https://apnews.com/article/un-resolution-palestinians-membership-rights-us-assembly-875560e897f27d6600090420f36404e4
The 193-member world body approved the Arab and Palestinian sponsored resolution by a vote of 143-9 with 25 abstentions.
What infuriates me is this:
“[T]he United States has made clear that it will block Palestinian membership and statehood until direct negotiations with Israel resolve key issues, including security, boundaries and the future of Jerusalem.”
Why does Israel get membership in the UN, if these are preconditions for membership? Israel will never agree to Palestinian membership. A stable Palestinian state will likely never exist until Israel is defeated militarily and has no choice but to accept it.
When statements don't make sense, i find it helpful to cut out any part that offends logic and see if it becomes clearer. In this case i apply it like this:
“[T]he United States has made clear that it will block Palestinian membership and statehood.
There! The other parts were extraenous fluff to soften their perceived position.
(I know you already grok their position, I'm just sayin its a hack i like.)
That definitely does make it clearer... On a side note, I can appreciate a Stranger in a Strange Land reference when I see one.
Never is a strong word.
Until 1995, when Israeli PM Rabin was assassinated by a right winger, they were moving towards a two state solution, to the point of the IDF forcibly removing their own Jewish settlements from the lands of the prospective Palestinian state.
After the assassination, Netanyahu became the next PM, and has served in the position for most of the time since, asides most of a decade in the 2000s where other Likud politicians held it. He reversed the policy of settler removal.
Try not to conflate the entire country with the crazy right winger leadership they have currently. The same leadership of strongmen that catastrophically failed to keep them safe back in October, which is the one single thing such a man says he is supposed to be good at.
All that said, I also support Palestinian entry as a UN member state, and am tired of the US unfairly favoring its treaty ally in this case.
After 50 years and heavy Palestinian concessions a state is almost established with heavy external pressure
Extremists from Netanyahus party assasinate the israeli PM. Wife of Rabin blames Netanyahu foe his death
Israel votes Netanyahu into power along with an extreme right wing cabinet and openly gets far more Genocidal than in the past
No guys this totally doesn't represent israel
This is israel. It is what is has always been. A Nazi Apartheid state.
It seems contradictory to me to say it has always been pursing genocide, when one of the elected politicians was moving in the other direction for years. A bit selective.
Perhaps we could look at the voter tallys in 1996, where Netanyahu won 1,501,023 to 1,471,566, and the events that were influencing the Israeli public at the time? It certainly doesn't help when there's 14 suicide bombings happening in Israel between 1993 and 1995 during the peace process. Being bombed generally does drive people towards militarism.
Regardless of the past, though, Israel is there now. With its nuclear arsenal, it will not be destroyed any time soon unless Iran somehow nukes it off the map through its missile defense. So, negotiation seems necessary.
The issue isn't Netanyahu. Well he's a compounding issue but the core problem is that everyone but the leftest of lefties stopped believing in the peace process after Rabin's assassination. As the Haaretz said: Yigal Amir won. The right-wing approach to security, "antagonise Palestinians into submission", never got challenged by anyone since Rabin's death. Maybe it'll now get challenged as October 7th happened on the right's watch, so obviously they can't provide security, but don't expect the Israeli people to realise that in a fortnight, so far little is happening: The press is self-censoring because they know no Israeli wants to even look at what the IDF is doing in Gaza and the West Bank, protests are about Netanyahu's corruption (which is pretty much the only thing distinguishing him and Gantz, not politics) as well as families of hostages complaining about the Kahanites being more interested in killing Arabs than getting their relatives back. It's not (necessarily) the war they're opposed to but the priorities.
when one of the elected politicians was moving in the other direction for years. A bit selective.
Yeah and what did it result in? Same thing as every other "negotiation" from the last 75 years, More Genocidal Nazis slowly taking over Palestinian land while the Palestinians have to wait for the "peaceful negotiations".
The only difference between past israel and current israel is that current israel got so arrogant that they are forgetting to hide their Nazism. They are now flaunting what they have been doing for the past 75 years thinking themselves so much in the right that nobody will disagree with them.
