Obama declines veto re UN resolution on settlements

I have to add another of Mr. Meron's legal opinions. In this one, written in 1968, he advised the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs that "blasting of homes and deportation to the East Bank contravene the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War." Do read the whole thing (again, it is not particularly long), but here is a snippet:



Poor Mr. Meron. He did his best. But the Israeli government chose to ignore him.

Well, c.e., I think at this point I can conclude that no matter what I give you, you will keep googling for somebody's opinions somewhere that agree with what you want to think.   I could be here until the Rapture, assuming this isn't it, shooting down random quotes you pull out of articles.   And frankly, based on your posts, it doesn't even appear you're bothering to read any of my cites, much less think about them, before you dive back into google.

So you know what? I'm done. I've wasted way too much time already.  Think what you like.  Think that the UN, the International Court of Justice, the United States' current and past presidents, and the entire rest of the world, including Israel's foreign ministry's own legal adviser, is wrong and biased and inexplicably has had it in for poor Israel since 1967, and that Israel's own former chief justice of its Supreme Court is wrong about Israel being an occupying power and the West Bank being occupied territory and foolishly incorporated his mistaken belief into decisions.  

I will not waste another minute on it.


ETA:

OK, I'll waste another minute, just to explain why this discussion is futile and pointless. 

As I've pointed out at length, for the last 50 years, the UN, international Court of Justice and leaders of nations around the world have concurred in condemning the settlements as against international law.  So have legal authorities around the world, quite overwhelmingly.

I submit that if the concept of international law  is agreed to exist at all, the fact the world's leaders and international bodies overwhelmingly agree the settlements are against international law pretty much makes it so.

It seems to be your position that the mere existence of a handful of journal articles arguing the settlements can be justified outweighs all of that.

It doesn't.  

Yes, I concede those journal articles exist.  I disagree with their conclusions.  More to the point, the entire international community disagrees with them, and has done so consistently for fifty years, as have a buttload of legal experts, including Israel's own legal adviser (he's not "my" Mr Meron, he's Israel's Mr. Meron) and a ton of legal scholars every bit as prominent as Rostow. 

But my throwing out cites demonstrating it is so and disputing the arguments in those articles and throwing out International Court of Justice decisions to the contrary, etc., would just bounce off you because the fact that the articles exist is enough for you.

So it's a colossal waste of time, as far as I can see.  

I can't even regard it as a fun academic debate over the history and application of the Geneva convention and the international consensus that Israel is violating it because the goal posts keep shifting in order to support your ultimate conclusion that "these articles arguing otherwise exist; therefore, whatever the weight of opinion, law, and facts opposing the arguments contained within them, Obama and the international community behaved shamefully in not accepting those arguments."  

And I think that argument is ridiculous on its face.

No one here is an anti-Semite and you are not a brave iconoclast staking out an unpopular position for great truth and justice. You are taking an extremely polarized position, which you are certainly entitled to do, but those of us who see the issue as not quite so black and white have done our best to present our reasoning and counterarguments to yours. The problem is, as far as I can tell, you don't actually present your reasoning and I am, seriously, not convinced that you arrived at your position through a process of examination, but rather by picking the side that fits your political alignment and then looking for justifications, presented by people on that side, to bolster your position.

Which has resulted in this entire thread reading like, well, those of us on the "anti-Israeli" side (though I would hardly call myself that, and I doubt Cass or anyone else would either) actually arguing and reasoning through things, while you... basically Google up something written by neocons or the Israelis themselves using whatever keywords we used in our last post, and say "This is what I think!"

Argumentum ad Google may not be a formal logical fallacy, but it is very annoying to feel like you're debating a search bar - hence, I'm done too.

ETA: "I don't have enough time to go into this more deeply" is also a rather annoying thing to keep throwing in there. Like, the rest of us are just so full of leisure time but your life is unspeakably busy? It's perfectly fine to say "I'll get back to this, I'm really busy right now," but please stop implying that the only reason you can't respond in as much detail as everyone else is because you don't have time and it's mean for us to expect you to.


And yes, I realize you may feel a little beat up here. Sometimes one person does take an unpopular position in a thread and feels ganged up on, but y'know, maybe you're right and everyone else is wrong, or maybe you might think about why everyone else disagrees with you. Shrug.

My strategy was not to make you stop debating, and I hope you don't. But it has been frustrating, because again, all you're doing is saying "Look, lots of people agree with me." Well, yes, that's not in doubt. But no one here really cares what a majority of Congress thinks - that may be interesting in a political sense, but do you expect us to accept a particular point of view as more legitimate because 342 members of Congress voted for it? Do you think I couldn't find an issue where just as many voted for something you strongly disagree with? I want to know what you think and why.

For what it is worth, I am not anti-Israel. As a matter of fact, once upon a time, before law school, I held a position not unlike Vince's on the settlement issue (i.e., that the issue was complicated, but the Palestinians were throwing rocks and  and Israel was our ally, so I was team Israel and hey, what was so bad about civilian settlements anyway). I changed my position gradually as I learned more about the history and applicable international law, discussed the issue with experts, did research for articles about it, etc.   I am still not anti-Israel, but I am convinced that they are wrong and have always been wrong on the settlement issue, and moreover, that they've known that and proceeded to push the settlements anyway. I still think the Palestinians who engage in violence are wrong. And I still have no desire to push Israel into the sea, and still think we should be their ally.  But that doesn't make Israel right on this issue.

