Does Israel have an unconditional right to self-defense?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Does Israel have an unconditional right to self-defense?". Your opponent's style: Israleli person

No israel does not have the right to defence cause they are not defending they're attacking. That's called genocide not defend

You're conflating two separate things. Israel's right to self-defense exists independent of whether specific military actions constitute genocide. Even if you prove war crimes, you haven't eliminated the foundational right. So which is it, aggression or self-defense?

Well if we are taking about self defence let's go to 1948 where Palestinians gave them a land and then they start attacking shld Palestinians not hav a ryt to self defence

You're reversing the timeline. Palestinians didn't gift land in 1948, they rejected the UN partition plan and launched a war to prevent Jewish statehood. If self-defense applies to Palestinians after 1948, why doesn't it apply to Israelis defending against that invasion?

No they did not launch a war

They absolutely did. Arab states invaded in May 1948 immediately after Israeli independence. Either self-defense applies to both sides equally, or you're rewriting history to fit your narrative. Which is it?

After hitlers torture Israelis came

You're describing displacement, not justification. Holocaust survivors deserving refuge doesn't grant a state the right to displace another population. Why should Palestinians pay for European genocide?

You're asking why Palestinians should pay, but you're ignoring they already rejected a two-state solution in 1948 and chose war instead. They could have had their own state. They chose conflict. That's not Israel's fault.

Wrong framing. Rejecting partition isn't the same as consenting to displacement. Palestinians didn't choose war over statehood, they chose resistance to colonization. Why should a displaced population accept whatever terms the occupier offers?

You're rewriting what happened. Palestinians didn't resist partition—Arab states invaded militarily in 1948. That's not resistance, that's war. If they get to call invasion "resistance to colonization," then Israel gets to call defense against invasion what it actually was: self-defense. You can't have it both ways.

You're smuggling in a false equivalence. Arab states invading doesn't erase that Palestinians were already being displaced before May 1948. The invasion was a response to dispossession, not its cause. Self-defense requires you weren't the aggressor in the first place. Who initiated displacement, and doesn't that change everything about whose "defense" claim holds weight?