Pretending that israel has ever had good-will to come to a peaceful conclusion is pure delusion. Israel is an Ethnostate deeply rooted in Apartheid. You cannot create an Ethnostate pecaefully just like the Nazis weren't peacefully expanding their Lebensraum.
Do we look at the Holocaust with nuance as well? Should the Jews have tried to negotiate with Adolf Hitler?
When someone decides to do Ethinc Cleansing to create an Ethnostate it's Nazi-O-Clock. All nuance goes out the window.
All nuance goes out the window.
somehow, at some point in the conversation, the word "nuance" here has become double speak for Neo-liberal-style negotiations. but yeah, big picture, it’s Nazi-O-Clock!
I'm not sure about this ethnostate claim, when over 20% of Israel's citizens are of Arabic descent, and are not required to have Jewish heritage or faith. They can vote, own business and have the same legal protections as non-Arab citizens. These are not in Gaza or the West Bank, but living in Israel's internationally recognized borders.
Unlike in pretty much all other countries in the World, Israel separates Nationality from Citizenship and there are more rights on the latter than on the former.
Further, uniquelly in the World Israel has different kinds of Citizenship such as Israeli Jew Citizienship and Israeli Arab Citizenship and the former has more rights than the latter.
As with every other piece of hasbara propaganda, those massive bollocks you're parroting are a meaningless façade for external consumption that hides the reality of a State were Apartheid is so deeply entrenched that by law non-Jews have a second class kind of citizenship with less rights than Jews who have a different class of citizenship.
They're both said to be Israelis (as there is but one nationality) and if one ignores all the rest they're both as you say "Israel's citizens", they're just de jure different kinds of Iraeli citiziens with different rights and, as I said in the beginning, most rights there are linked to Citizenship, not Nationality, so for example Israeli Arab Citizens can be denied the right to live in certain places whilst Israeli Jew Citizens cannot.
And to preempt the usual hasbara response to this disclosure: those Arabs don't live there because it's such a great situation, they still live there even though they are second class citizens because they've always lived there as they were born there on what was their family's land before it was stollen from them.
This idea of a difference between nationality and citizenship is admittedly new to me. Can you provide a citation to a reputable source that explains it in more detail?
Israelis are not alone in using propaganda, so a neutral source, preferably. Or the law itself, I can run it through a translator.
Israel's own law states that it is an ethnostate. One of it's foundational laws reads:
1. The State of Israel
a) Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people in which the state of Israel was established.
b) The state of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, in which it actualizes its natural, religious, and historical right for self-determination.
c) The actualization of the right of national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.
...
- The state views Jewish settlement as a national value and will labor to encourage and promote its establishment and development.
Furthermore, two million Palestinians live within pre-1967 Israel borders with the ability to vote. Three million Palestinians live under military occupation in the West Bank. Two million Palestinians survive in what was an open air prison and now is one big death camp. All Jews, including those in the West Bank, enjoy full rights.
More details of the racial inequities:
Arab families are greatly over-represented among Israel’s poor: over half of Arab families in Israel are classified as poor, compared to an average poverty rate of one-fifth among all families in Israel. Arab towns and villages are heavily over-represented in the lowest socio-economic rankings, and the unrecognized Arab Bedouin villages in the Naqab are the poorest communities in the state
Direct state policy measures to reduce poverty disproportionately target Jewish citizens, with the result that poverty rates have fallen far more sharply among Jewish citizens than among their Arab counterparts, and inequalities have consequently persisted.
Admissions committees operate in around 700 agricultural and community towns and filter out Arab applicants, on the basis of their “social unsuitability”, from future residency in these towns. The operation of admissions committees contributes to the institutionalization of racially- segregated towns and villages throughout the state and perpetuates unequal access to the land.
The Jewish National Fund (JNF)—a body with quasi-state authority that operates solely for the interests of the Jewish people and controls 13% of the land in the state—continues to wield decisive influence over land policy in Israel, having been allocated six of a total of 13 members of the newly-established Land Authority Council.
Arab towns and villages in Israel suffer from severe overcrowding, with Arab municipalities exercising jurisdiction over only 2.5% of the total area of the state. Since 1948, the State of Israel has established approximately 600 Jewish municipalities, whereas no new Arab village, town or city has ever been built.
