Right to exist
Encyclopedia
The right to exist is said to be an attribute of nations. According to an essay by the nineteenth century French philosopher Ernest Renan
, a state has the right to exist when individuals are willing to sacrifice their own interests for the community it represents. Unlike self-determination
, the right to exist is an attribute of states rather than of peoples. It is not a right recognized in international law. The phrase has featured prominently in the Arab–Israeli conflict since the 1950s.
The right to exist of a de facto state may be balanced against another state's right to territorial integrity
. Proponents of the right to exist trace it back to the "right of existence," said to be a fundamental right of states recognized by writers on international law for hundreds of years.
In ontology
, existence is a matter of fact
rather than a moral right.
used the phrase "right to exist" to refer to forms of government, arguing that representative government has a right to exist, but that hereditary government does not. In 1823, Sir Walter Scott
argued for the "right to exist in the Greek people". (The Greeks were then revolting against Turkish rule.) According to Renan's "What is a Nation?
" (1882), "A state has the right to exist when it gives proof of its strength by the sacrifices which demand the abdication of the individual." Existence is not a historical right, but "a daily plebiscite, just as an individual's existence is a perpetual affirmation of life," Renan said. The phrase gained enormous usage in reference to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire
in 1918. "If Turkey has a right to exist – and the Powers are very prompt to assert that she has – she possesses an equally good right to defend herself against all attempts to imperil her political existence," wrote Eliakim and Robert Littell in 1903. In many cases, a nation's right to exist is not questioned, and is therefore not asserted, for example in the case of India.
There is also a state's right "to perpetuate itself". This right was invoked in legal proceedings in post-War Germany as a defence of individuals in the judiciary system accused of participating in Nazi era repressions against those who were percecuted for "anti-state" activities, real or perceived.
, Ireland
, India
/Pakistan
, Rwanda
, the Cold War
, and the country formerly known as Yugoslavia
are host to just a few of the many seemingly intractable conflicts (often going back thousands of years) where each side denies the right of the other to exist."
ambassador to Georgia
, told the Georgian Times newspaper that "Abkhaz
should feel they can voice their concerns and can be open about their identity... we also say of course that the Abkhaz nation has a right to exist and to decide for themselves how they are going to live and how they want to use the Abkhaz language
".
In August 2008 Russia
recognised Abkhazia's independence, stating that "Using repeatedly brutal military force against the peoples, whom, according to his words, he would like to see within his State, Mikhail Saakashvili left them no other choice but to ensure their security and the right to exist through self-determination as independent States."
nationalists, "Euzkadi
(the name of our country in our own language) is the country of the Basques with as such right to exist independently as a nation as Poland
or Ireland
. The Basques are a very ancient people..."
poisoned North-South relations for decades, and many Irish Catholics still deny the right of Northern Ireland
to exist at all."
in 1949. He added that this did not imply recognition
of Israel. In September, the Arab leaders adopted a hardline "three no's" position in the Khartoum Resolution
. But in November, Egypt accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242, which implied acceptance of Israel's right to exist. At the same time, President Gamal Abdel Nasser
urged Yasser Arafat
and other Palestinian leaders to reject the resolution. "You must be our irresponsible arm," he said. King Hussein of Jordan also acknowledged that Israel had a right to exist at this time. Meanwhile, Syria rejected Resolution 242, saying that it, "refers to Israel's right to exist and it ignores the right of the [Palestinian] refugees to return to their homes."
Upon assuming the premier
ship in 1977, Menachem Begin
spoke as follows:
As confirmed by the Financial Times
, in 1988 Yasser Arafat
confirmed that the Palestinians had accepted Israel's right to exist. In 1993, there was an official exchange of letters between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
and Chairman Arafat, in which Arafat declared that "the PLO affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid." In 2009 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
demanded the Palestinian Authority's acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state
, which the Palestinian Authority rejected. The Knesset plenum gave initial approval in May 2009 to a bill criminalising the public denial of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state
, with a penalty of up to a year in prison.
