Israel - Stolen goods bring no prosperity.

I am not quite sure where I first read the phrase, “Stolen goods bring no prosperity”, but it rings true. Just think of any individual, business or government that has deprived anyone of what was rightfully theirs; just think about those who have fraudulently or unjustly used or taken advantage of someone’s intellectual property; think about those who make a living by avoiding or evading government regulations.

What brought this phrase to my mind has been the ratcheting up of the Israeli/Gaza impasse which has been bubbling away since 1947. I strongly disagree with anyone who advocates violence as a solution to any problem. Violence begets violence. People who feel aggrieved should avoid conflict at all costs – no one wins a war. Oh yes! Battles may be “won”; “victors” may assume sovereignty over land and peoples; trade may follow the “gun” but at what human cost? Violence is the last resort of the morally bankrupt.

After the end of the Second World War the dispossessed Jews and those who had survived the appalling treatment meted out by the Nazis with the infamous “final solution” known to history as the Holocaust were “given” what is now Israel. This is a historic fact and I am in no position to argue the merits or demerits of this “gift” by the sympathetic Allies who had defeated Germany. What I can say with certainty however is that the Palestinians who were living in the Palestine/Israel area and who had been living there since Biblical times were now (in 1947) dispossessed of the land (and in many cases their possessions as well) to make way for the “new” nation of Israel. Many of these dispossessed Palestinians ended up in Gaza. It is my understanding that no compensation was ever paid or reparation ever made.

This injustice rankles. They were never asked; they never gave “permission” for the land to be expropriated. Injustice is never forgotten; injustice is burned into the soul – just ask the Jews! The Jews have been treated very badly by all peoples – from ancient Babylonia to modern day Christians and Muslims. They have been fighting and striving for millennia for Judea, their “home land” – what they consider their Holy Land, their God given right. Why should the Palestinians, dispossessed by the Israelis feel any differently about their “home land”; their Holy Land, part of which is now Israel?

The fact is that the ultimate source of land is beyond human ingenuity; we may surmise how land was formed aeons ago – but no one can create a single grain of sand. Land just “is” – therefore by default land belongs to no one; land, Holy or otherwise, belongs to everyone. We humans are merely the temporary caretakers.

The Israelis, if they want peace and stability, will, ultimately, have to share the land they occupy with the original inhabitants – the Palestinians. This land was in effect “stolen” from the Palestinians in 1947, and until the Israeli recognize this and accept sharing as a future reality the phrase that opens this post - “stolen goods bring no prosperity” – will haunt the Israelis and torment the Palestinians.

War and violence will never, ever, solve the problems caused by injustice.