The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to grant Palestine status as a nonmember observer state, with basically everyone but Israel and her client state the US voting in favor:
More than 130 countries voted on Thursday to grant Palestine the upgraded status of nonmember observer state in the United Nations, a stinging defeat for Israel and the United States and a boost for President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, who was weakened by the recent eight days of fighting in Gaza.
The new ranking could make it easier for the Palestinians to pursue Israel in international legal forums, but it remained unclear what effect it would have on attaining what both sides say they want — a two-state solution.
Still, the vote offered a showcase for an extraordinary international lineup of support for the Palestinians and constituted a deeply symbolic achievement for their cause, made even weightier by arriving on the 65th anniversary of the General Assembly vote that divided the former British Mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and the other Arab — a vote that Israel considers the international seal of approval for its birth.
But what does it really mean? Isn’t there a Security Council vote related to this, which we will undoubtedly veto? Not to go all Slate contrarian on you, but my guess is this vote means everything and nothing at the same time.
JPL
Brian Williams hasn’t mentioned it yet so it didn’t happen.
Baud
It means John McCain will be on the TV all weekend blaming our UN ambassador for this result.
kindness
It means foaming at the mouth conservatives will be able to blame the Kenyan So$hulist for one more thing. God I dread listening to NPR on my way home. Oh wait….I have an ipod in the car. I’m saved Thank God!
Voncey
There’s no vote in the Security Council on this. The Palestinians now have observer status and with this they can become members of other UN bodies, the thinking goes. But I think US law prohibits funding to any UN body that grants full membership to the P.A. — that happened last year when UNESCO admitted the PA and the US cut off funding.
ranchandsyrup
It is the next step in the evilest plan of all time, The UN Amendment 21. First you recognize Palestine, then you take away the guns, then you send people to FEMA camp, then you get teh wimmens.
Zifnab25
Well, first and foremost it means the international community is abandoning Israel. Ten years ago, Israel could make some kind of claim amounting to “Giving Palestine further recognition while they fail to recognize Israel is only going to make our negotiations with them harder. Just stay out of it while we handle diplomacy with our neighbor.”
But Israel tipped its hand and it is now abundantly clear that it doesn’t actually want to engage in diplomacy. And the way its been pissing off virtually every other country that tries to step in on Palestine’s behalf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip – who haven’t they stepped on with this stupid blockade?) has killed international support.
Israel’s only friend right now is the US, and Bibi seems hell-bent on pissing that away however he can.
rikyrah
I don’t know what it means…but, it’s a big deal.
yopd1
“Client State” Seriously?
Schlemizel
It means Israel is further isolated and the Us looks more and more foolish for standing with them against Palestine and the entire rest of the world.
It lends some small legitimacy to the PA and will be used to highlight Israels continued violation of UN resolutions
Keith
@Baud: Good news!
BGinCHI
It means Israel is acting like a huge dick.
SatanicPanic
Whatever it is, it’s Obama’s fault. And the biggest defeat the US has suffered in its entire history, except that time when the South lost.
Forum Transmitted Disease
How embarrassing. How fucking humiliating that we bend over backwards for a nation that does nothing but slaughter innocents, our own troops, our own citizens, and gives us nothing – but quite happily pockets 3 billion a year out of the paychecks of all of us.
the Conster
It’s all lining up to prove the Mayans were right.
Cassidy
What does it mean? Next time Israel says fuck it and s; slaughters everyone.
redshirt
This is even worse than Benghazi, which was the worst thing ever, until today.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@yopd1: Do you have a better term for a nation that does what it’s told to by another no matter the circumstances? I don’t.
Steve Crickmore
According to Juan Cole, the influential progressive policy expert on the middle east, the vote, among other things, means that the confidence scam that Israel and the United States have been running on the Palestinians, of a “peace process,” is finally about to meet a well-deserved demise.
yopd1
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Most Israeli aid actually goes to US companies. Now you can argue whether those companies should get that money, but saying they give us nothing is BS.
Also, PCs, cellphones, the two of the drugs I take for Parkinson’s, among a host of other things are dependent on innovations made in Israel. But keep up that canard, because we get back so much more by the money we spend in Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Korea and Germany.
Cermet
@Forum Transmitted Disease: But without israel how can there be the anti Jesus zealots
rupturerapture for all the money whor’s that any sane God would just damn. Lucky for those dumb fucker’s they are the only fools that believe that utter stupid shit in therevulsionI mean the so-called revelation.JohnK
It is something for John McCain to explain this Sunday.
yopd1
@Forum Transmitted Disease: You do realize that the term’s most recent use was by the ex-Prime Minister of Israel, Olmert, who supported the UN vote.
Cassidy
Wouldn’t mind seeing a cite for that. Link please?
redshirt
@JohnK: So excited for Johnny Mac Sundays. What channel will he be on this weekend?
DPS
@yopd1:
This is not an answer to FTD’s question.
dollared
@yopd1: link please.
Mike in NC
@redshirt:
As Sarah Palin once said, “All of them”.
Joe Buck
The Security Council has no veto with respect to this vote.
Palestine now has the same status at the UN as the Vatican has. And it makes them eligible for membership in the International Criminal Court, which leads to some interesting possibilities.
some guy
what this means is the Palestinian Authority can now apply for membership with the International Court of Justice at the Hague.
and the long and detailed backlog of war criminal indictments can begin.
The Other Bob
@yopd1:
PC’s and cellphones you say? Well hot damn, Its all worth it. Now I really want those Muslims defeated.
Richard
With every passing year, Israel travels further and further down a dark path that is looking increasingly and sadly familiar. One wonders when they’ll be reaching a point when they’ll be talking about the final solution of the Palestinian question.
