Angry Israel/Palestine Ranting Thread.

It's been a while since I followed UN proceedures... but dosn't the US along with about 5 other countries have Veto power? (I seem to remember 4 countries had permenant veto and 2 were periodacly rotated)
And if so, are they just not using it due to the overwhelming majority of countries voting for it?

There's no veto power in the general assembly. You're thinking of the security counsel, where the US, the UK, France, China and Russia all have a veto power.

Oh... I thought it was the members of the secuirty counsel that had Veto power.
Been a long time since I've dwelled on it (like back where Russia was still the USSR)

The security council can only veto motions that are brought up in the security council. Palestine already tried to get approval for a motion to be taken up as a full member of the UN last year, but that has to be approved by the security council and the US predictably vetoed the motion. The US would have vetoed this motion, too, but they couldn't.

What happened here is that Palestinians took another tack in the face of that defeat and moved to be granted non-member country status. Such a motion does not have to pass through the security council and can be carried with a simple vote in the general assembly since it doesn't confer the benefits of full membership and there shouldn't be any reason to bother the security council with relatively unimportant decisions.

Israel Reacts! 3000 new houses to be built in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Why does this make me more mad than the attack on Gaza?

Israel: Doubling down on a losing strategy because it feels good, by yud-hey-vav-hey.

It's a vile strategy, but not necessarily a losing one. Worked just fine for the US.

Is it really losing? I mean, in the long run nothing good can come of it, but for those 3,000 settlers? And to punish the Palestinians? It's basically destroying Palestinian hopes for an unoccupied West Bank. Seeing as the Palestinians have no recourse to stop them, how is it bad for Israel?

Because the long-term endgame appears to be a choice between apartheid, genocide, the State of Israel no longer becoming a Jewish state, and getting the fuck out of the West Bank.

Why? Simple. As the settlements keep expanding, and they will as long as the government doesn't do a full withdrawl, the viability of a 2 state solution erodes. A single-state solution without the Palestinians means either that they've been killed/driven out (ethnic cleansing, which Lieberman advocates for), been incorporated as non-voting citizens of the country (which is fucking vile and will result in even Israel's allies abandoning it in the long run), or giving the non-Jews in the West Bank citizenship and the vote, which means Israel suddenly isn't a Jewish state anymore.

And to the people calling for the settlement strategy, that'd be horrible.

but but rockets Hamas terrorists!

Man, it's just so hard to find a good solution to this problem, you know? If you're going to remain committed to not treating Palestinians as though they were actual human beings, I mean.

Those things don't matter at all, they are the good guys fighting the evil oppressive Israelis.

There aren't good guys or bad guys, Brett. However, the settlements are the greater obstacle to peace. Hamas rocket attacks make a two-state solution impossible in the short term. Settlements make a two-state solution impossible in both the short term and the long term.

I would say a policy of wanting Isreali wiped off the face of the earth and terrorist activities and launching rockets to try and accomplish that goal is a far greater obstacle to peace as it give the hard liners in Israel something to point to as why peace will never work, The elected government of Gaza runs on the idea that Israel cannot be allowed to exist.

See! Rockets!

Well, the difference is that Hamas may change its views and renounce terrorism or may be democratically removed from power, in which case there will be less to get in the way of peace. But settlements become "facts in the ground". Are the settlers going to be evicted and returned to Israel proper if serious negotiations begin? Very doubtful. Once established, its unlikely that the settlements will be removed. The consequence is that soon there will actually be no way of constructing a viable Palestinian state. If there is no way to give the Palestinians a viable state, then the two-state solution becomes impossible. If the two-state solution is impossible, then its hard to see how peace would be possible.

I disagree. Israel will cave and return the proper amount of territory to Palestine a moderate period of time after American support is negated, removed, or undermined sufficiently to allow Israel to be treated as the Apartheid-practicing pariah state that it is. The pattern of voting to break South African Apartheid was similar, as was the pattern of behavior. This isn't a political/border issue, this is a human rights/race issue, and Israel, standing alone and practicing racism, will never win. The only question is in which manner will they lose. We would all prefer gracefully and graciously.

The United States is the solitary actual supporter of Israel's Apartheid government, with strong support amongst elected officials. But, the people of the United States are beginning to reject the support by a narrow margin. As the people go, so go the panderers. Israel's only hope is that, without the United States, other countries in the Middle East will align in such a fashion that an attack on Israel would prompt a third party to attack a fourth party and so on. A grand mal Mexican Standoff, if you will.

