Palestine UN Membership Bid

"Actually they threw that right away when they began lobbing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians."

By that logic, Israel lost its right to self-government many times over.

Since when did Israel deliberately and indiscriminately kill civilians? (While hiding behind them too!) Certainly not in the last 60 years at least.

I just linked you god damn it!

Not to mention that their last incursion into Gaza included:

• Bombing schools
• Bombing hospitals
• Bombing World Food Programme warehouses with phosphorous
• Bombing UN Headquarters
• Using bunker buster missile on the UN observation post, killing all UN staff there
• Over 3000 civilians died.

edited 23rd Sep '11 8:19:14 PM by breadloaf

^ and in comparison, how many citizens have the palestinians killed?

As I recall it number in the triple digits at the hihest estimates, but I'd rather be sure

"Since when did Israel deliberately and indiscriminately kill civilians? (While hiding behind them too!) Certainly not in the last 60 years at least."

Wow, really? I'm curious where you get your news from.

Considering that they've attacked the UN places, I'm wondering why they're still letting Israel in on it.

Shit, if violent unjustified agression disqualifies a democratically elected government, then pretty no U.S. presidency since the beginning of the 20th century (perhaps earlier) has been valid. Someone tell Noam Chomsky, I'm sure he'd be thrilled to have been validated.

Sorry Tom, but as immoral as the acts are, killing somebody else's citizens does not negate sovereignity or, as everyone else has said, almost every country in the world would be found guilty. Your argument is simply non-sequitur.

The citizenship issue, if true (anyone confirm this was going to be the policy or are we still relying on the word of the Lebanese ambassador?), is far more pertinent to the issue at hand. Stick to that.

Giving Palenstine recognized state hood is all well and good but it doesn't really solve any of the problems they have with Israel.

Right, because Palestinian right to autonomy revolves around Israel and is not something that they should aspire to in and of itself?

Maybe true, but then why is it worth vetoing?

Personally, I just hope whatever happens, this starts the ball rolling on negotiations again, with a new and fresh paradigm to work with. Certainly the status quo is no longer useful in this debate anymore, if it ever was.

Kash: Did you read all of my post? Yeah sure give them state hood. It fixes nothing, it solves none of the issues in the first place and will only lead to more trouble because neither side has resolved their issues at hand.

The problems will still be there and Israel is not likely to abandon those settlers without a fight. Nor are they likely to tolerate rocket attacks or allow ships through to supply an enemy nation. A perfectly legit tactic in warfare.

All this does is change the name of who they are fighting and nothing else. Palenstines official attitude towards Israel has been consistently hostile and I find no real value in giving them statehood. The gesture itself is rather hollow.

It's as important as it was when Israel declared itself a state unilaterally.

National unity for the Palestinians is important for Palestinians, not just for problems with Israel but for everything.

Well, "national unity" doesn't seem very effective when 80% of the people already living there aren't allowed to be citizens. It just sounds like a terrible deal, really.

I would probably be in favor of a Palestinian state that was actually, you know, state-y, and did things like build up useful infrastructure and effective law enforcement. Ideally it'd stop people randomly tossing rockets over Israel's borders . . . a man can dream, I suppose.

When a blockade prevents you from getting even cookies, I'd just accept a state in their situation to simply have a single government to be pretty awesome.

Still no excuse to send suicide bombers, snipers, and rockets over the border. This whole mess sounds a lot less then an honest push for statehood. Also the blockade does keep out weapons that are so charmingly smuggled in with the food. Their neighbours could also readily create trade and supply routes.

So what is the deal with them denying those who have been living in Israel citizenship?

What do they plan to do with the Gaza strip and the Jewish settlers? These two issues need addressing first otherwise there will only be conflict as usual. SSDD.

As stated before, violence does not preclude statehood, otherwise Israel would never exist. Israel started off with ethnic cleansing, so to complain about rockets per month is pretty unfair.

I also don't let Egypt off the hook for enforcing the blockade. Basically everyone treats them like trash in the region.

edited 23rd Sep '11 11:05:50 PM by breadloaf

I never said it precluded state hood. How they are going about it is ignoring a very large and angry elephant in the room. It also appears they are not addressing the issues deliberately knowing it will stir up trouble sooner then later. It still answers none of my previous questions.

Well last time with Gaza strip, Hamas offered a power-sharing government (since they won the elections) but Fatah refused. It depends whether Fatah wants to go back to the table with Hamas and accept that, or try to take out Hamas again (and likely fail). As for the citizenship issue, I haven't heard any news on that so maybe you'll want to wait for something more definitive.

The settler issue was that they wanted to go back to 1967 borders. Israel is unlikely to accept such an arrangement and Palestine really has no reason not to go back to the original UN partition proposal. "Facing reality" for them is pointless because even if they give up the claim on those lands, Israel will just take more of Palestine and then say "face reality" again.

