I want to use it to ensure that people like Challenger can't erase, deny or reject the historical, spiritual and ancestral ties that the Jewish people have to the territory. You know, like he JUST did by saying that the Jewish people are not a "real" people and therefore have NO RIGHTS to the reconstitution of the Jewish nation.
Excuse me? No one is sure of the history of that era? Or that of the Jewish people? Compared to which other peoples in the world? And starting from how long ago? There is CLEAR archeological evidence of the existence of the Israelites and the nation of Israel (the culture and the nation of the Jewish people). There is clear evidence of at least the Second Temple, if not the First (and there is probably evidence for the First and more if we were permitted to look). There is clear evidence of Jerusalem being an important administrative town of the Israelites. There is physical evidence for a number of named kings and leaders. There is a written history, as well as an oral one. One of the few things we DON'T have evidence for is the Exodus -- we have evidence for nearly everything else.
Its like saying no one is sure of the history of the Chinese people. Or the Korean people. Or the Egyptian people. What kind of evidence to you need to have in order to classify a people as a people and therefore deserving of rights? Why are you not arguing that Korea can't be a nation because no one is sure of the history of that area or the peoples within it? Convince me that you are applying the SAME criteria universally, because it does not appear that you are. In fact, you are using the exact same arguments that Challenger and Tinmore and others use to deny rights to the Jewish people, you are just more adept at disguising it.
Of course that is what this is about! What special rights do you think are claimed by First Nations peoples? I think that the special rights of First Nations peoples are the preservation of their sacred spaces; the preservation of their language and culture; the right to practice within their own religious, spiritual realms; the right to self-government; the right to apply their own legal understandings to their activities; the right to access natural resources in order to preserve their way of life.
As Rocco is constantly telling Tinmore -- rights don't work that way. Rights (and in this case we are discussing specifically the right to self-determination on ancestral territory) are not a zero sum game. One can not use the existence of one's rights to remove the rights of others. It just does not work that way. Rights are rights. They belong to people. People don't have greater or lesser rights to live or to own a home or to walk through the front door of an establishment or to access medical care or to not be raped. People just have those rights.
So it is ridiculous to argue that my rights erase your rights, or that my rights supercede your rights.
Team Israel makes no such argument (and feel free to tag as many of them as you wish if you would like to ask them and prove me wrong). Indeed, that is projection, as Team Palestine most certainly makes those arguments.
I did remove the phrase in that place from your quote. I did to highlight an extremely relevant point. No one on Team Palestine is arguing against the inherent rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination. Never, in all my years of debate on this topic have I ever seen an pro-Israel poster argue that the Palestinian people have no inherent rights to be a "people". (Oh man, I would be so on that if I saw it).
I have seen arguments that the Palestinian people (and by that, I mean the Palestinians who are Arab Muslim or Arab Christian and have adopted the Arab culture) are invaders. I have seen arguments that those Palestinians already have a territory (Jordan). I have seen arguments that Palestinians are not a distinct enough culture to warrant a self-determination which is seperate from other, very similar cultures. I've seen lots of arguments about the essential inability of the Palestinians to govern a nation. But never have I seen the argument that the Palestinian people have no inherent rights. Prove me wrong.
Yet the anti-Israel argument is that the Jewish people have no inherent rights. Not in Israel. Not anywhere. They are erased, non-existent, the rules do not apply to them because they are not.
You have already stated that you do not believe in the right of return. That's fine. I have no beef with that. I disagree, of course. But its a valid, consistent argument. Of course, the extension of that belief is that it is perfectly legitimate for the returning Jewish people (or any other people for that matter) to push out the Arab Palestinians. If invasion transfers rights from one group to another -- it applies just as equally to the Jewish peoples as any other.
