The LuLac Edition #5, 026, Nobvember 15th, 2023

 

WRITE ON WEDNESDAY

Our “Write On Wednesday” logo

This week we look at a type of history lesson on Israel and its very right to fight. With demonstrations and antisemitism riding high in this country especially among the young and uneducated this letter is timely.  

 ISRAEL HAS ESTABLISHED ITS RIGHT TO EXIST

Editor: Almost from the day after Hamas' brutal attack on Israel, some commentators have sought to justify the savagery as an appropriate response to Israel's decades-long "occupation" of lands where Palestinians had lived and thrived for centuries. To be sure, in creating a Jewish homeland out of part of the Palestinian territories which came under Britain's control after World War I, many Palestinians were forced out of their lands, homes, farms and orchards, although Jews had also occupied the area for millennia. But while non-Jewish inhabitants did indeed suffer injustices in the process of carving out a Jewish state, many pro-Palestinian supporters accord no more legitimacy to Israel than, say, Vichy France during World War II, an entity created entirely by conquest.

Yet the stark fact is that many if not most countries in the world today were also created by a mix of factors which often included aggression and conquest. Germany and Italy were both created out of dozens of small, independent states, often by less than savory means. Yet is anyone today prepared to argue that Saxony or Milan be granted independence? Much of the southwestern U.S. was formerly owned by Mexico, until wrested away by the U.S. in the Mexican War. Does justice demand we return "conquered" Arizona, California and Utah to our southern neighbors?

 At some point, the passage of time and the confluence of culture, migration and other factors militate that a given nation state be accorded a basic legitimacy and right to exist, unless it continues to engage in unjustified aggression against its neighbors or its own people. As much as I despise some of some of Israel's policies and leaders, it's a bit late to view all of this country as simply conquered land which must be returned to the Palestinians.

 

Thomas K Noonan

Barnesville