Maude
Canada voted against.
yopd1
@Cassidy: They pretty much receive only military aid grants now in the form of FMF.
Cassidy
@Richard: What makes you think they haven’t?
some guy
he’s referring (I think) to the patents held by Modu, the bankrupt Israeli firm Google bought patents from in 2011. Google paid the whopping sum of $4.9 million for 12 patents.
yopd1
@The Other Bob: Way to ignore the rest of what I said. Also, the idea that Israel politics are universally what AIPAC and Christian Conservatives says is naive at best.
Schlemizel
@yopd1:
Comparing the money we piss away in Israel with the money we piss away on the two useless wars Boy blunder stuck us with is hardly useful.
I wonder if that money spent here on research could have returned the same results for even less dollars
NeoOstrakon
The two state solution is running out of time both demographically and geographically (settlements). The world has backed Israel for decades and a deal has not gotten done, both sides to blame and all that. This does alter the playing field if for no other reason it means the world is passing Israel and moving forward. Hopefully it will put some pressure on for a lasting deal.
yopd1
@DPS: Yes, Obama is so beholden to Netanyahu. It’s an idiotic statement, so it didn’t deserve an answer.
yopd1
@DPS: Yes, Obama is so beholden to Netanyahu. It’s an idiotic statement, so it didn’t deserve an answer.
some guy
anybody who doesn’t get the overt irony of the posed question “who is the client, here?” is being willfully obtuse.
Cassidy
@yopd1: If I understand correctly, we give the money to Israel, then they buy stuff from US manufacturers? That’s not quite the same thing you said.
MikeJake
That sounds more like something Tom Friedman would say.
Spike
Susan Rice’s statement after the vote was heavy on the butt-hurt. US policy is embarrassing.
Mandalay
@yopd1:
Your argument is bogus: money given to Israel can be poorly spent, regardless of whether we get more or less value in other places such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
yopd1
Do you all really believe Israeli’s think of the US as a client state? Sorry, it smacks of the same thinking as the Jews run the media.
Do I agree with everything the Israeli gov’t does, hell no. But what purpose or good does it serve to make statements like that?
General Stuck
The US gives money to all sorts of states for military uses and everything else under the sun. Is Egypt a US client state? If so, much of the world is.
Anyways, I have no clue what this means, but am for it because it could give the Palestinians a sense of self as in a people, or statehood. I have nothing else to say on this topic, as in, being a toxic brew nothing good can arise from on a liberal blog.
yopd1
@Mandalay: Read what I was responding to
yopd1
@General Stuck: He called the US a client state of Israel. That’s what I took issue with.
Mandalay
@Maude:
Here is the full list of those countries who voted against the Palestinians:
Canada
Czech Republic
Israel
U.S.
Panama
The Marshall Islands
Palau
Nauru
Micronesia
I suspect all those dots in the Pacific Ocean were afraid of finding a horse’s head on their bed rather than having any real opposition to the Palestinian cause.
MikeJake
I’m not unsympathetic to Israel’s position on the Palestinians, but this sends another message that the international commmunity is unhappy with the grotesque status quo that’s developed. Something has to be done with those people other than walling them up and trying to pretend they don’t exist.
Schlemizel
@yopd1:
So aid to Israel is just a giant fucking welfare program? Wouldn’t it be simpler to toss money out of an airplane flying over major US cities?
General Stuck
@yopd1:
Yes, I know. It is hard to tell what Cole means from one minute to the next. But he likes being in the cool crowd, so they won’t barrage him with nasty emails. The cool crowd on the left, on the blogs, is more a death to Israel crowd than anything else.
Me, well, I’m like you, a fly in the tribal ointment.
Schlemizel
No, from the way these two behave I think the US is a client state of Israel.
I suppose I could be more specific and say a client state of the Likud party but really at the present time & for the last at least 20 years thats the same thing
some guy
what our friend is dancing around is that we give the apartheid regime a few billion a year, and our Congress gives them a 100% Free pass on any and all egregious behaviour they engage in.
war Crimes, Land Thefts, Ethnic Cleansing? It’s all good, and to even question their military hegemony or their nuclear arsenal is heresy.
yopd1
@Schlemizel: Corporate Welfare. Neither side gets rid of that.
Mandalay
@yopd1:
I did. You were responding to this:
I think that summarizes the situation beautifully.
But that had nothing to do with the false equivalence that you fabricated.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Hmm – let’s dig down a bit
ICC – http://untreaty.un.org/cod/icc/statute/99_corr/cstatute.htm
—-
Article 12
Preconditions to the exercise of jurisdiction
1. A State which becomes a Party to this Statute thereby accepts the jurisdiction of the Court with respect to the crimes referred to in article 5.
2. In the case of article 13, paragraph (a) or (c), the Court may exercise its jurisdiction if one or more of the following States are Parties to this Statute or have accepted the jurisdiction of the Court in accordance with paragraph 3:
(a) The State on the territory of which the conduct in question occurred or, if the crime was committed on board a vessel or aircraft, the State of registration of that vessel or aircraft;
(b) The State of which the person accused of the crime is a national.
3. If the acceptance of a State which is not a Party to this Statute is required under paragraph 2, that State may, by declaration lodged with the Registrar, accept the exercise of jurisdiction by the Court with respect to the crime in question. The accepting State shall cooperate with the Court without any delay or exception in accordance with Part 9.
Article 13
Exercise of jurisdiction
The Court may exercise its jurisdiction with respect to a crime referred to in article 5 in accordance with the provisions of this Statute if:
(a) A situation in which one or more of such crimes appears to have been committed is referred to the Prosecutor by a State Party in accordance with article 14;
(b) A situation in which one or more of such crimes appears to have been committed is referred to the Prosecutor by the Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations; or
(c) The Prosecutor has initiated an investigation in respect of such a crime in accordance with article 15.
