People's thoughts about the UN Isreal Resolution

Since people are upset and this is a hot topic.

TLDR: UN told Israel that their settlements in occupied Palestinian territory are illegal. (that's pretty much it, there are no consequences attached). This isn't old new, these settlements have always been illegal. (also part of it is eastern Jerusalem, which hurts). However, this time the US (under John Kerry) did not use their veto in the UN, which Israel and some in the USA are pretty upset about. Netanyahu (prime minister of Israel) has been lashing out at Obama (they never really got along anyway, since the US and Israel are usually buddy buddy) and been praising president elect Trump, saying he's hopeful Trump will right these wrongs.

Personally, I think Israel should've been kicked out of Palestinian borders ages ago. These settlements have always been illegal. UN is still being soft here considering the breaches for decades. The only reason they have been getting away with it is because the USA loves the middle east, but that love isn't reciprocated. So the US and Israel have always been allies for they could use each other. US gets a foot on the ground and Israel gets protection.

Then again, I think the veto system is one of the major flaws of the UN, because the bigger nations protect their dirty interests using it. Russia and Syria, the US and Israel etc etc.

Anyhow, whatcha think

 

how would the EU like to host the UN?

 

Absolutely agreed, the behaviour of Israel has been rather ridiculous. "Right to exist" is not "Right to trample all over people and also be insufferable internationally".

Germany has also been far too lenient with their nonsense. The lessen we should have been taking away from our history should have been (amongst others) "don't kill a bunch of civilians", not "Israel can do whatever it wants", but somewhere the two got mixed up.

 

I got nothing to add to what has been posted except haha ragc is having another one of his moments.

 

as i understand it, in the last few decades (the bulk of my reading is in centuries ago, not decades) the main way that arab leaders have maintained power is by demonizing israel, by threatening to destroy israel. this goes perhaps hand in hand with the growing wave of nationalism throughout the world, and the ascent of islamic extremism to the (still fringe) position it holds now.

the israelis, partly in response to this, have very little trust for the arab states. they have little respect for the arab states. some significant portion likely see their everyday life, not just their regional politics, as a fight for survival while surrounded by hostiles. i don't condone israel's actions, but looked at like this they are understandable.

the greater 'peace in the middle east' problem isn't going to be resolved any time soon, and in the meanwhile it seems like it's going to remain a slightly legal warzone for the bigger external powers to diddle around in


also fwiw, my understanding was that following the june war (in the 60s), israel had taken pretty much all of jerusalem. not sure where the lines ended up getting drawn, though

 

https://www.google.com/amp/www.vox....te-israel-settlements-explained?client=safari

Obama completes his 8th year as POTUS in less than 4 weeks. The UN vote, eye gouge of Russia and more than 100k pages of new domestic regs are probably attempts to feel relevant. I don't blame him. No bigs, as Trump also knows how to use a phone and pen. Although El Donaldo has proven himself to be a Twitter master, so stay tuned on that front too.

Gots a few hours of charting, so I will return later to see if any further spectacles emerge before UW faces 'Bama.

 

I think the only really important "news" here is the US not vetoing it. The UN has often put forward resolutions to condemn various actions by the Israeli government, in particular to treatment of Palestinians and/or land. So that in and of itself isn't new nor particularly noteworthy, especially given the soft "consequences" of such a resolution.

With the US backing off support though it makes a very large impact going forward. It could encourage a much harder resolution down the line if Israel continues to ignore the UN on the matter... but a Trump presidency means it's unlikely to happen in the next four years, as he, or at least members in his cabinet, seem much more likely to issue a veto next time.

So ironically, this resolution passing is more likely to impact US politics and policy more than Israeli, at least in the short term. Long term... it could open some things up, and hopefully it will serve as a bit of a wake up call that continuing these settlements is not in the best interest of Israel... but it seems unlikely in the immediate.

Perhaps, but such things will keep him busy on trying to back-track Obama initiatives rather than letting him expend his early political capital pushing forward Trump's preferred initiatives. Rather than merely Obama's administration venting some frustration toward Israel, it could also be a strategy to gum up the works for a more or less fully Republican government (in terms of majorities) to slow down their progress on legislative and other matters and reduce the "damage" a Trump presidency is likely to bring to Obama's policies. Same thing with the response to Russia's alleged interference of the election with sanctions, something that Trump can and likely will lift in relatively short order after being sworn in.

 

I put no one on ignore.

I can still ignore people, but by conscience selection.

 

i've been reading about the middle east recently, both because history is something of a hobby and because it seems like such a commonly misunderstood conflict.


the number of times i've seen or heard something saying that the region has always been in conflict is ridiculous. if you look at literally, and i mean Firking literally any region in the world, its history is one of blood. occasionally an empire, kingdom, or similar regime would sweep through, giving a brief respite from the constant instability, but for quite a while (read- most of human existence) the world can be shown as a series of ruling classes that eventually pushed beyond what they could administrate and either imploded naturally or were exploded by outside factors (or both). as time went on, the ability to administrate far reaches of an empire without relying on massive plains, steppe, or convenient water bodies has been increased exponentially.


a really easy example there is the tibetan empire. it started in the himalayas, expanded in pretty much every direction, and ended up imploding because the capital was still in a massive Firking mountain range and apparently in 9th century BCE it wasn't feasible to rule an empire that you can't keep in contact with

i'm getting sidetracked, but if there was a similar country these days you wouldn't have anywhere near the struggle to make it work.



anyway the point is that the modern middle east is mostly a story of the failure of the ottoman state, as well as a cautionary tale about imperialist colonialism gone wrong, wrapped up together in a snug and overly large blanket of incessant proxy warfare.


even to this day, it's in the interests of very few nations to actually have peace in the middle east. the arms shipments that would never be cashed in, the competition around one of the world's most important resources... put it another way, the first caliphates owned spain from the pyrenees, all the way across north africa, around arabia, up to the caucasus, a bit past the modern turkish border, 95% of persia, up into uzbekistan, and down through afghanistan and into pakistan


even if all a modern day arab state held was north africa, through egypt, and around arabia (or just north africa, or just arabia), then even without accounting for the potential of an idealized and radicalized muslim dream-state it would be a country with a massive potential hold on a number of lucrative markets (mostly oil still, but the amount of money that could be generated from that and invested into making their overly desertified landscape more habitable is nothing to sneeze at)

 

A wise man imo.

"Palestine". It's a region, not a country. "Palestinians" are Arabs from surrounding countries.

 

Also Poland is not a real country, it's all Prussia

 

Poland has a very interesting history, although theirs is more similar to Israel than to Palestine.

Poland was a country, and is now located... Not where it started.
Prussia was a country, and is now mainly just a region.
Israel was a country, and is now mostly located where it started.
Palestine was a region, and is now... A region.

 

well we wouldn't have this problem if Israel wasn't expanding more than [your mother's name] at a Christmas dinner

 

Then call it country-that-formed-in-a-region-called-Palestine-but-not-actually-Palestine

 

I am so confused.

@Geressen You usually speak in a manner I understand, pls halp.

 

What you do not want to call Palestine is a country.

 

Is this a statement, or a question?
"What, you do not want to call Palestine a country?"
or,
"What you [general you] do not want to do is call Palestine a country."

 

I was under the impression that questions ended in a question mark.

 

Right, but Boozha is German, and I sometimes get confused by his grammar (I wish I knew German, but I'm lazy).

 

uhm

subject

verb

a noun

Seems logical enough