Two quibbles with Seamus' statement about recognition.

(1) Arafat always in his conversations with his people and Arab nations compared the Accords with one of Mohammed's temporary expedient treaties with an opponent he later destroyed. He never--as in not once--acknowledged Israel's right to exist in Arabic.

(2) Worse yet, the Hamas movement, which is now the PA's government, denounced the recognition letters in the Accords, and steadfastly refuses to recognize Israel to this day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Osl...by_both_parties

None of which excuses Israel's sins toward the Palestinians (planting settlements, uprooting Palestinians from their homes, etc), but it does give you a flavor of who Israel has to negotiate with.
Dale Price | Homepage | 03.30.07 - 1:59 pm | #

And I also disagree with the idea that there is nothing special about our relationship with Israel.

(1) The nation is on holy ground. It will always be important as a result. Thus, the type of nation that sits on that ground matters, as the Palestinian Christians fleeing increasing Muslim persecution can testify.

(2) Israel was born of the Holocaust. If "never again" is something more than empty sloganeering, than the nation that is home to half the remaining Jews in the world means a great deal, indeed. Especially when there are those slavering to destroy it.
Dale Price | Homepage | 03.30.07 - 2:03 pm | #

When I say "there's a sound natural law case to be made for the right of Jews to a homeland" does this agree or disagree with the claim of the PLO that Israel has no right to exist?

You're also known to remark that a perfectly sensible solution would be for this homeland to be located in Montana. I think that puts you somewhat in alignment with the "Israel has no right to exist" crowd, at least to the extent that it indicates that you might believe that the Arabs have superior title to the piece of land in question.
K the C | 03.30.07 - 2:12 pm | #

One key reason why I have singled out the state of Israel for special attention on the moral front is that before 9-11, I believe one-third of our foreign aid went to this first world country, which enabled it to do all manner of unjust things to the Palestinians, which led to intifadas', anti-Semitic rage across the Middle East, more systemic terrorism, and a huge wedge driven between Palestinian Christians and Muslims. I have never argued that Israel is the root of all evil in foreign policy, but because it has been given such a bipartisan free pass and free lunches, even more so than the hate-Castro/punish Cuba special interest, I do spend a lot of time lobbying for a semblance of balance in our Israeli-Palestinian dealings.

It also helps that I lived for several months with the Palestinian priest Elias Chacour, and learned a lot about things from a native Catholic perspective.
Tim Shipe | 03.30.07 - 2:12 pm | #

The question is, if there is no Palestinian state, why is there no Palestinian state?

The Arabs were offered a Palestinian state in 1937. They said no, and launched the Great Uprising to drive the Jews out of Palestine.

The Arabs were offered a Palestinian state in 1947. They said no, and launched a war to drive the Jews out of Palestine.

After the war, the West Bank was occupied by Jordan and Gaza by Egypt. At the time, there was no agitation for a Palestinian state in those areas. In 1964, the PLO was created, not to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank, but to drive the Jews out of Israel.

After the 1967 war, Israel agreed to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. The Arabs responded with the three Nos: No Peace with Israel; No recognition of Israel; No negotiations with Israel.

Again, in 2000, Israel agreed to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Arafat said no, and started the Intifada.

Israel is hardly blameless when it comes to relations with its Arab neighbors, but if you want to know why there is no Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, I think you have to look elsewhere.
Blackadder | 03.30.07 - 2:15 pm | #

The difficulty in this situation is that two groups have clear, definable, and reasonable-to-many claims to the same land.

