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My answer to that question is very simple: I don't know. Perhaps I should clarify something. Earlier, I asked you this question:
In fact, I'm not affirmatively claiming that there is any such thing as "Jewish Land." The reason I used that phrase was to hoist you by your own petard. Because it appears that according to YOUR principles about what constitutes "Palestinian Land" there is also such a thing as Jewish Land and Palestinian Arabs have tried to steal it.
In my view, the entire area has been invaded, occupied, and controlled by so many different groups over the years, there's no way to say one group has, in some abstract moral sense, exclusive ownership.
Anyway, in my previous post I asked a few questions and I would appreciate answers:
If Group X is ethnically cleansed from Land Y in response to bad conduct by a few members of Group X, then Land Y no longer belongs to Group X. Is that your position?
Are you conceding that Gaza City and the eastern part of Jerusalem are [according to your principles] "Jewish Land" (at least the pre-ethnic cleansing Jewish neighborhoods?) Or do you maintain that your exception for justifiable retaliation applies to those places as well?
Are you saying that modern Israel is "Christian Palestinian Land" but not "Palestinian Land"? Or do Palestinian Arabs as a group get credit for the genetic continuity of the Christians?
It sounds like you are saying that if a group of people has "genetic continuity" with some land, then it belongs to that group, but there is an exception if the group voluntarily leaves. Does that sum up your position?
The reason I am asking these questions is that I would like to understand the basic principles behind your claim that some area is "Palestinian Land." (Assuming that there are any principles at all.) Once the goalposts are firmly in place, then we can look at your underlying factual claims.
It appears to me that the Almighty’s Moral Law (evolutionary-informed moral values) inscribed onto the hearts of men from birth (moral intuition) is that if a person takes something by unusual terror and theft, then it doesn’t belong to them, except within a prevailing social climate of everyone taking things by terror and theft, in which case it is usual and merely playing by the rules. People much smarter than myself have expressed these universal moral rules through the bodies of international law. By the end of 1945, the civilized world was firmly against acquisition through terror and theft, and according to experts, the formulations of the 1907 Hague Conventions had become customary international law bound to all states by the 1930s. So when you write,
This is insufficiently specific for me to understand what you mean. If you mean that the land the Jews stole by terror has become their land, then I disagree. If you mean the land they legally bought, then I agree. Each specific case has to be understood specifically. What were the agreements to the land purchases, and so forth? What was the law in place regarding Palestinians on the land? Did they use terror or threat to force purchases? And so forth. All land legally purchased by Jews has become their land, if there was no legal authority presiding over the land apart from the British / Ottoman authorities.
Unfortunately, this view is not in line with genetics and archaeology which show the continuation of Palestinians from the earliest records. When the British Mandate ceased, Palestine doesn’t become some blank slate no man’s land, but the same political apparati that operated under the Mandate and before the Mandate is in effect.
I think I’ve answered ~10 of your questions by now. Which one is the most important that you want me to answer? I pretty much already supplied answers to these, so how do you want me to answer this?
I disagree. There wasn't even a group of Arabs called "Palestinians" until very recently, historically speaking.
I'm simply applying YOUR principles as you've expressed them. Unfortunately, your principles seem to keep changing. You have introduced what could be called a "reasonable retaliation exception" And what could be called a "voluntary abandonment rule."
And now this:
So you've introduced a new rule where the consequences of conduct depend on the year the conduct took place. Apparently in the 1920s, it was "anything goes." But apparently the magic year is 1945.
But it's hard to say -- I am pretty sure that if I ask you to define this new goalpost, you will dodge and weave.
You've dodged and weaved. For example, I've asked you a few times now if Gaza City has any "Jewish Land" in it and you've simply ignored the question.
And to me, the reason for your evasion is pretty obvious. The only real principle behind the concept of "Palestinian Land" is "what's favorable for the group I prefer and unfavorable for the group I am against"
I realize that from a rhetorical standpoint, you have no choice but to hide your position behind a cloak of strategic ambiguity, however I am not interested in those games. I will repeat my previous questions though, and if you ignore, evade, dodge, weave, or deflect, then I will answer them for you and (from my perspective) our exchange will be concluded.
If Group X is ethnically cleansed from Land Y in response to bad conduct by a few members of Group X, then Land Y no longer belongs to Group X. Is that your position?
Are you conceding that Gaza City and the eastern part of Jerusalem are [according to your principles] "Jewish Land" (at least the pre-ethnic cleansing Jewish neighborhoods?) Or do you maintain that your exception for justifiable retaliation applies to those places as well?
Are you saying that modern Israel is "Christian Palestinian Land" but not "Palestinian Land"? Or do Palestinian Arabs as a group get credit for the genetic continuity of the Christians?
It sounds like you are saying that if a group of people has "genetic continuity" with some land, then it belongs to that group, but there is an exception if the group voluntarily leaves. Does that sum up your position?
You are not arguing in good faith. If they own the land and have lived in it for generations, it doesn’t matter what they call themselves. There was a group, based on genetic and archaeological evidence, and they used either more specific city identities (Al-Khalili from Hebron), or greater identities which included parts of Syria, or a clan name. It is fallacious to say something doesn’t exist because it doesn’t have a name you find neatly-specified.
You asked me to specify something, which naturally entails introducing new elements; that is literally how every application or discussion on rules works. I have no idea how this is surprising to you. I already detailed the specific legal articulations of 1907, if that’s how you prefer to think. You don’t need a midrash for this. You asked me an underlying principle to the underlying principle; the underlying principle of underlying principles is evolutionary intuition, and under that is God. What do you want me to say, “it’s turtles all the way down”? I can literally point to an international body that has legislated on these issues with neat rules. You are pointing to… I don’t even know. Yet even neat rules require implementation specification.
Yes, the civilized world was in agreement on this prior to the Nakba, according to experts of international law. You can call this magic and I would agree that human cooperation is magic. If you don’t believe in any international law, then we still have moral intuition.
This is not an honest way to engage in discourse. You asked me to legislate on a list of areas, and I did you the honor of going through academic resources to find details of the first event you listed, which included finding the second volume of an expansive history of Palestine in French. “If you don’t spend 100 hours finding the exact details of implementation involving every city I list, you have dodged my question”. Surely you can tell this is silly. I have already said that the rule applies based on material conditions, so I fail to see your point. You’re looking for some way to score a deceitful victory in your own mind, I suppose, by asking questions on details which involve innumerable specific details, and would never be settled in the real world except through months-long deliberation. That’s more hutzpah than gotcha.
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