The Law is an Equus asinus

Submitted by bos (United Kingdom), Sep 25, 2008 at 13:19

A Nation State is a relatively new phenomenon, especially in the middle east where the only independent nation state (as opposed to an Empire, or vassal kingdom or petty feifdom) to have existed prior to the collapse of the ottoman caliphate, was actually Israel.

Now I'm not denying legitimacy in the Palestinian claim to the right of self determination, even nationhood, but there cohesion as 'a people' is very new and largley formed as a reaction to the assertion of Israeli nationhood. (This doesnt make it iligitimate). Prior to that they considered themselves part of some greater arab or islamic 'people' there representatives to the peel commision described themselves as southern syrians, most were happy to be absorbed into the hashemite kingdom and one of the heros of the earliest 'nationalistic' Palestinian revolts against Britain was actually Lebanese (though that may not have been his own description of himself). Most of the Islamist palestinian militants damn the world for the destruction of the caliphate, so even now they are happy to be retrospectively considered to primarily be 'ottoman' subjects.

Again I accept the basic principle of your post, ie that the Palestinians have a right to statehood, but your post is largely ill concieved, your definition of a state is poor, your claim to established boundaries is simply wrong. If the Palestinans are as we all believe, Arabs then they cant have been in Palestine/Israel/Eastern Byzantium as anything other than visitors for more than 1500 years the islamic conquest was less than 1400 years ago and even with slavery and polygamy the effective colonisation must have taken centuries.

You should also choose your comparisons more carefully because a thirty year reclamation rule would disbar the Palestinians from claiming ownership of any portion of palestine on either side of the jordan, even if they could argue ever having had national ownership of it in 'law'.

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