Part Eight: What , Exactly, Does Israel Owe?

…continued from “Why Do We Hesitate” (i.e. read the part(s) below first)

Because I’m used to addressing a largely Conservative and pro-Israeli audience, sometimes my arguments make it seem as though I oppose this viewpoint. Actually those would be perfectly accurate descriptions of my personal views. My writing challenges this perspective so that I, and ideally others, can try to avoid dogmatic thinking. It’s just not reasonable to assume that any one side in this debate is perfectly justified, so it seems like a good idea to analyze the justification for the alternate viewpoint. However, more recently I’ve encountered the opposite persuasion, so I thought it would be appropriate to deal with the some of the most common flaws in the anti-Israeli position.

I’ve often heard the “argument” that Israel’s creation and location was a mistake. This seems to be used as a reason to justify imposing harsher sanctions and penalties against Israel since “they shouldn’t be there anyway.” This argument seems to draw credibility from the assumption that Palestinians have a stronger claim to the territory than the more recently deposited Israelis, which is suspect. First of all, the Palestinians were not a nation before the creation of Israel; this seems to have been a reactive creation. Secondly, there were Jews who lived in the area at the same time as the Palestinians, before Israel as we know it today had even been conceived. Thirdly, when Israel was created, they invited the Palestinians living there to become a part of the new nation (so it could have been a united nation). Furthermore, if a land claim is determined by tracing family lineage, i.e. something which transcends the individual, then why is it that the Palestinian claim to the area supersedes the Israeli claim? There were Jews in the area reaching back into antiquity…

Personally I think justification for a land claim is the most important factor. While there can be no justification for taking something from a person, in what sense does a person’s right to an area depend on their lineage? Say some Palestinian claims a piece of land and can prove with absolute security that it belonged to his family in the past (with photographs or legal documents or whatever have you) and that it was taken by unjust means. Does this inherently prove that the Israeli living there now does so illegally? That’s not how our Justice system works; why should we prescribe it for others? The argument that says: “the Israeli living there now must return the land”, fails to take seriously the distinction between individuals. Assuming the current resident is not personally responsible for displacing the Palestinian, the Israeli cannot –given our legal standards— be held responsible for the Palestinian’s suffering. This is identical to how we deal with native land claims in Canada and the US. We don’t just force the American who is occupying the territory now to move and give back the land. Instead we adopt a sense of corporate liability, and the government as an entity is liable for compensation. This could mistakenly be used as justification for holding the nation of Israel exclusively responsible for the Palestinian plight. But as per my earlier argument (in another section) there are many countries responsible for Israel’s formation, therefore many share this burden.

We must also consider what is owed in virtue of the “Israeli Occupation”, compared to what might be owed just in virtue of the justice of human equality. If we are responsible to make the well-being of the average Palestinian equivalent to the conditions before the creation of Israel, then the improvements we must undertake will yield only minor amelioration in their quality of life. However, as fellow human beings it is my belief that we owe them an equal opportunity for well-being—but that’s another essay altogether. Israel herself seems to owe very little and the particular Israeli occupying the area owes nothing.

Talk of removing, obliterating or absorbing Israel is pointless and completely unjust. Seriously consider the likelihood that many of the original, pre-Israel, residents are driving this agenda. With that in mind, in what sense does Palestine have a right to the territory? Honestly, the real driving force behind this talk is the attempted legitimatization of the hatred felt towards Israel –which I have already argued originates from other factors. We do owe Palestinians something, but that thing is not Israel.