I don’t think I’ve heard of Josh Barro before, though I probably have. But he made it into Wonkette’s tabs post this morning, so here we are.
His post-to-which-they-linked is not entirely wrong, as most things aren’t, but it does have one bit that’s very wrong. It’s in footnote 6, so you can tell it’s not really the main thrust of his post, but it’s just that wrong.
Here’s the gist:
Any argument that “decolonization” is a moral imperative requiring the removal of Jews from Israel applies equally to the non-indigenous population of the United States.
Josh Barro, Identity Politics Meets College Politics With Predictably Stupid, Immoral Results
This fails to recognize one really important fact: the removal of the Palestinian population is still happening now, and there are living victims and perpetrators whereas (for the most part) in America there are not. (Hawaii is a very distinct situation that’s definitely morally most similar to Palestine.)
Any reasonable moral stance on this has to presuppose that any person must start life with the right to live where they’re born, though where you go from there is certainly debatable. There may well be living Palestinians who were displaced to create Israel, and there are certainly living Palestinians who have been displaced by Israel’s later expansions.
The perpetrators and victims of most of the displacements in America are dead, and in most cases several generations dead. These displacements are historical, and are not living moral considerations.
So, you certainly can (and, I would argue, should) make a moral argument for reversing the creation of the Israeli State and removing the invading population (minus any native-born children) without that having implications for most of America.
Sorry, all you haoles.
