On November 02 2011 03:00 mdb wrote: I can understand USA reasons, but Germany and Canada? Why vote against Palestine?
Probably depends who you ask. Some reasonable cynics would say that Canada voted against it for political reasons even though popular support here likely slightly favors the Palestinians. Other less reasonable cynics would probably blame some very anti-semitic fallacy like the rich Jews controlling funding for the governing party or some other garbage like that.
I would say that we voted against it because we believe that Israel has a right to exist and a right to defend itself, and therefore deserves and requires a seat at the table in a negotiation over a two-state solution. We will therefore vote against any motion that has an intended consequence of furthering the movement to unilaterally declare (ie. without Israel) a Palestinian state.
On November 02 2011 00:47 Kupon3ss wrote: Well this isn't surprising, as appealing to the Jewish community earns American politicians an insane amount of votes and funding while being fair to Palestine earns nothing for elections.
What people who aren't Jewish don't realize is that the US and Israel represent pretty much the only two countries where Jews can live without being faced with severe persecution. And you wonder why the American Jewish population cares so much about Israel. No other country in the world is faced with the same situation as Israel, surrounded by hostile nations who would love nothing more than to see it's destruction.
The amount of media bias against Israel is insane. There used to be large Jewish populations in Europe and Arab nations until they were all forced out (Holocaust anyone?...) Look at the history and you will see who kicked who out....
Not to mention the land Israel has gained though out the decades was won through wars it did not start. Arab leaders literally said, "we will push the Jews into the sea". And at Israel's inception there wasn't anywhere near the same amount of US support as there is now. The first wars were fought by settlers, not soldiers. Don't start wars you aren't prepared to finish.
Jews aren't persecuted more than any other minority in Europe. Jews are the only ones who get their own word for racism aimed at them though. You don't see people of African, Arab, Turkish or Armenian decent, living in Europe coming up with words describing racism targeting them. Of course racism in general is a problem but that is true in every country and of almost every minority.
Yes but all these minorities have homelands. But apparently the Jew's having a homeland is just simply out of the question. Israel is a tiny portion of land, and they have in the past been willing to give up vast amounts of it to the Palestinians, always met with disapproval. It just baffles me that Israel is always painted as the villain but if anyone has actually BEEN there you'd know that Palestinians and Israelis live peacefully together and most of them want the same ultimatum, PEACE. But you are too wrapped up in what the media portrays. There is no genocide going on there, and to anyone who has actually been to the region, that just sounds ridiculous.
On November 02 2011 00:44 konadora wrote: uh, what kind of stupid law is that that forces a government to cut financial ties to a global organisation because of one country? on what basis?
The purpose of such a law is to say to the world 'look, we don't want to cut funding, but if you invite Palestine, that's what'll happen'. It's creating an automatic ultimatum to deter the organization from taking actions you don't want.
One of the basics of deterrence is to make people believe you'll follow through if they do what you don't want. Creating internal laws that bind policymakers is one of those ways.
that is a nice way of saying blackmail....?
Blackmail is a form of deterrence, yes. Generally in international politics, the more power you have, the more influence you can exert to get what you want. Having laws to ensure how credible your threats are, that you make on that power, is pretty sensible.
On November 02 2011 00:47 Kupon3ss wrote: Well this isn't surprising, as appealing to the Jewish community earns American politicians an insane amount of votes and funding while being fair to Palestine earns nothing for elections.
What people who aren't Jewish don't realize is that the US and Israel represent pretty much the only two countries where Jews can live without being faced with severe persecution.
The amount of media bias against Israel is insane. There used to be large Jewish populations in Europe and Arab nations until they were all forced out (Holocaust anyone?...) Look at the history and you will see who kicked who out....
Ok I am sorry if a moderator feels I am to hard here, but this must be the most retarded post I've ever read in a derailing of a topic. Media bias means there has to be an injustice, problem is we have empiric kognitive PROOF of Israel breaking INTERNATIONAL LAW on a DAILY BASIS. There is no injustice of showing this from the media.
What the heck are you talking about persecution? It's worse being a muslim than it is to be a jew in europa, in asia hardly anybody cares. There were never "large" jewish populations since they've never even represented a 1% of the worlds population, not even a 0.1% (google if you don't believe me). Nor did the holocaust drive jews from the arab nations or half of europa... Agh I just can't understand how you can speak about 60 year old happenings as if they should somehow effect the current day situation or how we view justice and law? The world is never this black and white people, please stop arguing in ultimatums.
On November 02 2011 02:56 Mayd wrote: The land belongs to Israel. Has always belonged.
"GOD" IS NOT A REALESTATE MERCHANT. Your faith can not outweigh my reality.