Israel is currently intensifying its efforts to forcibly evacuate the unrecognized villages in the Naqab (referred to as “illegal clusters”), including by demolishing entire villages, as recently witnessed in the repeated demolition of the village of Al-Araqib. In pursuing this policy, the state has rejected the option of affording recognition to these villages, many of which predate the establishment of Israel. Between 75,000 and 90,000 Arab Bedouin live in the unrecognized villages in the Naqab, whom the state characterizes as “trespassers on state land”.
State funding to Arab schools in Israel falls far behind that provided to Jewish schools. According to official state data published in 2004, the state provides three times as much funding to Jewish students as to Arab pupils. This underfunding is reflected in many areas, including relatively large class sizes and poor infrastructure and facilities.
A series of Israeli laws institute a range of restrictions on freedom of movement, freedom of speech, and access to the political system, including ideological limitations on the platforms of political parties and severe restrictions on travel by MKs to Arab states classified as “enemy states”. Such laws are used predominantly to curb the political freedoms of Palestinian citizens and their elected representatives and are steadily shrinking the space for political action available to them
That clause C is fairly damning, I suppose you're right. While that law seems to be fairly new, the law is the law.
And there it is. From "israel wasn't always trying to steal land" turns into "well israel not really an Apartheid state".
Three comments further and I'm going to read about how there are no innocents in Gaza.
No, there are certainly innocents in Gaza. However, there are also innocents in Israel. You may have chosen your side, but I am not fighting in this war. Frankly, it's consistently been too difficult to determine the truth.
edit: Actually, that's not true. I find I do get involved in the information side of the conflict, except I have to consistently fight against both of the sides. It's very troubling.
To whatever extent Israeli civilians are more moderate, they’ve never truly been able to affect change. Israel’s history only started with a terrorist campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Rabin’s efforts are truly exceptional in Israel’s history, and he was murdered for it. The return to genocide is simply a return to the norm.
Even if Israeli moderates were to win political power, it would only be temporary. Israeli terrorists saw no problem ethnically cleansing the land to invent their own state with only people they approved of, and if popular sentiment turns away, they no doubt would do it again to remove the new “undesirables”.
Thank you for reminding about the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
Not enough people realize the extent and level of religious fanaticism that exists in Israel.
There decades since Yitzhak Rabin's assassination and Israel has lurched only further to the right. One of the greatest obstacles to peace has been Israel's continual land grabs and illegal settlement building. That has pretty much been cemented as nationalist policy. Ben Gvir is a psychopath and his rise is telling of how far Israel has embraced religious fanaticism.
No one, however, offends liberal and centrist Israelis quite like Itamar Ben-Gvir. Ben-Gvir, who entered parliament in 2021, leads a far-right party called Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power. His role model and ideological wellspring has long been Meir Kahane, a Brooklyn rabbi who moved to Israel in 1971 and, during a single term in the Knesset, tested the moral limits of the country. Israeli politicians strive to reconcile Israel’s identities as a Jewish state and a democracy. Kahane argued that “the idea of a democratic Jewish state is nonsense.” In his view, demographic trends would inevitably turn Israel’s non-Jews into a majority, and so the ideal solution was “the immediate transfer of the Arabs.” To Kahane, Arabs were “dogs” who “must sit quietly or get the hell out.” His rhetoric was so virulent that lawmakers from both sides of the aisle used to walk out of the Knesset when he spoke. His party, Kach (Thus), was finally barred from parliament in 1988. Jewish Power is an ideological offshoot of Kach; Ben-Gvir served as a Kach youth leader and has called Kahane a “saint.”
Ben-Gvir, who is forty-six, has been convicted on at least eight charges, including supporting a terrorist organization and incitement to racism, compiling a criminal record so long that, when he appeared before a judge, “we had to change the ink on the printer,” Dvir Kariv, a former official in the Shin Bet intelligence agency, told me. As recently as last October, Netanyahu refused to share a stage with him, or even to be seen with him in photographs. But a series of disappointing elections persuaded Netanyahu to change his mind.
I would still blame the entire country as long as thing like "aliyah" exist. The fact that any jewish person or a convert can immigrate to a stolen land is crazy to me.
