"Right of Conquest"

[Azeron]

Interesting Article

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Re ... sp?ID=1245


Hobbes and the Middle East
By Robert Locke
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 23, 2002

DISCUSSIONS of the Middle East situation inevitably seem to at least allude to the idea that because Israel is founded upon conquest, its territorial integrity and legitimacy as a nation are somehow impugnable. So let’s get three things perfectly clear:

1. Israel was founded upon conquest, a bald fact that no verbal manipulation of history can disguise. Let’s just admit it.
2. So was the United States.
3. So were most nations.

It is time, that is, to squarely confront the ancient and time-honored political doctrine of the right of conquest.

The basic historical facts are plain: Ottoman Turkey backed the wrong horse in WWI, Britain took her empire, and then promised part of it to organized Jewry in exchange for support at a desperate moment in the war. Britain gave it to them because a) the Jews wanted it so badly and b) the British figured they would make a better colony out of it than the Arabs. When the Arabs made a larger objection to the Jews than expected, it became clear that the Jews were a liability to the British position in the Middle East, so the British wanted out, being by this time bankrupt and soured on the whole idea of empire. So they reneged on their promise of a Jewish state and tried to abandon the whole thing. WWII and its attendant horrors supercharged the Jewish desire to get one and won the sympathies of the world. Israel won its war of independence against five invading Arab armies and has militarily vindicated itself ever since.

It follows that the Israelis hold their land in title derived from the British abandonment to them in 1948, at which point they conquered it against the Arab attempt to do the same. The British title derives from the surrender of these lands by Ottoman Turkey. The Ottoman title derives from the fact that the Ottomans were the native inhabitants of the territory, but of course it doesn’t, because they weren’t. They were invading Turks, no more native to the area than the British. They, in fact, conquered it from the Mamluks in 1517. Who conquered it from the Crusaders in 1291. Who conquered it from the Fatimids in 1099. Who conquered it from the Seljuks in 1098. Who conquered it from the Abbasids. Who conquered it from the Byzantines. Who inherited it from the Romans upon division of the Empire in 395. The Romans had conquered it from the last Jewish kingdom in 63 BC. The Jews had originally conquered it from the Canaanites. Before that, it had also been under the ownership of the Egyptians, who conquered it around 1450 BC, and then the Assyrians, followed by Persians and Greeks. Some of these conquerors were mere military overlords, some of them deeply penetrated the social and demographic fabric of the area. All came and went, to varying degrees.

It is also worth recording at this point the origins in conquest of the Arab and Muslim presence in the Middle East. It is no accident that while "Arab" is the first part of the word "Arabia," where these people are originally from, Arabic is spoken throughout the Middle East and North Africa. This is the product of waves of conquest starting in the 7th Century. The same goes for Islam. For Arabs or Muslims to complain about imperialism is inconsistent to say the least. The Arabs should start by giving up Egypt and the Muslims by giving up Constantinople. Then we can start talking about really big things like getting the influence of Muslim conquerors out of India. For that matter, the Japanese should give Hokkaido back to the Ainu and the Russians, Siberia back to the Chukchi. All persons of Spanish decent must leave Latin America. For that matter, the Anglo-Saxons should give Britain back to the Britons and Celts. I think you get the point I’m trying to make about who has title to this land as the original owner.

Theological arguments for ownership are fair game for religious belief, but cannot be expected to be treated as normative for international relations among parties who do not share the beliefs in question. If you want to assert that this is wrong because God really did give the land to the Jews, you are entitled to do so, but this is a theological argument that must exist independently, above and beyond whatever mundane logic dictates. Its validity is in the same class as that of your religion generally, i.e. a controversy in which you may be right but which cannot resolve the present dispute.

So the present-day Israeli occupation of Palestine is legitimate by right of conquest. This is not a fashionable thing to say, but the validity of the right of conquest is an essential foundation of world order and should be respected. Begin, of course, with the fact that the United States is itself founded on this same principle. The Indians never consented to our establishing this nation. If the right of conquest is illegitimate, the United States is an illegitimate nation. Some far-left lunatics do, of course, believe this, and it has real-world implications in the American Southwest for the Aztlan fanatics (despite of course the fact that Mexico only has what it has by right of conquest, too, as did the bloody imperialist Aztecs before it.) I find it an exquisite but predictable irony that the same administration that is trying to make Israel give territory back to the Palestinians is also surrendering Texas and California to Mexico. The warped consistency of the decadent and guilt-ridden is amazing.

