What is to be understood by the phrase "Israel's right to exist"? [closed]

Question

As someone who is interested in the Israeli-Palestinian question one phrase that comes up in the pro-Israeli position is the insistence that the Palestinians recognise '"Israel's right to exist". (In fact this is one of the key conditions that the so-called honest broker, the USA insisted upon, on brokering the Oslo accords, without insisting on a quid-pro-quo from Israel, that is insisting on Palestines right to exist. This was especially important given Golda Meirs assertion that the Palestinian people didn't exist; and how can a people who don't exist have title to land? So the USA should have insisted on this quid pro quo - that it didn't do so showed it dishonesty as a so-called 'honest broker' - a term still current today(!)).

What should be understood by this assertion?

After all, I don't ask a pear of its right to exist. It simply exists. Moreover I can't ask the pear to recognise my right to exist. Whereas, of course, the reciprocal question can be asked of Israel - that is the right of the Palestinian people to exist. After all, Golda Meir infamously said:

When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? […] It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.

A right that can be demanded where the reciprocal right cannot be strikes me as a very curious form of right. It appears then less of a right and merely a demand and a demand backed up by force - the military might of one of the strongest militarised states in the Middle East backed up by the most militarised state on this planet - the United States (and that by a very large margin). Some right.

Moreover, when we look at the former Soviet Union - we see that the peoples of the Soviet Union are still there - they haven't gone anywhere. They still speak Russian (and other languages). They still practice their religion (apparently there was a resurgence after the fall of the Soviet Union). The buildings are all there too - Red Square and so on.

So what ought to be understood by "Israel's right to exist?". Is its particular political configuration? But then again, the United Kingdom is recognisably still the same state it was a thousand years ago despite many political changes - including its expansion into an empire in the 17th century and then its breakup in the 20th century (and apparently if the SNP has its way - the further break up of a four hundred year union!).

Is there perhaps a legal dimension? But according to Wikipedia there is no such right under International Law. So it seems this then turns on what is meant by such a right - and hence my question: what is meant by such a right?

Answers that point to the serious literature will be appreciated.

Answer 1

It's referring to the state, not the land or the people, so your example of a pear isn't really applicable. The preamble of the 1988 charter of Hamas (aka "the Islamic Resistance Movement") declares that "Islam will obliterate Israel." Hamas also officially promotes "the liberation of Palestine" and the raising of "the banner of Islam over every inch of Palestine" (i.e., Gaza, the West Bank, and the borders of Israel proper) from Israel. Hamas is therefore seen as not recognizing Israel's right to exist.

Answer 2

The reason Israel demands that the Palestinians recognize Israel's so-called "right to exist" is that in so doing, they would officially relinquish any and all claims they have on the land they owned before Israel was founded and from which they were evicted by the Israelis in 1948.

They naturally refuse to relinquish those claims because to do so means they accept Israel's conquest of what was once their land as legitimate, and in that moment they become people without any claim to the land. It means admitting complete defeat.

No one has yet devised some method of getting them to do so.

Answer 3

Wikipedia provides a brief history of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181:

Following World War II and the establishment of the United Nations, the General Assembly resolved that a Special Committee be created "to prepare for consideration at the next regular session of the Assembly a report on the question of Palestine." It would consist of the representatives of Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, India, Iran, Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, Uruguay and Yugoslavia. In the final report of September 3, 1947, seven members of the Committee in Chapter VI "expressed themselves, by recorded vote, in favour of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union" (reproduced in the Report). The Plan proposed "an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem". On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly recommended the adoption and implementation of a Plan of Partition with Economic Union, General Assembly Resolution 181, a slightly modified version of that proposed by the majority in the Report of September 3, 1947, 33 votes in favor, 13 against, and 10 abstentions. The vote itself, which required a two-third majority, was a dramatic affair. It led to celebrations in the streets of Jewish cities, but was rejected by the Arab Palestinians and the Arab League.

