# When in human history should reasonable people find a "cut-off" of the right of title by conquering? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 8, 2010, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-human-history-should-reasonable-people-find-a-cut-off-of-the-right-of-title-by-conquering/542464 "2010-06-08T19:58:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-human-history-should-reasonable-people-find-a-cut-off-of-the-right-of-title-by-conquering/542464/121 "2010-06-11T18:10:03Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Most of those borders were not set as recently as 1967. I guess also, depending upon exactly which definition of borders you are talking about, nor were they borders that have yet to be recognised (or is ratified a better word?) by the UN. But then, I guess, who gave the UN to “right” to rule on what is the acceptable law and who should have statehood… ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-human-history-should-reasonable-people-find-a-cut-off-of-the-right-of-title-by-conquering/542464/122 "2010-06-11T18:12:39Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > So, even when I say the exact opposite, you simply refuse to believe me? > > Then we’re done. Well that’s a nice sidestep. So did you or didn’t you claim that that only reason New Zealand has peace now is that the Maori were subjugated? If you did claim that, what do you think the plainly evident lesson is that we should be taking from it? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-human-history-should-reasonable-people-find-a-cut-off-of-the-right-of-title-by-conquering/542464/123 "2010-06-11T18:14:25Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > The fact that economically the United States is as big as all of Europe put together, Russia is (potentially) as big as all of Europe put together, Japan just by itself is almost as big as all of Europe put together and a rapidly modernizing China in addition to the rest of the Pacific Rim could be bigger than all of Europe put together. So the threat is economic competition and the response is a limited unity based on economic interests, and even that limited unity is shaky and uncertain. > > The day that everyone simply agreed to abide by a single world government would almost be the same day that everyone’s interests were so peaceful and compatable that you’d hardly need a world government at all. You make a good point that the “threat” need not be a threat of external violence, but something else (in this case, economic competition). Such a threat may result in a degree of cooperation which, even if as a mere side-effect, makes actual military conflict less likely. Similarly, I can see a genuine world government emerging from an as yet unforeseen crisis which requires such a thing to overcome. For example, a genuinely existential environmental situation. Cooperation in such matters may pave the way, indirectly, to a situation which makes violence more likely. ---
**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:** [June 11, 2010, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-human-history-should-reasonable-people-find-a-cut-off-of-the-right-of-title-by-conquering/542464/124 "2010-06-11T18:20:08Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > There is also the question of how many ancestors of the Palestinians actually **owned** land in the area before the state of Israel was declared. I have had this argument with Finn. There is some insistence that land ownership is the dispositive fact in determining rights. What makes it even more unusual is that apparently only one type of ownership (ownership in fee simple) counts. Apparently communal ownership (ownership by a village or tribe) doesn’t count, the inheritable 9as in you can leave this right to occupy the land to your kids) right to occupy land doesn’t count, etc. Indians did not have the same sort of notions of ownership that the guys that bought manhattan for $24 worth of beads might have had, but everyone pretty mucha grees that we took something from them when we drove them all onto reservations. I don’t see why ownership (and more specifically fee simple ownership) is so important. ---
**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:** [June 11, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-human-history-should-reasonable-people-find-a-cut-off-of-the-right-of-title-by-conquering/542464/125 "2010-06-11T18:34:58Z")
> [@Zeriel](#): > > To expand on this, I am given to understand that much of the pre-Balfour and pre-WWII Jewish immigration consisted of Jews immigrating, buying what land was for sale, and working it. I am not aware of any significant or systematic attempt by the Jews/Israel to evict Arabs or persecute them until well after the 1948 war had started (by neighboring Arab nations who were offended by the partition plan for political reasons, and who decided the best way to protest the UN deciding territorial borders was to blame it on the Jews and declare the intent to cause genocide). > > Or, what Joel said. Essentially, one of the bigger problems with deciding who’s “rightfully entitled to the land in Palestine” is bound up in the fact that in many cases the tenant-farmer Palestinians were sold out by their rich/powerhungry fellow Arabs and blamed it on the Jews they could reach instead of the absentee landlords they couldn’t. Add in the fact that the current hatred of Jews by Arabs is largely a product of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem whipping up anti-Jewish sentiment as a precursor to whipping up anti-Colonialist-British sentiment. I’m not trying to defend taht Grand Mufti’s actions but if there was a large influx of Mexican immigrants, I think the Grand Mufti would have taken pretty much teh same stance against Mexican immigration. BTW the “owned land” in palestine comprised a small portion of the land anywhere away from the Mediterranean coast or in the north. Palestinians “owned” (frequently as a community) most of the land in every province of Palsestine. [http://domino.un.org/maps/m0094.jpg](http://domino.un.org/maps/m0094.