—-
I don’t have a clue as regards the finest points of international law, but if “Palestine” has official recognition as a nonmember observer state, doesn’t that mean it can indeed sign up to these treaties, thus becoming a State Party able to bring prosecutions to the court for acts committed on its territory – the “problem” the UK was worried about?
Schlemizel
@General Stuck:
different things – we give money that ends up supporting the defense companies here but there are very few countries we subvert out foreign polity for.
Sure Egypt gets millions which it uses to buy F-18s but Egypt is not allowed to fuck over anyone it wants with our full support and assistance
yopd1
@some guy:
Can’t argue with that, I’m done.
Full Metal Wingnut
I don’t know jack shit about the UN (other than the fact that I HATE it because Rick Santorum told me to), but how is the Security Council implicated in this type of thing?
Schlemizel
@General Stuck:
Only one real response to that. As a leftist I am reduced to the only logical response to that twisted interpretation: fuck you.
Schlemizel
@yopd1:
so that makes it OK, right?
ranchandsyrup
@Mandalay: coalition of the unwilling!
The Other Bob
@yopd1:
Isreal does not equal Jews. Nice try ass.
General Stuck
@Schlemizel:
Not sure who “anyone” is, but for sure they are locked in a death spiral with Hamas and its ilk. Get Hamas to quit trying to kill Jews, then we can talk. Otherwise, I will politely state my disagreement with your viewpoint. And hopefully leave it at that.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Maude: Someone knows what side their bread is buttered on! I knew those people were good for something!
General Stuck
@Schlemizel:
Right back atcha, tough guy.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Schlemizel:
So aid to Israel is just a giant fucking welfare program? Wouldn’t it be simpler to toss money out of an airplane flying over major US cities?
If you did that, the money wouldn’t go to the right people (such as shareholders in large defense companies).
Just Some Fuckhead
What does this have to do with the Benghazi scandal?
Full Metal Wingnut
@yopd1: Various wars notwithstanding, Israel was once a very left country. People don’t see that because of the stranglehold of the Likud past…while.
Lurking Canadian
@Mandalay: As any reader of Chomsky knows, Israel routinely loses votes about Palestine in the General Assembly by scores of >150 to 3. The third was traditionally Micronesia.
So this nine is actually a good score for them on a historical scale.
Pinkamena Panic
Oh good, the idiotic headbutting has begun. Now comes the fun* part.
(For values of “fun” encompassing but not limited to “not fun whatsoever”)
A moocher
@General Stuck: No it isn’t.
Suffern ACE
So who gets to send the representatives to the UN? The impotent and corrupt faction? Or the murderers who sometimes do charity?
A moocher
@Schlemizel: Fuck him twice. Thanks for saying it first.
Calouste
@Mandalay:
For the dots in the Pacific, their UN vote (and diplomatic recognition and such) is a major export product. Countries like Israel and Taiwan are handing over serious coin for that.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Lurking Canadian: Is Canada generally one of those countries? Is that because off US pressure or do they have their equivalent of AIPAC up there? I read a book on the history of the conflict a while back by a guy named Edward Tessler-very thorough and balanced (or, as Fox would say, anti-Semitic because its not blatantly pro-Israel). But I don’t remember much of anything on Canada.
A moocher
@General Stuck: Get Israel to quit expropriating the West Bank by stealth and then we can talk. Israel does not have a fucking leg to stand on, and the vast majority of the world is coming to recognise that. Israelis need to smarten the fuck up, and cut a deal while they still can. The constant whining about how the evil jihadists live to kill jews….nobody is buying that bullshit anymore…except the USA, and I deeply regret to add, Canada.
Villago Delenda Est
@Full Metal Wingnut:
Well, not so much the stranglehold of the Likud as much as the pure crazy that allows tiny whackaloon religious parties to have veto power over who gets to runt he government.
Oh, and there are Israelis who, without the slightest blush, think an Endlösung to the “Palestinian Question” is what is needed.
A moocher
@Full Metal Wingnut: The cultural residue of sympathy for Israel, the natural consequence of WW2, is strong here, and the anti musim propaganda also relentless and effective. The fundy obsession is also a factor, but perhaps less so than in the US. The biggest factor is internal politics…there are a handful of ridings, in Toronto and Montreal, primarily that have significant Jewish populations, enough to be decisive as between the Conservative’s and the Liberals or the NDP. I have friends and relatives for whom that issue would be decisive, who care in fact about little else. They, and Israel, are in for a rude awakening, I am afraid, unless Israel comes to its senses.
Lurking Canadian
@Full Metal Wingnut: There is a strong pro-Israeli sentiment. Criticism of Israel is denounced, but not immediately fatal, the way it is for (or at least is treated by) US Congressmen. A recent Liberal Party leader actually referred to an Israeli action as a “war crime”. He walked it back, but it’s hard to imagine somebody like Obama or Pelosi sayin that in the shower, much less to a microphone.
Our diplomatic stance, I think, has traditionally aligned with the Western Europeans, so we were not generally one of the yes votes. Harper, however, has never met a war he wasn’t for. As long as the US and Israel promise to keep stomping the ragheads in the face, he’ll support them. I think Canadian troops would have been in Iraq, if that fiasco had happened on his watch.
General Stuck
@A moocher:
Hamas is not trying to kill Jews for religious or jihadist reasons. They are doing to win a war over land, via fairly standard insurgent guerilla tactics for a weaker force.
Attack with the weapons you have, and force the stronger force to over react and then get the media and idiots like you to feel sorry for them. And in this case, with an enemy that is a democracy, get the voters of your enemy to put in power their most violent fanatics to fight fire with fire.