It must also be pointed out that the sole cause of the persistence of the Palestinian problem is the failure of the Arab nations to resettle and integrate the refugees from the Israeli conquest. Roughly a million Jews were expelled from the Arab nations after 1948; Israel has absorbed and integrated them all. The Arab nations could have done the same with their own refugees, but chose instead to sequester them in squalid refugee camps that would nurse their grievances. These are people of the same ethnicity, the same religion, the same language, and there is no reason they could not have been absorbed into the Arab societies. If this had been done after 1948 and 1967, there would be no Palestinian problem. Many of these people’s ancestors migrated into Palestine only after the Jews started developing it after WWI, anyway: they have no deep-seated claim to the place.

Frankly, what puzzles me most in this whole situation is why Israel hasn’t just annexed the West Bank and set about the gradual humane repatriation of the Arab population to the Arab countries. The powers that be in Israel must make up their minds whether this land is rightfully theirs or not. If not, they should give it back; if so, they should take it and integrate it fully into Israel. The present half-measure of military occupation plus settlement without annexation simply gives the impression to the world that Israel concedes some guilt about holding the territories. Annexation may be considered an extreme solution by some, but there is the precedent of the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights in 1981, after which the sky did not fall. It is simply an honest and explicit way of carrying forward the same historical process that has shaped the Middle East from time immemorial.

It also holds out the possibility of achieving an armed but real peace. There is never going to be an unarmed peace between parties with incompatible aspirations but there can be a cold military peace between parties who dislike each other intensely but maintain stable frontiers. Get the Palestinians out of the West Bank and the problem becomes a purely military one of guarding frontiers. Keep them there, and you have the never-ending mess there is today.

The root problem with the so-called peace process is that peace is not a process. Peace is a state of international relations free of armed conflict. So long as the Palestinians want something the Israelis cannot accept, namely the eventual handing over of their country to them, there is no conceivable arrangement, no matter how much negotiation is done and diplomatic cleverness expended, that will satisfy both sides sufficiently that they will lay down their arms. There is simply no way to divide the pie such that both sides will accept it and stop fighting. If there was a formula to be found, it would have been found long ago. The peace process is just an excuse to stage a pantomime of pretending to have a solution in the wings in the vain hope that somehow one will appear by the time the bill comes due. But all these peaceful gestures do not have the power to alter the fundamental facts. Absent capitulation of one side or the other, there is not going to be a peace along these lines.

People are likely to make three objections against squarely facing the legitimacy of the right of conquest:

1. It creates an incentive for war.
2. It rewards violence.
3. It validates any international arrangement.

On the first count, it must be realized that the incentive to make war, self-interest, is there whether conquest is recognized or not. The disincentive, a well-defended neighbor, is also there. The reality is that the world does in fact accommodate itself to conquests after they occur, because it cannot ignore the realities of power and wishes to get on with business as usual. Read the novel Fatherland for a depiction of just how banal our relations with Nazi Germany might have become if they had won. All over the world, the United States and the international community recognize borders that were fixed by conquest at some point or another. Some of these conquests are ancient history, some of them, like the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, are recent. Until we were actually at war, we recognized the USSR and Nazi Germany as legitimate governments with valid claims on their territories. Right of conquest is, de facto, a settled and accepted part of international law and political practice. There are a few cases, like the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States, in which we have made an exception, but vanishingly few, and we didn’t really do that much about it. If you want to tell me right-of-conquest is an illegitimate principle of international order, you are going against our own government and the rest of the civilized world.

Does this validate any international arrangement, i.e. reality the way it is? Well, what would you propose? Are you really going to invade Tibet to expel the Chinese? Invade Brazil to expel the Portuguese and their descendants? If you won’t accept sovereignties that are founded on force, this means rejecting the political legitimacy of half the world. If you’re serious about this and willing to follow it to its logical conclusion, this means refusing to have relations with these powers or otherwise tie them into the international system. This would result in undoing the forces that keep the world at peace. In other words, it means chaos. Which only means more force and more conquests. Even if you want to espouse an anti-conquest value system, you have to accept, de facto, the right of conquest or you get more of the conquests you hate.

