Seems to me that if Hamas is against it, and is de facto ruler over the Gaza Strip, the bid cannot have any practical effect over Gaza. What you may get is not one new country, but one half: the WB. How can the UN declare Gaza to be part of a country, when its actual democratically-elected rulers do not support such a declaration?
The whole thing is a giant exercise in putting the cart before the horse. The Palestinians must resolve their leadership issues first, and only then look to statehood. Otherwise they will get even more of a mess than there already is.
looking at this as an Israeli-vs.-Palestinian thing, really an extention of the Arab-Israeli ethnic conflict, is hopeless and pointless. That makes the UN bid just seem a giant PR exercise, to score points off the Israelis - which will leave the Palestinians no better off no matter how it turns out. What is required here is some serious nation-building by the Palestinains, beginning with acquiring some solid and united leadership with actual legitimacy and without being hopelessly riddled with corruption (PLO) or Islamicist ideological blinders (Hamas). The Hamas-PLO concord looked like a step in that direction, but this latest split indicates that perhaps it didn’t really take.
The Kurdish separatist movement is not akin to the Palestinian issue. Perhaps the way the Turkish and Israeli governments deal with terrorists is equivalent. Please do not exaggerate the circumstances of the Kurds in Turkey to make a point. This is what people who are against Israeli policy often do and it obfuscates the issues.
On a sidenote, those temper tantrums sure are putting him into the position to strongly recommend secular democratic governments to the free Arab Spring countries - and they’re listening. I am very happy that Erdogan and the AK Party has shrugged off the shackles of US-Israeli policy and helped to define the newly freed parts of the Mideast in peace and liberal democracy.
Actually, I live here in Tel Aviv full-time. The last time I was in the States was 3 years ago, for my grandmother’s funeral; I haven’t lived there since 2002.
Yes indeed, the Jews needed their leaders to get their terrorists under control - that damn Begin and that Irgun bunch - before they could be allowed to set up their own country in a place it didn’t exist. :rolleyes:
Wait. Can you explain #1 and #2? Why is that the PLO equals Hamas? Why does the Palestinian quest for statehood equal anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic? Could it ever possibly be that Palestinans want a State because they think they deserve one not because of any malevolent hatred toward Israel or Jews in general?
I’m onboard with the Palestinians in this case: the status quo is not working. Why continue to talk the same talk for decades with no meaningful progress? I mean, is it really true that they don’t even collect their own taxes or have access to their own air space? That’s not an country, that’s an occupation. Let these people have their own country. It’s time.
The Turkish tactic of moving ethnically Turkish “settlers” onto “Turkish” Cypus (an entity that only Turkey acknowleges) to take over properties deserted by Greek Cypriots displaced by the Turkish invasion of half of the island is probably roughly comparable to the Palestinian issue with Israeli “settlers”, though.
Indeed, what many are missing is that this whole affair really has as much (or more) to do with Cypus (which the Turks care about materially) than Gaza (which the Turks have little other than emotional interest in).
What really brought the Turkish reaction to a head was Israel’s deal with Cypus over natural gas eploration, a deal which blocks Turkish ambitions in the area:
Your comment shows a truly staggering level of ignorance regarding the history of the region.
The Irgun and Lehi were dismantled after Israel was founded and had their leaders denounced and discredited. Now yes, decades later Shamir and Begin were able to rehabilitate themselves and form the Likud Party.
If the Palestinians formed a state of their own, Hamas was immediately disarmed, disbanded and their leaders had to slink away in shame and disgrace, that would be comparable to what happened to the Irgun and Lehi. Now if twenty-five years after forming a state, after decades of disgrace during which Hamas’ leaders worked to rehabilitate themselves then you’d have a point.
Beyond that, comparing the Irgun and Lehi to Hamas shows a real lack of understanding of the nuances. Yes, both were what would be considered “terrorist” groups, but the Irgun wasn’t remotely as bloodthirsty or ruthless regarding either their enemies or their fellow tribesmen(for example they didn’t slaughter thousands of Jewish “collaborators” the way Hamas has slaughtered thousands of Palestinian “collaborators.”
They were more comparable to the PLO, who’s leaders have been accepted as the leaders of the Palestinians.
In fact, Abu Mazen, who is considered far and away the most moderate Palestinian leader was responsible for the Munich massacre.
