dotancohen • yesterday at 11:41 PM

  > So you think North and South Korea are the same country? If not, which is the rightful country and which is the rebel? They both claim the same territory and that the other is illegitimate.

I know not enough about the conflict to declare which side is more justified.

  > Do you think India and Pakistan are the same country? Or at least parts? There's a lot of disputed territories there.

Again, I know too little about the conflict.

  > Or do you believe Palestine is independent from Israel? They sure claim independence and Israel claims it's theirs.

The Arab citizens of the holy land did not declare a state when the former ruling party (the Brits) left, the Jews did declare a state. The Arabs even rejected the UN partition plan and decided that the fate of the area would be determined by war instead. Which they lost, and though they had some territory after the war they _still_ did not declare a state on that land. Only 15 years later did they form a government and an identity, and yet still did not declare a state. Only after the Israelis conquered the lands in yet another war, and then almost thirty years after that, did they declare a state with provisional borders. And they have rejected every final borders proposition made to them since. And during that entire time, they have been murdering civilians, both Jews and those who support peace with the Jews.

So yes, clearly in Area A the Palestinians have limited sovereignty - limited only because they consistently refuse all attempts to provide them more sovereignty.

  > Or what about the USA? The British sure thought it was theirs for a long time. Should France not have gotten involved in all of that?

Perhaps the French should not have gotten involved. I can imagine an alternate history where the British rule over the North American continent. The great result of the American Revolution wasn't the independent United States. The great result of the American Revolution was the implementation of a government based upon secular values and equality for all before the law. And even with the tools in place to implement that government, it still took almost two hundred years to enshrine those values into society.

And now, a mere two generations later, people have forgotten how hard the Americans worked to build that society and they are willing - active even - to discard it because of the few remaining minor deviations from perfection.