georgephillip,
et al,
The reverse and the inverse of this question are just as valid.
(COMMENT)
- How do you know that Israel does not have the right to rule over the area it now controls?
- How do you know the Arabs have the right to rule?
The weakness here, of course, is that establishing a "right to rule" is entirely the wrong question. Prior to Israeli control, the region was under French and British Mandates. Prior to the Western Mandates, the entire region was under the Ottoman Empire for nearly 400 years; and the Empire of the Mamluks for 200 years before that.
I'm not saying that the Palestinians don't have a legitimate grievance, but under the rights of conquest, they clearly have not established the "right to rule."
Residency, that is a different matter. Land holdings, that is a different matter. But an inherent right, or a moral or ethnically bound "right;" they don't have. Palestine, as a region, but never a country, has been conquered more so than almost any other region of the world.
This Arab-Israeli conflict is a dispute over a question that has no answer. Neither side is completely right or wrong. But they argue as if territorial rule has some historic foundation; from ancient occupations. Well, that is faulty; and the 21st Century Palestinian Arab should be thankful. Because if we were still using the rights of conquest today, Israel has it.
This religious and ethnical base bickering needs to stop. But I don't think either culture is intellectually set to resolve their differences.
Most Respectfully,
R