Comment by fihfgjcguctxt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fihfgjcguctxt | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Let's work through your points.

Starting with your point number 1: Yes, perhaps Zionists stress the Jewish connection to Israel. But that's what makes them Zionists in the first place. Zionism is the belief that the Jews should return to the land of Zion--Israel (in Latin, Palistine). And it is also true that there has existed a strong desire to return to Israel in the Jewish people from the begining. Leaving Egypt, one could argue, was about returning to the land of Israel. A little more concretely, I suggest you read the book of Lamentations. Lamentations is a poem about returning to Israel after the Babylonian exile. After reading passages such as "If I forget Jerusalem, I will forget my right hand," it is evident that a passionate desire to return to Israel is not a fabrication by modern Zionists, but rather an integral part of the identity of the Jew. You then proceed with a non sequitor. Why does the existance of other people living in the land of Israel lessen the Jewish tie to the land of Israel? Finally, the website that you link to is officially recognized to be anti-semetic, so don't count on impartial information from it.

I don't quite understand what you're getting at in your second point. Are you saying that the Palestinians have their own identity? I'm sure they do. It just isn't clear to me how that backs up your argument. I'm genuinely curious.

As for your first point number three, I don't see its validity. There was no such thing as a nation until the rise of nationalism--far after 700 C.E.

Next, in response to your second point number three, going into the Diaspora was not a choice for the Jews. They were forced out. Do they lose the right to return after being forcefully evicted?

Finally, we can argue about political theory all we want. The bottom line is that Israel exists. Even if you do not agree with its policies, you should not advocate for its destruction. Israel is a sovereign and democratic nation (not to mention a center of growth and innovation) and by virtue of existing, it deserves to exist as much as any other nation does.

Thank you for reading

Whether Palestine was ever a nation or a kingdom is completely irrelevant to the issue, it seems we agree on this. So the argument made by bsaul that

"No palestinian kingdom or nation has ever existed, and this land was under the ruling of turks since the 13th century, and it has belonged to many different people througout history. Saying that only the arabs are legitimate there is a strange view of history."

has no relevance whatsoever. The only thing that matters is who was occupying the land, and by what means they have been displaced.

IfAmericansKnew.com is not recognized to be an anti semitic website save from those who have a political interest in declaring so (namely, zionist organizations like the Anti Defamation League).

Sure, having being evicted loses you the right of return, at least after a couple thousands years. Living people matters, remote history is an abstract concept.

Finally, I think nobody here has advocated the destruction of Israel. To me, the same principles apply to Israel than those that I've been applying to Palestine: you can't displace people against their will. Settlers are few and recent, they can be removed from the land they're illegally occupying. The rest of Israel will stay where it is, it just has to stop the aggression and the land grabbing.

"has no relevance whatsoever."

It would have certainly helped that any entity (kingdom, province, nation, whatever you want) was ever called "Palestinian" whenever you want to claim that "palestinians arabs" are the only legitimate people for this land.

Don't forget that even the term "palestinian" to designate arabs is very recent (1960s). Before that, the conflict was called a conflict between arabs and jews, and didn't even involve the concept of a palestinian right to have its own nation.

And it's fine with me, i don't mind palestinian arabs defining themselves as a people, and wanting an independant state. Just don't claim that it's something that's been there forever and is therefor the only legitimate political construct for the area.

>It would have certainly helped that any entity (kingdom, province, nation, whatever you want) was ever called "Palestinian" whenever you want to claim that "palestinians arabs" are the only legitimate people for this land.

No, it wouldn't, and I have explained why in this and in the other comments on this thread. You should try to address my arguments.

Ok, maybe i didn't understand your point. Then why do you think the palestinians arabs are the only legitimate people on this land (emphasis on "only") ?

And by legitimate, i don't meant the right to steal or kill. Just purchase some land and become autonomous.

You're attributing to me a statement that I haven't made, but only reported from one of your comments in response to one by formulaT. I've never said that Palestinians are the only legitimate people in Palestine now (note the now, I'll get back to it later). What I'm saying is that the fact that in a remote or recent history a Jewish, or Palestinian, or Martian political entity or group or people has existed on the territory is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand, as long as those people had been away for long enough for other people to consider that place their own home, and that of their fathers and grandfathers.

