[Samson Blinded] Political violence: useful, legal, and justified

Samson Blinded has posted a new item, 'Political violence: useful, legal, and
justified'

Various organizations defend the human rights of the Palestinians. Curiously,
political philosophers don't know whether natural rights exist at all, let
alone their range. The Declaration of Human Rights reflects an ultra-left
understanding of them. European states employ many workarounds to circumvent the
Declaration. Electoral barriers and districted elections violating proportional
representation are just some of the examples.

Some of the rights demanded for Palestinians just don't exist: benevolent and
permissive treatment in jail, freedom of movement through militarized territory,
freedom to enter another state, freedom of cargo movement, of medical treatment
in the country of choice, of hostile political association.

There is also considerable controversy about hatred, which some claim, we
espouse. I don't hate Arabs, I respect them. It is the leftists who despise
them to the point of asserting that if we economically developed Arab villages
they would forget that Jews took over the land of their grandfathers. I have
nothing to hate the Arabs for: they defend their land against the onslaught of
the Jews. It just so happens that we have to take this land for our own use.

Human rights watchdogs are unconcerned with violations of Jewish rights. In
Israel, Jews are forbidden to pray at the Temple Mount. In 1929, the government
took over Jewish private property in Hebron. That's hundreds of buildings
looted by Arabs after the pogrom. Jews are practically forbidden from Israeli
Arab villages, and formally forbidden by the Supreme Court to buy land in
Bedouin villages. The Supreme Court took from Jews the right of
self-determination when it commanded Jewish communities to admit Arabs. Jews are
consistently robbed when government makes us pay taxes to subsidize Israeli
Arabs.  Jews lack the right of self-defense, as when the police stop people from
firing rockets back at Gaza.
I don't call for violence per se. The Bible is instructive: Jews are
commanded to exterminate the Amalek who attacked us out of pure wickedness, but
not the Canaanite nations. Besides sharing Jewish customs such as circumcision
(Abraham circumcised in order to be like the locals) and language (we read the
Moabite stele as if it were written today), the Canaanites acted sensibly: they
defended their land. And so Jews were told to expel rather than kill them. In
the Torah, God promised to seed terror in the Canaanites' hearts so that they
would flee before the Jews. Archeologists confirm that this was the case: the
conquest of Canaan was not violent. And in 1948, Arabs were terrified by their
own media spreading the lies of Dir Yassin, and fled before the Jews, who had no
intention of killing them.

Violence is indispensable to societies. Without violence, we would be living
now in feudal societies; thankfully, some have revolted. Without violence, Jews
would never have gotten a state: the British wanted to stay in the Palestine
Mandate. Short of violence, Jews would have been annihilated by now; in 1947,
the UN gave us a non-viable state of three isolated cantons interspersed with
Arabs. Short of Jewish violence, Israeli Arabs would have continued rioting
after 1948, making our life unbearable. Short of violence against Lebanese
civilians, the PLO would continue shelling us and Hezbollah would continue
launching rockets at us.
Rejection of violence benefits the (objectionable) status quo, the weaker (less
viable) party, and the party which engages in low-level violence. Palestinian
violence, such as criminal acts against Jews, routine terrorism, and crude
rocket attacks is ignored, but sparks of Jewish retaliation are clearly visible
and condemned.

I want to keep the violence down to the unavoidable minimum.

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