In other words, for Seamus' Aztlan example -- some people would cast the United States as Isreal and Palestine as the immigrants (looking at today's events) or that the US is Palestine and Isreal is the immigrant nation (looking at the Zion homeland movement of last century, appearantly Seamus).
mike the analyst | 03.30.07 - 2:16 pm | #

K:

False. In the context of a discussion where it was hypothesized, "What would happen if the state of Israel failed" I made a half-serious remark that aimed to say "There's lots of room on planet Earth." I do *not* propose that I *hope* the state of Israel fails. Please retract this falsehood.
Mark P. Shea | Homepage | 03.30.07 - 2:27 pm | #

Dale:

Palestinian Christians sit on holy ground too. The trouble is, they aren't *just* fleeing from Muslims. They are also fleeing from Israelis. The state of Israel is not rendered sacrosanct by its location, unless we are also going to take seriously that Palestinians in Bethlehem are likewise rendered sacrosanct by their physical location. I think that's a bad basis for American policy.

I don't understand the strange sense that Americans have that the Holocaust is somehow specially our responsibility. The Killing Fields, the famines of Stalin, and the Cultural Revolution (which, taken together, killed far more than Hitler) don't seem to have imposed on us the sense that we must order all our foreign policy toward Never Again. We are doing business with the Commies. So why does the Holocaust mean something special in determining our relationship with Israel? I'm not alone in this view. My friend Rabbi Lapin is equally puzzled about why there is Holocaust Museum on American soil. We're the guys who ended the Holocaust.
Mark P. Shea | Homepage | 03.30.07 - 2:38 pm | #

Exactly right Mark- wouldn't it be more appropriate to have national museums in DC featuring our own bitter history regarding the Native Indians and Slavery. This doesn't have to be a politically-correct gesture- I would want it to be authentic history covering as many angles as possible. I've been to Germany and Poland and visited the death camps and been very moved- why are we so inclined to keep our historical dark spots hidden away, or spoken of only in leftist enclaves?
Tim Shipe | 03.30.07 - 2:47 pm | #

Blackaadder said no because the Clinton/Barak had a plan with about a dozen "regions" in the West Bank which would require Palestinians to pass through check points between each one within their own state. Arafat was right in rejecting it.
William | 03.30.07 - 2:52 pm | #

I do *not* propose that I *hope* the state of Israel fails. Please retract this falsehood.

I never said that you "hope the state of Israel fails." I can't possibly imagine where you got the idea that I said that. I don't know how to retract something I never said or implied, but if it makes you feel better, fine: Mark Shea never said that he hopes Israel fails.

I was just pointing out that your support for Israel comes off as tepid if you suggest that Israel could just as easily been located in Montana. Like I said, it makes you sound like you think Israel's title to its present location is weak.

And even if you do think that, it's a defensible position. It wouldn't mean that you're an anti-Semite. But it woud align you with anti-Israel elements.
K the C | 03.30.07 - 2:52 pm | #

Mark:

Last things first: America has the largest Jewish population on the planet--a Holocaust museum isn't that surprising. Or rather, it's about as surprising as the Detroit African-American museum having the largest collection of a certain kind of African art, or having the largest Irish history museum--America is home to a large number of people with a connection to the events in question.

And I'm not saying that America had anything to do with the Holocaust. What I am saying is that the Holocaust is a ghastly crime that should still sear the conscience of the world, and should affect how we regard the home of a significant number of the world's tiny Jewish population.

As to the rest, I suspect I am unclear, so let me try it another way: the re-emergence of an independent Jewish nation should be about as controversial as the rebirth of Poland, Ireland or the Czech republic--but it's not, simply because of where it sits. It matters terribly whether the lands of the Bible are governed by a parliamentary democracy or a Hamas-led sharia despotism.
Dale Price | Homepage | 03.30.07 - 2:58 pm | #

I am not "aligned with anti-Israel elements". I do not make any claims that Arabs have greater claim to the land. I am emphatically not "aligned" with the "Israel has no right to exist" crowd. These statements are false. Retract them. Now.
Mark P. Shea | Homepage | 03.30.07 - 3:00 pm | #