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-human-history-should-reasonable-people-find-a-cut-off-of-the-right-of-title-by-conquering/542464/126 "2010-06-11T20:02:11Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I’m not trying to defend taht Grand Mufti’s actions but if there was a large influx of Mexican immigrants, I think the Grand Mufti would have taken pretty much teh same stance against Mexican immigration. I agree with that pretty much completely–the Jews were originally a convenient target for a dispossessed poor population to hate, it could have easily been any immigrant group that was buying land and doing well. ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-human-history-should-reasonable-people-find-a-cut-off-of-the-right-of-title-by-conquering/542464/127 "2010-06-11T21:33:35Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I have had this argument with Finn. There is some insistence that land ownership is the dispositive fact in determining rights. What makes it even more unusual is that apparently only one type of ownership (ownership in fee simple) counts. Apparently communal ownership (ownership by a village or tribe) doesn’t count, the inheritable 9as in you can leave this right to occupy the land to your kids) right to occupy land doesn’t count, etc. > > Indians did not have the same sort of notions of ownership that the guys that bought manhattan for $24 worth of beads might have had, but everyone pretty mucha grees that we took something from them when we drove them all onto reservations. > > I don’t see why ownership (and more specifically fee simple ownership) is so important. The Native Americans don’t understand property meme is a little overblown. The North Eastern nations understood property just fine. The problem with the sale of Manhattan was the Dutch bought the land from Indians from Long Island who were rivals of the Indians from Manhatten. It was more like me selling you my noisy neighbor’s house for half market value. We both get a great deal, just my neighbor is screwed. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-human-history-should-reasonable-people-find-a-cut-off-of-the-right-of-title-by-conquering/542464/128 "2010-06-11T23:05:13Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > You might have noted it in your initial post, then, since it pretty well makes nonsense of your position. …if I had said the things you were claiming I was saying, you would have read them in my post. Since you didn’t read them: I didn’t say them. If you want to read things into my post that is hardly my fault. So even when I say the exact opposite, do you simply refuse to believe me? And if you believe my post makes a nonsense of my position, can you explain to me what you consider my position to be? > [@](#): > > See, we disagree here. You think that you could get from “there” (a New Zealand inhabited entirely by Maoiris) to “here” (a New Zealand with a majority non-Maoiri population, albeit with reasonably good race realtions with Maoris) _without_ a couple of hundred years of conflict, merely with the application of a little good-will. Are you saying you can’t? If not, why not? > [@](#): > > That may be true in some circumstances, but I doubt very much it is was true in New Zealand, and even more so that it would be true in the Middle East. Oh, your saying you can. Well, if you think it is possible, that is a good thing. How do you go about applying it in the Middle East? > [@](#): > > Obviously, one must take history as it is dealt, and the lession from New Zealand is not (sadly) that one can settle one’s differences _without_ conflict, since in fact it is a history containing much conflict. It is unfortunate that this is the lesson you take from what I have said. Because as we have taken pains to point out that this isn’t the lesson we have learnt. Do you think that conflict is inevitable? ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-human-history-should-reasonable-people-find-a-cut-off-of-the-right-of-title-by-conquering/542464/129 "2010-06-12T15:17:33Z")
> [@Strassia](#): > > The Native Americans don’t understand property meme is a little overblown. The North Eastern nations understood property just fine. The problem with the sale of Manhattan was the Dutch bought the land from Indians from Long Island who were rivals of the Indians from Manhatten. This is true. It’s more a Plains Indian thing. Nomadic, and really, it’s miles and miles of miles and miles. Does anyone disagree with me that it _is_ a circa-WWII issue, though? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-in-human-history-should-reasonable-people-find-a-cut-off-of-the-right-of-title-by-conquering/542464.md?page=6)