Now, you seem to think that it's fine for any group of people in any number to move in mass to some land, as long as they buy their lot of ground and don't steal from others. But as you must certainly understand, it doesn't work like that. There's plenty of empty space in the US, do you think that US citizens would be ok if a few tens of millions of Chinese, or Mexicans, just moved to some empty part of the country and started to build a new nation? Of course not. Every nation in the world, including Israel, has strict immigration laws to prevent immigration in uncontrolled numbers - building a new sovereign state is completely out of the question. And the reason every nation has such a law is that a people rightly considers the land it lives on its own, even the unoccupied parts, and even the privately owned parts to some extent. You can't declare the independence of your house from the nation, even if you paid for the ground it stands on.

Ok, so the mass immigration of Jews in a country in which their number was absolute minority (Jews were 13% of the population in Palestine in 1890) was wrong, and illegitimate. They took advantage of the fact there was no organized nation in place, and all the support they could get from a colonialist state, Great Britain, to move in mass to a land that was occupied by other people. The reason it's wrong is clear when you look at what came from it: mass displacement of the native population, pogroms, war and terrorism from both sides. Clearly it's something that doesn't bring anything good.

But let's get back to that now. Israel was born officially in 1948, and its population was already of one million. That means that most Israelis are born there, and probably their parents were born there as well. Most of them literally don't have anywhere else to go. What are we meant to do to repair the wrong of the illegitimate constitution of Israel, move war to it and force its population to abandon their belongings and disperse again? That would be doing to them exactly what they've done to the Palestinians, and that would be as horrible. So Israel is there to stay.

So, to recapitulate:

1) The remote history is irrelevant, it doesn't change the fact that to take possession of a land you have to displace the native population with violent means - and that's exactly what the Jews did.

2) Moving peacefully to an empty land and do what you please with it is an idea that might seem reasonable to an eight years old; that's not how it goes and facts show it.

3) Therefore, mass immigration in Palestine with the purpose of building a Jewish state was illegitimate and wrong.

4) Now that the Israelis are there you can't force them out of what has become their home. What you must do is to force them to establish a clear border line with their neighbours and to recognize them as an independent and sovereign State (yes, with an army and planes and bombs); to dismantle their illegal settlements and force the settlers to live inside those borders. Dismantle the wall, that they will rebuild as they please inside their own borders, not outside as they did before.

I appreciate your pragmatism when looking at the current situation, and i'm sorry for not understanding your divergence of opinion with formulaT. I still think your analysis is incorrect in many ways :

1/ you complete ignore the fact that, once again zionist didn't invade militarely any land, until the second part of the XXth century after wars that they never wanted. You depict the process of building israel as an intentionnal violent process which it never has been. You'll probably call them utopists or naiv people, and that's a fair thing to say ( although many of them were simply hopeless), but at least you should admit that it is a very different process from a military invasion.

2/ then you seem to forget that until 1945, the immigration of jews on that land was absolutely controlled by the ruling empire ( be it the ottomn empire, then the british). They were not all allowed to come ( tragically, for those who ended up exterminated by the nazis).

2.5/ you call this process illegitimate. But as i've shown, this was a controlled process by ruling empire. Unless you think the ottoman empire , then the british empire were illegitimate, because they weren't democratically elected by the local people ( which have never been ruled by a local organization). But that's a very anachronic judgment. You also compare it to mexican immigrant building a nation inside the US. But zionism wasn't first about building a nation, it was about owning a land that would be used for jews as a safehaven. Then, once it was clear that the british colonial empire would fall or could leave, did the project of having a true nation was put in place. But never was the state of israel proclaimed until no other organization ruled the land.

3/ finally, you dismiss the importance of the historical relation between the jews and the land, as something of no importance. That is something completely subjectiv. It may have no importance to you, or to the local arabs that didn't want jews as neighbours but as others have pointed out it is the major difference for jews. At least you should take this part of the equation into account.

What an odd and formulaic response.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com