According to the linguist Noam Chomsky
, the term "right to exist" is unique to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
: "No state has a right to exist, and no one demands such a right....In an effort to prevent negotiations and a diplomatic settlement, the U.S. and Israel insisted on raising the barrier to something that nobody's going to accept....[Palestinians are] not going to accept...the legitimacy of their dispossession." John V. Whitbeck
argued that Israel's insistence on a right to exist forces Palestinians to provide a moral justification for their own suffering.
"Jinnah's famous 'theory of two nations'—a Hindu one and a Muslim one—in claiming Pakistan's right to exist in 1940 has become the essential reference point, making religious affiliation the basis of a host of divergences covering every domain of thought and culture."
"It is essential that Indians deeply and meaningfully recognize Pakistan’s right to exist as a nation independent from India. Indians cannot let their nostalgia for the past–which is, in fact, the national pain over the Partition in 1947 which led to the creation of Pakistan – blind them to the reality of Pakistan as a sovereign state."
affirmed the right of an "Arab State" and a "Jewish State" to exist within Palestine. The Jews agreed to the plan, but the Arabs denied and attacked the Jewish population of Palestine, in what was called the 1948 Palestine war
. However, Palestinian statehood
is still disputed. of the 193 member states of the United Nations have recognised the State of Palestine
. Their total population is over 5.2 billion people, equalling 75% of the world's population.
In June 2009 Barack Obama
said "Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's," even though the Arabs already have 22 nations of their own.
Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan was a French expert of Middle East ancient languages and civilizations, philosopher and writer, devoted to his native province of Brittany...
, a state has the right to exist when individuals are willing to sacrifice their own interests for the community it represents. Unlike self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
, the right to exist is an attribute of states rather than of peoples. It is not a right recognized in international law. The phrase has featured prominently in the Arab–Israeli conflict since the 1950s.
The right to exist of a de facto state may be balanced against another state's right to territorial integrity
Territorial integrity
Territorial integrity is the principle under international law that nation-states should not attempt to promote secessionist movements or to promote border changes in other nation-states...
. Proponents of the right to exist trace it back to the "right of existence," said to be a fundamental right of states recognized by writers on international law for hundreds of years.
In ontology
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
, existence is a matter of fact
Hume's fork
In philosophy, Hume's fork may be used to refer to one of several distinctions and dilemmas drawn by David Hume .They are:...
rather than a moral right.
Historical use
Thomas PaineThomas Paine
Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
used the phrase "right to exist" to refer to forms of government, arguing that representative government has a right to exist, but that hereditary government does not. In 1823, Sir Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
argued for the "right to exist in the Greek people". (The Greeks were then revolting against Turkish rule.) According to Renan's "What is a Nation?
What is a Nation?
What is a Nation? is a 1882 essay by French historian Ernst Renan , known for the statements that a nation is "a daily referendum", and that nations are based as much on what the people jointly forget, as what they remember...
" (1882), "A state has the right to exist when it gives proof of its strength by the sacrifices which demand the abdication of the individual." Existence is not a historical right, but "a daily plebiscite, just as an individual's existence is a perpetual affirmation of life," Renan said. The phrase gained enormous usage in reference to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
in 1918. "If Turkey has a right to exist – and the Powers are very prompt to assert that she has – she possesses an equally good right to defend herself against all attempts to imperil her political existence," wrote Eliakim and Robert Littell in 1903. In many cases, a nation's right to exist is not questioned, and is therefore not asserted, for example in the case of India.
There is also a state's right "to perpetuate itself". This right was invoked in legal proceedings in post-War Germany as a defence of individuals in the judiciary system accused of participating in Nazi era repressions against those who were percecuted for "anti-state" activities, real or perceived.