I see no proof of Israel continuing to push more to take more. There haven't been any more large scale wars between the nations in the region for quite some time thankfully. Both those bits of land were seized during military conflict. I would like to see the land the settlers are on traded for honest concessions and more back and forth posturing and rhetoric. Once ground is gained concession wise even loosen the grip on the blockades. Hey I can hope right?

I would not keep Hezbollah around specifically because their goal is war against the Israelis. I am pretty sure the various Hezbollah extremists would continue this practice even on under a shared power plan or even if Palestine becomes a state and they are part of it.

One of my big concerns is once Palestine is a state they will join with their neighbours and take another stab and wiping out the Israeli state.

You mean Hamas? Hezbollah is the wrong country :)

If you can bring them to the negotiating table (first step is to invite them) you can get them to change their view on Israel. Remember, Israel for the longest time refused to acknowledge there was such a thing as a Palestinian.

Hamas Hezbollah (for the rest of the post referred to as h&h) all terrorists ass holes and their orgs names start with H. But your point is taken. These are not the negotiating types.

They A. Do not recognize Israel as a state or even having a right to exist. B. One of their stated goals is to wipe Israel off the map. C. It has been tried in the past and all Israel got for the trouble was more violence. I would not call that a sterling record of statesmanship from those Organizations.

Israel may recognize them now but do the Palestinians recognize Israel at all?

If the Palestinians are willing to go into a honest long haul effort to out any org like the above mentioned h&h I would be all for them becoming a state. But what I seeing them state is only more contention and hostility towards Israel. That is a bad start to a new state. The whole affair carries a tone of fuck you Israel.

I strongly disagree. Israel gave total amnesty to straight up terrorists and one of them even became a prime minister in 1983. We're talking about guys who assassinated a British diplomat, a Swedish diplomat and so on, among their many crimes.

So if we apply the same standard to Palestine I don't think that makes much sense. I would agree on one point, Hamas needs to tone down, but if you can get Fatah to give up terrorism and accept Israel as a state that should exist, then I think we should be more optimistic about Hamas. Calling them terrorist scum without any regard to the situation at hand is over-simplification of the complex matter. It's not a domestic dispute, so it doesn't fall under the same rules of morality. Afterall, if say the Chinese took over America, I wouldn't put it against Americans to use suicide bombers as a means of resistance.

Hamas and Fatah have already agreed to start forming a united governemtn and there should be a government elections 2012.

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-04-27/world/gaza.hamas.fatah_1_hamas-and-fatah-hamas-movements-palestinian-territories?_s=PM:WORLD

This was declared before bid for statehood.

Also, rocket attacks might start, but if the palestine governemt condems them and declares those groups as a terrorist, Israel can't just go and occupy entire country just because. Rather, it would eitehr Palestine or joint Israel-Palestine operation to hunt down the culprits for attacks.

Palestines ain't stupid, in certain sense(every government in the world is stupid), they know that Israel can and will steam roll them over slightest provocation. However, when terrorist become terrorist inside their own people (State army vs. local militants doing their private war), these terrorist will lose their "normal" supporters and only left with hard liners. Those who wish to live their lives normaly will leave such groups, because they are no longer freedom fighters.

I find it something of a insulting that Palestines are only allowed to gain state if US and Israel allow it, not by their own actions. These "peace talks" usualy boild down to Palestines wanting all their stuff back and Israel denying it because they can't due to their own internal politics. That, or Hamas goes and does something stupid again.

I had something else to say too but it disappeared from my mind. Will post it later.

Your point on the Israeli terrorists is what? A pack of small time thugs is hardly comprable. Hamas has a long term goal of genocide and eradication of a nation that is bit different then assassinating state officials. Also the various surrounding nations gladly harbour terrorists if you will recall.

If and this is a big IF they can get them to stop shelling the shit out of Israeli civilians and blowing them up on buses that would be great. I would love for Israel to stop being collosal dicks too. Even better if everyone could spend more then 10 minutes at a table without threatening to destroy each other. I am not seeing this happen with the way the current government is forming.

Hamas can easily be simplified to terrorist assholes. IT is their MO. They operate exactly like a large portion of terrorist orgs the world round. They are without argument terrorists. There is nothing complicated about it. The rest of of the Palestinians and everyone that is involved with them is not done any favours by having them around. Suicide bombings ring a bell? Remember those rocket attacks? Not to mention sniper attacks, shootings, kidnappings, etc. Their targets of choice are the civilian populace of the Israeli's. I would say that more then qualifies them as terrorist thugs.

These knuckle heads are yet another batch of religious extremist groups who use violence as a specific means to their ends, among many the world round. I would not in any sane or reasonable part of the world have these guys in my government. If they really are going to be part of the government I only see more trouble in the near future.