Also I'd like a moderator to check IP:s on some of these accounts, 5-20 post-accounts from different countries defending Israel out of the blue with a perspective heavily tilted towards pro-israel smells fishy.
Honestly, I don't know how to respond to this... as far as I can tell you are just simply ignoring historical fact. There used to be relatively large and healthy populations of Jews in Europe and the Middle East. Now Jews have been forced into living almost exclusively either in the US or Israel. I have to go to class now but when I'm out I will provide numbers to back this up.
Yes, and Germany in the 1940's is just like it is now. Just how african-americans still have to adress their white owners with boss and how the majority of the dutch merchant navy is still actively shipping slaves to the caribbean. The french are also still actively hunting protestants within their borders.
You can be a Jew and live anywhere freely in most of the western world, while facing less discrimination then most other minorities.
On November 02 2011 00:47 Kupon3ss wrote: Well this isn't surprising, as appealing to the Jewish community earns American politicians an insane amount of votes and funding while being fair to Palestine earns nothing for elections.
What people who aren't Jewish don't realize is that the US and Israel represent pretty much the only two countries where Jews can live without being faced with severe persecution. And you wonder why the American Jewish population cares so much about Israel. No other country in the world is faced with the same situation as Israel, surrounded by hostile nations who would love nothing more than to see it's destruction.
The amount of media bias against Israel is insane. There used to be large Jewish populations in Europe and Arab nations until they were all forced out (Holocaust anyone?...) Look at the history and you will see who kicked who out....
Not to mention the land Israel has gained though out the decades was won through wars it did not start. Arab leaders literally said, "we will push the Jews into the sea". And at Israel's inception there wasn't anywhere near the same amount of US support as there is now. The first wars were fought by settlers, not soldiers. Don't start wars you aren't prepared to finish.
Jews aren't persecuted more than any other minority in Europe. Jews are the only ones who get their own word for racism aimed at them though. You don't see people of African, Arab, Turkish or Armenian decent, living in Europe coming up with words describing racism targeting them. Of course racism in general is a problem but that is true in every country and of almost every minority.
Yes but all these minorities have homelands. But apparently the Jew's having a homeland is just simply out of the question. Israel is a tiny portion of land, and they have in the past been willing to give up vast amounts of it to the Palestinians, always met with disapproval. It just baffles me that Israel is always painted as the villain but if anyone has actually BEEN there you'd know that Palestinians and Israelis live peacefully together and most of them want the same ultimatum, PEACE. But you are too wrapped up in what the media portrays. There is no genocide going on there, and to anyone who has actually been to the region, that just sounds ridiculous.
Which he didn't even claim. The entire problem is that BOTH sides (Israeli and Palestinian) are unwilling to come to a compromise, and the simple fact that Israel keeps expanding it's borders beyond where they should be. Israel is illegally occupying parts of Palestine, anyone claiming otherwise is out of his mind.
Which isn't to say that the Israeli's don't deserve their own country within the current boundaries of Israel (foregoing illegal settlements/territorial claims), it's just that both sides keep escalating the entire conflict and that the israeli's are shooting with live bullets at people throwing stones. Guess which side gets more flak in situations that asymmetrical.
What I fail to understand in this whole thing is why the UN (or any other organization) just sort of said 'alright people of Israel, this shall be your land'.
I truly do not understand this. Even if Palestine wasn't actually a nation, why do these people have the right to just assign these lands to whomever they wished?. Maybe the arabs were really disorganized, working under a system different from a nation system, but as far as I can tell those were still their lands. Please enlighten me here I seriously don't understand this. I have asked some jewish friends and gotten no real answers.
Also, to whoever said that jews can only live in the US or Israel, in my country there's a pretty healthy jewish community, most in the higher classes, pretty wealthy and with a lot of political and economical power, they live pretty well, nobody here has any problems with them.
On November 02 2011 00:47 Kupon3ss wrote: Well this isn't surprising, as appealing to the Jewish community earns American politicians an insane amount of votes and funding while being fair to Palestine earns nothing for elections.
What people who aren't Jewish don't realize is that the US and Israel represent pretty much the only two countries where Jews can live without being faced with severe persecution.
The amount of media bias against Israel is insane. There used to be large Jewish populations in Europe and Arab nations until they were all forced out (Holocaust anyone?...) Look at the history and you will see who kicked who out....
Ok I am sorry if a moderator feels I am to hard here, but this must be the most retarded post I've ever read in a derailing of a topic. Media bias means there has to be an injustice, problem is we have empiric kognitive PROOF of Israel breaking INTERNATIONAL LAW on a DAILY BASIS. There is no injustice of showing this from the media.
