I'm not "invoking a defense". I'm stating facts. You give me a definition of "forcibly expropriated land" and we'll compare it against the facts for Israel and all other countries in the world and see what comes up. It's not going to support your thesis.

The trial analogy is also completely false. The appropriate adjustments to this story is that nobody broke into that house, you actually own the house and it's always been in your family, no necklace was stolen, but you're still put on trial for stealing a necklace that doesn't exist from your own house because you're Jewish.

Your last statement of "fact" is also not fact. It is simply not factually true that all the people that lived in the region have been living and thriving there for thousands of years since before the Israelites. Many Palestinians have immigrated to the area in fairly recent times. Many Gazans are from Egypt. There are probably some Palestinians who do trace back to the Israelites. In general much of the population of the Levant and the middle east in general, including the Israeli Jews from all over the place, goes way back but there's no specific historic continuity of Palestinians in Israel for the most part. There was plenty of population movement and immigration. This is well supported history with plenty of archaeological evidence.

I also think the characterization of Israel as being "founded on the belief that its claim to the land and resources was categorically more legitimate than" is also false. There was no comparison of legitimacy of various claims simply because there were no other claims at the time. Israel was definitely founded on the (factual) belief that it is the historic homeland of the Jewish people who feel a strong connection to it. What we see in practice is that a person of Italian heritage, living in California, taken by force from Mexico, with the aboriginal inhabitants confined to a reserve and all their resources literally stolen after they were genocided and ethnically cleansed, is telling Israeli Jews why their country, founded on their historical land, where they went as refugees in more recent times because they had nowhere to go to, is illegitimate. If we want to litigate every country's legitimacy going back 3000 years, sure, let's do that. Are you an immigrant in Canada? better start packing since you're going back to where your ancient ancestors used to live. This is ofcourse all total nonsense.

I don't like to appear to be dismissive of longer posts by picking out just one aspect of them and ignoring everything else that was said; but in this case there's one assertion you're making which stands categorically above all others:

You're still put on trial ... because you're Jewish.

If what you mean here is the fact that the State of Israel is often subject to criticism for both for its founding ideology and the violent mechanisms of its creation (or its various attempts to expand its borders and resource claims through the present day) -- no, it's not simply because the people behind this project are of Jewish ancestry. You seem to believe axiomatically that this is in fact the case -- i.e. that all strong critiques in regard to the founding of the State of Israel or its modern policies are basically the Dreyfuss Affair all over again.

I do not share this axiom, so it is unlikely that we will have a productive discussion in regard the finer-grained historical topics.

We're unlikely to have a productive discussion anyways because we're so far apart and this is not a good medium to handle something like this topic. People that are entrenched in certain positions don't seem to want to give them up.

However I'm not claiming all criticism on Israel is because "the people behind this project are of Jewish ancestry". But certainly antisemitism plays a role. It plays a role in Arab views on Israel and that in turn plays a huge role in the world's take. That's just one of the ways it plays out. There are other factors including geopolitics. I would go so far to say that the majority of criticism of Israel is not in good faith, but sure, not all of it is because there are Jews involved. But certainly that accounts for some portion.

> Imagine a defense lawyer making the following argument: "Your honor, my client would never have broken into that house, and stolen that woman's necklace. It goes against everything he was raised to believe in. BTW it was never hers to begin with, so it couldn't have been stolen from her anyway."

I was going after this analogy which feels completely wrong.

> all strong critiques in regard to the founding of the State of Israel or its modern policies are basically the Dreyfuss Affair all over again.

I disagree with this statement. There's no problem with any critique of Israel in general. Where it becomes a problem is when Israel is singled out. E.g. if there is no critique of the founding of Jordan, which was given as a gift by the British to the Hashemites for helping them during the Arab revolt, then I think this is a problem. Then there is "critique" and there is stuff that's not critique. But for people that are interested in reopening the question of how various countries were founded in general in the 18th, 19th, and 20th century, sure we can have this discussion and include Israel in it for sure. For people whose main focus is simply attacking Israel by any means possible, I think that's a problem. I'm totally with John Lennon "Imagine" on a purely romantic idealistic way, but then there's reality.

Fair enough in regard to strong critiques.

I still don't think the original statement I jumped in at ("Palestinians never had a country so that couldn't have been stolen from them") stands on its own, or helps explain the current situation.

Of course they had a country; and hence would not recognize domination by a foreign population -- unless imposed by overwhelming force. The original Zionists were keenly aware of this fact, which is why it has become one of guiding tenants in nearly major strategic decisions Israel has made since.

er, "tenets"

>if there is no critique of the founding of Jordan, which was given as a gift by the British to the Hashemites for helping them during the Arab revolt, then I think this is a problem.

That can also be criticised. Although what is tend to get lost in these type of arguments is that, it is entirely different to give assistance in ruling a patch of land versus literally displacing people from their land and homes and imposing military control over them.