McFreedom

One thing that I still remain without a firm opinion on in the Middle East is the question of Jewish Settlements. I think there is no question in my mind that they are misguided; that, without them, peace in the region would be much more attainable. But the wisdom of a policy is a seperate question from the morality of a policy.

The New York Times article, Despite Violence, Settlers Survive and Spread, interviews some settlers and talks about why they want to settle there. But to me it doesn't address the biggest question: How is the land for settlers deeded? I can think of three basic possibilities:

1) It is deeded in private transactions; private Israeli groups, individuals, or the Israeli government pays or trades in some fashion to acquire the land. In which case, in my mind, the settlements are clearly moral, if ill-advised. In which case, Palestenians attacking settlers at home are simply people worried that "there goes the neighborhood, more Jews are moving in," and they are clearly in the wrong.

2) The land is not deeded in any way. No one currently owns the land. Either because no one ever settled it (it is, after all, a desert, so that's possible) or because whomever did own the deed fled during the conflicts or died without an heir during the conflict. Again, that is possible; there has to be some orderly reclamation of title on abandoned property. If not, a lot of Europe would currently not be owned by anyone after World War II, for example. In this case, again, the settlers are arguably acting morally - they are homesteaders following an approved policy to settle land and generate a title by improving it and occupying it for some time. De Soto's The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else has an excellent overview of the history of this process; it's not unprescedented. If this is the case, again, the settlers in the Occupied Territories are in the right in my world-view, but may not be in others. I believe that, when Israel captures the Occupied Territories in the '67 war, it gained some right to annex those territories. Those who believe that Israel did not gain that right would see Israeli-administered homesteading as a continued illegal occupation. Regardless, if Israel does not intend to officially annex the Occupied Territories, homesteading is not in its best interest.

3) Finally, it could be because the Israeli government is actively or passively sanctioning the taking of lands that are owned and occupied by Palestenians. In this case, the Israelis are clearly in the wrong on this issue.

I've had a hard time finding hard information on the legal justification of settlements. It is clear to me that, to the extent that the Israeli government is encouraging settlements (whatever their legality), they are not acting in a coherent fashion. Israel has always stated that the occupation of the territories is temporary - hence why they have made no attempt to annex them. Yet, if they are encouraging settlements, that would seem to be to make it difficult to affect a withdrawl.

I suspect that we have a problem here of pragmatic political realities ("we have no need to occupy this territory permanently") hitting religious politics ("it is our God-given right to retake territories we held 2,000 years ago"). Religious politics (on both sides) I have no patience for; the argument that The Koran, The Torah (or The Bible for that matter) "says so" should be utterly irellevent in international policymaking. It should be utterly irellevent in domestic policymaking, as well, but as long as these governments run themselves, that's their decision.

Why does this matter? Well, if the Israelis are occupying the territories immorally, the Palestenians, I believe, do have a right to use violence against the settlers to remove them. If someone came and took your house and land, I believe you would have the moral right to use whatevever force was needed to retrieve your property. You would not of course, have the moral right to blow up someone else back in Israel who had nothing directly to do with it.

Off to do more research... Finding good info about Israeli history online is so hard, because the first 50 hits on any search engine are so polemic on either side that it's impossible to sort fact from fiction.