What the heck are you talking about persecution? It's worse being a muslim than it is to be a jew in europa, in asia hardly anybody cares. There were never "large" jewish populations since they've never even represented a 1% of the worlds population, not even a 0.1% (google if you don't believe me). Nor did the holocaust drive jews from the arab nations or half of europa... Agh I just can't understand how you can speak about 60 year old happenings as if they should somehow effect the current day situation or how we view justice and law? The world is never this black and white people, please stop arguing in ultimatums.
On November 02 2011 02:56 Mayd wrote: The land belongs to Israel. Has always belonged.
"GOD" IS NOT A REALESTATE MERCHANT. Your faith can not outweigh my reality.
Also I'd like a moderator to check IP:s on some of these accounts, 5-20 post-accounts from different countries defending Israel out of the blue with a perspective heavily tilted towards pro-israel smells fishy.
Honestly, I don't know how to respond to this... as far as I can tell you are just simply ignoring historical fact. There used to be relatively large and healthy populations of Jews in Europe and the Middle East. Now Jews have been forced into living almost exclusively either in the US or Israel. I have to go to class now but when I'm out I will provide numbers to back this up.
Forced, what the? They haven't been forced since 1945. Anti semitism in Europe on behalf of governments have been very, very scarce since and even that died out pretty much with Stalin.
On November 02 2011 01:07 Muki wrote: Greatest effect of this should be, a great gain of confidence for the Palestines at home. They need the momentum to keep them going in their fight for their land.
It's the palestineans fault for continuously waging war with israel. They deserve no land back and should finally attempt to make peace with israel. More momentum for more fighting will only end badly if history is to repeat itself.
On November 02 2011 01:07 Muki wrote: Greatest effect of this should be, a great gain of confidence for the Palestines at home. They need the momentum to keep them going in their fight for their land.
It's the palestineans fault for continuously waging war with israel. They deserve no land back and should finally attempt to make peace with israel. More momentum for more fighting will only end badly if history is to repeat itself.
How can you even say that? If they decided to create Israel on your homeland and took 90% of your living space, you'd declare it was your own fault? Zionism is a flawed idea, because it set a densely populated and historically hot area as a target. In the early 20th century of even in 1948 there were free spaces of land where a peaceful independent Jewish state could have been created.
I am sure UNESCO can find $80 million/year from new Middle Eastern Donors. It is sad that we were giving so little when we had billions of dollars lying around to bail out Wall Street. There was a time when the Muslim world was the center of scientific, political and cultural progress. I remember that there was a time when the US was the undisputed leader in these areas and I would argue we are still there, but we are slowly getting left behind. NASA is almost dead. We are at least a decade behind the world in stem-cell research. How can we leave UNESCO. How can we think about leaving WHO (whenever people talk about how the UN is fairly useless, the WHO always gets brought up, it really has had some amazing accomplishments).
I really feel that this is a much bigger blow for the US then for UNESCO. Are we slowly becoming the country with religious anti-science, anti-free thought nutjobs? Obviously not, but this certainly feels like a step in that direction.
Anyways, congratulations to Palestine. Hopefully this marks your return to the normal world and the end to your dark ages of senseless violence. + Show Spoiler +
The only thing I want to say about Middle Eastern politics is that both sides should stop focusing on who deserves the blame for continuing the violence and start focusing on who will get the credit for ending it.
I think both sides should just take an eraser to these stupid borders they draw on the paper maps and adopt a live and let live policy. Why won't this work?
Harper is just a fucking sheep to whatever the US does with world politics, its kinda sad really. He's not really making Canada run like an "independent" country.
Gotta love when Nash pulls out the 'anti-semitic' card. As Benjamin said, today there's nothing you can say about Israel's wrongdoings because you're anti-semitic - a term which funny enough, is already outdated and wrongly misused. We're sorry Nash but, you gotta understand the clear-cut difference between criticizing the actions of the country 'Israel' and criticizing the actions of every single jewish person on the planet. Would do you good to start there.
And, responding to the logic of one of our pro-israel buddies above... here's a fun example:
So Mexicans enter the US illegally. The US doesn't like it very much, they start a war against them. The Mexicans win the war with Russian + European support The Mexicans take over more territory and claim it was on self-defense The Mexicans slowly but steadily start expanding and reclaiming more territory for themselves The US can't do shit because Russia and Europe support the Mexicans The US asks for international support but Russia and Europe shut it down
So, the real question is - how come these arabs from the land thus known as Palestine were wrong by demanding part of their lands be given to someone other than them?
And, let's not forget - the only reason Israel has won its wars against the other arab countries is because of the massive economic/military US support it gets.
