The right to exist is said to be an attribute of nations. According to an essay by the nineteenth century French philosopher Ernest Renan, a state has the right to exist when individuals are willing to sacrifice their own interests for the community it represents. Unlike self-determination, the right to exist is an attribute of states rather than of peoples. It is not a right recognized in international law. The phrase has featured prominently in the Arab–Israeli conflict since the 1950s.
The right to exist of a de facto state may be balanced against another state's right to territorial integrity.[1] Proponents of the right to exist trace it back to the "right of existence," said to be a fundamental right of states recognized by writers on international law for hundreds of years.[2]
In ontology, existence is a matter of fact rather than a moral right.
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Thomas Paine used the phrase "right to exist" to refer to forms of government, arguing that representative government has a right to exist, but that hereditary government does not.[3] In 1823, Sir Walter Scott argued for the "right to exist in the Greek people".[4] (The Greeks were then revolting against Turkish rule.) According to Renan's "What is a Nation?" (1882), "A state has the right to exist when it gives proof of its strength by the sacrifices which demand the abdication of the individual."[5] Existence is not a historical right, but "a daily plebiscite, just as an individual's existence is a perpetual affirmation of life," Renan said.[5] The phrase gained enormous usage in reference to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. "If Turkey has a right to exist – and the Powers are very prompt to assert that she has – she possesses an equally good right to defend herself against all attempts to imperil her political existence," wrote Eliakim and Robert Littell in 1903.[6] In many cases, a nation's right to exist is not questioned, and is therefore not asserted, for example in the case of India.[7]
There is also a state's right "to perpetuate itself". This right was invoked in legal proceedings in post-War Germany as a defence of individuals in the judiciary system accused of participating in Nazi era repressions against those who were percecuted for "anti-state" activities, real or perceived.
There are numerous struggles in the world today in which various countries deny each others' right to exist. According to Jerry Piven, "The Middle East, Ireland, India/Pakistan, Rwanda, the Cold War, and the country formerly known as Yugoslavia are host to just a few of the many seemingly intractable conflicts (often going back thousands of years) where each side denies the right of the other to exist."[8]
In 2008, Patricia Flor, German ambassador to Georgia, told the Georgian Times newspaper that "Abkhaz should feel they can voice their concerns and can be open about their identity... we also say of course that the Abkhaz nation has a right to exist and to decide for themselves how they are going to live and how they want to use the Abkhaz language".[9]
In August 2008 Russia recognised Abkhazia's independence, stating that "Using repeatedly brutal military force against the peoples, whom, according to his words, he would like to see within his State, Mikhail Saakashvili left them no other choice but to ensure their security and the right to exist through self-determination as independent States."[10]
According to Basque nationalists, "Euzkadi (the name of our country in our own language) is the country of the Basques with as such right to exist independently as a nation as Poland or Ireland. The Basques are a very ancient people..."[11]
The phrase, "right to exist" has also been used in reference to the right of Chechens (in the eyes of supporters) to establish a state independent from Russia.[12][13]
"In Ireland, conflicting claims to counties Fermanagh and Tyrone poisoned North-South relations for decades, and many Irish Catholics still deny the right of Northern Ireland to exist at all."[14]
In the 1950s and 1960s, most Arab leaders did not dare admit that Israel had a right to exist.[15] The issue was described as the central one between Israel and the Arabs.[16] After the June 1967 war, Egyptian spokesman Mohammed H. el-Zayyat stated that Cairo had accepted Israel's right to exist since the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli armistice in 1949.[17] He added that this did not imply recognition of Israel.[17] In September, the Arab leaders adopted a hardline "three no's" position in the Khartoum Resolution. But in November, Egypt accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242, which implied acceptance of Israel's right to exist. At the same time, President Gamal Abdel Nasser urged Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian leaders to reject the resolution. "You must be our irresponsible arm," he said.[18] King Hussein of Jordan also acknowledged that Israel had a right to exist at this time.[19] Meanwhile, Syria rejected Resolution 242, saying that it, "refers to Israel's right to exist and it ignores the right of the [Palestinian] refugees to return to their homes."[20]
Upon assuming the premiership in 1977, Menachem Begin spoke as follows:
Our right to exist—have you ever heard of such a thing? Would it enter the mind of any Briton or Frenchman, Belgian or Dutchman, Hungarian or Bulgarian, Russian or American, to request for its people recognition of its right to exist? ..... Mr. Speaker: From the Knesset of Israel, I say to the world, our very existence per se is our right to exist![21]
As confirmed by the Financial Times, in 1988 Yasser Arafat confirmed that the Palestinians had accepted Israel's right to exist.[22] In 1993, there was an official exchange of letters between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Chairman Arafat, in which Arafat declared that "the PLO affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel's right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid."[23] In 2009 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert demanded the Palestinian Authority's acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, which the Palestinian Authority rejected.[24] The Knesset plenum gave initial approval in May 2009 to a bill criminalising the public denial of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, with a penalty of up to a year in prison.[25]
According to the linguist Noam Chomsky, the term "right to exist" is unique to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict: "No state has a right to exist, and no one demands such a right....In an effort to prevent negotiations and a diplomatic settlement, the U.S. and Israel insisted on raising the barrier to something that nobody's going to accept....[Palestinians are] not going to accept...the legitimacy of their dispossession."[26] John V. Whitbeck argued that Israel's insistence on a right to exist forces Palestinians to provide a moral justification for their own suffering.[27]
Representatives of the Kurdish people regularly assert their right to exist as a nation.[28][29][30]
"By refusing to accept the 1947 partition of the British Indian empire, Pakistan even challenged India's right to exist." [31] "Jinnah's famous 'theory of two nations'—a Hindu one and a Muslim one—in claiming Pakistan's right to exist in 1940 has become the essential reference point, making religious affiliation the basis of a host of divergences covering every domain of thought and culture." [32]
"It is essential that Indians deeply and meaningfully recognize Pakistan’s right to exist as a nation independent from India. Indians cannot let their nostalgia for the past–which is, in fact, the national pain over the Partition in 1947 which led to the creation of Pakistan – blind them to the reality of Pakistan as a sovereign state." [33]
In 1947, the United Nations affirmed the right of an "Arab State" and a "Jewish State" to exist within Palestine. The Jews agreed to the plan, but the Arabs denied and attacked the Jewish population of Palestine, in what was called the 1948 Palestine war. However, Palestinian statehood is still disputed. As of December 2011, 128 (66.3%) of the 193 member states of the United Nations have recognised the State of Palestine. Their total population is over 5.2 billion people, equalling 75% of the world's population.[34]
In June 2009 Barack Obama said "Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's,"[35] even though the Arabs already have 22 nations of their own.[36]