If I'm reading it right, the OP meant something like this:
The US block Palestinian membership on the condition of negotiations with Israel, but don't impose the same restriction (negotiations eith Palestine) on Israel's membership. Why does Israel get to be a member without negotiation, but Palestine doesn't?
(Not taking a stance here, argue with the OP if you want to. I'm just contributing my understanding.)
You had the first part but didn’t extend the same pleasantries to Israel in the second
We knew it wasn’t going to happen from the beginning though, that’s why people who are actually pro-Palestinian have been pushing for equality with Israelis
The reason I didn’t extend the same pleasantries is because Palestine has a right to exist as a state. Palestinians are a people that have consistently occupied that land for a very long time. It’s a diverse group of people that represent the diverse and rich history of the region. Israel is a genocidal European colony named for a biblical people that haven’t been a demographic majority in thousands of years, yet feel they have an exclusive right to that land.
Glad you care about Palestinians enough to ensure they never have a better life. Getting rid of Israel and such discussions will never go anywhere
Israel will not be defeated militarily. Not without the rest of the middle east collapsing first around it.
Israel is a tiny country that doesn’t know how to make friends besides screaming “my dad’s a cop and he’ll beat you up”. If the US ended its support for the colony and no other power stepped in to fill the role of sponsor, Israel would be off the map within a generation. They do have a domestic arms industry but just due to its tiny size it could never compete with larger countries.
Same thing only every shit hole in the mideast sucking the tits of Iran., especially Gaza.
Gaza is a failed rump state led by criminals. I'll take flawed democracy over insane pan-Islamist violent extremism every day.
Palestinian recognition in the UN is entirely a protest against the US, it always has been. Pissed off at the US? Officially recognize Palestine, that'll show them!
But the reality is that Palestine isn't a viable state. Generally when countries "recognize" Palestine they recognize the unelected Fatah government of the West Bank, which is currently under occupation by Israel. Nobody is recognizing the terrorist Hamas regime in Gaza because, well, they're genocidal terrorists.
So some country recognizes the unelected government of an occupied territory while ignoring the elected (albeit nearly two decades ago) terrorist government of the unoccupied (though not as unoccupied as it was six months ago)? Purely performative bullshit which should be vetoed.
Maybe if Palestinians can elect a party that doesn't have a genocidal intent there could be broad support for an officially recognized state. But no one that hasn't been warped by TikTok propaganda is going to recognize a country that has it's occupied territory run by a corrupt government while it's "free" territory is run by genocidal terrorists.
Come on children, look at this like an adult who understands basic foreign policy.
Yup, Hamas "permanently suspended" elections. Typical fascist bullshit, get into power with a plurality of the vote and then never hold an election again. So should the world recognize them as the government of Palestine? Or should the world recognize the corrupt Fatah regime as the government of Palestine despite not winning the last election over a decade and a half ago? Even if that happened would Fatah really have control over Gaza if Hamas continues to exist? What legitimacy does either Hamas or Fatah have?
The main problem with recognizing Palestine as a country is that there is no legitimate government for that country. Blame Israel as much as you want, but Palestine doesn't have a real government. The only real hope for Palestinian statehood is if Israel eliminates Hamas from the equation, but who is really willing to see that to completion knowing the casualties that will occur to achieve that outcome?
So given the current situation, the Palestinian "state" would be bipolar and completely unstable. An inevitable failed state. Which people far away from it are probably fine with to score politcal points domestically, but it's more significant for people that have to live next door to a failed state.
There's no real hope for Palestine as long as Hamas exists. A state consumed by hatred dominated by a movement that preys on those emotions has a bleak future. If Hamas survives this, everything you're seeing today will happen again in a few decades. Just how it goes.
Countries are established with appointed provisional governments all the time. There generally aren't elections before a country is established nor has the west ever shied away from simply picking new governments themselves. Oftentimes even with no expectation of democratic rule.
But this is all bullshit concern trolling. You 100% do not care about whether a new Palestinian state has a democratically elected government, you simply want to make excuses for why nothing should change and we should just let Israel continue to oppress and murder Palestinians.
Can't wait to see the list of US/Israel bootlickers that abstained from/voted against this, trying to deny an entire people the right to their own land.
