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Originally posted by Niki2:
Israel and the U.S. being so determined NOT to have this vote (knowing how badly they'd lose) to me is one more indication of how the rest of the world isn't blinded by our love affair with Israel.

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An instructive week after Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip tested Israel on the battlefield, the pacifist politicians who govern the West Bank notched a significant diplomatic win without much of a fight at all. Just before 5 p.m. New York time, the U.N. General Assembly voted 138 to 9 to bring Palestine aboard as a “nonmember state.” Another 41 nations abstained. Assured of passage by a whopping majority, Israel and the U.S. noted their objections mildly and mostly for the record, their effort to limit the fallout for the Jewish state itself limited in the wake of Gaza.

The status of “nonmember state” — emphasis on the “state” puts Palestine on the same level of diplomatic recognition as the Vatican, which is technically a sovereign entity.

The particular marker of sovereignty it sought from the U.N. is bureaucratic: access to international organizations, especially the International Criminal Court at the Hague. Experts on international law say that, armed with the mass diplomatic recognition of the 150 or so nations it counts as supporters, Palestine will be in a position to bring cases against Israel, which has occupied the land defined as Palestine — the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — since 1967.

The ICC, as it’s known, is on record as inclined to regard Israel’s more than 100 residential settlements on the West Bank as a crime of war. (The Jewish state pulled its settlers and soldiers out of Gaza in 2005 and argues that it no longer qualifies as its “occupier” under international law. Critics argue otherwise.) The physical presence of the settlements in other words would give Palestine a ready-made case to drag Israel before the court — or to threaten dragging it before the court. In the dynamics of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the real power lies in the threat. But in his last U.N. address, in September, Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas began to lay the foundation for charges based not on the settlements but on the violent behavior of some individual settlers, who attack Palestinian neighbors and vandalize property and mosques. Settler attacks have skyrocketed in the past two years, according to U.N. monitors, and now account for the majority of the political violence on the West Bank, despite the lingering popular impression of Palestinian terrorism dating back decades. On the West Bank, at least, the reality has changed.

“If you were in my place, what would you do?” Abbas asked TIME in a recent interview. “We will not use force against the settlers. I can use the court, but it’s better for the Israelis not to push us to go to the court. They should put an end to these acts committed by the settlers.” His address to the General Assembly in advance of the vote on Thursday made the stakes plain enough: Abbas blasted Israel for “the perpetration of war crimes” and “its contention that it is above international law.”

Abbas’ effort actually got an unlikely boost from Israel’s eight-day offensive in Gaza. By standing up to overwhelming Israeli military power for more than a week — and sending missiles toward major cities previously left untouched — the militants stirred a defiant pride and solidarity across the Palestinian community.

“The armed resistance of Hamas in Gaza gave the people hope and the impressions that this is the only way to fight against the ongoing occupation,” Majed Ladadwah, 46, told TIME 0n a Ramallah street, in the West Bank. “I can’t say they won,” said Ladadwah, speaking before Thursday’s balloting, “but they surely gained a lot of points for Hamas in the streets of Palestine.”

That logic was pointed out to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she visited Jerusalem to coax him toward a cease-fire. In the days that followed, Netanyahu’s government stopped threatening to punish Abbas for going to the U.N., a move Israel has called a threat to the peace process, which has been stalled for at least four years.

At the same time, European nations rallied around Abbas, intent on shoring up a leader who is secular, moderate — and already at political risk for cooperating with Israel to suppress armed resistance even before Gaza seized the world’s attention. Many of the “marquee” countries of Western Europe that Netanyahu had hoped to vote against Palestine statehood, like France, instead lined up behind Abbas. Others, including Britain, abstained, after seeking assurances that Palestine will not to go the ICC, or that negotiations with Israel will resume. Abbas has already promised the latter. Thursday morning brought news that Israel had lost Germany, a stalwart ally in the wake of the Holocaust, to the abstention column.Much more at http://world.time.com/2012/11/29/why-palestine-will-win-big-at-the-un/
?iid=gs-main-lead]
I despise our attitude and actions toward Israel's occupation and war crimes; I hope they DO take Israel to court and that the strength of world opinion has some effect on changing the U.S. stance. Hey, I can hope...

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To describe your post, do you prefer being called "ANTISEMITE" or "SELF-HATING JEW"?


Original thread
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=53648

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Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

Palestine has always BEEN a state, a nation, what have you, since at least 500BC fer cryin out loud -


-Frem

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Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

Palestine has always BEEN a state, a nation, what have you, since at least 500BC fer cryin out loud - all this does is force the world to freakin ADMIT it.

It's an old, old, would-be-conquerers trick to claim the ground you want as yours and declare the native people to be squatters, we did it ourselves to the native americans, it was bullshit all the way back through history and it's bullshit now.

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Originally posted by Niki2:


NewOld, in my opinion there should be no question that the original inhabitants have rights. But in my opinion it's also irrelevant, since every conquering nation has ignored that, from our Native Americans to the Aborigines Down Under to the Palestinians to every other native culture I can think of. It is, as Frem said, a sad but real fact which will probably never change, in this case until enough power comes in to demand they be given their rights, which I also doubt seeing happen, since we're the major power in the situation. I can't envision America ever becoming truly even-handed about the issue, sadly.

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but you make the Jewish case pretty well: they were there FIRST, in 500 BC, so they have some rights.

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And they're there NOW, by might, force of arms, settlement, and conquest. So they have some pretty good rights from that.

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Whatever happened in between, good or bad; in 70AD; or 642; or 1948; or 1956; or 1967; or 1973; in Germany or Auschwitz or in the Lebanon war or the attacks on Gaza; is not relevant.

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