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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2016 9:57:56 GMT -5
U.S. declines to veto U.N. Security Council resolution for Israel to stop Jewish settlement And I say "hurray." The settlements are wrong. And they are a source of tremendous resentment in the middle east -- both against Israel and against the U.S. for backing them. Ally or no, we should not be supporting the settlements. There's never going to be a shot at peace or anything like it until Israel agrees to work on a two-state solution. Supporting and helping defend Israel against its enemies is one thing. Supporting them in these settlements is another. I've thought so for a very long time and I'm happy Obama took a stand.
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Post by robeiae on Dec 24, 2016 13:41:48 GMT -5
I agree, they are wrong. And I think abstaining was a good move.
But let's not kid ourselves: there's not going to be two-state solution as long as the other countries in the Middle East can get good mileage out of the situation. They're not interested in this ever going away, short of Israel ceasing to exist. Imo.
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Post by celawson on Dec 24, 2016 14:21:49 GMT -5
Abstaining was a terrible move - a de facto yes vote that hung Israel up to dry. The UN has been biased against Israel for ages, and this resolution is the same. The nerve and hypocrisy of Russia and China to lecture/punish Israel on settlements, for Pete's sake. And nothing about Palestine at all. When decades of US policy has been to veto these sorts of biased attack against Israel resolutions, for Obama to change course at this late date, despite a vast majority of Congress urging veto (including Democrats ) looks like spite against Netanyahu and against Trump. It was a harmful thing to do to Israel, our closest ally in the ME.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2016 15:19:42 GMT -5
Abstaining was a terrible move - a de facto yes vote that hung Israel up to dry. The UN has been biased against Israel for ages, and this resolution is the same. The nerve and hypocrisy of Russia and China to lecture/punish Israel on settlements, for Pete's sake. And nothing about Palestine at all. When decades of US policy has been to veto these sorts of biased attack against Israel resolutions, for Obama to change course at this late date, despite a vast majority of Congress urging veto (including Democrats ) looks like spite against Netanyahu and against Trump. It was a harmful thing to do to Israel, our closest ally in the ME. Whatever the case with the UN, Russia, China, etc. -- The settlements are indefensible, IMO. We should not defend them. I don't believe in supporting indefensible actions simply because an ally commits them. Israel has been wrong on this for a very long time. If anything, I think we're long overdue saying so.
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Post by Vince524 on Dec 24, 2016 16:09:38 GMT -5
Well, one thing is sure, this pretty much cements the conclusion held by many that Obama was not a friend of Israel.
It also should be noted that this was done after the election, before the new administration comes in. Had Clinton won, she could have simply stayed silent. There will be no political price for Obama as he's nearly out of office.
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Post by Vince524 on Dec 24, 2016 16:13:18 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2016 16:15:45 GMT -5
I fully approve. Write me down as spiteful, if you must. I've held this opinion since long before Trump was in the picture.
If a friend of mine did a shitty thing, I wouldn't defend him simply because he was a friend. The most I'd do is shut up. Despise me if you must.
I agree with Rob it won't bring peace on its own -- it's just not that simple. But it's the right thing to do, and it's a start.
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Post by Amadan on Dec 26, 2016 11:46:09 GMT -5
I have to agree with ohio this time. I am really sick of our kowtowing to the Israeli lobby. The Israelis serve a useful purpose in the Middle East, and that's only reason we should give them a dime - not because we owe them, or because it's a moral imperative.
I have little or no sympathy for the Palestinians, less for the rest of the Arab world, but it's a mess we largely wouldn't be entangled in if not for Israel.
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Post by celawson on Dec 26, 2016 14:03:29 GMT -5
Our friendship and support of Israel goes much beyond them being "useful". Our countries share deeply held values of democracy and freedom. The influence of the Jewish culture and faith goes back to our Founding Fathers. Heck, Hebrew was compulsory at Harvard until 1787. There absolutely IS a moral imperative to support Israel beyond the strategic.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2016 14:25:23 GMT -5
Our friendship and support of Israel goes much beyond them being "useful". Our countries share deeply held values of democracy and freedom. The influence of the Jewish culture and faith goes back to our Founding Fathers. Heck, Hebrew was compulsory at Harvard until 1787. There absolutely IS a moral imperative to support Israel beyond the strategic. I reject the idea that there is any moral imperative to defend our allies' wrong acts. If my brother assaulted someone, he would continue to be my brother, but I would not condone the assault because my brother committed it. And I would believe that it was appropriate for him to pay the penalty for his wrong act. If he stole, I would not think he should get to keep his ill-gotten gains.
