Nancy’s Kitchen

If I receive what you give me, you are pleased and happy.

If I walk into your house and take what is mine, you are not so pleased and not happy. You may feel you can’t stop me because what I took really is mine, but you surely would have preferred me to ask and make an appointment to meet you and receive what is mine.

If I walk into your house and take what is yours, and you and I both know it is truly yours, then you would be very upset, even angry, with me, and reasonably so.

What if we both claim to own what is being taken? Now what? Does “might make right”? Who gets the disputed property? Is it “all or none”? If we share, how do we determine how it will be divided?

What if one, or neither, of us is willing to negotiate a mutually-satisfactory division, but will only settle for the entire property with no sharing? Or what if both of us try, but a mutually-satisfactory division cannot be reached?

How might this be a parallel to the Palestinian/Israeli situation? What is a reasonable solution?