Hi Mark,

Can you just put an end to something. My brother says that you do not believe that Jews need to be baptized to get to heaven. That is, that you believe that the Old Covenant is still valid for them. Do you believe this? Yes or no. It would settle a family squabble. Thanks
Jim Taylor | 03.30.07 - 3:03 pm | #

Mark Shea has repeatedly described Israel as a "secular nation state". If you read the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel ( http:// www.jewishvirtuallibrary....c_of_Indep.html ), it is pretty obvious that the founders did not have in mind a secular state. Israel today does not have a written constitution, like many truly secular states, because the existence of such a constitution appeared to many to be essentially opposed to the rule of Torah. The covenant God made was with the children of Israel, wherever they are. And since large numbers of them are especially to be found in Israel, the covenant continues in operation in a special way in that country. Israel is a Jewish state.
paul | Homepage | 03.30.07 - 3:15 pm | #

Jim:

I believe the Old Covenant is binding on unbaptized Jews, but not salvific. So did St. Paul, who describes unbaptized Jews as "married" to the law in Romans 7. So, for that matter, does Jesus, who says he came, not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them. Jews cannot be saved by the Law, but neither can they escape its demands.

As a Catholic I believe that baptism is the normative means of salvation, but I also believe (as the Church teaches) that "though we are bound by the sacraments, God is not bound". Therefore, as Jesus teaches in the parable of the sheep and the goats and as Paul teaches in Roman 2, those who through no fault of their own, do not have access to the gospel may still be saved by their obedience to the Spirit of Christ when they are obedient to such light of conscience as they have.

Short question. Long answer.
Mark P. Shea | Homepage | 03.30.07 - 3:28 pm | #

"Israel is a Jewish state." Yes, but certainly not a "practicing Jewish state". The majority of Israeli are indeed secular.
William | 03.30.07 - 4:23 pm | #

The Arabs were offered a Palestinian state in 1937. They said no, and launched the Great Uprising to drive the Jews out of Palestine.

The Arabs were offered a Palestinian state in 1947. They said no, and launched a war to drive the Jews out of Palestine.

In 1947, the Jewish population of Palestine was only about a third of the total, and it presumably was even less in 1938. By comparison, in the 2000 census, Hispanics were 32.4% of the population of California, 42.1% of the population of New Mexico, and 32.0% of the population of Texas. Now I would presume that those percentages are higher. I suspect that if the Hispanics tried to carve their own state out of California, New Mexico, or Texas, especially if by force, the Anglos there would not be mollified by the fact that the Hispanic offered them an Anglo state (or states). Especially if the borders of the Hispanic state were drawn so that its total population would be 40% Anglo (the way the Jewish state proposed in the 1947 Partition Plan would have been 40% Arab).
Seamus | 03.30.07 - 5:41 pm | #

the re-emergence of an independent Jewish nation should be about as controversial as the rebirth of Poland, Ireland or the Czech republic--but it's not, simply because of where it sits.

There's a little more than that: there's the fact that the Poles, Irish, and Czechs didn't migrate to the land in the generation or two preceding the "rebirth" of their nations, against the clear wishes of the native population.

But it's funny you should mention Ireland. The Scotch-Irish Protestants of Ulster had been there for about 300 years at the time of the Irish War for Independence, yet the Irish only agreed to allow partition for the benefit of the Ulstermen with the uttermost reluctance. Funny too that you should mention the Czech Republic. The Sudeten Germans had been in Bohemia and Moravia for many hundreds of years before the establishment of Czechoslavakia, yet the Czechoslovaks resisted partition for the benefit of the German, and only permitted it when the British and French withdrew their protection in 1938. That partition was reversed after World War II.

The Dutch Boers came to South Africa about the same time their co-religionists came to Ulster. I think that if they had proposed in 1938, or 1947 to partition South Africa into a Boer state and a Bantu state, they would have been laughed at. (Oh, wait, that's what they did propose, only a little later; they called it "separate development." But I can't imagine the world accepting it even if the Boers had proposed something like a fair division, in which the Bantu would have been given a proportionate share of the land and natural resources of the country, rather than being relegated to miserable bantustans.)