Right to exist issues by nation
There are numerous struggles in the world today in which various countries deny each others' right to exist. According to Jerry Piven, "The Middle EastMiddle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
/Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, Rwanda
Rwanda
Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
, the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, and the country formerly known as Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
are host to just a few of the many seemingly intractable conflicts (often going back thousands of years) where each side denies the right of the other to exist."
Abkhazia
In 2008, Patricia Flor, GermanGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
ambassador to Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
, told the Georgian Times newspaper that "Abkhaz
Abkhaz people
The Abkhaz or Abkhazians are a Caucasian ethnic group, mainly living in Abkhazia, a disputed region on the Black Sea coast. A large Abkhazian diaspora population resides in Turkey, the origins of which lie in the emigration from the Caucasus in the late 19th century known as Muhajirism...
should feel they can voice their concerns and can be open about their identity... we also say of course that the Abkhaz nation has a right to exist and to decide for themselves how they are going to live and how they want to use the Abkhaz language
Abkhaz language
Abkhaz is a Northwest Caucasian language spoken mainly by the Abkhaz people. It is the official language of Abkhazia where around 100,000 people speak it. Furthermore, it is spoken by thousands of members of the Abkhazian diaspora in Turkey, Georgia's autonomous republic of Adjara, Syria, Jordan...
".
In August 2008 Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
recognised Abkhazia's independence, stating that "Using repeatedly brutal military force against the peoples, whom, according to his words, he would like to see within his State, Mikhail Saakashvili left them no other choice but to ensure their security and the right to exist through self-determination as independent States."
Basque nation
According to BasqueBasque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
nationalists, "Euzkadi
Euzkadi
Euzkadi may refer to:*Basque Country *Euzkadi , a Basque nationalist newspaper published from 1913 to 1937*Euzkadi, a Mexican tire manufacturer...
(the name of our country in our own language) is the country of the Basques with as such right to exist independently as a nation as Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
or Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. The Basques are a very ancient people..."
Chechnya
The phrase, "right to exist" has also been used in reference to the right of Chechens (in the eyes of supporters) to establish a state independent from Russia.Ireland
"In Ireland, conflicting claims to counties Fermanagh and TyroneTyrone
The name Tyrone can refer to:*County Tyrone, a county in Northern Ireland, roughly corresponding to the ancient kingdom of Tír Eogain*An Earl of Tyrone*A small steam train which runs between Bushmills and the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland-Places:...
poisoned North-South relations for decades, and many Irish Catholics still deny the right of Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
to exist at all."
Israel
In the 1950s and 1960s, most Arab leaders did not dare admit that Israel had a right to exist. The issue was described as the central one between Israel and the Arabs. After the June 1967 war, Egyptian spokesman Mohammed H. el-Zayyat stated that Cairo had accepted Israel's right to exist since the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli armistice1949 Armistice Agreements
The 1949 Armistice Agreements are a set of agreements signed during 1949 between Israel and neighboring Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. The agreements ended the official hostilities of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and established armistice lines between Israeli forces and the forces in...
in 1949. He added that this did not imply recognition
Diplomatic recognition
Diplomatic recognition in international law is a unilateral political act with domestic and international legal consequences, whereby a state acknowledges an act or status of another state or government in control of a state...
of Israel. In September, the Arab leaders adopted a hardline "three no's" position in the Khartoum Resolution
Khartoum Resolution
The Khartoum Resolution of September 1, 1967 was issued at the conclusion of an Arab League summit in the wake of the Six-Day War. The resolution, which formed a basis of the policies of these governments toward Israel until the 1973 Yom Kippur War, called for: a continued state of belligerency...
. But in November, Egypt accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242, which implied acceptance of Israel's right to exist. At the same time, President Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...
urged Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...
and other Palestinian leaders to reject the resolution. "You must be our irresponsible arm," he said. King Hussein of Jordan also acknowledged that Israel had a right to exist at this time. Meanwhile, Syria rejected Resolution 242, saying that it, "refers to Israel's right to exist and it ignores the right of the [Palestinian] refugees to return to their homes."
