Comments Elsewhere

Assuming, arguendo, “that some of the land in Israel actually was stolen from individual Palestinians in the Israeli War of Independence,” Tim Starr writes:

For one thing, compensation in lieu of returning the property may be more appropriate.

Whether this is “appropriate” restitution for the crime is primarily up to the victims of the crime, not its beneficiaries (that is flagrantly immoral) and not “disinterested” third parties (how would they know?).

Also, is there no statute of limitations for land theft?

No. Why would there be? If I have some land and you throw me off of it in violation of my rights, it remains my land, not yours. Even if you get away with it for a long time. (What would you do that would have made it yours rather than mine? Sit on it? Work on it? Occupancy and use only count towards homesteading if the land is unowned to begin with.)

Furthermore, a good many Jews used to live in Islamic countries that expelled them and confiscated their property — how come that is never brought up by those who want land returned to Palestinians by Israel?

Because it’s irrelevant to the topic at hand.

You have at the most a case for convicting some advocates of Palestinian claims of anti-Semitism, or hypocrisy, or historical ignorance. But that has no bearing at all on whether or not individual victims of land theft have a right to get their own land back.

Do those Jews not have the right to have their property returned, or to receive compensation for it?

Of course they do. But the violations of their rights neither justify nor excuse the violations of individual Palestinians’ rights. Nor does it justify or excuse refusing or delaying restitution to individual Palestinians.

Also, what about compensation to the families of all the Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism?

I’m for it, provided that the compensation actually comes from the property of individual terrorists and their commanders. What has this got to do with whether or not other Palestinians who (we’ve assumed) had land stolen from them have got a right to get that land back?

Israel has also offered tens of billions of dollars in compensation to the Palestinians for any injustices they might have suffered at Israeli hands, but the Palestinians have never offered any compensation to Israel for killing Israeli civilians as a means of achieving Palestinian political goals. … In short, Israel has bent over backwards for peace in the Middle East, and the Islamo-Nazis and their international sympathizers on the commie-left and nazi-right have merely replied to each effort by saying that Israel wasn’t bending over far enough.

“Israel” has not done anything, or offered compensation to anyone. Nor have “the Palestinians” received any offers of compensation. Nor could “the Palestinians” offer any compensation. Individuals act, not ambiguous-collectives.

Maybe you mean the Israeli government has been doing a lot, and some group of people that you’ve designated the collective bargaining agent for all Palestinian people hasn’t done a lot, or hasn’t done anything, in return. Oh well; that may suck from the standpoint of the diplomatic resolution of conflicts between warring states, or quasi-states, or self-appointed states-in-exile. But what has that got to do with the land rights, or other rights, of individual Palestinian people? It’s not their job to compensate individual Israelis for things that they didn’t do; and it’s not their fault if the people who did do it aren’t paying for it.

Your comment is an exercise in shameless tribal collectivism from beginning to end.