Re: Oren commencement speech riles Brandeis

In <6475e375-19a1-41d6-a5c6-38a521ce0f85@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Jay J <levin.jj@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

But IMO you're making the mistake nearly everyone discussing this issue
makes, in confusing two completely different issues: individual property
rights, versus an ethnic group's right to sovereignity. They're different
things.

I don't think so. The Jews were invaded, killed, and expelled 2,000
years ago. Someone else has been living on that land since then. Now
the Jews are claiming ancient ownership and want their land back.

Not exactly, I don't think. And further, it's not an ownership claim it's
a sovereignity claim. Ethnic groups can't own land - individuals own land,
governments can own land, but races and ethnic groups don't own anything.

The Indians were invaded, killed and expelled 200 years ago. Someone
else has been living on that land since then. Now the Indians are
claiming ancient ownership and want their land back.

Some are, yes, but once again it's also about sovereignity not necessarily
ownership. And they have it - that's what reservations are.

Sauce for the goose.

I am all for making the Palestinians live IN PEACE with Israel, and to
refuse them a state until such time as they agree to be peaceful
neighbors, but to claim that the Jews own the WB and the Palis should
find another place to live is just as unacceptable as telling +/- 6
million Jews who live in Israel that they need to move back to where
they or their parents came from, be it Germany, Romania, Russia, or
whatever.

I agree with the above, but isn't the current official Israeli position as
well, one of the ones you said you disagreed with? (although of course it
wasn't necessarily so in the past, and took longer than it should have to
get to this point)

The distinction I'm trying to make, btw, is between the case of Joe Smith
who owned a house at 123 Main Street until the foreign army came and said
"all Smiths better get out if they know what's good for them." Joe Smith
certainly has a right to be compensated for that loss - whether Joe's an
Arab displaced by the Israelis, a Jew displaced by the Jordanians, or
whatever. This compensation might include the right to get his house back,
or something financial. There's no question about that.

I'm contrasting that notion, individual ownership, with the right to
sovereignity - whether or not Paddy Kelly has the right to say his house
ought to be part of the Republic of Ireland, rather than Great Britain.
Or, whether the King of Spain gets to claim the continent of North America
for himself.

I don't believe there's such a thing as "Jewish Land" or "Muslim Land."
Regarding Palestine prior to 1948, I think Jews had as much right to move
there and live there as anyone else, including Arabs, American Indians,
Mormons, whoever - everybody ought to be allowed to live whereever they
want (subject to certain other rights of course). This, of course, is
provided that the ownership of the land was transferred in a legal,
recognized way - e.g., they bought it, which is in fact the case I
believe.

That's for individually owned land, I understand that in that part of the
world there is an added complexity in that villages have certain farmlands
that the residents of the village own in common.

Then there's land that isn't owned by any individuals or local
communities, but is instead controlled by the national government.
Challenge in Palestine is the national government (Ottoman Empire) ceased
to exist, so that government's right to control the lands (gained via
conquest) was, in a dramatic turn of events, not passed to another entity
via conquest but was instead placed under a mandate under the authority of
a new global organization of states, i.e., the League of Nations.
Unprecedented.

Now, people have a right to be represented by a government of their own
choosing. It's difficult when there's already an established government
and people want to change it - see the case of the Kurds, the Basques,
etc., not to mention the Catholics of Northern Ireland and the slaveowners
of the US South prior to 1865.

If you're going to assert that the Jews living in Palestine were required
by some sort of "majority rules / ethnic ownership" kind of claim to be
ruled by Arabs in an Islamic State, then you might as well argue that
everyone in Asia ought to be ruled by the Chinese government because they
are the majority. That's not how it works.

So in terms of sovereignity, not ownership, the Jews living in Palestine
had exactly as much right as any other people to their own government. And
further, once that government was legally recognized by the international
authority, i.e., the UN, then that government legally took on not only
sovereignity over its people but also ownership of the
government-controlled land (which did not include the West Bank, I don't
think - I'm establishing the validity of Israel's existence in the first
place, not a claim to the West Bank, etc.)

So bottom line I agree with you that the fact that Jews historically lived
in Hebron doesn't automatically convey any rights of sovereignity or
ownership to modern-day Jews. However, I would further say that the fact
that Arabs lived in the West Bank doesn't automatically convey any rights
of sovreignity or ownership to the Arab people as a whole either, or even
to those Arabs collectively who call themselves Palestinians.

People who actually live in the West Bank today have a right to a
government of their own choosing - the fact is the majority of those
people are Muslim Arabs, and they'd like a government that favors Islam
and Arabs. That's their right - but IMO not because it's "Arab land" or
"Muslim land" but because it reflects the desires of the people who
actually live there.

Regarding those who dont actually live there, if they can prove that they
were displaced and suffered losses of property, then they're entitled to
seek compensation. However, if you don't live there, you don't live there
- there's no such thing as group rights, IMO. In a a place like Detroit
right now you've got people whose grandparents came from Jerusalem, Minsk,
Krakow, Berlin, etc. It's irrelevant - if the government of Belarus wishes
to offer me citizenship because that's where my grandparents were from
then they are free to do so, but unless and until they do that I have no
claim against the government of Belarus, there's no "right of return"
unless they wish to offer it.

Allright, I could go on but gotta get on with my morning.

--s
--

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