“The United States voted against the resolution, along with Israel, Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Papua New Guinea.”
Palau is basically a U.S. vassal state.
Having voted in a referendum against joining the Federated States of Micronesia in 1978,[11][12] the islands gained full sovereignty in 1994 under a Compact of Free Association with the United States.
Politically, Palau is a presidential republic in free association with the United States, which provides defense, funding, and access to social services.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palau
Remember that when someone claims America isn't an empire.
Ahh yes, the mighty empire of... checks notes the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau.
You say that as if that's all America is. America controls a vast amount of land. It's the third largest country in the world and, unlike the first two largest (Russia and Canada), most of that land is also usable for either farming or resource extraction. But that's not the only reason it's an empire. It's also an empire because it has a large military presence in multiple countries who rely on it to supply defense at least in part. But another reason it's an empire is that it has vassal states. It doesn't matter how small those states are. Especially not when they are in strategic Pacific locations.
I'm not denying the imperialism of the US, I'm just saying that a group of islands with a total population 1/10th the size of my city isn't really the chief problem, and kinda comes off as anti-American for anti-American sake. There are myriad other problems, and a couple of islands that gave us some strategy in the Pacific are hardly the East India Trading Company.
It also has a method of governance capable of granting lasting human rights, which is a quite popular export.
It also has a method of governance were politicians harp on and on (and on, AND ON) about having wonderful human rights whilst having the largest fraction of the population emprisioned in the World, regular murders by police, commonly deploying violence against demonstrators, having a voting system that enforces a power duopoly, regularly disenfranchise minorities and were citizens do not have rights to health, food or a place to live, which is not a popular export.
FIFY
I have several friends from there and they all call it the Czech Republic, so I think it's either or.
Veto power exists in the Security Council, not in the General Assembly. Unfortunately in this case, admission requires the Security Council to recommend a member be approved before the General Assembly can hold a vote.
I phrased it that way because the security council is part of the U.N., but you’ve provided an important explanation.
Right? Because there is very power, the UN exists. But, because of veto power the UN is useless
That's by design. It's meant to be a forum for members to argue with diplomacy instead of going right to killing each other.
Ah yes the weekly reminder that Genocide Joe was faking his finger wagging for votes and his unconditional support for israel is still going.
It's ok the loser tyrant trump will surely stop all genocide worldwide right? No way he would make it worse in your mind right?
Oligarchs Who Support Fascism (so far only) Abroad or Fascists.
Though choice.
Glad I live in a saner part of the planet and don't have to do it (for all the crap around here, having only a choice between two kinds of Far Right isn't part of it).
If through some insane series of circumstances George W. Bush was running against Trump, as the democratic nominee, would you have this same attitude to criticism of him?
Yeah I would rather have bush than trump any day. Trump was insane. We couldn't leave our houses anymore by the end of his term because of his horrible response to the pandemic. Never again. And that all Happened before the insurrection! Where have you been?
Yeah I wasn't suggesting otherwise! But if people criticised Bush in that situation, you would understand why, surely?
Palestinians' tactic of "existing and deserving rights" is paying off, yeah.
Human shields are kind of useless against an army with no morals ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If they want more rights that begins with following International law on any occasions. Rejecting terrorism. Putting your soldiers in uniform. Freeing hostages. Not targeting innocent people every single day with indiscriminate rocket attacks. Do you know anything about the people you're talking about or are you just ignoring it all because you're sad about the consequences of their own actions? Nobody made Hamas build tunnels under every single school and hospital, nobody made Hamas turn their airport and water ports into instrumentalities of international terrorism. That's what the people chose. Hamas is (was?) wildly popular.
If they want more rights that begins with following International law on any occasions. Rejecting terrorism. Putting your soldiers in uniform. Freeing hostages. Not targeting innocent people every single day with indiscriminate rocket attacks.
Apart from the fact that they do have uniforms for soldiers (except for during that little hospital "operation" some months back), you see that Israel is guilty of all of this too, right?
Eg being held in "administrative detention" without charge is being held hostage, harming or threatening innocent civilians so they put pressure on their government is terrorism. Killing AI-identified "targets" while they're at home with their families because it's easier is targeting innocent people every day. And withholding the necessities of life from civilians on purpose is against international law. Nice uniforms though yeah.
