rightful owners? under what law?

Submitted by Abdul Rahman Reijerink (Australia), Jul 5, 2006 at 10:35

Dear Anne,

The last I heard, violent dispossesion of a people to take their land does not make it right. No matter how we view the seizure of the land that now makes up Israel, we must accept that violence was a part of it. If it is unacceptable for Saddam or Stalin or Hitler, then the way it happened in Israel/Palestine is unaccpetable too (not the lawful purchases of land but the subsequent violent dispossesion of peasants by military force. essentially an act of terrorism). remember that one of the first modern acts of (non-state) mass terrorism was the blowing up of the King David hotel, an important event in the foundation of the Jewish state. Again forgive any errors I have made in reporting facts, I do this from memory not a proper textbook. correct factual errors please.

Don't get me wrong, I do not dispute Jewish people's right to live in Palestine/Israel, but they do not have an exclusive right in international law or in religious law as far as I understand.

Does this mean that Australia should go back in its entirety to the Aboriginal people or the US and Canada to their indiginous?

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