Angry Israel/Palestine Ranting Thread.

Jerusalem Post reporting Palestinians violating the ceasefire:

http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=292914

Hoping this is the last gasp before word gets out. If the Palestinian negotiators can't keep other Palestinians from firing rockets in, there's little point in negotiating with them.

That's actually one of the big problems the Palestinians have. They don't have much (if any) in the way of law enforcement, so it's pretty trivial for some jerks with an axe to grind and a few rockets to upset these sorts of cease fire arrangements. :(

Not true for Palestine in general. Fatah spends about 30% of it's entire $3.2 billion budget on internal security for the west bank (and only 1% on developing agriculture, but that's another story) Hamas has it's own militias that have been able to keep a lid on things in Gaza in the past. Whether they can still do so after this latest campaign remains to be seen.

They have plenty of men with guns. The question becomes one of whether or not the men with guns are keen to follow orders.

The Isreali governments continuing consolidation around a far right agenda grew further today with the sudden announcement of the centre right defence minister Ehud Barak that he is to leave politics and not stand for re-election in the upcoming election.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/26/israeli-defence-minister-retire-politics

My old boss is apparently trying to raise funds here in the US to get Stav Shaffir elected. In general, I think it is weird to get money for an election from other countries.

Agreed and the US goes a good distance in preventing that. I remember when I was a permanent resident I had few methods to interact with the political system. I couldn't vote obviously but I also wasn't permitted to make political contributions and such. I'm not sure if I was permitted to volunteer for a campaign or not.

When was that? I'm pretty sure that, with Citizens United, you're free to donate millions to SuperPACs. Somebody please tell me I'm wrong.

Anyone can donate to a PAC. Non citizens cannot donate directly to candidates.

Yeah, it's a silly minor distinction because we're still wrestling with how free speech interacts with election financing.

So.
Goddamn.
Depressing.

Hey Lum, I was describing to my father the descent of Israeli politics. He kept bringing up old school Israeli politicians like Ben-Gurion and Dayan and whatnot (no idea if I'm spelling that right), and then asked what's happened to Shimon Peres. To which, I simply have no idea. What happened to Shimon Peres? Is he no longer a relevant figure?

Also while we're at it: are you aware of any good single-entry sources describing the past ten or fifteen years of Israeli political history? Its rightward shift seems pretty interesting!

Shimon Peres has been awfully quiet, considering how prominent his position is. Maybe being 89 years old is catching up with him.

I haven't read the book, but I think one of the big problems in Israeli politics has been that there were various attempts to strengthen the larger parties that instead ended up strengthening splinter parties. For example, they switched the way Prime Ministers were chosen, so that the new PM would be elected directly (like an American President), the idea being that only a major party figure could be PM, and said figure wouldn't have to kowtow too much to the smaller parties. Instead, people were freed from having to worry that voting for a small party would lose them their choice of PM, and that year Labor and Likud lost a lot of seats in Parliament.

I can't remember the other things that were tried, but I remember that each one backfired more, until you end up with parties like Yisrael Beiteinu (which by rights should be a complete fringe, like the Libertarians) being able to dictate terms to the government. And, of course, it's a positive feedback loop -- as they get more powerful, they can steer more favors to supporters and get even more powerful.

Changing immigration patterns has been mentioned several times in the past as a reason for part of the rightward shift.

In simplistic terms there was a decline in immigration from wealthier western origin jews and a rise in immigration from former poorer former Soviet Union origin jews. I guess the theory being that these new immigrants were more receptive to and familiar with nationalist modes of political rhetoric and less interested in westernised ideals of democracy. So the parties that rose to prominence from that community tended to reflect those trends. And then before you know it you get strongman-type leaders like Avigdor Lieberman.

I don't know. That seems an oversimplification of poor Russians (especially those intentionally leaving Russia), and democratic processes are normally dominated by those with money anyway. I find it hard to believe that these "second wave" immigrants are a primary factor, short of compelling evidence.

So I wikied Moshe Feiglin and in the Wiki article we have this choice quote:

Which seems to go a bit further than that he got the trains to run on time, and this from a potentional MK of Likud, not the smaller ostensibly more extreme parties in Israel.

Is that just because he's the PM?

Makes 90s Netanyahu look like one, perhaps, but I have to assume leading Likud off a light year to the right reflects a rightward shift on his part too.

I guess I just meant even a "putting himself at the head of the crazy mob" process probably moved Netanyahu's policy goalposts pretty far out into crazytown compared to his 90s incarnation. You're doing a better job of keeping abreast for me, though, that's for certain. Stupid Haaretz paywall.

As a non-Mofaz-fan I used to rather regret Livni's having been booted from politics, but good god, no sooner does Barak get out of the vanity-politics-fragmenting-the-Knesset business than she gets into them. As for the poll results... grounds for despair.

Fucking crazy people voting for fucking crazy. Graaaaaah (kill me).

The UN resolution for accepting Palestine as a non-member country is going through the motions in the general assembly now. It will be interesting to see where the chips fall on EU support but ultimately I don't see any practical gains considering the shape of Israel's current and most likely future government. They're not going to bend, they're going to entrench.

And the resolution passes, 131-9 with 41 abstentions. I can't find a detailed breakdown of the vote anywhere to see which countries voted for what but I expect it will all shake out in the next day or two.

Money quote from the Guardian live feed: "CSPAN turns the camera on US Ambassador Susan Rice. She looks like she wishes she were in Benghazi."

The usual suspects, a few pacific islands, Canada's arch-conservative government, and the Czech republic. I have no idea of the state of Czech politics but I suspect the reasons for voting no are the same as Canada's.

The UK abstained, as did Germany. France, Spain, Sweden, and Denmark voted yes that I know of.

Same as it ever was. :-/

http://www.iie.com/research/topics/sanctions/southafrica.cfm

The huge margin in favor of is hilarious.

As is the fact that a large part of the miniscule opposition is comprised of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama. Little bit of the pot calling the kettle an inconsequential puppet.

One thing I was hearing is that this would allow the palistinians to persue war crimes against the Israelis, would the opposite also be true? The news story I saw on CNN did not say. If it is one sided I could see that as a reason to be against the vote.

You really are a living parody of a man spouting false equivalence.

If Israel wants to take Palestinians to court they will have their army arrest them and subject them to an Israeli military trial. That is, of course, assuming that Israel doesn't just dispense with the formality of having a trial and just straight up murders the person along with any random passers-by with a hellfire missile.

Israel is free to pursue action in the ICC against Palestinians any time they wish. They choose not to, because they they don't want their business aired in the ICC. That is not the same as not being allowed.

Yes and we know the palisitinians have never kidnapped any Israelis or killed anyone, they are just peace loving people who would never harm a fly.

Look asshole, I was simply asking a question I did not know the answer to, Which you didnt even bother answering, you felt being a trolling piece of trash was more important.

No, I did answer. Israel can go to the ICC, they just don't want to. Do you need me to dumb it down for you?