The Jews, on the other hand, only started coming to Palestine in significant numbers a little more than
100 years ago. After World War I, it was more than clear that the native population didn't want them coming, and certainly didn't want their land partitioned for the benefit of the new immigrants. So I have a hard time seeing why it's patently obvious that they were entitled to something that the Ulstermen only established because of centuries of residence, and that the Sudenten Germans and Dutch South Africans weren't entitled to at all, notwithstanding their centuries of residence.
Seamus | 03.30.07 - 5:45 pm | #

I would just remind everyone to watch The World Over on EWTN tonight. Should be an interesting interview with Fr. Vasko who has lived in Israel for some 30 years.
William | 03.30.07 - 6:27 pm | #

Seamus- thank you for your incredibly accurate reality check.
Anonymous | 03.30.07 - 7:13 pm | #

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......
Janjan | 03.30.07 - 7:16 pm | #

Mark:

I'll "retract" whatever the fark you want, regardless of whether I said it, implied it, or whatever. Consider it retracted. I've got better uses of my time than to worry about why you're so cranky. If you're going to get upset every time that someone points out that some of your positions on Israel are shared by Israel's enemies, then it's time to upgrade to a thicker skin.

Whenever I talk about Israel, I somehow managed to sooner or later wind up being simultaneously accused of being a Zionist Agent of Influence and an anti-semite.

Everyone misunderstands you? Well, there can only be two reasons for that: either we're all idiots who can't grasp your crystal-clear explations, or you're being opaque. Which do you think it is?
K the C | 03.30.07 - 10:52 pm | #

I think that reality must be acknowledged- one is going to be much more harshly criticized in the mainstream if they decide that the Palestinian narrative is the more likely one on the whole. With both major parties falling all over themselves to praise Israel and overlook the Palestinian masses- I don't think it is fair to characterize the discussion as damned if you do, damned if you don't. The pro-Israeli interest wins hands down in the pressure application on politicians, media commentators, even in academia- despite the presence of some notable objectors to US/Israeli policies in the Middle East.

We are asked to compare the plight of Israelis and Palestinians as one where both sides are relatively equal in strength and ability to do the other harm. This is dishonest- Israeli is a first-world, military megapower, most of the Palestinians live is squalor. The fact that the other Arab nations led by Kings and dictators often set up or generously supported by the US or UK, have never been true friends of the Palestinians, hardly makes the Israeli case a moral one. It just means that the poor Palestinians have been screwed over by just about everyone, their cause is used by Arab despots to distract their own teeming masses, but they are still left pretty much at the mercy of the Israelis. And mercy is the one thing seriously lacking in the Israeli strategy in controlling the Occupied Territories. The basic problem with most of the "debate" on Israel v. Palestine is that the whole matter of who has the power in the relationship is rarely given any honest treatment. When Palestinians first fought back as a united grassroots community in the first intifada, it was mostly about stones vs. tanks, and Israeli used it's immense advantage to do all manner of violence to break the will of the people- including breaking the bones of children who dared lift a pebble- these children who survived the broken bones, the imprisonments, the torture, were sent back to their checkpoint humiliations and refugee camps and they became the terrorists everyone fears today. Of course, this is the broad outline of the basic truths- Seamus provides some nice historical detail and comparisons.

