[jikelly]

Originally Posted by Reimann

Actually it is more like when America declared itself free from British rule. Or were you referring when the Roman's conquered it in the 2nd century and forced the Jews out?

Huh?

This is what I was talking about.

When Ben-Gurion said the following...

"We do not recognize the right of the [Palestinian] Arabs to rule the country, since Palestine is still undeveloped and awaits its builders."

That reminded me of this...

In the early 1630s John Winthrop, one of the leaders of the early British migrants to the new world, wrote a number of papers designed to convince British citizens to undertake the journey to New England. One of his papers, “Reasons to be considered for justifying the undertakers of the intended Plantation in New England, and for encouraging such whose hearts God shall move to join with them in it,” answers a number of diverse objections to the colonization of the new world. In this brief essay I will focus on Winthrop’s answer to the first of the objections he discussed.

Objection 1: “We have no warrant to enter upon that land, which has been so long possessed by others.”

Answer: “That which lies common and hath never been replenished or subdued, is free to any that possess and improve it: For God hath given to the sons of men a double right to the earth; there is a natural right, and a civil right. The First right was natural when all men held the earth in common every man sowing and feeding where he pleased: then as men and their cattle increased, they appropriated certain parcels of ground by inclosing and peculiar manuerance, and this in that time got them a civil right…”(p311)

Winthrop begins his argument by stating that anything, land in particular, that has not be worked or cultivated is free to anyone who will claim ownership of it and put it to good use. He supports this statement by turning to divine law, and shares with us God’s design for the ownership of land, stating that God gave man a double right to the earth.

The first of these two he tells us is a natural life and any man who lives in an area may take what he needs to support himself. The second right is only given to men who work, or cultivate the land making it fit to grow crops, or support livestock. In particular Winthrop was very careful in his word selection and, in making this point, he uses the words appropriated and enclosing. Is he saying that once a man has acquired a partition of land, he must enclose it or mark its boundary in order to complete the necessary requirements to earn the second right to the land? Winthrop goes on in his paper to give us a biblical example that supports his previous statements and the idea that a man can claim no land as his own unless he has labored for it.

Winthrop, Robert C. "Reasons to be considered for justifying the undertakers of the intended Plantation in New England, and for encouraging such whose hearts God shall move to join with them in it." Life and letters of John Winthrop 1 (1869): 308-319.