It has nothing to do with settlements, or anything else. It is total victory or nothing to drive the state of Israel into the sea. No country is going to bargain under those circumstances, nor give up any leverage they have.
Now, is this the point where you call me a republican, or wingnut, or racist, or whatever.
Mandalay
@Calouste:
How does that handover actually work? Is this an overt thing (in the form of government aid, for example), or are brown envelopes being passed under the table?
And what is in it for the country handing over the money? Just what has Israel gained by securing Nauru’s vote today?
Full Metal Wingnut
@Lurking Canadian: fascinating. I will admit, that despite having family in Canada (gramps from Nova Scotia, others in New Brunswick) and despite having been a few times (Toronto and Montreal for pleasure, both lovely, NB and NS to visit family) all I know about you guys is that you have the queen on your money. I’d really like to rectify that. It’s a shame I didn’t learn jack shit about you guys other than…nothing.
chopper
@yopd1:
because there are no technological or medical innovations that come out of korea or germany. no sir.
Villago Delenda Est
@General Stuck:
OK, that’s a reasonable explanation.
Unlike the standard “we’re going to push the Jews into the sea!” that the supporters of the Apartheid State usually claim is the goal of those Palestinian Untermenschen.
A moocher
@General Stuck:you should check your first and third paragraphs, and perhaps you will detect, after long study, the blatant contradiction.
As for the “idiots like me”, let me say this about that: you are an untruther, a poltroon, and a poopy-head.
SW
Looks like they finally smoked us out.
Mandalay
@General Stuck:
I think you must have intended to write:
They are doing it to win a war over land taken from them.
I understand. Fog of war and all that.
A moocher
@Villago Delenda Est: which is what GS claims in his third paragraph…you shoulda kept reading.
Francis
Stipulating that Hamas is a bunch of terrorists, the Gaza Strip has a population of 1.6 million on a parcel of land approximately twice as long and twice as wide as Manhattan. Are these people solely Eygpt’s problem? Does the Israeli occupation / blockade possibly cause some of the terrorism about which Israel complains? (No, I don’t have missiles falling on my head. But I’m also not a citizen of a country that has worked so hard to raise a generation of terrorists who live immediately adjacent. We at least are ‘smart’ enough to raise them half a planet away.)
Anyway, now what? Who here sees a two-state solution in which Gaza and the West Bank get to form viable sovereign states? Who sees a one-state solution in which everyone has a vote? And who sees blockade continuing until such time as Eygpt has enough and allows serious heavy weapons to flow into Gaza and kick off a nasty war? And after that war, then what?
Full Metal Wingnut
@General Stuck: i see your point-what’s wrong with fighting with what you have/playing to your strengths? And furthermore, you cannot in good faith argue that the causality is unidirectional (ie Hamas et al are solely at fault and poor little Israel has no choice but to fire rockets into the West Bank)
I do get the argument, but the thing with guerrilla tactics and provocation generally-you don’t actually force people to do things. The Clinton scandals were bullshit, but no one made him lie under oath. 9/11 was al Qaeda’s fault, but no one made us respond the way we did, what with our two misguided wars-that’s on us.
? Martin
@some guy: Intel’s Core chipset was designed in Israel. Apple bought Anobit for half a billion – a fabless semiconductor company. Apple is actually expanding their presence in Israel above what Anobit had. There’s a lot of petty good tech going on in Israel – don’t discount them.
That said, the only thing our Israel support money goes to is buying US made bombs and shit. Worth it? I don’t think so. I doubt most people would think it was.
redshirt
I’m so sick of religions. Fair to say it’s the first or second reason for most of the world’s problems?
General Stuck
@Villago Delenda Est:
LOL, you got narrative. But left out “ethnic cleansing ” and ‘genocide’, that is always a nice touch for the debate.
dollared
@Mandalay: Out of all of those, we haven’t invaded Israel and the Czech Republic.
Ben Franklin
@General Stuck:
Your idiocy grows stronger with every post.
100 Palestinians die for every Israeli.
Mandalay
@redshirt:
Yes, religion is the second reason.
Those who have followed the Republican’s election campaign know that Obama is the primary reason for all of the world’s problems.
Villago Delenda Est
@General Stuck:
Israel has, unfortunately, proven Nietzsche was on to something with that battling the beast simile of his.
@A moocher:
Ayup, you’re right. There it is. He started out all fairly reasonable, and then he went all Likudnik stooge on us.
4tehlulz
inb4 Hamas rocket volley (that misses as usual)
Ben Franklin
@General Stuck:
As I’ve said. I think you would be much more comfortable at Pajama Pantload.
Villago Delenda Est
@? Martin:
Well, the executives of the MIC are pretty happy with it. Those sales mean that they don’t have to skimp on the booze, blow, and hookers.
RedKitten
@Full Metal Wingnut: I think a big part of it is that Harper is basically a frustrated neocon.
Lurking Canadian
@Francis: I’ve thought for some time that the only possible solution was for some non-aligned power, Denmark, say, or Brazil, or something, to announce that it was going to just annex the Occupied Territories. Henceforth, Gaza and West Bank are provinces of Denmark, and the inhabitants thereof have Danish citizenship with all the rights and privileges thereof.
If some asshole wants to launch a rocket at Israel from Gaza, the Danish national police track him down and try him for murder. No more problems due to overcrowding, water shortages an so on: anybody who wants to can move to mainland Denmark. No more Israeli embargoes, invasions, or settlements. They wouldn’t pick a fight with Denmark.
This has zero probability of happening, of course, but short of one side wiping out the other, I don’t see how else it ends.
General Stuck
@A moocher:
Very original. I salute your creative abilities. If there are any more questions, please put them in a letter to yourself.
