[gershy]

I'm interested in your very general stance ("seeds of harm") as I suspect it either classifies too many or too few states as undesirable, but I want to let you push your questions too.

No sane (and non-ideological) person will defend israel at every turn. I want to avoid answering your question with a question but I also want to make sure we're talking about the same thing - whose land would you argue israel is settling?

[hardbass]

Yes the classification of what is deemed soundly harmful to be allowed to exist goes on a false negative basis as would any such sane assessment be. I do not try to predict the future of every possible system, but it is quite clear some systems are always disastrous.

The people already living there under Ottoman and British rule obviously with suitable legal arrangements deemed agreeable by the former governments. The terroristic appropriation of British administered land just a few decades ago is of course not something anyone of a calm mind would deem as valid so by necessity claims of validity must trace from previous governments. Obviously if it were say a few centuries ago it'd have been not a matter worth doing anything about, time matters. And right now, further other peoples legal lands too, which settlers come at gunpoint and rob. Your state supports the illicit settlers viz the current ongoing expansions by technically non-state actors, quite aside from the state itself being an illicit settlement of course.

[gershy]

I think there are plenty of ethnostates that function well internally, and do little unjustifiable harm to others.

So your question is "how to justify the movement of newcomers into the midst of former residents of british palestine and the ottoman empire"? The obvious initial answer - and I'm sure you'll have a pointed followup which I look forward to and will likely cause me to disavow israel in various ways - is that the lack of any state apparatus there (due to disintegration of the ottomans and withdrawal of the british) creates an environment in which there is a lack of formal resistance to the construction of a new state.

Essentially territory that is unencompassed by anything strongly resembling a state is a favourable place to construct a state.

[hardbass]

Why the british withdrew is closely connected as the Israeli/Zionist continuous terroristic attacks against the British and clamping down the Israeli/Arab terrorist factions warring is what was the final straw that broke the camel's back of a country already weakened by WW2. The fact of a place lacking a formal military I hope doesn't make it legal or okay by the some entity to violate their property rights, for the same could be said equally either way for Israeli illegal settlement expansions, for if there is no clear state system there, what's the objection against shooting down the squatters? (Even with a real state existing some countries have things like the Castle doctrine of course, which gives a full legal justification to shoot down the Israeli squatters). The real question that must be answered is if the locals are okay with you arriving, if you came in and legally purchased property or were granted some parcels of land with agreement by the locals, neither of which of course occurred during the violent establishment of Israel. The question of property and territory is very ancient and predates even humans, even animals have a sense of territory. So if you do not respect the existing legal claims by the British or Ottoman governments or claims by precedent of living, then you should be justly treated as an illegal invader. It is a very high degree of naked ingratitude to complain and start attacks against the Brits for controlling their own border and restricting immigration to their own lands, behaving as if these random Poles and Russians literally own the place. Would you support random Poles or Russians performing terrorist attacks against America if the USA instituted a strong and limited immigration quota upon them? Because that's what happened in the region of Israel back then. I completely understand the Holocaust but that gives a person no right to go ahead and rob at gunpoint an unrelated entity's land, moreover launching attacks against a country that bled so much fighting against nazis.

[gershy]

You're branching off in a lot of directions. Is there a specific point you'd like to focus on? Do you agree "territory unencompassed by anything strongly resembling a state is a favourable place to construct a state"?

[hardbass]

Absolutely not, unless the region is completely empty of people or land ownerships. Otherwise state or no, the stakeholders have the justified right to self defense. I am not going in many directions, it's all the same thing. If one does not have a right to a land and try to force yourself onto it, then the stakeholders of that land have a legal right to shoot them dead. Whether its killing the illegal settlers taking over peoples lands today or for the entire illictly formed state itself to be dismantled and the properties restores to the just and rightful owners.

[gershy]

I don't understand how you can disagree that generally, "territory unencompassed by anything strongly resembling a state is a favourable place to construct a state". Surely you don't agree with its negation?? I'm guessing you meant to say that you do agree in general, but in israel's specific case you have a list of "grievances" which, in sum, outweigh this general principle?

If that's correct, then it sounds like your grievances are (1) the builders of israel used terror against the british and were ungrateful to them (2) local arabs were opposed to the construction of the state of israel (3) since the construction of israel, the rights of arabs there have been impacted (4) the territory of israel was not fully purchased from some other entity (5) the right of diaspora jews to return to the land of their ethnogenesis "expired" over the course of ~3000 years (6) you don't support ethnostates.

I want to understand if this is a nearly exhaustive list, and I would like to know the nature of how these points sum together in such a way that opposes you to israel: e.g., is there any single point that alone would maintain your opposition to israel? (Imagine you somehow changed your mind on all points but one of them at random - is there any chance you still remain opposed to israel?) Is there any single point on which your entire opposition to israel hinges? (Imagine you somehow changed your mind on just one random point - is there a non-zero chance you now generally support israel?) Understanding how these grievances sum together will let us know which points are worth discussing, and will give a nice sense of the scope of our disagreement.