Upon assuming the premier
Prime Minister of Israel
The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of the Israeli government and the most powerful political figure in Israel . The prime minister is the country's chief executive. The official residence of the prime minister, Beit Rosh Hamemshala is in Jerusalem...
ship in 1977, Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...
spoke as follows:
As confirmed by the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
, in 1988 Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...
confirmed that the Palestinians had accepted Israel's right to exist. In 1993, there was an official exchange of letters between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin
' was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995....
and Chairman Arafat, in which Arafat declared that "the PLO affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid." In 2009 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
Ehud Olmert
Ehud Olmert is an Israeli politician and lawyer. He served as Prime Minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, as a Cabinet Minister from 1988 to 1992 and from 2003 to 2006, and as Mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003....
demanded the Palestinian Authority's acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state
Jewish state
A homeland for the Jewish people was an idea that rose to the fore in the 19th century in the wake of growing anti-Semitism and Jewish assimilation. Jewish emancipation in Europe paved the way for two ideological solutions to the Jewish Question: cultural assimilation, as envisaged by Moses...
, which the Palestinian Authority rejected. The Knesset plenum gave initial approval in May 2009 to a bill criminalising the public denial of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state
Jewish state
A homeland for the Jewish people was an idea that rose to the fore in the 19th century in the wake of growing anti-Semitism and Jewish assimilation. Jewish emancipation in Europe paved the way for two ideological solutions to the Jewish Question: cultural assimilation, as envisaged by Moses...
, with a penalty of up to a year in prison.
According to the linguist Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, the term "right to exist" is unique to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
: "No state has a right to exist, and no one demands such a right....In an effort to prevent negotiations and a diplomatic settlement, the U.S. and Israel insisted on raising the barrier to something that nobody's going to accept....[Palestinians are] not going to accept...the legitimacy of their dispossession." John V. Whitbeck
John V. Whitbeck
John V. Whitbeck is an international lawyer who writes frequently about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, often from Arab viewpoint, and has advised the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel. He is also an adviser to various Fatah, a terrorist political party, committees that...
argued that Israel's insistence on a right to exist forces Palestinians to provide a moral justification for their own suffering.
Kurdistan
Representatives of the Kurdish people regularly assert their right to exist as a nation.Pakistan-India
"By refusing to accept the 1947 partition of the British Indian empire, Pakistan even challenged India's right to exist.""Jinnah's famous 'theory of two nations'—a Hindu one and a Muslim one—in claiming Pakistan's right to exist in 1940 has become the essential reference point, making religious affiliation the basis of a host of divergences covering every domain of thought and culture."
"It is essential that Indians deeply and meaningfully recognize Pakistan’s right to exist as a nation independent from India. Indians cannot let their nostalgia for the past–which is, in fact, the national pain over the Partition in 1947 which led to the creation of Pakistan – blind them to the reality of Pakistan as a sovereign state."
Palestine
In 1947, the United NationsUnited Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
affirmed the right of an "Arab State" and a "Jewish State" to exist within Palestine. The Jews agreed to the plan, but the Arabs denied and attacked the Jewish population of Palestine, in what was called the 1948 Palestine war
1948 Palestine war
The 1948 Palestine war refers to the events in the British Mandate of Palestine between the United Nations vote on the partition plan on November 30, 1947, to the end of the first Arab-Israeli war on July 20, 1949.The war is divided into two phases:...
. However, Palestinian statehood
Proposals for a Palestinian state
Proposals for a Palestinian state currently refers to the proposed establishment of an independent state for the Palestinian people in Palestine on land that was occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967 and before by Egypt and by Jordan since 1949...
is still disputed. of the 193 member states of the United Nations have recognised the State of Palestine
International recognition of the State of Palestine
The State of Palestine was proclaimed on 15 November 1988 in Algiers at an extraordinary session in exile of the Palestine National Council. Legal justification for this act was based on United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 of 29 November 1947, which provided for the termination and...