It’s possible, but if you look at the Arabs’ words and actions over the past 60 years, it’s reasonably clear that the main goal has always been to put an end to Jewish Israel and still is today.
I would support the concept of a Palestinian State if it agreed to (1) offer citizenship and absorption to all Palestinian Arabs everywhere just like Israel offered citizenship and absorption to Jews; and (2) offer citizenship to all Jews who happen to be living there at the moment just like Israel offered citizenship to all Arabs who stayed in Israel in May of 1948.
I didn’t say that. Al Asqa has split from the PLO again and is a ‘designated terrorist organization’ by most Western countries – but you’d be silly to think that all terrorists come from Gaza or Sheikh Jarrah.
What the UN resolution does is essentially tell Hamas, Al Asqa, and other resistance groups that their goal now has merit. In many parts of the world, that’s already the issue (eg, Vittorio Arrigoni) but this makes it worse.
I don’t know. Ask someone who said that.
It’s kind of like why we were stuck in Afghanistan for so long. If we leave it unstabilized, we go back. Afghanistan isn’t our next door neighbor but to Israel, the West Bank is just over the fence. It’s not that easy. The PLO can’t even control its own region. Hamas won in Gaza. Who’s next in the West Bank? It’s not like Abbas or Fayyad have high approval ratings.
And without negotiations, you’ll have every Palestinian expecting the ‘right of return’ --something that will never happen, Jerusalem, the whole megilla. And then what? You give people the idea that what’s over the fence really is truly rightfully theirs and I’m 99.99 per cent sure you’ll see the Al Asqa Martyrs’ Brigades fanbase increase.
I don’t have a dog in the underlying fight, but this is the part I don’t like, when the U.S. government is a mouthpiece for Likud and more importantly, looks hypocritical and maybe even ridiculous doing so.
I don’t like or support the UN, I think it’s a silly Halls of Justice waste of money and a potential affront to U.S. sovereignty. But that’s beside the point – the U.S. has made much of funding the UN as an ueber student body with quasi-legislative powers. What do legislators do if not legislate? The UN has hardly succeeded in stopping war or getting stronger groups to stop shafting weaker ones, but isn’t that hypothetically what it was set up to do – to provide a forum, referees, political process to international law?
And what could be more a point of international law than whether a would be country is a country? Again, I oppose the UN, but if you take its founders and charter documents at their word, isn’t that pretty squarely in the wheelhouse of what they would purport to have authority over. God knows they vote on sillier more frivolous non-core issues already.
But lawmakers quaking in fear of AIPAC find themselves boxed into the ridiculous position of saying that it’s “unwise” or “counter-productive” to even hold the vote – thus taking the position of treating the mere act of seeking access to the Superfriends who were anointed for just this sort of vote as illegitimate. I can’t think of many circumstances in which the party fervently opposing a democratic vote on something even taking place looks like the good guy.
It really does hurt American credibility among those in Europe and elsewhere already inclined to distrust the U.S. when it becomes so transparently clear that the U.S. is still pretending the UN is legit but will still flout it whenever U.S. considerations require it. (To be clear, that’s exactly my position – I just wish the U.S. would (a) get it done and admit it; and (b) not play this trump card just because Netanyahu and AIPAC held a gun to their heads.). Mind you, you could address my concern and still get more or less what AIPAC wants – fine, Palestine is a “state,” with whatever that means in the UN playground. They’d assert all sorts of petitions and motions – and the U.S. would still be the guarantors of whatever borders Israel finally feels like settling for.
No one said they were terrified or “absurdly terrified.” I think it’s a nuisance that on a handful of issues (important ones, admittedly) one voting bloc has near-decisive influence.
Since I have had a very difficult time finding an MSM or right/left wing press article about this topic that does not attribute the Obama Administrations efforts to block the vote to “domestic political considerations” or outright “concern over the Jewish voting bloc in upcoming elections,” (and unless all of those reporters/analysts are closet anti-Semites, which would be inconvenient at best given that some are, well, Jewish), the concept that the Israel lobby is not a major driver here is not one that I’ve seen anyone other than you seriously suggest. If nothing else, why would the Administration be variously described as “desperate” or “scrambling” to hold “emergency” meetings over what’s a more or less symbolic bit of student council deliberations?
I was just thinking: If only the Roma in France had the Arab League behind them! Palestinians in Gaza are better off than they. Or if only the Arab League actually cared about the citizens of Arab countries…what a better world this would be.