Israel Follow

First, a moment to appreciate the sentiment that "Two wrongs doesn't make a right!" only applies when it's Israel in second "Wrong".
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Now that that's done, it's called "reality". Israel's commitments to the UN are for the UN to enforce. Commitments between Israel and Palestine are for them to enforce. The UN isn't going to do jack about Israel regardless of whether or not the UN would be in the "right". Cry about that all you want, but that's the truth. Israel will do something about Palestine breaking its agreement. Cry about that all you want but that's reality and it's the choice Palestine made. Palestine isn't dealing from a position of power here and if the government cared more about its people than it does about trying to sustain relevance by prolonging the conflict, they'd be acting like it.

Now if you want to stick with idealism, what you should be doing is demanding that Palestine hold up its obligations to Israel the same way you'd demand that Israel hold up its obligations to the UN. But I don't see much of that happening.

In the end though, this isn't really about "upholding commitments", is it? It's about ending an agreement. Palestine ended the agreement that they'd seek resolution through Israel and Israel would hold off on building settlements. So now Israel is building settlements. Really, both parties "upheld" their agreement in that Palestine ended the agreement so they're back to where they were years ago. A flawed demand to "uphold commitments" would be to demand Israel to stop building despite Palestine deciding that they want out.

Edited, Dec 1st 2012 2:16pm by Jophiel

You're the one saying I "clearly have a normative framework" not me so you can noodle that one out. As I stated, it's not a question of that Palestine "should" feel anything. It's a statement of reality that they ended the agreement keeping Israel from building settlements and now Israel is building settlements. Doesn't get much easier than that.


No, it was a condition of the agreement between Israel and Palestine. I thought that much was made very clear.

Edited, Dec 1st 2012 2:46pm by Jophiel

I'll keep that in mind for the day I start writing professorial treatises on Israel rather than forum postings.


It was, however, the only thing actually keeping them from doing it as we see today and Palestine made the decision to end it. You seem to put a lot more weight on the UN thing than it deserves (given the chance of consequence) which is fine for you but that and fifty cents will get you a cup of coffee to drink as you watch Israel build the settlements.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing

Israel has built settlements for decades, hell they did in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. They have been doing it for decades. Israel has no desire for peace, because they do not need to have peace. They have for the past 40 years contained and cut off Palestine from the rest of the world. No land access, no air access, no sea access...without of course the ok from Israel. That isn't peace, that is being subordinate.

When was the last time your government or mine condemned the clear and present human rights violations in Palestine? When was the last time we said, no doing that is not right and we can't accept that. We don't. We call attacks against Israel acts of terror, we support Israel in constricting Palestine from the world and call it home defense. Hell we pay for Israel to be able to do this.

How is that not hypocritical. Our entire position when it comes to Israel has been hypocritical. Part of that comes from our appeasement mindset which arose from the ashes of the Final Solution, part of that is because Israel is a strong foothold into a volitile yet resource rich middle east. Yet to call foul on one party, and not on another is hypocritical. Evidently the rest of the world no longer agrees that Israel is right, that it is the Palestinians. 138 countries show support for a free palestine, 9 6 of which are mostly irrelevant economically, politically, or militarily. We desire peace...yet instead of taking a neutral stance on the position we decided that we would to say no Palestine doesn't deserve that either...yet we have/had folks the Ghadafi, Assad, Hussein, Ahmadinejad (or w/e) all represented on the world stage...so why not Palestine?

If we truly desire peaceful resolution, how can we attempt to deny access to sources of peaceful resolution? That is hypocritical.

We are the same when it comes to Israel period...we condemn Iran for using words, yet we support Israels cyber attacks, its planned pre-strike mission, we support its recent air strike in Sudan, yet we condemn Ahmadinejad (or w/e) because he said he would wipe Israel off the map.

We are hypocrites. If it doesn't serve the west, it isn't our concern. Its pathetic, and the world seems to agree.

Really grasping on the reasoning there aren't you? The governments run on platforms against Israel because of what Israel does. If there were peace don't you think the government would focus on nation building? Kind of hard to focus on nation building when your roads, rails, airports, and shp yards are all under occupation and containment by the IDF. Israel has not once shown any inclination that they wish to establish peace, when the rockets stop Israel just bulldozes homes, and shells schools citing security reasoning...and we in the west turn a blind eye to it.


That is not regarding the Human Rights violations. That is regarding the disputed legality of Israel establishing settlements in occupied territory. The territory Israel is settling is not regarded by the international body as Israeli land. This dispute has been ongoing for decades, with the US changing its stance numerous times over the years. Most recently when Obama said his administration would not support the settlement of occupied territories.