The fact is that rare is it to find any critic of Israel here in the US who would say that Israelis should be pushed out of Israel "proper", but you hear all the time in Republican and Democratic circles that these Palestinians had better follow our dictates or they will never get a state that is their natural right. And in Christian and Jewish hard core pro-Zionist political and media circles you can readily hear that these Palestinians have no right to any of these lands of Biblical Israel- you have many examples of Jews from the US showing up in the West Bank one day and claiming the land and home of Palestinians who have been on that land for generations- and they have been enabled with US funding to master over those unfortunate Palestinians- what I witnessed in Hebron was enough to make me wonder how the Palestinians have been so gentle and patient in living under such cruelty and insanity. And the world calls them the terrorists, the extremists! I think of Americans who have lived in their homes for a week and already have their guns loaded and ready to shoot anyone who would dare to challenge them or their property rights- imagine Mexicans or Indians coming back to claim our homes as part of their ancestral land of spiritual significanse to them, and if we didn't leave peaceably, well there could be a massacre led by nice guys modeled on "heroes" like Sharon, Shamir, Begin et al.

It may be that we have pushed the Palestinians too far, they may now be too dysfunctional after so many decades of abuse from all sides. They may feel that their only unity will come only with Islam, with jihadist pride and violence. I pray it is not so- but it really can't be surprising- so many opportunities have been lost- and to blame the weakest party is just so convenient- ignoring the whole Israeli strategy of buying time in order to build more and more settlements and checkpoints inside what would be the only places for a Palestinian State in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. The Palestinians now have Gaza back- wow- if anyone has looked into the demographics, the geography and economics of Gaza and then you still think Israel was being generous in leaving their prime settlements there in the nick of time, and taking American funds to pay off each settler to the tune of a couple hundred thousand- wow. Israel has always been the master of her own destiny- she has chosen brute force and occupation- very unChrist-like strategies- which is why I would challenge America's economic and political cooperation with such strategies. A better way is to follow international law, common decency, and in this case even UN resolutions- all of which have pointed out the basic outline for a just peace a long time ago. Is it too far gone now?
Anonymous | 03.31.07 - 1:08 am | #

"If you're going to get upset every time that someone points out that some of your positions on Israel are shared by Israel's enemies, then it's time to upgrade to a thicker skin."
K the C, I'm not sure how you explain the fact that many Israelis hold the same positions as Mark.
William | 03.31.07 - 8:53 am | #

Seamus:

I'd dispute your narrative, but that would, like your several hundred words, manage to miss the point entirely. If nothing else, these debates handily remind me why the "peace process" is an empty joke. Congrats also on managing the neat trick of further eroding my genuine sympathy for the Palestinians, who are being abused by the Israelis.

The problem is that your narrative refuses to grant any form of legitimacy to Israel. Like the Sudeten Germans and Scots-Irish, I suppose they should be driven back to their ancestral homeland.

Oh, wait....
Dale Price | Homepage | 03.31.07 - 10:11 pm | #

Mr. Price:

Please remind me when it was that the Scotch-Irish were "driven back to their ancestral homeland"?

And no, I don't believe the Israelis should be driven back to Ur of the Chaldees.
Seamus | 04.01.07 - 5:30 pm | #

Israel's Prime Minister openly states that not one Palestinian will be granted the Right to Return to his home or land. I suppose it doesn't matter that Geneva Conventions clearly state that a conquering power cannot permanently settle in the land and homes of those conquered during wartime. This naked territorial conquest is supposedly behind the civilized world now- only trouble is that we keep making exceptions for the Israelis and thus make a mockery of any standard of international law.
Anonymous | 04.01.07 - 10:17 pm | #

What a relief, Seamus, considering we're not real welcome in Iraq these days.

Anonymous, it's really cute how you cling to "International Law", ( a fluid and ever changing canon depending on who is defining it) like it's some kind of new covenant....
Janjan | 04.01.07 - 10:55 pm | #

Interesting conversation. I don't buy the idea that Americans must defend Israel whatever it does, either. I believe decisions should be made on a practical geo-political and moral basis just like any other. And any attempt to accelerate the 2nd coming by our foreign policy toward Israel strikes me as unsupportable and incredibly dangerous.

However, on another point, I have heard the claims that Christian are fleeing the Jewish areas of Israel before, but I'm not sure it squares with the actual data.

