I think no one questioned Israel’s right to defend itself or it’s capacity to force its existance. Our Language is a very imperfect tool because it bends too much. I think the most sensible answer was edwino’s. To me they are both bad which is not surprising at all given the circumstances. There are American biases that are far harder to swallow. In the end the fact remains that the Arabs tried to drive the Jews into the sea and they lost. I think that is Israel’s biggest “right”.
The Native American analogy is disconcerting. Yes, force was used, like throughout humankind’s history, but the similarities end there.
It is called inaliable because it is granted by the constitution. The definition of the world “inaliable” you used leaves an empty, meaningless concept. Of course they could (in 2000 years maybe) change the constitution but that does not change the fact that they have the right of return.
Oh and the fact remains that many Sionists who claimed a Jewish land in Palestine under british rule were terrorists in the purest sense of the word. Including proeminent figures in Israel’s birth.
Constitutional rights can be granted or taken away. “Inalienable right” in the sense it’s usually meant, at least that I understand, usually means a right that is assumed to be intrinsic to all human beings in a moral or religious sense. The framers of the U.S. Constitution would have claimed that the right to free speech in inalienable in the sense that all humans have it, whether or not any given government is moral enough to recognize it. The Jewish right of return to Israel isn’t quite the same thing. The constitution of a country is just a law that can be changed.
Israel is not abiding by the terms of the original 1948 agreement, I was reading about it in Time while at the dentist’s office. Israel was supposed to allow the Palestinians to return to their former homes within Israel or provide compensation. They have done neither. They do not want the Palestinians to return because they would no longer be the majority, and I’m not sure what their reasons are for not buying them off since they are a fairly wealthy nation.
Are the Arabs going to compensate the 700,000 Jews who fled Arab lands since 1948, and whose property was confiscated as well? On balance that’s the value of 150,000 homes owed to Israel. Tell you what, just use it to fund a peaceful coexisting Palestine and call it even.
Making yourself the “majority” through forceful exclusion is not a good way to make friends out of your neighbors. But it is a good way to make enemies. Apartheid-era South Africa bears this out. If this is the type of approach you feel compelled to take, then you must deal with the consequences. Expecting generations of people to respect your need to “not be in the minority” will NEVER happen.