Also for what it is worth, I did not become more liberal during the time period where my view shifted on this issue -- rather the reverse, in fact. By and large, I entered law school very far to the left, and emerged center left overall. I remain left on some issues, more conservative on others. Again, that was the result of expanding my knowledge and thinking on individual issues. It should be damn apparent to anyone following my posts that I don't hew to party lines and loyalties.  This issue is no exception.

C.e., my problem with your arguments in this thread is not that you disagree with me, nor that you're pro-settlement or pro-Israel.  (You might notice that I don't agree with Rob, either, when it comes to the one-state versus two-state solution. )  My problem is with your argument technique. Also, that you've accused the rest of us of fallacious arguing when, in my opinion, it is you who have engaged in it -- e.g., as I explain below, by moving the goalposts:
You started with a very extreme opinion that Obama behaved shamefully and spitefully in not vetoing. That's not a simple opinion that he should have vetoed -- that's an opinion that his action was committed in bad faith, taken not out of a belief Israel's settlement policy was not justified, but rather done to get petty revenge on Trump and Netanyahu.   You're of course welcome to hold and argue such an opinion.  However, you cannot claim persecution when other members demand you back it up.

A couple of us asked you to give your reasons for that opinion. At that point in time, you stated that " I'm not sure exactly what I think about the settlements at this point," but that "the Jewish people have a longer history there" and you didn't think the settlements were the main issue preventing peace. We countered all of those points: e.g., that Israel was a modern state formed and created by modern law, that it had been 1500 years since Jews had a major population in the area before that and that the archaeological record was irrelevant. We conceded that the settlements weren't the only thing preventing peace, but noted that there was pretty much universal agreement that peace could not be achieved while Israel continued with the policy.   And we cited numerous sources demonstrating that this action was not out of the blue, as you claimed -- the U.S. has consistently condemned Israel's settlements since 1967, and the possibility of Obama abstaining from a veto should such a resolution arise was discussed (and mentioned in publicly available articles) since at least 2010.

You didn't acknowledge and answer our counters to your points. Instead, you switched tack and began posting opinions from others containing new points -- the mainstream media was biased and nothing they said on Israel could be trusted (thus dismissing and discrediting in advance any articles we might cite), and that the settlements could be legally justified (when you'd originally stated that you hadn't formed an opinion on this and in any case, didn't "think it was the main issue"). Note that the legality arguments put forth in the opinion pieces you cited were, by your own statement, not part of the original basis for your opinion -- they were new arguments you put forward after we countered your initial ones.  

I started to get impatient here because, while I do have the knowledge and ability to counter the arguments in the articles, they were not only new to the argument (and clearly had not formed part of the basis for your original opinion), hence moving the goalposts, but you were advancing them without even fully embracing them -- it was more like "here, this person thinks this.  Counter it."    It is quite different to say "a, b, and c are the basis for my opinion" than it is to give an opinion, than, after others have addressed your alleged basis for it, drag up a whole bunch of opinion pieces and say "here are some people with opinions on the same general side as mine. And, look, they have all kinds of other reasons for it.  Address those, if you can!" This is especially the case when you hadn't even embraced the articles as the basis for your opinion -- meaning even if I took on answering every point in the articles, you still had plenty of room to come back with new opinion articles containing still more new reasons and points to address.  

I finally got you to state affirmatively that your argument that the settlements were legal was based on the 1967 war with Jordan -- that as a result, Israel had better title to the West Bank than Jordan. Having now a solid point to address, I spent literally freaking hours addressing it and pulling up original source documents so I wouldn't be citing "biased" mainstream media. (It's really easy to google opinion articles and post them. Individually addressing and answering points takes a lot more time and effort.)

You didn't really acknowledge anything I said. Indeed, from your reference to still needing to read the letters from "my" Mr. Meron (the one thing I urged you to read, if you read nothing else), I'm left feeling that you didn't read anything I'd pulled up for you. Instead, you turned to google again and came back with NEW opinion articles with NEW points -- e.g., that whatever Israeli's legal adviser and Supreme Court justices said, whatever the world thought, the West Bank wasn't really occupied territory.

Could I address all of your new points? Yes, I could, if I want to invest the time. But I could not see the point.  This was now at least the second time you'd moved the goalposts, and it was pretty bloody apparent that if I spent another couple of hours addressing those points, all you'd do in response was turn to your search bar again. It was a frustrating, infuriating, time-consuming, and obviously futile exercise for me.    

How to argue: State your opinion. State your reasons for having formed that opinion. If appropriate, cite sources backing up the facts that support those reasons. As your argument opponents address those facts and reasons, acknowledge and answer them.  Also, don't push forward other people's opinions as your arguments unless you've fully understood and embraced those opinions as your own.  (Can you honestly say you did that with the legal arguments you cited?  It did not look that way to me.  It looked like you were saying "Here, some smart people from Yale and Harvard think this.  Counter their arguments.")

How not to argue: Failing to acknowledge when your argument opponents have countered your argument, instead dredging up opinion pieces containing arguments that clearly were not part of forming the basis for your original opinion, and demanding they address those. And then, when they do, dredging up still more opinion pieces containing still more reasons.

And again (since I seem to need to say this repeatedly), I am saying all of this not as a mod, but as a member who found this thread incredibly frustrating.
 You can go ahead and use those argument techniques if you want -- I am not forbidding you from doing so -- but if you do, others will call you on it.

Then there's this: www.cnn.com/2017/01/08/middleeast/jerusalem-vehicle-attack/index.html