What is this

I%26#039;m trying to learn where this phrase came from: %26#039;Israel%26#039;s right to exist%26#039; and what it is supposed to mean.





Seriously, who has a RIGHT to exist? Did the Assyrians or Hittites or Babylonians have a right to exist? What about Austria-Hungary or Prussia or Yugoslavia? East Germany, South Vietnam?





What does this mean? And please answer the question relative to what I%26#039;ve asked above.



First of all, the phrase itself %26quot;Right to exist%26quot; has become widespread already prior to Israel%26#039;s creation. The sentence %26quot;Every nation has the right to exist, and to protect and to conserve its existence%26quot; has been used extensively and a similar sentence is even incorporated in the Unites Nation%26#039;s basic principles.





Now.. what Israel requests is for its neighbors to recognize its basic right to exist. Some of the countries/organizations in the region, namely Iran, Syria, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and some other deny Israel%26#039;s right to exist as any other nation and call for its destruction. Not only that, but they also show it through actions by engaging in terrorist and militant actions against Israel and/or supporting such through funds, training and equipment.





The problem is that denying a neighbor country%26#039;s right to exist means you have the justification to attack it, through such reasoning. Peace can only exist when 2 countries who accept each other%26#039;s right to exist as a sovereign nation. Until that barrier is removed, peace isn%26#039;t an option. You gave the examples of the Babylonian empire and others.. well, the difference is that if any neighboring empire announced %26quot;Babylon has no right to exist and will be destroyed%26quot; would shortly after find itself in a war with Babylon ending with either Babylon or the other empire destroyed/annexed. Israel however in light of such statements is expected to sit tight, hold off respond and wait until these states which deny its right to exist develop enough military power to put their plan to action.





Even a minor operation in Gaza coming in response to rocket fire, with an extremely low number of civilian casualties relative to urban warfare, is denounced across the entire globe. So on one hand, Israel can%26#039;t attack those who deny its right to exist as those ancient empires could and on the other hand - Its neighbors don%26#039;t want peace and want to erase Israel off the map. The only solution is diplomatically request the entities around Israel to accept its right to exist, which is the first and one of the most crucial steps towards peace.




some of the Arab countries don%26#039;t accept Israels %26#039;right to exist%26#039;, they see it as an invalid nation and oppose the will of the United Nations. Israel asserts that it does have the right to exist given to it by the international community.





The yugoslavian countries that became independent were recognised by the United Nations as valid sates, but other parts of yugoslavia didn%26#039;t accept this, leading to conflict. So in effect Croatia asserted its right to be independent, and this was agreed to by a large part of the international community.




Israel claims it has a %26quot;right to exist%26quot; but will not allow any other countries in the region %26quot;exist.%26quot; That should tell you something right off the bat.





Any people who squawk about %26quot;rights to exist%26quot; as much as the Israeli%26#039;s do, obviously have chips on their shoulders and a victim mentality.





Israel will not be satisfied until it has annihilated every last Palestinian from their own lands...that they now claim for themselves. They are land grabbers, murderers, and above all lawless. They pay no mind to the Geneva convention, nor any international law and constantly pretend to be %26quot;withdrawing%26quot; from their terrorist occupation, and never do.





While you sit and watch %26quot;news%26quot; about Caylee Anthony, and The Octo-mom and mindless sports, you can be sure the Israeli%26#039;s are launching full scale attacks against the Palestinians. That is the real news that you will just never see.




I%26#039;m not 100% sure but I think it goes back to a treaty (or treaties) drafted up after WWII or one of the post WWII conflicts.




The powerful have the right to exist, and the weak have the right to perish. Fortunately, most of the world%26#039;s sovereign states will probably maintain their borders (give or take how the situation in the Middle East turns out over the next quarter century) as many industrialized nations today posses nuclear weapons, making an invasion of these countries highly improbably.





What you speak of is nothing new, as even the ancient Greeks struggled with this concept. I forget the exact name of the writings, but there was a great battle waged by a significantly superior military force on a weaker civilization. The weaker side hadn%26#039;t done anything to provoke the attack, but the mightier side did so solely because it could.





Only through our disillusionment of actuality by fictional media shows growing up do we believe that everything can be summed up in such simple terms as %26#039;good%26#039; or %26#039;bad%26#039;, %26#039;right%26#039; or %26#039;wrong%26#039;.





While it is undeniable that the Germans and Japanese killed millions, their reasons for doing so had been the same of a majority of the European powers that had done similar during a period of Colonization (like Spain in South America, and us in North America). Of course the advances in weaponry and transportation exacerbated the destructive and savage nature of the Axis powers during their conquest, but we committed similar evils when we fought them. In Germany and Japan, we burned to death hundreds of thousands (possible upwards of a million) civilians. This included many women and children. Of course we see it as a cost of war, the losing sides see it as %26#039;crimes against humanity%26#039;.





Israel has the right to exist only to the extent that it is able to maintain its military forces enough to do so. Had it not been for the original backings of powerful industrialized nations like the US and England following the war, Israel would have never come to fruition in the first place. And since then, they would%26#039;ve quickly been toppled had it not been for the billions in aid and weapons technology that we give them (for %26#039;actual%26#039; reasons that are never publicly discussed in the media).




In late 1967, after the Six Day War, official Egyptian government spokesman Mohammed H. el-Zayyat %26quot;stated that Cairo had accepted Israel%26#039;s right to exist since the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli armistice in 1949, but added that this did not endorse the recognition of Israel (raising the distinction, frequently cited since then by Arab leaders, between acceptance of the de facto existence of a state and the establishment of diplomatic relations with it).%26quot;





Upon assuming the premiership in 1977, Menachem Begin spoke as follows:





Our right to exist--have you ever heard of such a thing? Would it enter the mind of any Briton or Frenchman, Belgian or Dutchman, Hungarian or Bulgarian, Russian or American, to request for its people recognition of its right to exist? Mr. Speaker: We were granted our right to exist by the God of our fathers at the glimmer of the dawn of human civilization four thousand years ago. Hence, the Jewish people have an historic, eternal and inalienable right to exist in this land, Eretz Israel, the land of our forefathers. We need nobody%26#039;s recognition in asserting this inalienable right. And for this inalienable right, which has been sanctified in Jewish blood from generation to generation, we have paid a price unexampled in the annals of nations. Mr. Speaker: From the Knesset of Israel, I say to the world, our very existence per se is our right to exist!





He further stated that he didn%26#039;t %26quot;need Palestinian recognition for my right to exist.%26quot;, and that %26quot;Traditionally, there are four major criteria of statehood under international law. One - an effective and independent government. Two - an effective and independent control of the population. Three - a defined territory. And four - the capacity to freely engage in foreign relations. Israel is in possession of all four attributes and, hence, is a fully fledged sovereign state and a fully accredited member of the United Nations.%26quot;


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