Who Owns America
Posted on March 14, 2014 by debmeier
I’d feel more sympathetic with the academics’ boycott of Israel if they decided to boycott every nation with a similar history of colonial abuse, etc etc. We might start by boycotting ourselves. We actually are living on land that is not, as in Israel, strictly speaking “ours.” We occupied the land from coast to coast by might of force, and never have had any intention of returning it to its original owners. We claimed it because—we could. Or because we were fleeing from oppression and needed a place where we could be free (and sometimes that meant free to be just as oppressive to others not like us). We murdered off or imprisoned in reservations the previous natives. And unlike the Israelis, Europeans had no ancient claims to the Americas, nor were there any Europeans with long distant and continuous roots in the land.
Would we seriously consider that Whites should go back where they came from? After all, it is not the Native Americans’ fault that they were mistreated elsewhere. Nor is the Native Americans’ fault that African-Americans were brought to the Americas against their will.
While I want us to respond morally to the Palestinian’s just arguments, I’m not willing
