Reply #118: starting with the simple...

[pelsar]

If it was WRONG of the world to dominate the Jews and make them live as second class citizens, it was also WRONG of the Zionists to dominate the Palestinians and make them live as second class citizens.....Ipso facto, Zionism was immoral.Text

thats way too simple an argument, your claiming that "wrongs" are equal, no justice system in the world accepts that: The world had 2000 years to correct their "wrong" of anti semitism, they failed, hence it zionism was/is the "lessor wrong".

now the more complex

Take a Jewish immigrant, such as yourself with no connection to Palestine except for an ancient cultural one, and compare him(yourself) to a Palestinian Arab, presently living in the West Bank, but who retains title to property within Israel, was a long-term resident and is connected to the land via culture, ancestors and religion......In this specific case, who do you consider has the greater right to return/immigrate to Palestine?

i return to my original concept: democracy, those that bring it, support it, and strengthen it have the moral superiority over lands governed by a "lessor government". Whereas it will be immoral for me to take his private land without compensation, no matter what i'm bringing with me, the right to immigrate, and change the ruling structure/customs of the dictatorship/occupation is with the one who brings democracy. Furthermore, ensuring that the democracy will survive, will no doubt involve using illiberal methods. I 'm not a nationalist, in that land ownership by a certain group is the "highest level" (which appears to be your opinion), its the group that governs using a democracy that always has the moral high ground. (usually when people write about improvement that mean economics, i don't)

that means, as far as i'm concern, china has no right to govern china, hamas the PA, Libya, Syria etc are all illegal governments and can be attacked and overthrown by any group that will install a democracy.

I dont totally disagree with Stace since the Palestinians area was in fact not a nation, which is why the zionist chose it, had it been a nation, it would have been out of the question...

Nations should have the right of determining their internal affairs without aggression from outside nations.

apparently Obama and NATO disagree with their Libyan adventure as does Saudi Arabia, Russia, infact interference has always been the norm, and nothing has really changed.....

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Chomsky is saying; If its good for me, then its good for you...for instance if i like to eat live wolf, than its good for you as well. Thats why its ethnocentric It assumes that we all agree on what is good. The arab culture says its good to kill ones sister if she 'steps out of line" so therefore you can do it too. (according to Chomsky). I reject that, a better viewpoint is the opposite: I will not do to you what i would not like done to me, that allows for cultural freedom. (that was my actual point)

But this is just a side argument
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The definition of morality by the western dictionary fits my view, but neglects to mention that morality is relative and not static, hence all justice systems recognize the difference between first degree murder, pre meditated murder and man slaughter. So when applying that to the I/P conflict we discover that the zionists of the 1800's may not have been able to read the future but they guessed that staying in europe was to 'invite immoral" events on the jews, hence its was 'more moral" to go to a place where at least they could defend themselves and protect their families which was the moral thing to do.

and that is the question for you:

would have it been more moral for there to be no zionism, have no immigration to Palestine, additional jews as victims of the holocaust (those that left for Palestine) not to mention the additional 100,000+ that were stuck in DP camps after WWII (the 100,000 were only released to israel after israel declared independence and they had a place to go...

as well as the jews in the arab countries to continually live as second class citizens?

that to you would have been the better "moral" choice for the jews?