The validity of any argument should be tested by applying it universally, not just to the individual case.

So is it valid to maintain that any 'people' has the right to return to its ancestral homeland of 1,500 years ago, even if that means displacing the individual people who are currently living there, were borne there, and whose families have lived there for hundreds of years? Do individuals whose ancestors emigrated from Britain or France 1,500 years ago have more rights than people whose ancestors came there 500 years ago and who are currently living there? Could we create a homeland for them in a densely-populated country?

Think of the suffering and chaos this would cause if it were applied across the world. Israel is the only case where a 'people' have been given a homeland where other people were already living, and it is such a bad precedent it is unlikely to be repeated.

The rights of 'peoples' to homelands are attenuated through time. This is also the reason why the occupation of Israel (within the internationally-recognised borders) could not be reversed - because it would be unfair to Israelis who are living there, and who were borne there.

The rights of 'peoples' must give way to the rights of individual people. We cannot right the wrongs committed to people long dead by the Romans empire by oppressing the living.

Michael T

The Jewish people acquired the legal right by the League of Nations in 1922 to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine - just 0.001% of the territory ruled for 400 years by the Ottoman Empire and captured by Britain and France in World War 1.

The remaining 99.999% taken by France and Britain was set aside for Arab self determination.

Palestine was not then solely inhabited by Moslems. Christians lived there too.

Jews also then lived in Palestine - returning to live there in droves since 1880 to join the many that had already preceded them in returning to live in their biblical and ancestral homeland.

Promised 0.001% of the land in the carve up of the conquered Ottoman Empire - the Jews were to find just a short time later that 78% of this tiny area promised to the Jews was no longer to be part of the Jewish home. That area was to become the exclusively Palestinian Arab state of Jordan.

Still not content with acquiring this major part of Palestine - the Arabs of Palestine agitated for the remaining 22% - rejecting many offers to accept some lesser part in 1937, 1947, between 1948-1967,in 2000/2001 and 2008.

The history of Palestine did not begin in 1947. Go back to 1915 and the picture is entirely different. Go back to the time of the Old Testament and the New Testament and the story is even more amazing.

Yes - the story of the Jews, their exodus from slavery in Egypt, their forced removal from their country by the Romans, the attempts to exterminate them throughout the ages in places where they had settled and their ultimate return to legally reclaim their biblical and ancestral homeland after 1900 years with unanimous international approval in 1922 is indeed a remarkable story.

It will not be repeated for the simple reason that it has never happened to any other nation known to me.

Every Jewish household world wide will recall these events tomorrow evening and for the next eight days.

Dear David Singer,

And here I was thinking I was on your persona non grata list. It was for this reason I refrained from alerting you to the fact the end of February came and went without the 2000 signatures on your petition.

Oh well.

As for attacking personally attacking you I did no such thing. I specifically said there were several good examples of the 'distorted, hyped, myopic, deceitful and dangerous' in your article.

Was it not distortion to take the dreams for peace and a return of all refugees from a young, teenage lass from Rahmallah and appropriate them to justify Israel’s continued practice of building in the West Bank, something totally against a unanimous world opinion?

Was it not myopic to just take that one sentence of hers without seeing her whole message?

Was it not deceitful to portray that totally distorted viewpoint as ‘intelligent’ while the hope for a roadmap for peace from President Obama as ‘gross stupidity’?

As to a personal attack there is only one word I think is appropriate and that is ‘shameless’.

To csteele

Still no apology for wrongfully claiming:

"What he doesn't do is acknowledge where the article comes from"

Still no answer to this question:

" Do you agree with her that the Jewish settlers are returning to their ancestral homelands? Is she right or wrong in your opinion?

Dear dear ....