The political philosopher who figured this out was Thomas Hobbes, in the 17th Century. He was principally concerned with the chaos resulting from civil, rather than international, war, but the point is the same. Unless one is willing to place oneself into a continual state of war with most of the rest of the world, one must accept the right of conquest. International order, like domestic social order, must be based on things as they are.

None of this should be construed as implying that conquests are a good idea. The fact that we recognize conquests after the fact does not remove the fact that they are bloody, inhumane, and violate previously recognized sovereignties. Conquerors may deserve our recognition, but not our admiration or encouragement. Conservatives should know the difference between accepting the realities of the way the world works and endorsing them as positive goods. But accepting international reality is a prerequisite of maintaining international order, which is a positive good.

It may also be objected to what I have said that it implies that if Israel were to fall to some Arab coalition and an Arab-ruled state were put in its place, this logic would give just as much legitimacy to this successor state. This is true. But the chances are 99% that our own government would eventually work out a modus vivendi and recognize this state, just like it recognized the Soviet Union and the Chinese occupation of Tibet. And seriously speaking, what else could we do under the circumstances? Will anybody other than a few extremists even advocate anything different? History suggests not, which I take a concession of the validity of this recognition.

Better to hope we don’t ever get to that particular dilemma. Possession is still nine-tenths of the law.

[Next of Kin]

So then you wouldn't have a problem with the Palestinians trying to push all Israelis back into the sea. After all, it is just Palestinian conquest to take back what is rightfully theirs to begin with.

[Darth Wong]

Don't confuse moral legitimacy with pragmatism. And as I said, the right of conquest does not confer the right to apartheid.

Israel conquered not only its own formally recognized land, but also all of the occupied territories. Palestinians in those territories are its subjects; they pay taxes, they must obey Israeli regulations, they must obtain Israeli government permits to build structures on their own property, their utilities, roads, and water supplies are all managed by Israel, they are part of Israel. Therefore, they should have the same rights as any other Israeli. They lack those rights because the racial minority in Israel wants to retain control over the racial majority. It's that simple; they keep most of the racial minority in a special part of the country called the "occupied territories" where strict racial segregation is the order of the day and Jews can vote while Arabs can't.

The comparison to America does not wash. America gives the natives as many rights and freedoms as any other citizen (if not more; natives have special privileges in Canada). It is one thing to claim "right of conquest" (a rather hypocritical argument in light of American intervention in Kuwait, but that's another story); it is quite another to claim right to apartheid.

When other states behave like this, we treat them as pariahs. We certainly don't send them billions of dollars of military and economic aid per year and pat them on the back for a job well done. It's amazing how much excuses and flimsy justifications Americans will come up with for being joined at the hip to Israel.

[Azeron]

To this in effect if the palestinians are really so distressed, they can leave for an arab rights paradise just a few miles away if they are so mistreated.

If the palestinians are going to engage in a war of conquest, they cannot cry foul if they are expelled, to say otherwise is to be a hypocrit.

I think that the article really puts the rest to the theory od moral superiority in this case for the arabs. After all, good chuncks of africa and asia and the current mess in the balkans are becasue of thier imperialistic ambitions. You canot expect isreal to turn over iseral to the arabs, and not expect Islam to hand over all its conquered territory -- which is about everything.

The middle East was converted to Islam by the sword as well as North Africa adn Parts of Asia.

BTW Mike, although Isreal does collect taxes, it hands the money over to the PLO with extra development money, so you can't cry foul. Building Codes in PLO controlled areas are set by the PLO itself. its such a corrupt government that it takes allot of time and brides to get anything built.

The Palestine the arabs want to create is no more morrally (I beleive less) legitimate than isreal itself. There aprethied laws are far more harsh than anything Isreal puts on Arabs, by a factor of a 1000x

[Azeron]

A futher Question I might pose, if we were to all go back to where our ancestors came, where do we go? I am part irish, german, english, and french. Do i get my pic of which, or does it come to a game of chance or an arbitrairy determination based on percentages. Would someone who is 1% indian get to stay, but ignore that 99% that was there simply becasue his great great great great great great grandmother was raped?