Should we take away Israelis' rights by your logic? Or should we not punish innocents for the actions of people who claim to speak for them?
Basic rights are not conditional. Not sure how I can explain that to you if you don't understand that already. Jesus christ.
Prisoners taken in a warzone under suspicion. Administrative detention. Call it however. No diplomatic status. Citizens of no legitimate state. Hamas is a terrorist organization. They don't get to have a state. They are actual war criminals for all intents and purposes, and in all pursuits. War crimes are never punished in Gaza, often rewarded, always revered. Hamas is indefensible and unredeemable for what they've done to millions of people of have lived and died in Gaza without any prospects, having turned every institution into modalities of Iranian-vassal terrorism. Give me a break.
Prisoners taken in a warzone under suspicion. Administrative detention. Call it however.
Here you go, something fun to learn: https://www.btselem.org/administrative_detention
Again, nothing to do with war, NOT prisoners of war. Hostages by another name. How did you not know about this?
They are actual war criminals for all intents and purposes, and in all pursuits. War crimes are never punished in
GazaIsrael, often rewarded, always revered.
Also true this way around. Israel has been committing war crimes for 7 months straight now.
This is the classic defense of Hamas by the way. Disregard all points of fact, talk about how evil Israel is.
Like you totally ignored all points of fact raised by me and didn't even know that Israel detains Palestinians without charge all the time outside of active war?
I'll tell you why I didn't fight you on these points: the topic of conversation is Palestinian statehood. NOT Hamas. What you are doing is classic hasbara bullshit, if in doubt and people start talking about human rights for Palestinians, shift the conversation to Hamas. You think or at least imply that the actions of a few can detract from the need for basic rights for every single human being. As I said, if that was the case then Israelis lose them too.
And guess what? Hamas are terrorists and I agree they are shit. Now if you could face up to the various despicable crimes of Israel we might actually get somewhere here.
Listen I can totally face up to the war crimes. There have been many. The side that actually punishes war crimes is redeemable. The side that rewards war crimes is not.
I understand that in Israel there is a political movement that fosters a culture of wiping things under the rug or maybe pardoning war criminals like Trump did and would do again in America. But every dead kid in Gaza rests squarely at the feet of Hamas. Seems like it's about 3% of the population that is so hardcore for Hamas that they are ready to die for the cause with their loved ones in tow.
Listen I can totally face up to the war crimes. There have been many.
Thank you. This is very bad and I'm sure you can see that not all have been punished, in fact I think the WCK attack is one of the only ones recently that have?
But Israel is still allowed at the UN. They should be in the UN despite all of the (IMO) horrendous things that the country is doing and has done. Since Hamas would not be the representatives of Palestine at the UN (so complaining about them is not relevant), why should Palestine not have full UN membership? Why do they not deserve a proper seat at the table?
It would be like saying Israel doesn't deserve membership because settlers are terrorists and the IDF and the current government supports them. I don't understand how you can apply the logic to Hamas and Palestine but not there?
If you answer nothing else, please answer this: do you think that the state of Palestine has the right to exist?
If Israel had responded proportionately to Oct 7, the world would have continued to ignore their cruel apartheid.
The tunnels were the means of attack.
Destroying the tunnels is the literal definition of a proportionate response.
Combined with reasonable attempts to warn civilians, it's kosher.
Not when reasonable effort to warn civilians is: we're going to bomb you, and if you run we'll bomb you too.
Actually they send texts, call phones, and fire warning shots. The Qatari media you gorge yourself on has covered it zero times.
Are you saying they did not warn people before moving into Rafah?
That's delusional.
That's not what I am denying, read my comment again. What I am saying is that the warnings are just for show, because if they follow the warnings and flee, the IDF kills them while they are on the run
98% of Gaza says that's not true.
You're conflating a few isolated stories from the initial days of the war during the evacuation of northern Gaza when they said "go south toward general safety," not "go south and your safety is guaranteed."
At that time, 99.94% of the civilian population evacuated without harm.
At any rate "don't stand above tunnels and stay the fuck away from any members of Hamas or die" would have been very clear to me.
