Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Very un-true. Where there white Christian Europeans living in US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand 3,000 years ago?
No.
Where significant populations of the same white Christian Europeans living continually resident in the same regions for 3,000 years?
No.
I don't see much relevance there. Suppose there had been some white Christians in the area for the last 3000 years... would that give another batch of white Christians the "right" to seize the land, impose nationhood on terms unacceptable to the bulk of the existing population, and eject, subjugate, or kill any who objected? Same answer: according to the standards of 200 years ago, yes, according to the standards of today, no.

Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Not surprised. You've probably never had your right to exist threatened, and what you seem to have missed, it is a "Universal Right" - of all people - which is invoked in the modern context. Not an exclusive right.
Actually my personal right to exist has been threatened a number of times, but that's hardly material. If the right to exist is a "universal right" than surely the Palestinians have the same right, no? In which case the question becomes not whether Israel had a right to exist, but whether the Zionists were entitled to assert that right at the expense of someone else's right to exist.

I don't see how anyone can claim that a "right to exist" translates into the right to establish a nation by imposing it on an existing population that doesn't want to be part of it, but if the Israelis have that right, then surely the Palestinians do as well: if one group has the right to expand the concept of a "right to exist" to the right to take whatever land they want as their nation, surely other groups can do the same. If the Israelis were entitled to seize the land they wanted for their nation by force and terror, surely the Palestinians are entitled to try to do the same. Good for geese, good for ganders... unless we assume that some have more rights than others.

And from marct...

Actually, I'm not doing this to be a s*%t disturber, I'm doing it to highlight the problem with the types of claims that are often used to justify holding particular pieces of territory or anything else for that matter... All "rights" are social fictions that are accepted or dismissed based on whether or not a) they are useful to someone and b) whether or not they can be enforced. There is no such thing as a "right to exist" in nature, and the sillyness of assuming it can be seen by asking if a man drowning in the middle of the Atlantic has such a "right" and, if he does, how will it be enforced?
Agreed on all points.