From the Central Bureau of Statistics in Israel: http://www.cbs.gov.il/hodaot2004.../ 01_04_342e.htm

Of course, there are some who may consider the CBS of Israel to be propaganda.

And a couple of other subjective articles:

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles...le.asp? ID=11477

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/ new...RTICLE_ID=53574


Maybe it is true that Christians are leaving Jewish controlled areas, too, but I've never seen the hard data to back it up.

Can anyone provide any?
Michael Forrest | 04.01.07 - 11:35 pm | #

This naked territorial conquest is supposedly behind the civilized world now- only trouble is that we keep making exceptions for the Israelis and thus make a mockery of any standard of international law.

Let's see--East Prussia, divided between Russia and Poland in 1945; Silesia, given to Poland, 1945; Eastern Poland, annexed to Russia/White Russia, 1945...

Parts of Germany were also given to the Netherlands in 1945 as well, all as a result of the war.

But nobody has their knickers in a wad about that.
Dale Price | Homepage | 04.02.07 - 10:38 am | #

Seamus:

Re: the Scots-Irish. Well, of course not. Not yet. But it's the natural corollary of your delegitimization rhetoric.

I will give you (serious) high marks for consistency. Most supporters of the Palestinians don't support the uprooting of the German communities in Eastern Europe or the dismantling of Protestant Ulster.
Dale Price | Homepage | 04.02.07 - 10:42 am | #

Oh, and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts about the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo in 1848.
Dale Price | Homepage | 04.02.07 - 10:43 am | #

Let's see--East Prussia, divided between Russia and Poland in 1945; Silesia, given to Poland, 1945; Eastern Poland, annexed to Russia/White Russia, 1945...

Parts of Germany were also given to the Netherlands in 1945 as well, all as a result of the war.

But nobody has their knickers in a wad about that.

You haven't been paying attention. For a start, you might check out "Ethnic Cleasing in Twentieth-Century Europe," edited by Steven Bela Vardy and T. Hunt Tooley (with foreward by Otto von Habsburg). (As for the redrawing of the eastern boundary or Poland, that merely brought the international boundary to the existing ethnic frontier; there were no massive population transfers or expulsions. As for the Dutch German border, there were only 20 fragments of German territory--most smaller than a square kilometer and all together totalling no more than 69 square kilometers that were transferred--that were transferred from Germany to the Netherlands (again without population transfers) and most of them were returned to Germany in 1963 and 2002.)

Oh, and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts about the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo in 1848.

Well, I can tell you that the injustice of the Mexican War (and the subsequent Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo)doesn't justify the entry of Mexican immigrants into the American Southwest with the intention of establishing a state of Atzlan against the will of the current inhabitants. Perhaps you disagree.

But I agree with you that "making exceptions for the Israelis" is problematic. Unfortunately, the establishment of the State of Israel can only be supported on the basis of such exceptions, as there really is no modern parallel to the establishment of Israel. (As I have pointed out, the establishment of Poland, Ireland, Czechoslovakia, etc. all involved granting self-determination to populations who had been established in their locations for many centuries.) There might be a parallel, however, if the Roma were now to demand the right to return to India and carve out an independent state out of their ancestral homeland, or the Parsees to return to Iran and carve out a state there. I presume that you would support both projects if they were proposed?
Seamus | 04.02.07 - 11:42 am | #

(1) Yes, the Netherlands involved some minimal scraps of territory--exactly like the Shebaa Farms totem Hezbollah keeps brandishing.

(2) I don't know enough about the Roma or Parsees to be able to say. The Roma are better known as the Gypsies, but that's about the extent of my knowledge.

(3) Eastern Poland--I suppose it depends on what your definition of "minimal" is. It was certainly a significant piece of territory and no one asked the inhabitants about their opinion of it, of course. And from your silence, I guess you're conceding on Silesia and East Prussia? Thank God displaced Germans aren't of a mind to strap on sxplosive lederhosen.