You're more optimistic than I am that that will ever occur.

I almost posted the same exact thing despite having Brett on ignore (yeah, that's how predictable you are, Brett).

Frankly, at this point I wonder if he's a bot, as the Turing test seems to be eluding him.

And once again someone is too stupid to understand the concept of ignore. (Hint, you are supposed to actually ignore that person, not talk about them while trumpeting how you have them on ignore.)

Israel is doing a very good job of alienating their friends so I wouldn't count it out. In the vote last night Germany, which has made a very serious public committment towards supporting the state of Israel in light of their historical debt of the holocaust, abstained from the vote after previously declaring they would vote 'no'. If a country with that much weight on the side of Israel starts sliding away, well, I'm not gonna say the US is immune.

I was talking to my father about this, and ultimately I agree that's the most likely long-term path. However it's going to take the Palestinians finding their MLK/Ghandi/Mandela: a charismatic figure who has the political skill to wrangle the various factions into a nonviolent resistance movement while also getting the attention of the world. As long as Hamas is lobbing rockets into Israel occasionally, your average American is going to be relatively indifferent to the Palestinian plight.

The quirk with hoping for that leader is that the Israelis will almost certainly just kill him.

If all of the attacks stopped, which is what is assumed with a leader under the scenario jeff posted, you really think Isreal would initiate an attack to kill them? I don't see that happening, and if it did Isreal would lose all support it has.

"What kind of stupid idiot still doesn't have me on ignore?" -brettmcd

I don't care who anyone has on ignore, but to keep talking about people you have on ignore is childish and just a way to be an attention whore. Which happens to be something you excel at.

Probably the reason people keep mentioning they have you on ignore is that it's the only way to switch you off the "childish false equivalence mode". Into the "childish wining mode", which admittedly I don't see as an improvement, but I guess people like some variety?
Btw, brett, you are no better than a Hamas terrorist. Sure they launch rockets at civilians, but you keep shitting up interesting threads.

Why? Because if Israel did something morally wrong, nobody would support them anymore?

If they killed someone who changed the mindset of hamas and the other terrorists to stop ALL the attacks and to acknowledge that Israel had a right to exist, yes they would lose all their support.

Right now they can always point to the terrorists and have some grounds to stand on in their actions. It is a symbiotic relationship, the attacks from hamas and other terrorists allow Israel to crackdown on the palistinians and the attacks from Israel in retaliation fuel the terrorists in return keeping the whole cycle going. IF someone was to have the ability through charisma or strength of character to break that cycle killing that person would be the end of Israel.

Jason that's a good point. Israel's not shy about assassinations, and if their ultimate goal is total subjugation of the Palestinians I wouldn't put it past them. :(

They might lose your support, Brett. There are plenty of people, though, who have a "support Israel no matter what" mindset and another political assassination would do nothing to change their minds about the rights and wrongs of the situation.

Yes? Is this a trick question?

Over the long term, but the long term is a long time. Also note that no one is perfect, and in your model all it requires is this supposed saint to fuck up once for the Israelis to be justified in blowing him away.

I wouldn't be so sure. The Gaza settlements (plus a couple in the west bank) were evacuated. If the choice is move back to Israel and be compensated or become a citizen of the new Palestinian state then all but the most hardcore zealots will move.
I don't think that all West bank settlements will go - the ones close to the 1967 border are the most populated and will be incorporated into Israel, probably with some sort of land swap. It's places like Ariel and Maale Adumim which are so deep in the west bank that they act to split up the territory which will have to go. Where will the people evacuated live? It's hardly been in the news but right now Israel is making moves to dramatically expand development of the Negev (though this comes with its own set of problems)

Of course such a settlement is pipe dream without the political will on both sides but politics can change very quickly in Israel. I know moderate and left wing Israelis who are becoming more and more politically active in response to the governments worsening lurch to right - so despite the current evidence, I remain hopeful that the worse case scenarios won't happen.

I don't think this is true, at least not on purpose. Israel has been relatively indifferent to collateral damage, but to my knowledge it doesn't deliberately shoot at people it doesn't think are shooting at them or ordering others to shoot at them..

See discussion earlier in the thread; they basically just kill all the leaders they can find that I can tell. Maybe Lum can elaborate.