Quote (JessiWan @ Nov 2 2023 03:17pm)
It doesn't matter if you want to call them something other than Palestinians. The fact is, prior to your people settling in this general region, there were already people living here. And from their perspective, your ancestors were invaders.
I feel that it's not constructive to talk about who the land belongs to. I look at it from the perspective of ordinary people who have been living there. And it so happens that Palestinians have been living in the general region for generations. And from their perspective, the Israelis are invaders.
Besides, if you go back in history far enough, you will probably find that these Israelis' ancestors also invaded another people's land and displaced the original inhabitants. If you want to claim that Israelis are the rightful owner of this land, you need to prove that they were the absolute first people to have arrived in and lived in said land.
I agree that it's not constructive, or generally very valid, to discuss who the "rightful" owners of the land are.
I see it more pragmatically. The land belongs to whomever can claim it. The only rightful owners of the land are those who can maintain the strength of arms to claim the territory, which is Israel.
This is universal. The land of the USA rightfully belongs to the USA since they claimed it and no one else has staked a claim.
Although the case of Israel is somewhat special in that we actually do know the ancient history. The original inhabitants of the land were known as the Canaanites (Phoenician and Punic being the Greek and Roman names respectively), whom are now extinct and thus cannot claim the land. When they were expelled from the land by the Israelites as documented in the Bible, they sailed and founded other nations, the most well known being the thalassocratic Carthagian Empire, which was destroyed by the Romans.
This post was edited by El1te on Nov 2 2023 04:34pm