This may be viewed as the basis for the right of Israel to exist.

There was no Palestinian state prior to this resolution but a British Mandate according to Wikipedia:

The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate.

Since the Arab League rejected Resolution 181 and this history of a prior British Mandate, this may be viewed as a justification for rejecting the existence of a prior Palestinian state.

That may offer a modern political justification for Israel's "right to exist".

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This becomes more interesting if one accepts a philosophical/theological perspective of interest to Judaism, Christianity and perhaps even Islam that Israel has a divine right, guaranteed by miraculous protection, to exist as a people.

Also if one believes that Yahweh (God or Allah) promised this land to them, as long as they were obedient, members of these religions who reject this state may involve themselves in rejecting the divine will of their God. Of course, it may also be divine will that the Jewish people be punished for disobedience and temporarily lose this land. Regardless, members of these religions need to tread carefully on the existence of Israel.

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Wikipedia contributors. (2019, July 31). Israel and the United Nations. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:47, August 8, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Israel_and_the_United_Nations&oldid=908735611

Wikipedia contributors. (2019, July 25). United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:55, August 8, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine&oldid=907826765

Answer 4

Sovereignty over its land

I believe that the explanation is very simple, it's about recognizing Israel-the-state claim to Israel-the-land. That claim is disputed by some countries and groups, however, that claim is essentially equivalent to whether Israel-the-state has the right to exist - unlike other land claims in various border disputes, here the entirety of its land is contested.

Answer 5

There seems to be three questions here.

1. Does specifically Israel have a right to exist? That's a question for politics, not philosophy. Because it's a practical question, at least supposing no group of people can forfeit their moral right to their state.
2. Do any states have a right to exist? Most anarchists would say no.
3. Is it an abuse of language to say any state has a right to exist? I don't see why, at all. Is the phrase doctors have no right to exist (politicians, capitalists, executioners) a misuse of language? No, it's just a means to suggest that they have the right to practice (to own capital etc.), for there to be practicing doctors.

One could argue that states are not just composed of groups of people and their practices, but (perhaps even holy) land. But I don't see any need at all to suppose that this unreasonably complicates the phrase, rather than the ethical question.

Answer 6

Nations are not naturally occurring entities, like pears. They're established by convention and agreement among the peoples of the world.

As you say, a pear "just exists", although people may reasonably disagree over whether any particular object actually is a pear. But nations don't exist on their own, we have criteria for justifying whether a group of people living in a particular geographic location should be considered a nation.

Questioning a nation's "right to exist" is questioning whether they meet the aforementioned criteria.

There's also a second way to view this. "Existence" for a nation is like "life" for a person (or other living being). A Palestinian saying that Israel has no right to exist is like a judge or jury declaring that a criminal should be put to death, i.e. they have no right to live. They're stating that they believe the nation should be obliterated, and the nation isn't worthy of any right that would prohibit this.

Answer 7

The right to exist refers to a People's (capital P) right to exist, as outlined in Rousseau's social contract:

http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/rousseau1762.pdf

Take a look at pages 6 and 7.

A group of people come together to:

Find a form of association that will bring the whole common force to bear on defending and protecting each associate’s person and goods, doing this in such a way that each of them, while uniting himself with all, still obeys only himself and remains as free as before.’

Also known as a People. Peoples are easily distinguishable from one another, usually by shared languages, customs and rules. Many Peoples are capable of co-existing peacefully, even sharing the same space.

In this context, the right to exist refers to the right of a People to enjoy their property, follow their own laws and pursue happiness according to their own beliefs.

This is not possible for Islamic Peoples until they reform: Any non-muslims (kafir) are required to be treated as second class citizens at best. To quote the Koran (not that I consider it serious literature):

9:29 Make war on those who have received the Scriptures [Jews and Christians] but do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day. They do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden. The Christians and Jews do not follow the religion of truth until they submit and pay the poll tax [jizya], and they are humiliated.