The Israelites conquered Canaan from the Canaanites who were already living there.
Americans conquered America from the aboriginals who were living there
Edit: Btw, if it wasn’t clear, I’m disagreeing with you, because by your logic we would also have to condemn:
Egypt who conquered Nubia, parts of the Levant, and various neighboring regions multiple times.
Babylon and Assyria dominated who Sumerian lands, various Mesopotamian city-states, and parts of the Levant.
The Persian Empire conquered most of the Middle East, Egypt, and parts of India, and later Central Asia.
Islamic Caliphates (Umayyad and Abbasid) who conquered parts of North Africa, Spain, the Levant, Persia, and more.
The Ottoman Empire that controlled large parts of Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
The Roman Empire that conquered Britain, France (Gaul), parts of the Middle East, North Africa, and much of Europe.
The Macedonian Empire (Alexander the Great) who conquered Persia, Egypt, parts of India, and Greece.
The Viking Conquests that involved colonization of parts of England, France (Normandy), Iceland, Greenland, and even North America. Napoleonic France conquered parts of Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and attempted to hold Egypt.
The British Empire colonized the Americas, Australia, India, parts of Africa, and various islands worldwide.
The Aztecs conquered neighboring Mesoamerican tribes before the Spanish conquest.
Incas who subjugated various tribes across the Andes, forming an extensive empire.
The Spanish Empire who conquered most of Central and South America, the Caribbean, and parts of North America.
The United States acquired Native American lands across the continent through treaties, purchases, and conquests (e.g., Mexican-American War for the Southwest).
Portuguese colonizers who took land from indigenous Brazilian tribes.
The Mongol Empire who conquered China, Persia, the Middle East, and parts of Europe.
The Chinese Dynasties (Han, Tang, Qing, etc.) that expanded China’s borders through conquests, including Tibet, Xinjiang, and Manchuria.
The Japanese Empire that colonized Korea, parts of China, Taiwan, and occupied Southeast Asia during World War II.
The Russian Empire/Soviet Union that expanded into Central Asia, Siberia, parts of Eastern Europe, and Alaska (later sold to the USA).
The Zulu Kingdom who expanded in Southern Africa, subjugating neighboring tribes.
The Ethiopian Empire that conquered various kingdoms within what is now Ethiopia.
The Colonial Powers (Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Portugal) partitioned and ruled over nearly all of Africa.
Maori Tribes in New Zealand conquered and displaced other Polynesian tribes.
Polynesian Expansion colonized the Pacific islands, often displacing or assimilating previous inhabitants.
European Colonization of Australia: British settlers took land from Indigenous Australians.
Surely, it is impractical that we demand that current nations and peoples return land to those who lived there centuries or millennia ago. Modern borders are often built upon layers of historical migrations and conquests, making a clear-cut solution impractical. We can’t use moral rubrics of today to judge past (and that’s talking centuries an millenia ago) actions.
Excellent comment, I frequently bring this concept to others attention when the term “colonizer” is used.
Arbitrary and selective use of the term to fit a specific narrative detracts from current day realities.
Somehow people seem to have forgotten that times of peace and respect for manmade borders and laws of sovereign nations are not the norm for history.
Depends on what you mean by condemn. All of those things were bad when they happened. But we can’t forever condemn the descendants of warlike people as tainted colonizers.
On the other hand, in the case of some of the more recent events, we still have people today who are marginalized, impoverished, and lack access to land as a result of those past atrocities. Most notably for the west, this includes native Americans and Palestinians, among others. This situation calls out for a just solution. The redistribution of land, extra services, reparations, etc. should all be on the table for the descendants of the colonized. But notably, the expulsion of the descendants of the colonizers should not be—this will just perpetuate a similar injustice into the future.
I 100% agree with you. Those things were bad in retrospect, but it’s not worth comparing actions of today to back then because the times have changed.
Also, there definitely should be a concerted effort to resolve the concerns of those who still suffer from those past atrocities. For the Israel-Palestine saga, that might well be a two state solution as many propose, but i know there will still be people willing to argue with and insult me for this position.
Not true, not all conquests involved erasing the indigenous peooples. At least not for the Muslim conquest of the Levant according to Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister:
“The fellahin are not descendants of the Arab conquerors, who captured Eretz Israel and Syria in the seventh century CE. The Arab victors did not destroy the agricultural population they found in the country. They expelled only the alien Byzantine rulers, and did not touch the local population. Nor did the Arabs go in for settlement. Even in their former habitations the Arabs did not engage in farming…their whole interest in the new countries was political, religious and material: to rule, to propagate Islam, and to collect taxes…the Jewish farmer, like any other farmer, was not easily torn from his soil…Despite the repression and suffering the rural population remained unchanged.” [7]
Ben Gurion is quoted by Shlomo Sand in his book https://blogs.umb.edu/joinercenter/2012/10/09/review-of-shlomo-sand-the-invention-of-the-jewish-people-london-verso-2009-translated-by-yael-lotan/
So you’re agreeing that giving Palestine “back” to the Jews just because their ancestors lived there was stupid?
That’s a different point entirely. I was only disagreeing with the commenters comparison of what happened to the Canaanites thousands of years ago to what’s happening today with the Palestinians. What i think about giving the land back to the Palestinians doesn’t matter.
oh man, this post is great. i came in here to say basically the same thing but you illustrated the point so well.
it really doesn’t matter what our ancestors did. it’s today that counts. we start being good people today. if everyone could just do that…
It would be impractical to undo every theft that has ever occurred, and yet we still condemn theft, work to prevent it, punish thieves for it, and try to undo what thefts we can.
So you are disagreeing with me how? You want to punish Israel for what they did thousands of years ago to the Canaanites?
yay! biblical history! you know, those canaanites sacrificed children. it was not a good scene there.
I’m no historian, but I presume the Canaanites then moved to North America and founded Canaada
They definitely took the land from someone. The funny thing is that it doesn’t even matter who “they” refers to in that sentence because it is universally true. Everyone is from somewhere else if you go back far enough. This whole thread is just different people picking different points in time to refer to as the original state of things, despite the fact that history is literally the study of the constant evolution of humanity.