Talk about illegitimacey. I think ignoring the right of conquest is a more morally percarous position. It feels nice idealogically, you know play fair adn all, but when faced with the consquences of it, its a pretty horrible thing.

[MKSheppard]

It's like plate tectonics......Poland keeps shifting more and more
to the west over the centuries.....do we really want to get into a
match over where *exactly* a countries' border is? You'd have
to re-draw the map of Europe BIGTIME.

Especially the Russian Oblast of Kaliningrad.....

Kaliningrad is not like St. Petersburg or Moscow, where
some people speak English. The most common second
language is probably German, which shouldn't be surprising
as the area used to be Königsberg, part of old Prussia.

The Germans have resigned themselves to losing most of
East Prussia because of WWII. Why the fuck can't the
Palestinians resign themselves to the fact that they keep
losing WARS and as a result, don't get JACK SHIT
at the negotiating table...

He who wins gets to draw the maps afterwards.

For example, Stalin moved Poland west by a couple
of hundred miles to act as a buffer between Germany
and the Soviet Union after WWII, at the expense of
East Prussia.

Another example is Stalin's mass deportations of ethnic
Germans from old East Prussia in the 1950s...shit happens,
so...

DONT LOSE WARS, if you don't
want to get screwed over by the winner.

[Darth Wong]

The Germans have resigned themselves to losing most of East Prussia because of WWII. Why the fuck can't the Palestinians resign themselves to the fact that they keep losing WARS and as a result, don't get JACK SHIT at the negotiating table...

Fine. They don't get anything at the negotiating table. Palestine doesn't exist. It's been conquered by Israel. This means that Israel is mistreating a racial group in its own country, ie- apartheid. Exactly as I've been saying all along.

You see, the Israel knee-jerk defenders' group makes two mutually inconsistent arguments:

1. The occupied territories are not part of Israel, ie- Israel has occupied them but not conquered them. That's why they don't have to grant rights to Arabs living there.
2. Israel has the right to do whatever it wants in the occupies territories because they won and the Palestinians lost. The territories belong to Israel now.

These arguments are mutually contradictory. If Israel has the territory by right of conquest, then it is apartheid not to give its residents equal rights. If Israel does not have the territory and is merely occupying it, then they are engaged in an ongoing war of aggression against resistance forces in a neighbouring state, in which terrorism is a perfectly legitimate counter-tactic (sorry, but the deliberate targeting of civilians has been a standard feature of war since long before any of us were born).

The Israel apologists can't make up their mind: is Israel at war with a neighbouring state, as they say in order to justify IDF brutality? Then it's OK for Palestinians to use terrorism, because the targeting of civilians is quite typical in wartime. Is Israel policing part of its own territory, as they say when they seek to criticize the morality of terrorism? Then they're engaged in apartheid, because a racial group in their own territory is denied voting rights.

Pick one. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

[ArmorPierce]

Well this poll is a win win situation for azeron , so I wont vote for it

[Azeron]

lol, You are still a hypocrit wong. If the Arabs can attack isreal than isreal can attack the arabs.

May I point out the westbank is part of historic Judea, and is being occupied by the palesitnians. They should give it back and go back to wherever thier ancestors came from.

You are right, its a win win situation for me, but its really an interesting point of view. I really liked the article because it puts the moral gravitas wher it should be.

[Darth Wong]

lol, You are still a hypocrit wong. If the Arabs can attack isreal than isreal can attack the arabs.

When have I ever said that terrorism was morally superior to the IDF actions? I have always maintained that one is no better than the other. Thanks for conceding that the IDF is no better than the terrorists, precisely as I've been saying all along. Concession accepted.

May I point out the westbank is part of historic Judea, and is being occupied by the palesitnians. They should give it back and go back to wherever thier ancestors came from.

You mean Canaan?

You are right, its a win win situation for me, but its really an interesting point of view. I really liked the article because it puts the moral gravitas wher it should be.

Hardly. It removes the entire question of morality and replaces it with pragmatism.

[Doomriser]

Anyway, regardless of the moral and intellectual hypocrisy of the pro-Israel anti-semites, I doubt they'll be spouting the "rule of conquest" line in 20-50 years when Israel finally gets conquered by angry Arab nations. [At least for now, this is the way things are heading...]

