A friend of mine asked me how I would answer the following question: "By what right does Israel exist? Why does the world need such a hell-hole of a country, an apartheid-racist-war-mongering-Jewish theocracy?" I suggested that she consider the question as an opening for a conversation about the "right to exist" rather than as a challenge to Israel's character or to its right—or lack thereof—to exist.

The Arab Rejection of Israel

The last 65 years of Arab hate-speech, hate-preach, and hate-teach make it pretty clear that some significant part of the Arab world really does not want Israel to exist. That same segment really does the best it can to end Israel's existence, with 65 years of terror war punctuated by 3 major attempts at invasion, conquest, and destruction. The rhetoric of annihilation and the diatribe of genocide match the actions of these same Arab states, whose commitment of massive resources to the destruction of Israel is an implicit rejection of Israel's right to exist.

In a similar vein, 20 years ago, when Arafat agreed to recognize the state of Israel, his doing so was acclaimed far and wide as a great concession. Only a few had the perspicacity to point out that acknowledging the existence of a state that already existed was no great concession to anything except reality. However, since Arafat continued to run a terror war against Israel and proclaim his desire to destroy Israel, his "concession" about Israel's existence was nothing more than a superficial bid to gain support in the USA. His continued psychotic desire to destroy Israel was an implicit rejection of Israel's right to exist.

Mahathir Mohammed, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, indirectly raised the same issue in his speech last year when he claimed that 1,300,000,000 Moslems worldwide could surely defeat Israel with its mere 6,000,000! Since the Arab goal in defeating Israel is the annihilation of Israel, Mahathir's assertion that Islam's worldwide "umma" ought to be able to succeed in this goal is a very clear challenge to Israel's right to exist.

Implicit in the proliferation of vitriolic hate education in almost all of the Arab (and some parts of the non-Arab Moslem) world is the denial of the targeted victim's right to exist.

There is indeed a significant part of the Arab world, and some in the non-Arab Moslem world, who want Israel and its 6,000,000 Jews destroyed. The commitment to this demonic goal is an expression of the belief that Israel has no right to exist.

No Nation Has the Right to Exist

In my opinion, Israel has no right to exist. And that is because, in reality, no country in the world and throughout all of history has a right to exist. No country in the world exists today by virtue of its 'right'. All countries exist today by virtue of their ability to defend themselves against those who seek their destruction.

Take Tibet, for example, and Israel for the opposite example.

Tibet did nothing to threaten or anger China. No aggression, no threat of aggression. But in 1950, China invaded Tibet and ended Tibet's existence as a nation. The world did nothing (except create some bumper stickers). As with all nations, Tibet had no right to exist. It existed only as long as it was not attacked. When it was attacked and could not defend itself adequately, nor garner support for its continued existence from the world's family of nations or from the world's governing body, it ceased to exist.

The same would be true of Israel, except that Israel has defended itself adequately. Israel's continued existence is not by right, but only by its ability to defend itself against the Arab and Moslem world that seeks her destruction. And if it were ever unable to defend itself, it would soon share Tibet's fate. Or worse.

In the final analysis, no nation has a right to exist. No nation exists because of any right. Nations exist because they can defend themselves from those who want to destroy them. Therefore, the question itself, "what right does Israel have to exist?" is a bogus question. It is misleading in its intention. So let's examine the question from the vantage point of its intention.

The Origin of Nations

With only one known exception (Tibet, Bhutan and Nepal are possible exceptions to the analysis which follows, but that is not known for sure) no country ever came into existence by virtue of any right to exist, or any right to come into existence from some previous non-nation status.

All nations throughout the world and across history came into existence by virtue of their ability to conquer some other country or people or tribe or indigenous inhabitants. Violence, murder, war, rapine, conquest, massacres, burning, looting, pillaging, and sometimes even genocide: those are the costs of nation creation in the real world, throughout all of history.

The only known exception to this gallery of historical horrors is the modern state of Israel. Israel came into existence by virtue of:

a. its ability to buy land with the help of world-wide Jewish and Christian Zionists

b. its ability to reclaim deteriorated waste land

c. its ability to organize itself in its pre-state existence into a viable well-governed cohesive society with a developing and expanding economy and an effective defensive force.

d. its ability, via lobbying and political leveraging, to get the world governing body to vote it into existence

In sharp contradistinction to the manner in which all other nations have been created, Israel came into existence by legal, peaceful, constructive processes.

A Mechanism for Destruction

Despite the fact that Israel is the only country in world history that came into existence via peaceful, legal, constructive means and by majority vote of the world governing body, Israel is the one and only country whose right to exist is challenged.

But, no matter how bad Israel may be, and even if the worst of Israel's detractors were correct in their horrific description of Israel's failings as a nation, Israel is certainly no worse than many countries throughout the world with disastrous records of human rights abuses, aggression against neighboring countries, social and religious and gender apartheid, oppression of minorities. And in reality, Israel's track record in these areas is far better than that of most countries. So however bad Israel may be, the fact still remains that it is the only country in the world to ever have come into existence peacefully and legally.

So why pick on Israel? Because the question has nothing to do with an inquiry into Israel's rights or lack thereof. It is simply a mechanism for the launching of an anti-Israel diatribe. Its real purpose is to open an avenue of attack, to bash Israel, de-legitimize her, denigrate her; and ultimately to justify the Arab world's desire to destroy her.

In the absence of any inquiry into the right of infinitely more reprehensible societies—Russia, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya, Mauritania, Sudan, inter alia, come to mind—why condemn Israel as a rogue state with no right to exist? Why not start with the worst offenders?

Why de-legitimize Israel for a conquest (which actually did not happen, but that's a different article) that was far less destructive than that of the Arab states whose Jihad in the 7th to 9th centuries racked up tens, if not hundreds, of millions of casualties and destroyed four ancient civilizations (Byzantine, Coptic, Sassanian, and Berber). Why not start with the most horrific of conquerors? Because the purpose of the question is to attack Israel and justify those who attack Israel!

The bottom line is that if you think Israel has no right to exist, you are right. And I'm sure that Hitler would agree with you wholeheartedly.