Proof 2 - Right of Conquest, Part One

     This is the first part of my senior thesis' second proof concerning the right of military conquest. Enjoy and leave your comments below, critical or otherwise!


          “In international law, the Right of Conquest is defined as ‘the purported right of a conqueror to territory which he has taken by force of arms.’ This theory is based on the proposition that a state which emerges victorious in war is entitled to claim ownership of the land of which it has taken possession during a war.” (Right of Conquest, Real Property, Real Properties Information) This Right of Conquest, however, was gradually modified after World War Two when aggression was made an official crime codified in the Nuremburg Principles and passed in 1974 as United Nations resolution 3314:  “The completion of colonial conquest of much of the world… the devastation of World Wars I and II, and the alignment of both the United States and the Soviet Union with the principle of self-determination led to the abandonment of the right of conquest in formal international law. The 1928 Kellog-Bridan Pact, the post-1945 Nuremburg  Trials, the UN charter, and the UN role in decolonization saw the progressive dismantling of this principle.” (Right of Conquest, Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia)

            However, in Joshua’s day, conquest was certainly a legal right in formal international law. (Some may argue that the right of conquest is also still legitimate today in spite of the United Nations, based on the assumption that the conquering force is more capable of securing peace and stability to the territory than the lawfully entitled governance of which it has taken over.) But whether or not a modern country currently has the right to invade and conquer territory is irrelevant, for when Joshua dispossessed the Canaan approximately three thousand years ago, he was entitled to do so by the authority of God and the authority of the sword; that is, the right of conquest. No American has ever suggested, during the short two hundred years or so that this country has existed, that we should return the United States to the Native American tribes, its original owners. So why should Israel return land (which they owned for seven hundred years until the Babylonian captivity) to ancient peoples such as the Canaanites and the Jebusites? Land in which they maintained a continuous presence until they were granted its legal rights in 1948? Every nation that has possessed Israel throughout history has won it by the sword, yet strangely, it is only when the Jews defeat aggressive Arab invaders and claim land historically their own that dissenting voices arise.

            The first step in Joshua’s conquest of Canaan was the destruction of Jericho. In the Torah, Joshua sent two spies from their encampment at Shittim across the Jordan into the city to explore, where they stayed with Rahab the harlot. After they returned to Joshua’s camp the Israelites set out to march around Jericho every day for six days.  On the seventh day, Hashem commanded them to march around the city seven times and conclude by blowing their shofars and giving a loud shout. As they did this, the walls of the great city miraculously disintegrated and the Israelites took Jericho. They went on to conquer Ai, accept the surrender of the Gibeonites, kill the king of Bethel, gain control of Shechem, (completing the conquest of northern Canaan,) and decisively defeat southern Canaan as well. The land was then partitioned according to Hashem’s commands, each tribe receiving their allotted portion of land.

            Thus Israel belonged to the Jews hundreds of years before ancient empires such as Rome and Greece even existed – through military strength they conquered Canaan’s inhabitants and maintained their presence in Israel until the Babylonian exile. After they returned from Babylon they also continued to live in the land until a portion of it became legally their own once more in 1948. In spite of being surrounded on all sides by hostile Arab nations who opposed their state status when the United Nations’ resolution was passed, they have remained a strong State of Israel for sixty-four years.