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Comment by bawolff | Hacker News Reader

That makes even less sense.

To annex something means to add it to an existing state. Israel by definition can't annex something before it exists.

The UK controlled the area at the time, but they basically gave up and left. I don't understand how you could say they were annexing it at this point in time either.

Israel is closer to being a succesor state to mandatory palestine than anything else. Generally international law recognizes the right for ethnic groups to self-determination (Palestinians often rightly complain that they effectively have not had this in the modern period, but the right applies to both sides). It is not considered annexation for a group from one state to split off and form a new state via self-determination.

To give a comparison, i think your argument would be the equivalent of saying ukraine annexed russia because they unilaterally left soviet union.

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> Israel by definition can't annex something before it exists.

That seems like a purely semantic argument. If a bunch of people from a particular political movement show up somewhere and seize a bunch of land and declare it's part of their nation, whether that nation is completely new or existing doesn't change the morality of that anywhere. E.g. the formation of South Ossetia on Georgian territory is widely recognised as either annexation or something morally equivalent to it.

> Generally international law recognizes the right for ethnic groups to self-determination (Palestinians often rightly complain that they effectively have not had this in the modern period, but the right applies to both sides). It is not considered annexation for a group from one state to split off and form a new state via self-determination.

That's arguably true for people who declare independence in the territory they're already living in. Not for people who settle on someone else's territory and then claim it as theirs.

> E.g. the formation of South Ossetia on Georgian territory is widely recognised as either annexation or something morally equivalent to it.

I'm under the impression it is seen as occupation (not annexation) by russia with a thin vaneer over top. You still have a separate state being involved, with russia arguably continuing to be in control.

> That's arguably true for people who declare independence in the territory they're already living in. Not for people who settle on someone else's territory and then claim it as theirs.

Well there was significant migration to the area in the lead up, its not like the jews just showed up in 1948 and declared independence. From what i understand there was a continous jewish presence in the region throughout history, albeit at various point as a much smaller minority.

> its not like the jews just showed up in 1948 and declared independence

AIUI it pretty much was; yes the zionist movement existed to a certain extent before WW2, but the overwhelming majority of jewish people living on the territory of Palestine in 1948 had moved there at most a few years before (with a huge increase in those who felt the desire or need to move there as persecution escalated in Europe in the 1930s and ultimately lead to the holocaust).

It seems like firm numbers are pretty hard to find, but wikipedia suggests there was significant jewish population concentrated in Jerusalem, even in the early 1500s (about 20% of the city) with conflicting reports of them becoming a plurality in the mid 1800s. (Arguably that's cherrypicking a single city)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Jerusal...

There's certainly reasons one could doubt the number in absolute terms, there was certainly nothing like a modern census, but i think its more than enough to counter the narrative that there were no jews there right up until just before 1948.

To be clear not saying the jewish population didn't significantly expand in the 40's, it clearly did (at the same time many of those were basically forced from their previous homes, which i don't think fits with the "colonist" metaphor as that usually implies more choice), just that there were always jews in the region.

> at the same time many of those were basically forced from their previous homes, which i don't think fits with the "colonist" metaphor as that usually implies more choice

AIUI colonists usually tend to be at least partly fleeing bad situations at home - occasionally nothing more than a lack of opportunity, but often debts, criminal records and the like.

Weren't the Puritans persecuted in the UK ?

Australia was literally a penal colony.

(Of course this probably doesn't apply to all colonies, I wonder if those that started as trade depots fare differently ?)

> show up somewhere and seize a bunch of land and declare it's part of their nation

This is the root of your confusion. A bunch of people didn't just "show up somewhere and seize a bunch of land". This bunch of people were steadily migrating and acquiring land legally. The only real "seizure" happened within the context of war caused by their growing, legal presence on the land.

This is the crux of the issue, isn't it ?

If I am not mistaken, the first colonies in the USA also "legally" acquired land ? (In the sense that the natives agreed to their presence.)

> A bunch of people didn't just "show up somewhere and seize a bunch of land". This bunch of people were steadily migrating and acquiring land legally.

Really? My grandfather talked about having to intercept or shoot the boatloads that were arriving illegally, and not being able to catch them all, and a quick look into the history seems to back that up.

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