Telegram Archive - week 2, 2025
- 8 minutes read - 1656 wordsFrom the upcoming article on getting sovereignty:
Ali Nuri Bey Dilmec (Nordling), then the former Consul General of Turkey, proposed to Herzl a plan to depose the Sultan by force. Herzl writes in his diary (pp. 1615, 1619):
[February 24, 1903, Vienna:]
[Ali Nuri Bey’s] proposal … comes to this: Sail into the Bosporus with two cruisers, bombard Yildiz, let the Sultan flee or capture him, put in another Sultan (Murad or Reshad), but first form a provisional government—which is to give us the Charter for Palestine. … The two cruisers will cost £400,000, the rest £100,000. The whole stroke would cost half a million pounds. If it fails, we would have lost the money and the participants their lives. … The scheme could be carried out with a thousand men. Preferably during the selamlik.
Herzl’s response was guided by careful consideration of public opinion and the potential consequences of the aftermath.
My scruples, which I didn’t tell him about, were these:
- That I must not participate in such a plot at all, if it amounts to murder and robbery (although he said that they would shoot in the air and no one need be wounded in it);
- That in case of failure the Zionist movement would be discredited for decades to come;
- That it might lead to Jews being massacred in Turkey afterwards;
- That the “participants” cannot enter into any legally binding obligations. If they don’t keep their word, where shall I sue them? …
[April 10, 1903, Vienna:]
After mature deliberation … I have rejected Ali Nuri’s proposal in my own mind. … What decided me was the consideration that if the undertaking failed a horrible massacre of the Jews would take place in Turkey.
Any idea who owns this buffer zone? I’d imagine there are likely some Greek Cypriot claimants, including their descendants. Should such people receive compensation in the form of an indemnity or some potential profit-sharing from Cypria if they can demonstrate valid ownership rights? Or is it a situation where those rights have been extinguished at common law through adverse possession or because of the conflict from 50 years ago? I do not know the current status of the situation out there.
But what I do know is that there have been court cases brought before judges in London where Greek Cypriot owners have filed suit against people who purchased property in Northern Cyprus. This was back when the UK was in the EU. Of course, the Republic of Cyprus is a member of the European Union, as is Greece.
I’m not trying to overcomplicate the issue, but I’m curious how that would work and if it even matters.
You know what? They may have already been indemnified. It’s also possible that some people have received insurance money, assuming their lands were insured and there was no exclusion for a force majeure, like war, for instance. I have to admit I do not know the answers to these questions.
The concern that I have is there could still be some living, legitimate owners of some areas of what would be Cypria. I want to say that https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varosha,_Famagusta is one such example of a town that fits this bill, but I’m not a hundred percent certain, and I’m not a hundred percent awake at the moment.
That’s a good point. It’s not the prettiest analogy, but sometimes you gotta break a few eggs to make that proverbial omelet.
Cypria’s government could also create a special ministry or court to hear and adjudicate land claims. Call it a land tribunal if you wish, and if a claimant has merit, that court can order the government of Cypria to pay the claim’s value or honor the land claim.
In my articles on the site I argue for open borders and free trade. In the last one, I spoke about absense of tarrifs in Cypria. Incidentally, I’m studying up now what happened with Brexit in my preparation to my Friday’s talk show. Donald Tusk, Poland’s PM was the leader of the EU Council. Here’s an LTE (Letter to the Editor) that never got published, written by an Objectivist. He tried to pitch it to various news outlets in UK to no success.
Sir,
Re: EU Trade Deal
The government has spent the last four and half years trying to negotiate a trade deal with the EU but free trade is a principle, not a deal. When governments do a “deal” to control what private individuals or private businesses are allowed to agree to in terms of what they can do with their money and property, this is not free trade.
The UK does not import or export anything. It is individuals and individual businesses who import and export. A true “deal” is when Mr Jones voluntarily buys from Mr Schmidt and he pays ultimately with things that Mr Schmidt voluntarily buys from Mr Jones or his neighbours. This is Say’s law.
The premise of inter-governmental trade deals is that governments control or own all the wealth of the nation. This is not freedom or free trade.
Yours faithfully D S A Murray