[MKSheppard]

Anyway, regardless of the moral and intellectual hypocrisy of the pro-Israel anti-semites, I doubt they'll be spouting the "rule of conquest" line in 20-50 years when Israel finally gets conquered by angry Arab nations. [At least for now, this is the way things are heading...]

BWHAHAHAHAHHAHA
AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

Thanks a lot, you really made my night.....

Oh Uhm, if that's true than why was the Syrian government
leaving Damasus during the '73 war? Was it because they were
moving up to take up command over their newly conquered
territories....

Nah, maybe it had something to do with those pesky ISRAELI
ARMORED UNITS sweeping towards it in a mighty drive......

http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1967to ... course.php

....

It was only when it was clear that Egypt was going to lose that the United Nations acted, finally ordering a cease-fire. At that time, Israel held the entire western side of the Suez Canal, coming within 42 miles of Cairo. Israel had pushed Syria back to within 40 miles of Damascus, having destroyed more than 1,100 Syrian tanks.

[Kuja]

I'm with Shep on this one.

[MKSheppard]

They could have kept the Sinai, but they gave it back.

[Kuja]

I've made that argument with people I know who support the notion that Isrealis are expanionist to the point of insanity.

They Could have held it against Egyt, but that wasn't enough of a concession for the arabs.

[MKSheppard]

http://www.afa.org/magazine/Dec1998/1298nickel.html

....

The Israeli government became unequivocally convinced of
impending war just hours before the Arab nations attacked at
2:05 p.m. local time, Oct. 6. Prime Minister Golda Meir, despite
her immense popularity, refused to use those precious hours
to carry out a pre-emptive attack; she was concerned that the
US might withhold critical aid shipments if Washington perceived
Israel to be the aggressor.

....

Because it eliminated the need to husband ammunition and
other consumable items, the continuous flood of US war materiel
enabled Israeli forces to go on the offensive in the latter stages
of the war. In the north, Israel's ground forces recovered all
territory that had been lost and began to march on Damascus.
In the Sinai, tank forces led by Maj. Gen. Ariel Sharon smashed
back across the Suez, encircled the Egyptian Third Army on the
western side of the canal, and threatened Ismailia, Suez City,
and even Cairo itself.

Egypt and Syria, which had previously rejected the idea of a
negotiated settlement, now felt compelled on Oct. 22 to agree
to the arrangement hammered out by Washington and Moscow
with the goal of preventing the total destruction of the trapped
Egyptian army. Israel was reluctant to comply immediately,
wishing to gain as much as possible before a cease-fire.

The Soviet Union, faced with Israel's continuing offensive,
raised the stakes. Moscow declared to the United States that,
if the US could not bring Israel to heel, it would take unilateral
action to dictate a settlement. On Oct. 24, the United States,
in order to intensify the image of risk in Soviet minds and
keep Soviet forces out of the crisis, responded by taking its
armed forces to a worldwide DEFCON III alert, implying
readiness for nuclear operations, if necessary.

[White Cat]

Darth Wong, this is something I've been wondering about for awhile. In your "The Middle East" essay, you state that when Partition was voted on in 1947, Jews made up only 30% of the population and owned only 6% of the land. Could you tell me where you got this information? (I've done some searching, but haven't been able to come up with anything substantiative.)

Also, do these figures account for the fact that until 1947, the nation of Jordan (nee Transjordan) made up most of the British Mandate of Palestine?

[Sea Skimmer]

They could have kept the Sinai, but they gave it back.

That's a pretty shitty map, its missing three independent Egyptian brigades, and one entire Israeli attack. The Infantry brigade which traveled by road to Sharm el Shelka and fought the Egyptian Armored brigade there come to mind. There should be another pair of Egyptian brigades near the canal as well.

On another note, when cease fire came into effect in 1973 Isreal was no long advanceing on the Damascus front. They had been halted for several days by the arrival of a swarm of third party Arab troops and shear Exhaustion. Its very unlikely that drive could have ever gotten going again, espically with another Iraq division enroute.

[Azeron]

I am sure another arab division had isreal shaking in its boots.