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To: Hermann the Cherusker
Of course, I believe in property rights, but the Arabs were enemy combatants; that is, thousands served in the Ottoman armies. Thus, the British were free to dispose of Arab properly in any manner they pleased.
Just as Southerners discovered after the Civil War, the victorious power has the right to dispose of your property in any way he deems fit.
France discovered learned this after the Franco-Prussian War when Germany annexed Alsace-Lorraine.
Germany learned the same lesson after WWII, when it was forced to cede East Prussia to Poland.
In any event, the Arabs living on the land were for most part tenant farmers without any ownership rights.
Almost of the land in "Palestine" was owned by absentee landlords who lived in Damascus, who were only too willing to sell the land to the Jews. In fact, so willing were these landlords to sell, that the Zionist organizations lacked the funds to purchase all that came on the market.

The state must guarantee property rights, but for rights to have meaning there must be a guarantor. As the world exists now, the guarantor is the state. If the state no longer exists nor has no power to protect its citizens, then rights become a tenuous matter.
If you doubt this, visit Aztlan.net. You'll see maps depicting how the Western part of the United States is to be carved up into a new state called Aztlan.
Believe me, should the United States lose a major war and be occupied by a hostile power, the demands to create this new state will be made and made vociferously.
If Aztlan is ever created, you can be certain its rulers will not look kindly on the property rights of non-Hispanics.

The Geneva Convention is just that, a convention among states. There was (and is) no state called Arabia. As I said, the British promise was given to the Emir of Mecca alone and not to the Arabs.

I agree that the dispossession of Arab property by the Israelis is regrettable, but this unfortunate situation could have been avoided, if the Arabs had been willing to allow the Jews to settle in Palestine.
In fact, Arab hostility to Jewish settlement is the one constant fact in the history of the area.
Of course, Arabs want their property back, but they abandoned it in the first place or they sided with the invading Arab armies.
Might does not make right, but it makes fact. Facts may be unfortunate, but they are real.
20 posted on 08/30/2004 7:30:51 AM PDT by quadrant
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To: quadrant
Not to mention that Israel owns most of the land (around 70% I believe, not 95%) because the Brits owned it and gave it to Israel.

The Brits owned it because the Turks owned it, it wasn't private property. Arabs who stayed still own their property, Arabs who fled and didn't file claims by 1954, and few did, still anticipating an Arab victory, were out of luck. Israel's position is that they'd be glad to negotiate compensation, though only in conjunction with compensation to Jews expelled from Arab lands. Needless to say, that's a non starter.

21 posted on 08/30/2004 7:38:22 AM PDT by SJackson (You'd be amazed the number of people who wanna introduce themselves to you in the men's room J.Kerry)
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To: quadrant
Just as Southerners discovered after the Civil War, the victorious power has the right to dispose of your property in any way he deems fit.

France discovered learned this after the Franco-Prussian War when Germany annexed Alsace-Lorraine.

Germany learned the same lesson after WWII, when it was forced to cede East Prussia to Poland.

You are confusing "rights" with "power". There is certainly nothing in the rules of conduct of the civilzed nations of the world which allows for mass dispossesion and expulsions. And only in the last case, East Prussia, was their a wholesale disposession and expulsion of the native inhabitants by the conquerors.

Either we believe in property rights, or we believe in the rule of the strongest with the most guns.

43 posted on 08/31/2004 6:35:09 AM PDT by Hermann the Cherusker
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