"Get the hell out of Palestine...Remember these people are occupied, and it's their land."
-- Helen Thomas, former journalist of the White House Press Corps

Their land. What does that phrase mean? I understand what it means to purchase a piece of land. You sign a deed, and you own the property, just as you might own a car, shares of stock shares, or a poodle. If someone steals your land, your car, your stock, or your poodle, it is an injustice.

But that is surely not what Helen Thomas meant. She was not calling for a right of return for those Palestinians whose property Israel captured in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Nor was she demanding compensation for lost property.

She was speaking of the land of Palestine, the homeland of the Palestinian people. But what signifies a homeland? There is no deed. A people owns its homeland by living in it.

But what if the people are ejected from their homeland, as happened to the Palestinians? Surely they cannot lose their ancestral rights through violence. Thus, a people must own their homeland not only by living in it but also by having once lived in it.

Ay, there's the rub. For if one people occupies the homeland of another people, then the first owns the homeland by virtue of living in it, and the second owns it by having once lived in it. And yet two peoples cannot share the same homeland.

So let's back up a step. Perhaps a people cannot gain a homeland by forcibly taking it from another. That is to say, a homeland must be "lawfully" obtained. But how does one "lawfully" obtain a homeland when homelands are not for sale? Must one go exploring for empty islands like some ancient Polynesian tribe in outrigger canoes?

But there are no empty places worth living, and there have not been for thousands of years. In the history of humanity, almost all arable land has been taken and retaken many times over. Even people that we consider "aboriginals" were once invaders. The Spaniards took the homeland of the Aztecs, who took the homeland of the Mayans, who took the homeland of the Olmecs, who likely took the homeland of some long lost tribe. The Israelis took the homeland of the Palestinians who took the homeland of the Israelites who took the homeland of the Amorites, who surely took the homeland of some other people.

In short, we are all conquerors, and if a homeland may not be taken by force, then none of us have homelands. So perhaps we should count generations to award homeland ownership. But how many generations of living in one place gets you a homeland? And how many generations in exile abrogates your rights? If the Israelis stay for a hundred years, do they get to keep Israel/Palestine? Poles have occupied German land, and Russians have occupied Polish land for just as long as the Israelis have occupied Palestinian land. Should they too go home? What of the Jews who lived in Palestine before 1948? What about the Protestants in Ireland, the Anglophones in Quebec, and the Americans in Texas. Should they all go home?

I have another idea. Fuck homelands. Homelands do not exist in nature, which is why they are so difficult to define. They are artificial entities created by nationalists seeking to forge ethnic and cultural identities around myths of national birthplaces. Such myths have been used as rationalizations for war after war, from the Crusades to the Balkan Wars. And it is the myths of "Israel" and "Palestine" that keep the Israelis and the Palestinians from making peace at long last.

We should seek justice for individuals, and we should ensure that people do not live in subjugation, but this homeland business, whether expressed nastily in the words of Helen Thomas or eloquently in the words statesmen and patriots, is nothing but poison.