@Villago Delenda Est:
“Likudnik stooge” That is so cool, you are the first to use that.
@A moocher:
I have no idea what you are talking about with this comment, I don’t see any contradiction in my comment . What I do see is normally normal BJ commenters go completely fucking stupid on the topic of Israel, like some kind of zombie rage virus.
General Stuck
@Ben Franklin:
I never pay any attention in what you say. Not even a tiny bit. Now take your meds and quit picking your nose. People will talk.
Suffern ACE
@Lurking Canadian: been tried with Lebanon and Jordan serving as Denmark. Ended badly. I think things went relatively better for all involved when the Ottomans had the area, but setting that up again is probably a non starter with the people’s to the west, north, south and east of Turkey.
Medicine Man
I suspect this means that the Israel-Palestine conflict will be played out in international courts now. There will continue to be a conflict, however, as I suspect both sides are not done dicking with one another yet.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@General Stuck:
It has nothing to do with settlements, or anything else. It is total victory or nothing to drive the state of Israel into the sea.
Uh-huh. The side with nuclear-armed submarines, tanks and jet fighters is desperately hanging on for its very existence against the evil machinations of militia and terrorists with antique guns and a few hyped up bottle rockets?
Have you considered why so few people outside your paid-for US Congress seem to be buying it any more?
Paula
Well, in re the “Pivot to Asia”, the WH is signaling that dealing with the Middle East is no longer to the U.S.’s benefit. Per the Arab Spring, Obama shows a willingness to step aside when the popular tide is sweeping in a very obvious direction. This vote appears to be a very obvious direction.
It would be nice if the U.S. were quietly shoved off-stage and Israel would be forced to deal with, well, everyone else. Not that the Europeans would be the most honest brokers ever, but better than us.
redshirt
Wouldn’t it be awesome to offer residence in the US to any Palestinian and Israeli that would like to take it up? Would that solve the problem? We could easily handle 20 million immigrants if it was a planned event.
LD50
@yopd1:
And right on time, we creep an eensy bit closer to all being called anti-semites.
Mandalay
@dollared:
We are damn good at invading, but have not yet reached the level of our teacher:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/colinfreeman/100188474/britain-may-have-invaded-90-per-cent-of-the-world-but-were-not-hated-everywhere/
On the other hand, we are way better than them at being hated.
4tehlulz
@redshirt: @redshirt: It would work Only if the Israelis settle in Independence, Missouri.
LD50
@General Stuck:
I think you mean no one here agrees with you. Not the same thing, but nice try.
Ben Franklin
@General Stuck:
Too funny. Yet you are the go-to-guy when it comes to sentient thought.
You missed your calling, comedian….
General Stuck
@Full Metal Wingnut:
Thanks for an intelligent comment
I never said Israel has no choice but to respond with the large degree of lethality they are prone to these days. This war has been going on for a long time, with the basic formula as part of insurgent tactics. I can remember when Israel didn’t over react like they do now. It’s been a while, but former Labor party leaders often did so. The length of the conflict has produced some profound pathology in the Israeli people, that aren’t normally a violent abusive group of people.
I don’t approve of what they (Israelis) do as a moral matter with the disproportional killing of Palestinians, nor as a basic supporter of the existence of Israel. They are losing the psychological long war, and they are not the first to defeat themselves, by their own over reactions. But I also understand that endless conflict does strange things to the psyche, and would anyone. You cannot ignore rockets, even small ones raining down into your neighborhoods, and over time, the citizens of any country on earth would demand their government do what is necessary to make it stop.
Maude
@Paula:
It’s so nice to read a comment that states such love for the US.
redshirt
At this point I am 100% pro Palestinian not because I hate the Jews, but rather I find the actions of the Israeli government towards the Palestinians to be barbaric, cruel, horrific, and something we as a global society should work to stop.
I have many Jewish friends by the way, and a great respect for Jewish culture.
polyorchnid octopunch
@General Stuck: On this one? I’m going with racist.
Ben Franklin
@redshirt:
Zionism is not Judaism.
4tehlulz
>I have many Jewish friends by the way, and a great respect for Jewish culture.
Do you have black friends too?
Ben Franklin
@General Stuck:
I just want to know….if you are representative of Obotism?
LD50
@General Stuck:
If you’re trying to convince the ‘completely fucking stupid’ commenters here, dragging out standard boilerplate Netanyahu horseshit isn’t really gonna help.
Paula
@Maude:
Why the sarcasm? Because expressing general disapproval over the way the U.S. enables Israel’s worst behavior equals hating the entire United States?
General Stuck
@LD50:
There are plenty that agree. They are simply smart enough not to participate in what are generally psychotic threads on this blog on the topic of Israel. I normally bypass these threads myself, but must be bored out of my ghord
some guy
@LD50:
a pretty common thing, when Israel supporters encounter rational, liberal people who don’t agree with their objective support for apartheid. they think it is their opponents who suddenly have become rabid, crazy, zombies, etc…
Viva BrisVegas
It means that whenever Israel wants to kick the Palestinians it will first need to look around to see who’s watching.
Djur
I wonder if Plan B is available to minors in Israel. Maybe that’d change General Stuck’s mind. Or he’ll start weeping about how we’re all apologists for child molestation again.
ETA: Oh, and a lot of pharmaceutical companies in Israel, too.
Suffern ACE
@Mandalay: I do think we invaded the Czech Republic or its predecessor state at one point. Didn’t stay long, but we were there.
Ash Can
Too tired and impatient to read through the thread to see if anyone’s beaten me to this, but I would certainly like to think that it means that Obama and/or Hillary got on the phone to Bibi and said, look, bro, you do the math — the jig, she is up.
