Israeli Settlers and Legitimate Land Ownership
Surely, you've heard about the forced evacuation of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip. Got an opinion?
Walter Block, in "Libertarianism vs Objectivism; A Response to Peter Schwartz" (pg 16-17):
How does the libertarian deal with stolen property? Obviously, it must be returned. It is that simple. But, suppose the theft took place a long time ago. Suppose that your great grandfather took a ring from my greatgrandfather. Through the succession of inheritance, you got the ring. You are, of course, not guilty of a crime. You didn’t steal anything. But, you are still the holder of stolen property. Justice surely consists of making you disgorge the ring and give it back to me, since I would have inherited it. Is there a statute of limitations? No. There is no statute of limitations on justice. Justice is the highest goal in the legal realm. When a law, such as a statute of limitations conflicts with one of our basic axioms, it must be jettisoned. So, if the theft took place three hundred years ago, and I can prove that you have my ring, it should be handed over from you to me.[...]
While this aspect of libertarian theory sounds very radical, in practice it is less so. This is because the claimant always needs proof. Possession is nine tenths of the law, and to overcome the presumption that property is now in the hands of its rightful owners requires that an evidentiary burden be overcome. The further back in history was the initial act of aggression (not only because written evidence is less likely to be available), the less likely it is that there can be proof of it. So, certain thefts will have to escape the libertarian passion for justice, because time places a veil over these past events. But, the ideal is clear: If there is stolen property and it can be proved that it was stolen, it should be returned.
I can't muster disagreement with Mr. Block's words. If they are correct, then who rightly owns the land these settlements are located upon? I'm ignoring the collectivist justifications for the forced pullout given by Ariel Sharon: it's a "cost to society" because the State of Israel is forcing Israelis to pay for the defense of these communities. End that socialization (along with the others) and the "costs to society" end with them.
My take: If the settlers are the legitimate owners of the property they occupied, what the government is doing is flatly criminal. If the settlers' ownership is not legit, does that give the State of Israel the right to act as it has? I don't think so. The legitimate owners of the property in question ought to be the ones with the demand for the settlers' departure and the right to forcibly remove them from the land if they resist. I am pathetically ignorant of land ownership history in the area so I don't have an answer for anyone who asks me who really is the proper owner of the land in question. That's an empirical matter that factual investigation can solve.