Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Forgive me, but Ya All*h! Zionism - in its many expressions and forms - is nothing to do with legality any more than Buddhism is.
It's an idea. OK it's an idea with actual physical expression now. Israel exists because of that idea. No Zionist, no Israel. It's that simple.
Zionism is not an idea seeking legality or legitimacy. It's an idea seeking security. My guess is the founding fathers of the US where no whole lot bothered by legality or the early Texans either!
Very true. Israel was established on exactly the same principle as the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand: the principle that "superior" races are entitled to take land they want, expel, subjugate, or kill the existing inhabitants, and establish a nation. The only difference is that in the 17th-19th centuries this was seen as the natural order of things; by the second half of the 20th the "superior" races were starting to rethink that order and the "inferior" were starting to object, using the same tools that were used against them. Anyone proposing such a maneuver today would be seen as morally abhorrent (because you shouldn't do such things) and insane (because you can't).

The whole "right to exist" thing is incomprehensible to me... who could assign such "rights" in the first place? The Jews have the right to pursue their political objectives, the Palestinians have the right to pursue theirs. Both have elected to use violence. What's the difference? The Zionists seized the nation they wanted by force, including the use of terrorism. The Palestinians are trying to seize it back the same way. Again, what's the difference? The Zionists had their driving idea, so do the Palestinian nationalists. Just as the Jews "knew" they would never be safe and secure without their own country, the Palestinians "know" the same.

Any claim based on religious tradition is of course absurd. Anyone showing up in my neighborhood and announcing that his imaginary friend had instructed him to incorporate our town into a nation devoted to his security would be met with an immediate and violent rejection; I wouldn't expect anyone else to respond differently.

The relevant question here is is not about abstract and indeterminable "rights to exist". The relevant question is whether Israel has the right to perpetual and unconditional support from the US, and this American's answer there is an emphatic "no". US relations with Israel should be as US relations with anyone else: based on a balance of perceived short, medium, and long-term US interests. Israel wouldn't dream of putting our interests ahead of theirs, why should we put theirs ahead of ours?