Ben Franklin
@<a href="#comment-40@General Stuck:
I don’t approve of what they (Israelis) do as a moral matter
The walkback begins….
redshirt
@4tehlulz: I have one. Wish I had more.
General Stuck
@LD50:
Not horseshit. Straight from the mouths of Hamas.
Mandalay
@General Stuck:
One way to make it stop would be to return the land they stole, per US government policy under both Republicans and Democrats, but neither the citizens nor the government of Israel seem prepared to do that.
redshirt
@Ben Franklin: Sure. I used to be a lot more in Israel’s corner, but the actions of the last 10 years or so are just despicable.
Ben Franklin
@Viva BrisVegas:
It means that whenever Israel wants to kick the Palestinians it will first need to look around to see who’s watching.
This..to the 10th Power.
General Stuck
@Ben Franklin:
No walkback. I always say that. It is just your stupid hate that keeps you and your friends from hearing it. Like I said, psychotic.
Suffern ACE
@Ash Can: if like to think they made the call during that lunch with Romney.
General Stuck
@Djur:
Like I said. Psychotic. Keep talking. The truth will set you free.
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Ben Franklin
@General Stuck:
I don’t know what fucking race you are, but I pray to the gods you’re not Irish.
I would have to cut me fuckin’ throat.
Kilkee
@Suffern ACE: I think it’s safe to say we liberated Czechoslovakia from the Nazis in 1945. The locals were more than happy to see us. Not quite the same thing.
General Stuck
@Ben Franklin:
Irish it is then.
Chris
@General Stuck:
I don’t even agree with you, but this made me LOL.
Pinkamena Panic
@Ben Franklin: Just go with “chuwero”.
Matto
Israel does a lot of stupid, hurtful things. Many of the import and travel restrictions they place on Gaza are unnecessary and spiteful. They need to top the settlements in the West Bank. And I’m no fan of Netanyahu or Likud.
But let me know when Hamas recognizes Israel’s right to exist, or when the Palestinians vote Hamas out of power. Until that happens, there can’t be peace. Hamas is not a viable negotiating partner if their stated goal is the destruction of Israel.
Felonius Monk
@some guy:
LD50
@General Stuck: So you’re dragging out the “most people here really agree with me, they’re just terrorized into silence” line?
LD50
@General Stuck: I would ask you how exactly a country with nukes and the most powerful military in the middle east is at risk of getting “driven into the sea”, but my expectations of a rational answer are rather low.
Oh. That’s me being ‘psychotic’ and ‘an idiot’ again. Sorr-eee.
Steeplejack
@yopd1:
You’re right. It should be “sugar daddy state.”
eemom
@General Stuck:
Don’t know if you saw last night’s SP&T thread. Believe it or not, as many times as I’ve been through this, I’ve been creeped out all day today.
The folks here who think anti-Semitism is just a buzz word for the pro-Israel right wing really, really need to go have a look at that thread.
And for the assholes bent on distorting everything I say, it’s got nothing to do with the topic of this thread, the topic of that thread, Gaza, Palestine-UN or any other actual issue in connection with Israel. It’s just Jew hating, pure and simple.
Steeplejack
@yopd1:
Is your snark-o-meter completely broken? By calling the much larger, more powerful United States a “client state” of the much smaller, less powerful Israel, Cole was slyly pointing out what he considers the unduly large influence that Israel has on American policy and domestic politics. He was not being literal.
General Stuck
@eemom:
I didn’t read that thread, but have learned to let the made up taunts just float on by.
akaka
@General Stuck:
Ethnic cleansing does not mean killing, it also means clearing an area of a particular ethnic group, which Israel has been doing for the last 40 years, pushing Palestinians into shrinking bantustans.
John Cole
No kidding. Glad to learn I am now a jew-hater though. Hi EEMOM! PLS GO AWAY AGAIN!
Chris
@General Stuck:
Someone showed up who claimed that there were a number of Jews at the top of the U.S. economic and political elite, and that explained our Israel policy. (I disagreed, pointing out as I still believe that in terms of domestic constituencies, fundiegelicals, not Jews, are the ones who weigh heaviest on our Israel policy, regardless of how many or how few Jews there may be in our elites).
Because of that one antisemite, and because, in general, there is such a thing as an antisemite, this clearly invalidates any and all criticism of the ludicrous place Israel currently holds in U.S. foreign policy. Much the same way, for example, the existence of Communism invalidates any and all criticism of the capitalist world structure.
And don’t you dare snark about the fact that the word “antisemite,” much like “communist” and “socialist” in another context, is regularly thrown about as a way to shut down discussion on Israel related issues regardless of what’s being said.
(Heck, I’ve been called antisemetic – no, not on this blog – for daring to say that Kahane Chai was a terrorist organization. Never mind that it’s the State of Israel that labeled it that in the first place. I guess the Israeli government’s antisemetic too).
General Stuck
@Chris:
I’m done with this thread
Chris
@General Stuck:
Isn’t that nice?
General Stuck
@Chris:
There has been nothing nice about this thread/Per the norm.
If yer butthurt about something, email Cole.
Chris
@General Stuck:
Must be nice to be above it all. Why are you still here, then?
Thanks, but “run and hide behind a bigger person’s skirts” is the current Israeli government’s MO, not mine.
General Stuck
@Chris:
Listen jackass. I didn’t call anyone anti semite on this thread, but did receive my share getting called bad stuff that I just ignore. Stop whining. You should have stopped with we don’t agree. Now fuck the fuck off.
Chris
“It is hard to tell what Cole means from one minute to the next. But he likes being in the cool crowd, so they won’t barrage him with nasty emails. The cool crowd on the left, on the blogs, is more a death to Israel crowd than anything else.”
