We hold these Truths

Inalienable Rights & Palestine

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” — United States Declaration of Independence

A fundamental human right to property is enumerated in our Bill of Rights. “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…”. It is something that Americans fiercely defend. As our Declaration states, this right does not derive from government, it is from our Creator. This right, and others, belong to us all, regardless of which country we are born in or which government we are born under.

This is why I do not spend (much) time arguing about whether Palestine as a State existed before 1948. The fundamental issue is not pre-1948 Palestinian statehood, at the base level, the ‘founding’ of ‘israel’ was theft. It was the violation of the human right to property of at least 750,000 individuals. I encourage you to look at the actual land ownership and what the UN unlawfully gave away in 1948. It is clearly counter to the founding principles of our nation. Palestinians owned 94% of the land, Zionist immigrants owned a mere 6% yet the UN “gave” the Zionists 55% of Palestine. Zionists took even more land during ensuing the Nakba.

Occupation

Upon forcing out the native Palestinians, upon depriving them of their rights and their property, the zionists, Israel, became an occupying force. The UN and the international community recognize the rights of an occupied people to resist ‘by all available means’. In establishing an Apartheid State , zionists further solidified Palestinian’s right to resist.

“Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle;” — Rights of peoples to self-determination

To put this in context of America’s founding documents, by seizing and controlling the rights of Palestinians, the zionist state in effect forcibly became a governing body of the people. Until those rights are restored, or the deprivation of those rights is amended in some other way, the Palestinian people have a right to say HOW they are governed, especially if Israel wants to claim the mantle of a Democracy.

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”

A 'state’s right to exist’ is not inherent in the state, it is derived from the governed. This is why Israel has kept the ‘state’ of Palestine in purgatory for 75 years. To declare an end of the state, to declare that all historic Palestine is now Israel would require it to then accept the Palestinians not only in the West Bank and Gaza, but in the Diaspora. It would reveal the harsh reality, that the ‘Jewish Democracy’ is held together only by ethnic cleansing and Apartheid. ‘There will be a state soon’ helps ‘put the issue in formaldehyde’ as Ariel Sharon’s advisor once said.

Palestine pre-1948

“State, political organization of society, or the body politic, or, more narrowly, the institutions of government.”[1].

As mentioned, it is not overly important (in my opinion) to prove Palestinian statehood prior to 1948, it also isn’t overly difficult. Palestine did exist as a state before 1948. Even Theodore Herzl, Zionism’s ‘founder’ referred to the land as Palestine[2]. We See it on maps, we see on coins, we see it in texts, we can see it in culture and histories and most importantly, we heard it from the people living there[3]. While it is true that Palestine didn’t have ‘ultimate’ sovereignty under Ottoman rule, historian Beshara Doumani notes that “until the late nineteenth century, most Palestinians enjoyed a great degree of self-rule”[4].

If the US were to break apart would you claim that New York didn’t exist? More importantly, would you claim New Yorkers have no right to their homes, land and property? No, rule would revert to the people, it would fall upon them to form a new government. The collapse of state does not strip the inhabitants of their right to property because the right to property does not come from the state.

Conclusion

The issue of pre-1948 Palestinian statehood is a secondary issue, even a tactic of distraction utilized by zionists. The primary issue is an irrefutable one. The human right to property of at least 750,000 individual Palestinians was violated when their land was stolen during the Nakba. This is true regardless of any political status or lack thereof. The right to property is a human right given to us by our Creator. Since it’s formation, the Zionist state and Zionism has been antithetical to our (American) founding principles. It is immoral and illogical to ask Palestinians to accept what we would not.

While israeli officials would previously pretend to seek a two-state solution, Netanyahu, bolstered by the West’s support for his ongoing genocide, has recently stated his opposition to a Palestinian state[5]. His hopes are that if the west can accept genocide[6], they can accept further ethnic cleansing and ongoing Apartheid too. I hope he is wrong on all counts.

List of Grievances

The List of Grievances from Our Declaration of Independence but I replaced references to the King with ‘Zionists’.

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Resources & Notes

This one was short compared to my other articles. It was originally part of ‘Zionism, an obstacle to Peace’ but it felt better as a shorter ‘stand alone’ piece. If you want more details on the post 1900 history of Palestine and the zionist occupation read Zionism, an Obstacle to Peace.

1. https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-sovereign-political-entity

2. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-jewish-state-quot-theodor-herzl

3. https://www.palestineremembered.com/tags/Palestine-Pre-Nakba.html

4. Doumani, Beshara B. “Rediscovering Ottoman Palestine: Writing Palestinians into History.” Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 21, no. 2, 1992, pp. 5–28. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2537216. Accessed 24 Jan. 2024.

5. https://archive.ph/3iwma

6. https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf