Err … the one with the world’ largest population. You HAVE heard of China and Tibet, I take it? No? What a surprise.

Israel is occupying the Golan quite legally. Syria attacked it, and is refusing to even recognise Israel’s existence, never mind enter into peace negotiations.

Of course there should be no need to say it, but since 1979 Israel’s borders have only contracted and any territory which was taken was done so because of unprovoked attacks upon Israel by the surrounding Arab countries.
Sinai was taken when Egypt attacked (and later returned of course), the West Bank was taken when Jordan attacked and the Golan when Syria attacked.
If a country instigates a war against another it really should take into account that it might lose that war -especially when it’s happened before -and that there is a price to pay for losing.

You are probably both unaware of and uninterested in the fact that the Golan was a centre of Jewish life well over 2000 years ago and that the oldest synagogue outside Jerusalem is to be found there.

I might add to “Most native Americans and Australians, however dispossessed, still live within America and Australia” that most Palestinian Christians and Muslim refugees, however dispossessed, live in settled conurbations within the borders of British Palestine, most of the rest very close to those borders.

No. I’m saying that Jews made more efficient use of the land than Palestinian Christians and Muslims. They were dispossessed, but they were prepared to use less than Palestinian Christians and Muslims, and settle for only part of their historic domain.

Most native Americans and Australians, however dispossessed, still live within America and Australia.

“That is, frankly, horrible: ‘No, you darkies can’t have that land because we need it for a supermarket’.”

So you say, not I. Farmers, conurbations all make more efficient use of land than nomadic peoples. This is a universal phenomenon.

“No more really needs to be said, but I will point out that Australian Aboriginal peoples were not nomadic, in the sense that the boundaries of the land each group managed were very clearly defined, and the ownership and the responibilities thereof of every inch of it was the most important day-to-day factof their culture/s.”

But fewer of them used more land than European colonials.

Where did I say it did?

“By the way, part of the Italian motivation for entering WWII was to reclaim the Roman lands lost in antiquity.”

And your point is?

Well, it is legitimate, in international law. Some kind of Jewish national return and restoration was recognised and affirmed by both League of and United Nations.

I’m not saying anything at all abut whether or not it is ‘really’ legitimate, I’m saying that arguments about legitimacy that rely on the antiquity of the disposession are highly dubious.

By the way, part of the Italian motivation for entering WWII was to reclaim the Roman lands lost in antiquity.

Well, I question the extent to which such peoples are dispossessed, and what exactly means “ownership”. Do nomadic peoples have an exclusive right to land in which more people could settle with agriculture and urbanization?

I do not think so.

You’re now arguing that a dispossed people’s right to their land has something to do with the use with which they put the land? That is, frankly, horrible: ‘No, you darkies can’t have that land because we need it for a supermarket’.

No more really needs to be said, but I will point out that Australian Aboriginal peoples were not nomadic, in the sense that the boundaries of the land each group managed were very clearly defined, and the ownership and the responibilities thereof of every inch of it was the most important day-to-day factof their culture/s.

More to the point there is ongoing in NYC, a hugely attractive Israeli tourist board campaign to visit Tel Aviv. Less maps more bikinis!

And Ehud Barak offered to return them in exchange for territory Syria took around Kinneret in 1949.

In 1923

“The border was re-drawn so that both sides of the Jordan River and the whole of the Sea of Galilee, including a 10-metre wide strip along the northeastern shore, were made a part of Palestine”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Galilee#Modern_times