.
Now the job is to move forward. But pretending there was ever a politically autonomous “Palestine” is simply false. The land had been ruled by various empires for thousands of years. The UN took it upon itself to set up two politically autonomous states where none had existed before. You can fight it, or live with it. Those who decided to fight lost. That’s history. And it’s hardly unique. Most countries that exist today have set their borders through various wars. It’s SOP.
you make an interesting point regarding who controlled Israel7Palestine. Before the mandate it was the Ottomans (who are Turks),Egyptians, Ottomans, Mamluks (originally slaves of various religious and ethinc groups), Arabs (who gaines the land by conquest), Byzantines, Romans, Jews, Greeks, Persians…
It has not been ruled by natives in the last 2000 years.