Where was the condemnation of the IDF shelling a school? We in the west said that Hamas likes to use human shields. Meanwhile the IDF continually uses Palestinian citizens as human shields in incursions into Gaza and the West Bank, even though the government supposedly said that practice will be abolished in 2005. Yet in 2009 IDF used civilians to march infront of their troops, and to enter homes and businesses to check for booby traps during Operation Cast Shield.

The last condemnation of Israels human rights violations was by the EU this year. Ironically enough the EU was also mysteriously absent from the list of Nay's in the UN vote to recognize Palestine as a State.



Sure from your perspective it could be considered terrorism, but hey during your countries own revolution your patriots and heroes were regarded as guerillas and traitors. Radicals against established peace justice and liberty. The 1700's most notorious terriorst organization. Who happened to pave the way to the single largest bastion of freedom and prosperity the world has ever known. But they were by your definition terrorists of their day. Although many would call them patriots and freedom fighters and I am sure you do too.

They can only fight, the world turned their backs on them. Each year the US sends billions to Israel...how much do you send to Palestine, how much does anyone send to Palestine. (the answer is over 2Trillion for Israel, and just over 5 Billion for Palestine. Interesting to note that more Palestinians invest in Israel than they do their own state). They have no economic means because Israel has cut them off politically, and economically from the rest of the world. (at least until a few days ago).



Why talk about what everyone already knows. Anyone that reads news in North America knows everything Palestine has done. What gets buried is the stuff Israel does, If you don't believe me go read some mid-east news papers, and get away from the desensitized slop they fill us with...if they deem it worthwhile to us reading.

I mean have you read this story yet?
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/12/2012122101441576517.html

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/archive/
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html
http://www.foxnews.com/world/mideast/index.html

I could keep going but why bother.

Don't you think with holding revenues that belong to Palestine (Gaza-Jericho Agreement) isn't important news? Why is it not on the news wires, its not even in the stories. Yet freezing a nations assets that you agreed to give them is not newsworthy...must be because it is an act of peace.



Thats fine 138 nations felt it was the right path to a peaceful resolution. 9 countries of which 3 real countries said no. Now Israel is butt hurt because Palestine is recognized as a non-member state, which gives them access to, and protection by the World courts, Human Rights councils, and a strong showing of support by the majority of the world.



I wasn't aware Iran had attacked any Israeli interests yet. Could they be doing it through proxies...sure, but Israel is openly attacking its neighbors both electronically, and militarily. We call these things decisive and daring...yet we call words from a leader we don't like warmongering...and radical. Israel is openly attacking its neighbors, and we have sat by and said nothing of it. We condemn nations who talk about things...hypocrites that is what we are.

Consequences for a nation of people that the world refused to recognize until a few days ago. Consequences for a nation of people who danced along with Israel for 40 years, and have nothing to show for it. Unless of course you consider annexed land, constriction of borders, control of the economy.

You keep saying Israel was just in their choices over the last few days. But nothing has changed.

Also your links prove my point. Those links mention nothing of the Gaza-Jericho Agreement. Or the Paris Protocols if you prefer. Hypocrites. Laughable it is that you defend it.



Yet it isn't ok for the Palestinians to attack which they deem a threat to their existances. How hypocritical of you.



Those articles are all timed well after the publication from Al Jazeera. Not to mention cleverly pieced to ignore the violations to the Paris Protocols Israel has committed. Thanks for proving my point that you read what they want you to read. Blurbs attached to an AP article from 2 days ago, laughable at best. Not even calling it a story of Israel reneging on agreements, buried in articles about Palestine reneging on agreements, Hypocrites.



I said from the start both were to blame, and both are to blame, but what you have is one side being constantly downplayed by our media, while the other can do really no wrong. Attach terrorist, and defense to a story of a school bombing and you got yourself a story made for US News. How you can deny that the West spin on Palestine is not biased is an absolute joke.



How is it false equivilency. To the powers of the world your attempt at a nation was a terrorist attack on the rightful possessions of the British Crown. Of course you choose to ignore the point because it conflicts with your argument. The fact is the entire American Revolution was a terrorist rebellion against the dominion of the King of England, The very handler that dictated what you shall do and not do, and if you were not subordinate you were disposed of.

Granted times and terminology have changed, it is the same ******* thing.




http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2009/09/15/UNFFMGCReport.pdf

Read it for yourself.


So becoming a subject of another nation you consider that peace. I wonder how you would feel if China one day annexed the US. Hypocrite.

I'm sure had there not been 1,630 miles of Atlantic Ocean between the Colonies and the British civilians, you would have heard of more.

No one said anything when we did it as we pushed west during the 1800s.

What if we just gave everyone in B.C. a snow-shovel for Christmas? They surely come along willingly then.

There's a hell of a lot more to BC than just Vancouver you stupid Yank.

It would take more than just fancy snow shovels.

Spoilerbeer