(4) Guadaloupe-Hidalgo: No, I'm not of a mind to give back the territory (or the Gadsen Purchase, either) and agree with your response. But that raises a question about your reasoning: Why not? Squatters' rights for me but not Jews?

Because the Aztlaner argument is functional equivalent of that of the Palestinians: a right of return to lands unjustly taken from their forbears at the point of a gun--lands whose resources would have enabled Mexico to become a great nation.

When it's us, I guess it's tough titty, Jose. Same to you, Chippewas, Mohawks, Cherokee, Pawnee, Huron...

The bottom line is that the Israeli-Palestinian situation isn't that unique: certain peoples have been dealt bad hands, have to make peace with history and move on. Except for Israel/Palestine: no, that scab has to be picked at, the running sore lovingly squeezed and the Palestinians infantilized by the worst horrors of Islamism, UN mismanagement and their cynical Arab brethren.

None of which is to excuse the brutalities and indignities visited upon them by the Israelis, who at the least owe extensive reparations to the Palestinians. But that's contingent on accepting that they are going to have to live with a Jewish neighbor, and not some illegitimate "entity."
Dale Price | Homepage | 04.02.07 - 12:33 pm | #

(1) The Dutch-German border adjustments were the subject of treaty between the two countries, and thus can be considered to represent the consent of both parties. Shebaa Farms, on the other hand, is not the subject of any agreement between Syria and Lebanon. (That said, I would have to argue that the better argument is that the Farms are Syrian territory, and thus appropriately under Israeli occupation.)

(2) It's a shame that you profess ignorance about the two ethnic groups whose position is most like that of the Jews before the rise of Zionism. Like the Jews, both Roma (or gypsies) and Parsees have been dispersed from their ancestral homes (Indian, in the case of the gypsies; Persia, in the case of the Parsees) They have maintained their ethnic identity, but like the Jews, they are regarded as citizens of every country where they are found, but they constitute a minority in every country where they are found. To establish a state of their own, they would have to carve out a piece of some existing country, almost certainly against the will of the current inhabitants (unless they were planning to establish their state in Antarctica). The Parsees are Zoroastrians whose ancestors left Persia at the time of the Moslem conquests. They live mostly in India, where (like the Jews in Europe and the United States) they have achieved a great measure of economic and political success. (Sam Menishkaw, commander in chief of the Indian army at the time of the 1971 war with Pakistan, is a Parsee. Zubin Mehta and Freddy Mercury are prominent members of the Parsee diaspora.)

The ancestors of the Roma (gypsies) came from India. Like the Jews, they have been subject to disdain and persecution almost everywhere they have found themselves. (Unlike either the Jews or the Parsees, they have remained on the lower rungs of society.) Like the Jews, they were specially targeted by the Nazis, and thus could make their own argumentum a Holocausto in favor of establishing their own state. I can't see anyone being persuaded by that argument, though.

(BTW, if it is argued that Parsees already have a homeland, Iran, because they are simply Persians who didn't convert, then a similar argument could be made about Jews and Palestine. Over time, the majority of the Jewish inhabitants of what is now Palestine who remained there converted, first to Christianity and later to Islam. It cannot seriously be argued that this obligated them to welcome back those of their distant relatives who emigrated hundreds of years earlier but retained their religion (or, in the case of non-religious Jews, only retained an ethnic identity.)

(3) I suspect that if you had asked the inhabitants of Eastern Poland, most of them (who were Ukrainians and Byelorussians) would have said that they preferred to be governed by the Ukraine or by Byelorussia (now Belarus). In any case, there was no great expulsion of populations following that redrawing of the border.

I was not silent about Silesia or East Prussia. I mentioned the book on "Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe," which discusses what a great crime against humanity the expulsion of the Germans from those territories constituted. I suggested that book as merely a starting point for considering the gross injustice of that aspect of the post-war settlement. Just as I think it was unjust of the Israelis to displace Arabs from the land they had inhabited for centuries (and for the Germans after 1939 to attempt displace Poles from lands in West Prussia and Posen they had inhabited for centuries), so was it unjust of the Poles and Russians to do the same to Germans who had lived there for centuries.