. Their total population is over 5.2 billion people, equalling 75% of the world's population.
In June 2009 Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
said "Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's," even though the Arabs already have 22 nations of their own.
Citations
- 1791 Thomas PaineThomas PaineThomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
, Rights of ManRights of ManRights of Man , a book by Thomas Paine, posits that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard its people, their natural rights, and their national interests. Using these points as a base it defends the French Revolution against Edmund Burke's attack in...
: "The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a contract with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist." - 1823 Sir Walter ScottWalter ScottSir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
: "Admitting, however, this right to exist in the Greek people is a different question whether there is any right, much more any call, for the nations of Europe to interfere in their support." - 1882 Ernest Renan, "What is a nation?": So long as this moral consciousness gives proof of its strength by the sacrifices which demand the abdication of the individual to the advantage of the community, it is legitimate and has the right to exist
[ French: le droit d'exister]. - 1916 American Institute of International Law: "Every nation has the right to exist, and to protect and to conserve its existence."
- 1922 Cemal Paşa: "In a word, the [Young Turks] want to make the Turkish race respected in the eyes of the world and secure its right to exist side by side with the other nations in the twentieth century."
- 2009 Barack ObamaBarack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
: "Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's."
See also
- CultureCultureCulture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
- Diplomatic recognitionDiplomatic recognitionDiplomatic recognition in international law is a unilateral political act with domestic and international legal consequences, whereby a state acknowledges an act or status of another state or government in control of a state...
- ExistenceExistenceIn common usage, existence is the world we are aware of through our senses, and that persists independently without them. In academic philosophy the word has a more specialized meaning, being contrasted with essence, which specifies different forms of existence as well as different identity...
- NationNationA nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
- Nation state
- NationalismNationalismNationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
- RightRightRights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory...
- Self-defence
- Self-determinationSelf-determinationSelf-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
- SovereigntySovereigntySovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
- Special Committee on DecolonizationSpecial Committee on DecolonizationThe Special Committee on Decolonization was created in 1961 by the General Assembly of the United Nations with the purpose of monitoring implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples...
- Sovereign stateSovereign stateA sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
- ZionismZionismZionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
- Anti-ZionismAnti-ZionismAnti-Zionism is opposition to Zionistic views or opposition to the state of Israel. The term is used to describe various religious, moral and political points of view in opposition to these, but their diversity of motivation and expression is sufficiently different that "anti-Zionism" cannot be...
Further reading
- Yaacov LozowickYaacov LozowickYaacov Lozowick , is a German-born Israeli historian and writer. He was the director of the archives at Yad Vashem.-Biography:Yaakov Lozowick was born in 1957 in Bad Kreuznach, Germany. In 1980, he gained qualifications as a tourist guide. In 1982, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in history...
: Right to ExistRight to ExistRight to Exist: a Moral Defense of Israel's Wars is a book by Israeli historian Yaacov Lozowick, the director of archives at the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority....
: A Moral Defense of Israel's Wars. Doubleday, 2003. ISBN 0-385-50905-7 - Sholom AleichemSholom AleichemSholem Aleichem was the pen name of Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, a leading Yiddish author and playwright...
. Why Do the Jews Need a Land of Their own?, 1898
External links
- Does Israel have a right to exist?
- Israel's Right to the Land, a presentation by U.S. SenatorUnited States SenateThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
James Inhofe (R-OklahomaOklahomaOklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
) - Does Israel Have a Right to Exist? by David Meir-Levi. April 6, 2005
- Israel-PLO Recognition Letter from Yasser ArafatYasser ArafatMohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...
to Prime Minister Yitzhak RabinYitzhak Rabin' was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995....
, September 9, 1993 - Abba Eban on Israel's "Right to Exist"
- Israel's Birthright and Right to Exist Compels Justice for Palestinian Peoples Catholic viewpoint
- From the father of Daniel Pearl