Land Right Issues - Essay Example

Land Right Issues Those who support the right of Palestinians to return to their former land believe that the Israeli Jews are solely responsible for all the past as well as the current misery of the Palestinians. For that reason, the Palestinian demand for a return is a claim to realize this accountability by returning the Palestinian refugees to the uninhabited areas in the Land of Palestine/Israel.(Aruri 45) there are a number of perspectives to this claim as well as to its essential presupposition regarding the part played by the Israeli Jews in the predicament of the Palestinian diaspora. Key among the dimensions entails the nature of damages for which accountability should be borne. Another dimension relates to the scope of the persons to whom accountability is owed: strictly and only those exiles who bore forceful eviction by the Israeli Jews? All the exiles, plus the ones who only fled out of terror? Or a certain category of people who have been displaced? This essay looks into the contentious issue of the right of the Palestinians to return to their original homeland by giving an insight on the distributive theories ideas by John Rawls and Robert Norzick. The most interesting interpretation of this right of return is that the Israeli Jews are to be blamed for the present predicament of all Palestinian diaspora as a result of establishment of Israeli State and Zionism (Beinin and Rebbecca 68). Under such an interpretation, liability for the Palestinian quandary can only be correctly carried out by allowing all the Palestinians in diaspora to return to their original homeland and evicting all the Jews who live in such areas, more so those who gained these lands as a result of Zionism. An antithesis to such an interpretation of Jewish accountability for the predicament of the Palestinians is total denial of any such forms of responsibility as well as the complete rejection of the return of the Palestinians. These are the two key positions of the dilemma, between which several intermediate possibilities lie. A central intermediate position tends to agree with the reasoning that all or part of the Palestinians diaspora should go to Israel within the scope of the Palestine pre-1967 borders. The Israelis are against this position, though they see it is a worthy step toward reconciling them with Palestinians. In this case, the issue of distributive justice is evidently in play. This concerns what some people believe to be socially correct with regard to resources allocation in a given society. In the book ATheory of Justice, John Rawls makes efforts of solving the dilemma of distributive justice by using an alternative of the much familiar social contract device. A resultant theory is what is called “Justice as Fairness.” Here, Rawls fronts his arguments for a just reconciliation of equality and liberty. Key to such an effort is the account of justice circumstance, which is enthused by David Hume, as well as a fair alternative situation for groups looking into the face of similar circumstances, identical to a number of the views of Immanuel Kant. It is worth noting that principles of justices are used in guiding how the parties should conduct themselves. Such parties are normally known to face restrained scarcity, and are neither purely egoistic nor truly altruistic. Normally, they have ends which they desire to advance, but it is within their preference that they should be advanced via cooperation on mutually acceptable terms. Rawls’ social contract is quite different from the previous thinkers. More precisely, he develops his principles of justice via the use of artificial devices known as the Original Position, where the involved parties settle on principles of justice while they are behind an ignorant veil. The “veil” is one which technically blinds individuals to all the facts on themselves in order to avoid tailoring principles to their own advantage (Rawls 11). Rawls claims that the involved parties in the original position will embrace the principles of justice which would in turn guide the evaluation of duties and rights and control the distribution of economic and social advantages across the society. The principle of difference allows inequalities in resource distribution only if such inequalities are gainful to the disadvantaged society members. According to Rawls, he believes that such a principle would be the best alternative for representatives because every member of a given society has an equal claim on the resources of the society. Thus, the fundamental rights of any person, before any further considerations are assessed, must be to an even share in the resources. In line with Rawls’ argument, it is worth noting that the establishment of Israel was founded upon the way in which Jews were persecuted. There have been observations that if this was the basis of establishing the nation of Israel, then it does not make any sense why the Palestinians should be the ones paying the price and yet they were never involved in such like persecution activities. As hinted above, the reason behind the emergence of the Jewish state was solely founded on the considerations of distributive justice regarding territorial division among countries in order to realize their self-determination rights. Some can argue here that this principle is relevant only in cases whereby the territory meant for the practice of self-determination right is in reality occupied by the citizens of the country desiring to exercise that right. Those individuals in rejection of Zionism based on the fact that the historical claim of the Jews to their land does not hold enough water to warrant their return to such a territory would definitely embrace this position. What is more, even those who are in acceptance of Zionism as per this link must agree that, its coming to being, caused a huge sacrifice on Palestinians, which was the dominating nation in Israeli Land toward the end of the 19th Century (Lesch and Ian 39): They had to forcibly surrender the lands that they owned. The sheer magnitude of such a sacrifice may be a basis for valuing their Zionism opposition, in as much such as opposition was not justified. This nature of sacrifice should actually form a basis for the need to take real steps to appreciate them, for instance, by allowing some of the exiles to go back to their original homeland. Nozick’s entitlement theory also backs the idea that the Palestinians should be taken into consideration concerning their homeland. His justice theory claims that it does not matter whether a given resource distribution is just or not. What entirely matters is the manner in which it came about. In his theory, he claims that if people can voluntarily decide to go to a different place, while justice is observed in the transfer process, then such relocation would be just. It all boils down to the willingness of the affected people being moved, say from a certain area. According to Nozick, justice, is about having respect for the natural rights of people, particularly their rights to self-ownership and property. People have to be given the freedom of making a decision on what they need to do with their own property. That each individual is a separate entity and therefore their autonomy has to be respected. He claims that people should not be used in ways that negatively affects them, in as much as it will lead to a supposedly ‘greater good.’ This has quite a radical conclusion: taking one’s property and distributing it to others is a violation of the victim’s rights (Norzick 254). In light of Nozick’s justice theory, removing the Palestinians from their original homeland, and giving it to the Israeli Jews is in essence a gross violation of the rights of the Palestinians. In as much as the whole distribution procedures are founded on the ‘greater good’ of helping the Jews to find a home of their own after years of persecution, it lead to an imminent displacement of thousands of Palestinians who were forcefully evicted from their own lands whereupon the Israeli Jews were allowed to settle. This led to many Palestinians living in diaspora. Therefore, it can be rightly justified that Israel can be held partially responsible for the predicament of the Palestinians. This is because even of toward the final stage of the 19th Century there existed an ex ante good reason for Jews to clamor for territorial self determination within the Israeli Land, there was absolutely no good reason for doing so within the boundaries set after the Israeli Independence War in 1948. In as much as the war was imposed on a Jewish state, which makes it a just one, there exists no justification for forcefully evicting the Palestinians, nor seizing any place and property of those who escaped the war. In regard to this, it is worth noting that the present Israeli borders came about due to the war, and however the justification, war is not the right means of acquiring land. Therefore, it would be reasonable of Israel permitted the return of Palestinians to its unpopulated regions within its borders. Works Cited Aruri, Naseer Hasan. Palestinian refugees the right of return. Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press, 2001. Print. Beinin, Joel, and Rebecca L. Stein. The struggle for sovereignty: Palestine and Israel, 1993-2005. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006. Print. Lesch, Ann Mosely, and Ian Lustick. Exile and return: predicaments of Palestinians and Jews. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. Print. Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, state, and utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974. Print. Rawls, John. A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971. Print. Read More