On November 02 2011 03:23 zZygote wrote: Harper is just a fucking sheep to whatever the US does with world politics, its kinda sad really. He's not really making Canada run like an "independent" country.
Or maybe it's because our interests as a developed, democratic, free nation align better with the US than with Iran.
On November 02 2011 00:47 Kupon3ss wrote: Well this isn't surprising, as appealing to the Jewish community earns American politicians an insane amount of votes and funding while being fair to Palestine earns nothing for elections.
What people who aren't Jewish don't realize is that the US and Israel represent pretty much the only two countries where Jews can live without being faced with severe persecution. And you wonder why the American Jewish population cares so much about Israel. No other country in the world is faced with the same situation as Israel, surrounded by hostile nations who would love nothing more than to see it's destruction.
The amount of media bias against Israel is insane. There used to be large Jewish populations in Europe and Arab nations until they were all forced out (Holocaust anyone?...) Look at the history and you will see who kicked who out....
Not to mention the land Israel has gained though out the decades was won through wars it did not start. Arab leaders literally said, "we will push the Jews into the sea". And at Israel's inception there wasn't anywhere near the same amount of US support as there is now. The first wars were fought by settlers, not soldiers. Don't start wars you aren't prepared to finish.
Jews aren't persecuted more than any other minority in Europe. Jews are the only ones who get their own word for racism aimed at them though. You don't see people of African, Arab, Turkish or Armenian decent, living in Europe coming up with words describing racism targeting them. Of course racism in general is a problem but that is true in every country and of almost every minority.
Yes but all these minorities have homelands. But apparently the Jew's having a homeland is just simply out of the question. Israel is a tiny portion of land, and they have in the past been willing to give up vast amounts of it to the Palestinians, always met with disapproval. It just baffles me that Israel is always painted as the villain but if anyone has actually BEEN there you'd know that Palestinians and Israelis live peacefully together and most of them want the same ultimatum, PEACE. But you are too wrapped up in what the media portrays. There is no genocide going on there, and to anyone who has actually been to the region, that just sounds ridiculous.
All of those minorities don't have homelands. The Kurdish people don't have a homeland. Also I don't see how being a minority gives you the right to a homeland. LGBT people don't have a homeland. Atheists don't have a homeland. I support Israels right to exist, not because Jews need their own country but because it would be unrealistic to remove them now and it would do more harm than good. I also support the Palestinians in creating their own country. I'm sure that a majority of both populations would like peace but apparently the rulers in Israel and the US don't want to see that happen.
Take off the blindfold mate. It's simply because Canada can't afford on any level to face off against the US. Not economically, not politically and certainly not on the military either. Not that the US wants to have to deal with any trouble north of its border...so there's plenty of room, support and encouragement for puppets like Mr.Harper.
On November 02 2011 03:24 Suvorov wrote: And, let's not forget - the only reason Israel has won its wars against the other arab countries is because of the massive economic/military US support it gets.
Hypocrisy detected
Not actually true. The Israeli war of independence was won with (mainly) sovjet assistance. US involvement only really kicks in after 1960.
On November 02 2011 03:23 zZygote wrote: Harper is just a fucking sheep to whatever the US does with world politics, its kinda sad really. He's not really making Canada run like an "independent" country.
Or maybe it's because our interests as a developed, democratic, free nation align better with the US than with Iran.
Oh please, like all the countries voting for are comparable to Iran.
On November 02 2011 03:24 Suvorov wrote: Gotta love when Nash pulls out the 'anti-semitic' card. As Benjamin said, today there's nothing you can say about Israel's wrongdoings because you're anti-semitic - a term which funny enough, is already outdated and wrongly misused. We're sorry Nash but, you gotta understand the clear-cut difference between criticizing the actions of the country 'Israel' and criticizing the actions of every single jewish person on the planet. Would do you good to start there.
And, responding to the logic of one of our pro-israel buddies above... here's a fun example:
So Mexicans enter the US illegally. The US doesn't like it very much, they start a war against them. The Mexicans win the war with Russian + European support The Mexicans take over more territory and claim it was on self-defense The Mexicans slowly but steadily start expanding and reclaiming more territory for themselves The US can't do shit because Russia and Europe support the Mexicans The US asks for international support but Russia and Europe shut it down
So, the real question is - how come these arabs from the land thus known as Palestine were wrong by demanding part of their lands be given to someone other than them?
And, let's not forget - the only reason Israel has won its wars against the other arab countries is because of the massive economic/military US support it gets.
Hypocrisy detected
What an awful analogy, and regarding your last comment that Israel won its wars because of massive USA support, read the thread first; please. Its clearly stated plenty of times that the Israelis didn't receive MASSIVE SUPPORT from the US in the 1948 conflict...
EPT
