Settlement in Samaria: the ethical dimension

Abstract

This essay presents the interests of settlers and settler nations in a new and favourable light, with reference to the Jewish settlements in Samaria in particular. It sets out two lines of argument supporting the inclusion of the Jewish settlement blocs in Samaria into the State of Israel. It argues that taking existing national settlements into account as a major factor in marking boundaries has both distinctly liberal foundations (in John Locke's Second Treatise) and liberal-national appeal. The paper also considers historical reasons for supporting the Zionist settlement project from the start, and within Samaria in particular. Finally, it addresses the complicated and controversial issue of settlement in disputed territories. Ultimately I suggest that Israel has a particularly strong case for entitlement to the territories to which it lays claim, though these interests must compete with countervailing considerations and may not always prevail.

Keywords::

• settlement
• historical right
• Judea and Samaria
• John Locke

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. Isa. 29:1, 2, 7.

^2. Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, August 12, 1949, Article 49, https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/0/6756482d86146898c125641e004aa3c5?OpenDocument (accessed March 15, 2015).

^3. John Locke, “Of Property,” in Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), paras. 25–51.

^4. John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, Chapter 5 – “Of Property”, paras. 25–7.

^5. Ibid., para. 27.

^6. Ibid., para. 32.

^7. Ibid., para. 32.

^8. For a detailed dismissal of nations’ ‘first occupancy’ arguments, see: Chaim Gans, The Limits of Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 105–9; Jeremy Waldron, “Superseding Historic Injustice,” Ethics 103, no. 1 (1992): 4–28.

^9. For some of these difficulties, see Jeremy Waldron, The Right to Private Property (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 184–91; Jeremy Waldron, “Two Worries About Mixing One's Labour,” The Philosophical Quarterly 33, no. 130 (1983): 37–44; Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford: Blackwell, 1974), 174–5.

^10. James Tully, “Rediscovering America: The Two Treatises and Aboriginal Rights,” in An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts, ed. James Tully (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 137–76; John Douglas Bishop, “Locke's Theory of Original Appropriation and the Right of Settlement in Iroquois Territory,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 27, no. 3 (1997): 311–37.

^11. Waldron, The Right to Private Property, 193.

^12. Ibid., 193; Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, paras. 40, 43.

^13. Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, paras. 41, 43.

^14. Ibid., para. 27.

^15. Tully, “Rediscovering America,” 140–41, 143–4, 147, 159; Bishop, “Locke's Theory of Original Appropriation,” 311, 329.

^16. Tully, “Rediscovering America,” esp. 139–66. Note that, in this historical connection, the property arguments advanced by Locke attached themselves to collectives as well as to individuals, as Locke notoriously defended not only individual colonists’ property claims but also the alleged rights of the British Crown over the colonies established by its nationals in North America (see Tully, “Rediscovering America,” 165).

^17. Tully, “Rediscovering America,” 166–71.

^18. Ibid., throughout, but esp. 175–6; Bishop, “Locke's Theory of Original Appropriation,” throughout, but esp. 312.

^19. Prominent theories of liberal nationalism include: Neil McCormick, “Liberal Nationalism and Self-Determination,” in The Rights of Nations – Nations and Nationalism in a Changing World, ed. Desmond M. Clarke and Charles Jones (Cork: Cork University Press, 1999), 65–87; Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993); David Miller, On Nationality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); Margaret Moore, The Ethics of Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Chaim Gans, The Limits of Nationalism.

^20. David Miller, Citizenship and National Identity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), 116–17.

^21. See note 19, esp. Tamir, Liberal Nationalism and Gans, The Limits of Nationalism.

^22. Locke, para. 42. For a variety of critiques of Locke's cultural bias as regards the appropriate use of land see Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy, 137–76; Bishop, “Locke's Theory of Original Appropriation”; Margaret Moore, “The Territorial Dimension of Self-Determination,” in National Self-Determination and Secession, ed. Margaret Moore (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 148–9; Moore, The Ethics of Nationalism, 181–4.

^23. Moore, “The Territorial Dimension of Self-Determination,” 148.

^24. Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869) (New York: Signet Classics, 2007), ch. 48, 2.

^25. Ibid., ch. 47, 373.

^26. Ibid., chs. 51–2.

^27. Ibid., ch. 52, 429.

^28. Ibid., ch. 52, 429–30.

^29. Ibid., ch. 56, 473.

^30. Moore, “The Territorial Dimension of Self-Determination,” 148.

^31. This is noted also by Ross Poole, “National Identity, Multiculturalism, and Aboriginal Rights: An Australian Perspective,” in Rethinking Nationalism, ed. Jocelyn Couture, Kai Nielsen, and Michel Seymour (Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press, 1998), 427, 428–9, 431; Ross Poole, Nation and Identity (London: Routledge, 1999), 130–31, 135; Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy, 137–76; and in Graham Alan John Rogers, ed., Locke's Philosophy: Content and Context (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 165–96; Bishop, “Locke's Theory of Original Appropriation,” 311–37; John A. Simmons, “Historical Rights and Fair Shares,” Law and Philosophy 14, no. 2 (1995), 183.

^32. Moore, ‘The Territorial Dimension of Self-Determination’, 149; Moore, The Ethics of Nationalism, 183.

^33. Chaim Gans, “Historical Rights – The Evaluation of Nationalist Claims to Sovereignty,” Political Theory 29, no. 1 (2001): 59–60; Chaim Gans, The Limits of Nationalism, 97–123, esp. 97–104. See also Chaim Gans, A Just Zionism – On the Morality of the Jewish State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 26.

^34. Gans, “Historical Rights,” 60; Gans, The Limits of Nationalism, 100–101.

^35. Anthony D. Smith, “States and Homelands: the Social and Geopolitical Implications of National Territory,” Millennium, Journal of International Studies 10, no. 3 (1987): 1193; Anthony D. Smith, National Identity (Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press, 1991), 9.

^36. Smith, “States and Homelands,” 9.

^37. Gen. 28: 10–19.

^38. 1 Sam. 3:3; Jer. 7:12; 1 Sam. 4:3–11. The Arc was returned to the Israelites after seven months (1 Sam. 5 and 6). Later it was placed in Jerusalem by King David after making the city his capital (2 Sam. 6).

^39. 1 Kings 12:25.

^40. Gans, “Historical Rights,” 72.

^41. Yael Tamir, “Theoretical Difficulties in the Study of Nationalism,” in Rethinking Nationalism, ed. Jocelyn Couture, Kai Nielsen, and Michel Seymour (Calgary, Alberta: University of Calgary Press, 1998), 73.

^42. Gans, The Limits of Nationalism, 115–23.

^43. Miller, Citizenship and National Identity, 196, Miller's note 14, emphasis added. As I understand it, Miller presents occupation and transformation as cumulative requirements, both necessary conditions for control.

^44. Both David Miller and Jeremy Waldron acknowledge and resign themselves to similarly morally hazardous conclusions on related issues. See Miller, Citizenship and National Identity, 196; and to a lesser degree of acceptance, Waldron, “Superseding Historical Injustice,” 25.

^45. Gans, The Limits of Nationalism, 111.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tamar Meisels

Tamar Meisels (PhD), is an associate professor in the Political Science Department at Tel-Aviv University, Israel.