“A death to Israel crowd.” No. Noooooooo. You didn’t call anyone an antisemite, or anything else of equivalent stature.
Yeah, I can’t imagine why.
I recommend the “ignore” feature again. You’ve been saying you’re done with this thread ever since you walked into it, but you don’t seem any more interested in following through than the wingers who bleat about “going Galt.”
You should’ve stopped before the “death to Israel” ad hominems, so I guess neither of us know what’s good for us.
How very devastating.
mclaren
It’s a way for every other country in the world to express their disgusts with America’s foreign policy, which is meaningless because we’re spending more on our military than all of ’em put together.
mclaren
@Chris:
That’s General crackpot fakename for ya. A superbly eloquent spinner of lexical legedermain, he. “Fuck the fuck off.”
Truly breathtaking. Almost as impressive as Frank Booth from Blue Velvet.
General Stuck
@mclaren:
Hot damn Mclaren, you posted probly the most sensible comment on this thread. Bowl me over/The Mayan’s are coming.
Edit- should have known better.
General Stuck
@Chris:
Nite sweetpea. Mclaren is here to tuck you and your teddy bear in.
Chris
@mclaren:
I LOL’d again. This HAS been a good thread, all things considered. And a true point on “what it all means.”
@General Stuck:
Yet another variation of “I’m out of here?” I give you points for creativity, if nothing else.
Chris
@General Stuck:
Story of your life…
General Stuck
@Chris:
So you’re one of those that has to have the last word? Amirite?
Chris
@General Stuck:
Nah, just couldn’t resist that one.
eemom
@John Cole:
Wow. Right on cue when I mention assholes bent on distorting everything I say, heeeeere’s Cole.
Frankly Cole, I would have thought even you might have the decency not to do that in this circumstance. I do not throw around terms like Jew hater. I was referring to the persons in the thread last night who made remarks so brazenly and sickeningly anti-Semitic that I presumed even you — self-proclaimed combatter of racism as you are — would acknowledge it for what it was.
My gripe with you in this context — which I think I pretty clearly expressed — is not that YOU are a Jew hater, but rather that you belittle the concept of anti-Semitism every single fucking time you talk about Israel, insinuating that it has NO existence other than something wingnuts use to silence criticism of Israel.
But last night, actual anti-Semitism in all its ugliness was on full display here on your blog. Maybe it’s too much to expect that you’d react to that as loudly and self-righteously as you supposedly do to racism — but I might have thought you’d at least have the decency to take the point about your belittlement of anti-Semitism — which at best is no different from than the attitudes of the assholes who show up on ABL’s threads to mock the concept that every criticism of Obama is racist.
This is a new low for you.
Medicine Man
@General Stuck: There’s also been a distinct change in Israel’s demographics in recent decades. The decline of the Ashkenazi elite in favor of Russian emigres has had an impact on the tenor of Israeli government. I understand that much of Avignor Leiberman’s support comes from this demographic and they are more authoritarian than the generations of Israelis that preceded them.
El Cid
This UN GA vote after the Israeli militarists’ wildly anti-productive recent attack on Gaza was, by no accident, the occasion for the most prominent emergence of the Israeli peace movements in years, leading demonstrations among anti-militarist Israeli Jews in favor of the granting of observer status to Palestine.
The numbers weren’t huge — they very rarely are — but the context is significant. (And in great contract to Susan Rice’s disgusting and sneering comments at the UN notwithstanding.)
That list of organizations comprises the major groups and political forces (the first two activist groups, the second two political parties)
Clearly though these Israeli Jewish and Israeli Arab citizens are mainly about their death-to-Israel obsession.
But I’m sure that if only the Palestinians would shut up and just behave better, someday, maybe in a year, or 10 years, or 20 years, or 50 years, Israel and the US might start to feel like it was time to begin allowing the Palestinians to beg for approval to be permitted to negotiate for some sort of future ‘state’ consisting of exactly whatever Israeli leadership feels like they don’t want and under whatever conditions Israeli militarists and their paramilitary settler wing desire.
Another wacky anti-Israeli extremist who doesn’t understand the sophisticated matters involved like US and Israeli diplomats do said:
If it were solely up to them, the “pro-Israeli” supporters of asshole militarist expansion and colonial repression would protect and safeguard Israel into perpetual war and occupation forever until its collapse.
So, now, after the super-great idea for Israeli leadership and their US cheerleaders and suppliers to once again rocket-bomb the shit out of Gaza for security, the militarist expansionist division of Israeli nationalism managed to achieve:
(1) The recognition of Palestine before the UN General Assembly as unofficial observers (who may now ask for sovereign recognition in the future), something which both the Israeli and US leadership repeatedly, loudly, and dangerously threatened the Palestinian leadership against;
(2) The greatest increase in support for Hamas not just in Gaza itself but in the West Bank and in the region for its ability to (entirely predictably) survive and respond to (in ineffective but as ever civilian-targeting manner) the Israeli assault that has been seen perhaps in Hamas’ history;
(3) The greatest increase in support for the actual leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, which has been seen since Israel tried and failed to assassinate him when their nitwit assassins were caught in Jordan and the King and Bill Clinton had to force Netanyahu (in ’97) to deliver the antidote and then to free Hamas’ founder Sheikh Yassin. Including this being the 2nd time Meshal appeared (in the context that people see these things) to have withstood a Netanyahu attack and won by surviving.
(4) The first real negotiations of lessening Israel’s asshole lunatic blockade of the starving (often literally) Gaza in the better part of a decade, including being able to fish in a bit more of the Mediterranean so as to once again get a bit of protein to these people.
Great job! I’m sure Hamas eagerly awaits the next great, clever move by such dedicated protectors of Israelis!
