A very cogent point of departure for assessing the competing nationalisms of the Israelis and the Palestinians is provided by two of the key architects of philosophical liberalism—Thomas Hobbes and David Hume. Both Hobbes and Hume emphasize that linking the legitimacy of nations to the circumstances of their origin will not bear critical scrutiny. Most nations are born in the throes of engagement in acts of violence against other people—indigenous populations, neighboring states, distant powers with imperialistic ambitions, etc. If the group seeking to establish hegemony over a certain territory emerges triumphant in its confrontation with any one of these (or similar) adversarial forces, it immediately dresses-up its successful assertion of “might” as “right,” and begins to see itself and to address others in the idiom of national self-determination. It rationalizes conquest and suppression as justice—and re-starts its history under the auspices of a transformed national identity.

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