A Philosophical Basis for Resolving the Israeli Palestinian Conflict
After spending some time observing the arguments on both sides of the issue, Ive noticed that both parties support their claims of having right to the land of Israel/Palestine by referring to some time in the past in which their ancestors lived there. They anchor their demands in a cultural, religious, and historical attachment to the land.
Palestinians say: "We've been living here for generations, my parents lived here, so did my grandparents, and so did my great grandparents you cant just start bringing settlers from Europe, America, and other places, who have no connection to this land but the religious pseudo-arguments they make! "
Israelis say: "You don't understand. My ancestors were here way long before any of your ancestors came. The Kingdom of Israel existed in this place 3000 years ago! We were here before you and were then kicked out, so it is our right to come back and claim what has always belonged to us!"
So then my question comes: On what basis are we to establish to whom any given piece of land belongs: (1). on the basis of who inhabited the land more recently before the conflict erupted (aka Palestinians) or (2). on the basis of whose ancestors inhabited the piece of land first (aka Israel)?
And, whichever one you choose, on what meta-principle are you making that choice?
I think this issue has been derailed because discourse has become too pragmatic, instead of trying to establish a philosophical, a priori scheme, against which the political pragmatic facts could be judged.
Palestinians say: "We've been living here for generations, my parents lived here, so did my grandparents, and so did my great grandparents you cant just start bringing settlers from Europe, America, and other places, who have no connection to this land but the religious pseudo-arguments they make! "
Israelis say: "You don't understand. My ancestors were here way long before any of your ancestors came. The Kingdom of Israel existed in this place 3000 years ago! We were here before you and were then kicked out, so it is our right to come back and claim what has always belonged to us!"
So then my question comes: On what basis are we to establish to whom any given piece of land belongs: (1). on the basis of who inhabited the land more recently before the conflict erupted (aka Palestinians) or (2). on the basis of whose ancestors inhabited the piece of land first (aka Israel)?
And, whichever one you choose, on what meta-principle are you making that choice?
I think this issue has been derailed because discourse has become too pragmatic, instead of trying to establish a philosophical, a priori scheme, against which the political pragmatic facts could be judged.
Comments (9)
The Israeli main argument was born in the context of nationalism (every people have a right to their own nation). This is called zionism during debates on the issue it was also an idea that Israel could be founded in argentina.
The holocaust amplified a feeling of necessity for the jewish people to create a state to be secure that a similar tradegy wouldn't happen again. This was also shared by other western powers especially britain who gave land they owned in palestine for jews to create their own state.
The decision that it would be in the land that is connected to their scriptures is surley no trivial point however it shouldn't be seen as the main point.
I see what you are getting at. In my opinion one of the other options for the Israeli homeland should have been chosen. One of those was a place in Uganda and there were some others. There are plenty of Muslim and even pseudo Christian nations. I think there is enough land in this world that the Israelis should have their own homeland. The queen of England is the largest land owner in the world and i think she could have parted with some of her land.
Quoting rickyk95
I think this is usually done by power what ever form it takes. However I don't think there's a proper way with the nationalistic framework to resolve the issue.
However given the framework I think the best theoretical approaches are democratization, globalization and individualization. However if these concepts work in practice as good as in theory is questionable.
It is worth remembering that nationalism served in it's founding days as inclusive force and only later became an excluding force.It just doesn't work in timescales humans want it to work.
The EU can be seen as current approach that based on democracy, globalization(or rather stronger connectedness between the parts in question), individualism(to have a bigger scope of shared opinions and more interest for ones own life and less interest for national topics) and shared organizational structures(demanding bettering of ones live directed at said structures) is working to create a new supranational "nation"/entity.
This has led to a rather peaceful period in Europe, still there is a significant amount of opposition and distrust. We also easily see that the views don't change as quick as some pro-EU advocates would like it.
With this in mind the chances for the case Israel-Palestine case to be resolved don't look to good and the best starting point for it to happen would be an increase in economic co-dependence.
"With this in mind the chances for the case Israel-Palestine case to be resolved don't look to good and the best starting point for it to happen would be an increase in economic co-dependence. "
Sounds about right.
If it were a matter of who inhabited the land first, it's still questionable if Israelis qualify as being first. There are fossil records of neanderthals inhabiting the area, for instance. On what basis would they be discounted? Because they're extinct? Because they didn't have a similar enough culture? In any case, there were also pre-Israeli humans, and they must have had a similar culture to early Israelites, so Israelites could not be considered first in any fundamental way.
If I recall, the manner in which Israel acquired land was rather underhanded. Simply displacing people from their land isn't a good ground of ownership in civilized society.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY
If who came first was judged to be a valid basis for settling the dispute then it would open the door for other groups to come forward and make a claim. That's unlikely, but then if it were possible to make a rational case for either of your two options it's highly unlikely that it would help to resolve the dispute. This is just an exercise, right?