Editor,
First, I'd like to define the term "state," based on the information provided by www.webster.com. It is "a politically organized body of people usually occupying a definite territory; especially one that is sovereign or the political organization of such a body of people."
In a letter titled "Israel has legitimate right to defend itself from terrorism," David Scheibert informs us that a state has a right to defend itself. That is true, as it is true that a living being's basic function is to survive.
However, what are the rights of two beings when their individual survival depends on the destruction or conquest of the other? Who decides, and how? Does might make right?
For nearly 1,300 years - 638 AD to 1917 AD - Palestine was composed of 95 percent Arab Palestinians. These peoples governed themselves, semi-autonomously, under two empires: the Muslim Caliphate, then the Ottoman Turks.
Not until the British seized control in 1917 was a truly foreign rule placed upon Palestine. Should the territory and culture of these Arab Palestinians constitute a state? They were and remain organized and have occupied a definite territory. They have even enjoyed periods of sovereignty.
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On the other hand, what of the Palestine that was the Jewish Kingdom of David and Solomon, before they were defeated and exiled by the Assyrians and Babylonians in eight through six century BC? Is this Jewish claim still valid? What about the claim of the ancestors of the Philistines, who were destroyed by the Hebrews in Palestine in the 10th century BC?
In 1948, when Great Britain decided to cede its mandate over Palestine, in favor of the creation of a Jewish state, did not the Palestinians have a right to defend their land and culture from Israeli invaders, or terrorists, and their United Nations, United States and British backers? Might the wounded remnants of this people have the right to continue their defense?
While I do not necessarily disagree with U.S. policy in Palestine, because doing so would undermine the well-being of my own state, I am not comfortable with the attempt, by many, to justify this policy in moral terms. Pragmatism, not activism, dictates that we prioritize the survival of the Jewish state over that of any Palestinian state. An individual with a strong enough opinion to write the Lobo, regarding matters of this importance, should have a solid and objective basis in historical fact.
Ian Field
Undergraduate student