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Post by celawson on Dec 26, 2016 14:58:56 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2016 15:09:58 GMT -5
c.e., two questions (and they are separate questions):
do you believe Israel is in the right with regard to the settlement issue?
do you believe the U.S. should support whatever its allies do, regardless of whether their actions are right or wrong?
eta:
I have to belatedly add this for those who don't know it -- I DESPISE Alan Dershowitz. I think c.e. was joking when she referred to him as my favorite law professor, since I've ripped into him more than once.
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Post by Amadan on Dec 26, 2016 15:24:40 GMT -5
Our friendship and support of Israel goes much beyond them being "useful". Our countries share deeply held values of democracy and freedom. The influence of the Jewish culture and faith goes back to our Founding Fathers. Heck, Hebrew was compulsory at Harvard until 1787. There absolutely IS a moral imperative to support Israel beyond the strategic. Israel is not Judaism. Defending Israel and defending Jews is not the same thing. That is a myth that has been pushed on us for decades, and it's about time we start pushing back. Israelis are some of the most secular Jews around. And democracy and shared Western values or not, the country is a festering sore in Middle East politics. If you support massive political and economic investment in Israel just because they are Jews surrounded by Arabs, you are essentially admitting that it's a culture war WE have declared against the Arab world. That being said, sure, I agree criticism of Israel is disproportionate. My honest opinion is "Fuck the Israelis and the Palestinians both- there are no good guys there." But Israel is where our money is going.
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Post by robeiae on Dec 27, 2016 8:59:42 GMT -5
I got into an argument with my ex-father-in-law at Christmas dinner. He asked me what I thought about the US not vetoing the resolution and I told him that I understand why the US did it, that Israel needed to cut it out with the settlements. This peeved him greatly, as he assumed I was the one person at the table who would side with him on this issue. Interestingly, my ex's brother is actually Jewish--converted for his wife--and his wife's mother is from Israel, but they don't like the settlements at all (their opinions on most everything track pretty good with the expected "liberal" side). My ex-father-in-law assumed that I would be the lone person at the table who would agree with him, would have the correct "conservative" opinion.
His argument of why I should be aghast at the Obama Admin was simple: Israel is our friend. Per opinions above, I told him that wrong is still wrong. And the Israeli government knows that these settlements are pushing buttons; that's why they're allowed.
But I agree with Amadan: criticism of Israel is disproportionate, note only as compared to the Palestinians and other Middle East states, but also as compared to actions by other states in the world at large. Imo, there remains a shit-ton of antisemitism in the UN and it's not limited to the Arabian states (or Islamic states) at all.
And I really don't care for the certainty of the "two state solution." Imo, this is Israel's call. If Israel wants to permanently surrender a chunk of its territory for an independent Palestinian state, okay. If it decides to absorb the disputed territories--which is what it should do, imo--that's okay, too. But it needs to make the call and let the chips fall where they may.
And in that regard, it is also my opinion that if Israel agrees to a two-state solution, no matter what the terms are in that regard they won't be enough. Some elements in Palestine--egged on by groups in neighboring states and around the world--would keep fighting. The game would just shift to new regions of Israel. Because those groups want 1) the conflict to continue so they can use it, 2) want to see Israel destroyed, or 3) both.
Short version: Israel is wrong, UN is more wrong.
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Post by celawson on Dec 27, 2016 13:13:22 GMT -5
Re: Cassandra's question -- I'm not sure exactly what I think about the settlements at this point. The history of the land there is so complicated. And the Jewish people have a longer history there. But I honestly do not believe the settlements are the main issue preventing peace, as Dershowitz explained in the link I provided. Also, why the heavy international hand towards Israel, when they are settling on a tiny portion of the land, where their citizens are living peacefully? And why does the U.N. have to stick its hypocritical hand into this business? As the U.S. and even Obama believed until this surprise spiteful move, Israel and the Palestinians should be able to negotiate their own peace without the U.N. forcing a hand one way or the other, especially a hand as biased as the U.N. has been towards Israel.
The point I'm trying to make is that I don't think the main issue is "Are the settlements wrong?" The main issue is "Was this the correct move for the U.S.?" And I strongly believe it was an incorrect move for a host of reasons. International diplomacy is not black and white - there are things such as loyalty, possible repercussions, long-standing friendship, values, morality, fairness, strategy, that we should take into account when issuing a decree such as this. The ownership of the land should not be determined by the UN, but by agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. And if one looks at the record of the UN towards Israel, one can easily see a toxic bias and a favoritism to Arab nations which is indefensible and flabbergasting to me, considering the human rights record of these other countries. At a time when the war in Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of, to take the time and the international stage to punish the country with the best human rights record in the ME is absurd and the U.S. SHOULD NOT STAND FOR IT. Obama has a terrible foreign policy record, and this has added exponentially to the wrongness of it. To me, it demonstrates a spitefulness of Obama towards Netanyahu, towards Israel, and even Trump. And that's shameful.
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