(4) Two answers: (i) Mexico agreed to the cession of what is now the Southwest United States (and was paid good money for it, too; I don't recall Israel ever even offering to compensate either Palestine as a nation or individual Palestinians); the Palestinians have never acquiesced in the partition of their country. There needs to be a kind of statute of limitations for irredentist claims, but I would point out that, under property law, one can only acquire property by adverse possession if the original owner acquiesces in that possession. But when the original owner has continued to insist on his title, the transfer cannot be considered final. We are seeing this in the case of property transfers by the Nazis and Communists--many of them predating the transfers that accompanied the establishment of the State of Israel--that are being reversed in the interests of justice.

(ii) The Mexican War took place before the general acceptance of the principle of self-determination. Zionism, on the other hand, got going in a big way just as that principle was becoming the guiding star of the Allies in World War I. Unfortunately, as the King-Crane Commission (which President Wilson sent to the Middle East to inquire into the views of the inhabitants about the future of those lands) reported, Zionism was simply inconsistent with the principle of self-determination that was inspiring the establishment of the new states of Poland, Ireland, and Czechoslovakia. As the Afrikaaners learned in South Africa, it's simply no longer acceptable to do what we did to the Mexicans.
Seamus | 04.02.07 - 2:05 pm | #

I should hasten to add that, after 60 years, the State of Israel should be regarded as a fait accompli. That probably means that something like a two-state solution will have to be put in place. But you are quite right to liken the Palestinian Arabs' plight to that of the "Chippewas, Mohawks, Cherokee, Pawnee, Huron..." -- except for the part how the Indians have largely either been killed off or submitted to overwhelming force. In both cases, the dominant power needs to acknowledge that an injustice was done in dispossessing the native population of its land for the benefit of the alien settlers.
Anonymous | 04.02.07 - 2:23 pm | #

But if we're talking about carving out states for particular minorities, I vote to give one to this group (hat tip to Amy Welborn):
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/...inion/ iraq.html
Seamus | 04.02.07 - 3:48 pm | #

I should hasten to add that, after 60 years, the State of Israel should be regarded as a fait accompli.

This view, however, is not immune from challenge. I am reminded that today is the 25th anniversary of the Argentine invasion of the Falklands/Malvinas. The Argies rightly point out that the fact that the British have been there since 1833 doesn't give them good title, if their original title was bad and if Argentina has continuously challenged the British claim (which it has). (Of course, that doesn't entitle them to try to upset the status quo by force as they did in 1982.) Similarly, it could be argued that if Israel didn't have good title to its territory in 1947, the passage of time would be insufficient to give it such title, against the continuous objection of the Arab Palestinians.

Where the analogy breaks down is that, upon withdrawal of the British on May 15, 1947, there was arguably a vacuum of sovereignty, rather than a disputed sovereignty as in the case of the Falklands, and that any state that could establish itself would therefore acquire de jure sovereignty. If that's the case, though, then you'd have to concede that there was a similar vacuum of sovereignty in Somalia after the collapse of its government in 1991, and that the government of "Somaliland" is the de jure sovereign over the land where it is now established de facto. I don't think the U.S. government agrees; it continues to sneeringly refer to the "self-proclaimed Republic of Somaliland."
Seamus | 04.02.07 - 5:50 pm | #

"That you profess ignorance"

Ah--I'm dissembling, now?

I have Holy Week to attend to.

Good night.
Dale Price | Homepage | 04.02.07 - 10:20 pm | #

Mr. Price:

It was far from my intent to accuse you of dissembling. I apologize if my infelicitous choice of words misled you to that conclusion.
Seamus | 04.03.07 - 9:44 am | #