I’ve heard a lot of claims in the last few months about one or another ethnic group having a right to some particular piece of the world. Sometimes it is claimed that they have a legal right to the land. When that doesn’t seem supportable it is claimed that they have a moral right to the land.
Some Arab groups claim that they have a right to the land occupied by Israel, while the Jewish, and other, citizens of Israel believe that they are the rightful owners. Each side states that the history of the land supports their claim.
The Kurds in Iraq claim that part of Turkey belongs to them — or that it belongs to their fellow Kurds in Turkey. In either case they believe that the Kurds of Iraq and the Kurds of Turkey should be united along with the lands on which they reside. Of course the government of Turkey vehemently disputes their claim. And the new government of Iraq doesn’t favor relinqushing its Kurdish territory.
Back in 1990 Saddam Hussein staked a claim on the region known as Kuwait, and set about to reacquire it. A major military offensive by a coalition of more rational governments around the world convinced him that he could get along very well without Kuwait.
Various apologists for the natural actions of the human race claim that the ‘Native Americans’ had their lands stolen from them and that it should all be given back to them. Some of it has been. Congress is now trying to create another nation within a nation for ‘Native Hawaiians’.
More recently some Mexicans have staked a claim to major parts of the United States. And millions of them have come here illegally. Most of them have done so to find work so they can send money home to their families. But some of them, along with their supporters here, are engaged in promoting their claim to our land — using catchy slogans like “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us”.
It’s hard not to see the absurdity of such claims. We can’t roll back time. We can’t right wrongs that occurred hundreds of years ago. We can throw Saddam out of Kuwait when he’s only been there a few months, but we can’t give the lands of the United States back to the ‘Native Americans’ and the Mexicans. It would create more problems than it would solve. For instance, how would the ‘Native Americans’ and the Mexicans then resolve their conflicting claims?
Most parts of the world have been occupied and ruled by different ethnic groups and by different empires at various times in the history of the earth. I suppose we can all agree that we don’t have to give Europe back to the Neanderthals. And it seems likely that the Ottoman Empire is not going to assert any claim to the territories of Israel/Palestine. But the Jews and the Arabs are quite clearly willing to defend their claims to the same territory. Does either one, and only one, of them have a convincing legal and/or moral right to the territory? I’m convinced that the answer is no. There is precedent throughout time and the world for conquered or settled lands to be considered the legal property of the conquerors or the settlers. So what can be done?
I suppose it’s at least theoretically possible to move all the Israelis to Wyoming and let the Arabs have ‘Palestine’, but it’s not going to happen. We have to do one of two things: We either have to come up with a solution that the Arabs and the Israelis can forever live with, or we have to let them fight it out to the finish. It is clear to me that the former option is going to take a better crop of leaders than we have today or have had in the past. How many more peace prizes will it take before someone realizes that UN resolutions and cease fires and appeasement are not working?
Not all claims are equal. It depends upon what happened, when it happened and what the situation is now. Claims must be practical in addition to well-justified.
You admit that it was right to “throw Saddam out of Kuwait”. Have you then chosen “a few months” as your dividing line?
In the case of Kashmir, the Line of Control has long been the de facto border. Generations have grown up under this assumption and made their adjustments accordingly. Even though Pakistan’s occupation of the northern third was originally illegal, making the partition of Jammu and Kashmir official seems to be the best (if imperfect) option.
Israel and Palestine present a conflict of similar vintage. There is a difference though. There is no real partition and annually Israel has seeped further and further into the dwindling Palestinian territories. Israel is backed by a powerful ally while the Palestinians are backed by the weak and greedy. In spite of this they have mounted an indigenous insurgency that stretches back more or less continuously to the original 1947 casus belli.
A different case is spelled out by the Kurds. The post-WWI Treaty of Sevres promised them autonomy out of which they were shortly cheated. But that was a long time ago. The legitimacy of their claim stems instead from the same argument put forward by the American colonies. In fact they have a much better case against their oppressors, especially the Baathists, who have flatly denied them those inalienable rights we are all familiar with.
In considering the claims then, one must take into account the history as well as the existing bargaining chips.