Interrobang
I have to say, I’m very disappointed with Harper. Olmert does seem to have his head screwed on straight. The tiny whacko minority that swings a lot of weight in the Knesset needs to go, somehow (another reason not to support Tzipi Livni’s new party). I feel this was more or less inevitable, although it could be construed as looking like tacit approval for twelve years of lobbing rockets at the Israelis, which I’m also not too happy about.
I actually know Israelis who live in the West Bank. You know why they live in the West Bank? It’s not because they’re slavering anti-Palestinian ghouls rubbing their hands together at the prospect of displacing the filthy Aravim, it’s because they work in Jerusalem, and there has been a huge housing shortage in Israel for years (meaning that what you or I would think of as a normal city house sells for about a million dollars US, no word of a lie), and living in a yishuv means they can actually have a house with a yard on a two-white-collar-job income. Which is kind of a big deal if you have four or five or seven kids, as many of them do. Your other alternative is to pay out the ass for an apartment roughly the size of a postage stamp (as does another friend of mine).
There are way more structural issues going on here than just geopolitical.
FWIW, I work for a formerly-Israel-based IT company that just got bought by a giant American IT company. Overall, the Israelis’ policies were way better — more time off as a matter of course, and much, much less bureaucracy.
Peggy
@Interrobang: Thanks for explaining why Israelis have so thoroughly colonized the West Bank. Government subsidies made it cheaper to live on stolen Palestinean land. No one needed to think about how they were setting up an irreconcilable coflict that has now matured into almost the whole world siding against Israel. The government quite consciously designed this process.
those high officials are mostly retired or dead, having left a mess behind.
yopd1
@Steeplejack: I make one statement about him saying client state, and I get a deluge of Israel is the evil state that is ethnically cleansing the West Bank and Gaza of all the poor, innocent Palestinians who have done nothing wrong. So no, my snark meter is just fine. I just happen to believe that there are two sides that do wrong, and yes, if you are purposefully targeting civilian areas with missiles at the rate of 40-60 a day, the other side will probably decide to bomb the fuck out of you as well.
Tell me all of you who know the psyche so well of the Israelis and Palestinians. If the Israelis, just went back to the ’67 borders or traded the equivalent in land/resources to the Palestinians, would the missile attacks stop? If the Palestinians stopped firing missiles for a month or two, would the Israelis begin serious talks of statehood?
As for Cole, popping up at the end. You seem to always have to throw in the snarky comment on Israel being overseer of our government. Just like the RWNJ always have to throw in the African Americans only vote to keep the government dollars coming.
Full Metal Wingnut
@yopd1: MY COUNTERFACTUALS ARE BETTER THAN YOUR COUNTERFACTUALS
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Mandalay:
One way to make it stop would be to return the land they stole, per US government policy under both Republicans and Democrats, but neither the citizens nor the government of Israel seem prepared to do that.
Oh noes, but you don’t understandz – each and every Palestinian is a fanatic barbarian dedicated to ripping Israeli women and children to pieces WITH THEIR BARE TEETH – and that’s why Israel has to keep on stealing their land.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Interrobang:
I actually know Israelis who live in the West Bank. You know why they live in the West Bank? It’s not because they’re slavering anti-Palestinian ghouls rubbing their hands together at the prospect of displacing the filthy Aravim, it’s because they work in Jerusalem, and there has been a huge housing shortage in Israel for years (meaning that what you or I would think of as a normal city house sells for about a million dollars US, no word of a lie), and living in a yishuv means they can actually have a house with a yard on a two-white-collar-job income.
Ah, right. So they have nothing against the folks to their east *personally*, they’re just in search of a bit of living room?
Wait – why does that seem familiar…?
Steve Crickmore
@eemom: Now that you have made common cause with the evangelists on a greater Israel or for them USrael how to you reconcile that christianity from it’s own written gospels, which it won’t ever amend, is inextricably laced with anti semitism, such as the fictional inclusion of a disciple called Judas, “the betrayer,” who conviently, according to George Steiner, was invented to give authority and credence to the intense anti-semitism of early christianity. Also, many of the American pro Likud or Zionist sympathisers have a history of voicing clearly anti-semitic statements. Nearly all of us on this site are not anti semitic, but pro jewish against the irrational and jealous loathing of jews which has a long and disgraceful history, especially from Christian countries, and conservatives, even in America, but we are anti- zionist, in the sense that forcing the Palestinians to live in a few Bantu aparteid settlements which aren’t contingous to order, in order to achieve the aim of greater prophetic Israel, or in order to give them simply more land than they already have, is not just.
Donald
“You cannot ignore rockets, even small ones raining down into your neighborhoods, and over time, the citizens of any country on earth would demand their government do what is necessary to make it stop.”
I’m late to this thread, but the trouble with that is that it gives the wrong impression–that Israel is just minding its own business and is constantly bombarded by all these unprovoked rocket attacks. Obviously there are rocket attacks, but there are also Israeli attacks on innocent Gazan civilians, both Gaza fishermen and people in the buffer zone which Israel created INSIDE GAZA (I screamed that part because people don’t seem to realize how weird it is that Israel designates a portion of Gaza to be essentially a zone where they can kill you if they want.) Plus the blockade, which goes far beyond just an attempt to keep out munitions (and doesn’t seem to have worked on that score anyway.)
I’d be more sympathetic to Israel if they were more forthcoming about their crimes, but there is nearly always some sort of whitewash. The most common version is that Palestinians initiate violence and Israel responds. This is flatly false. It doesn’t excuse the Palestinian crimes (morality doesn’t work that way), but Israel supporters obviously don’t want to admit just how much blame their side really shares for the conflict.