UN's security council votes against Israel's settlements, US refuses to veto...

[The Brain]

Well at least she didn't elect Trump.

[Berkut]

It is just crazy that abstaining from a vote, which by definition is a compeletely neutral action, is seen as "anti-Israeli" on a subject as cut and dried as settlements, which the entire international community universally condemns Israel on...it's not like Obama is going out on a limb or pushing something that only he has a stake or opinion on.

Except it's not at all so cut and dry. For one, the United States has officially said Israel should stop building new settlements, but it's never taken the position that Israel should have to return to its 1967 borders. In fact, in basically every peace deal we've "almost had" where the United States has brought both sides to the table, it's been understood that Israel is going to keep its settlement blocs near the 1967 border. It's also been understood Israel is not giving up the entirety of East Jerusalem under any circumstance. UN Security Council Resolution 2334 is notable in that the U.S. has allowed a resolution to go out that:

1. Re-affirms anything outside the 1967 borders (which everyone fucking knows Israel will never go back to) is illegal, which while it doesn't change the broad legal status quo, it reaffirms it in the meaningful form of a modern day UN Security Council resolution that international bodies like the ICC will almost certainly give significant weight to, it also emboldens the Palestinian hardliners who want peace to be a return to the 1967 borders.

But everything outside the '67 borders IS illegal by international law. That is just a fact that is recognized by everyone other than Israel. This resolution doesn't change anything, nor does it mean that if there were a peace deal there would be no negotiation over those lands.

The resolution states some facts, like this, and then makes some demands. Those demands are that Israel STOP BUILDING MORE SETTLEMENTS. Not that Israel return to the '67 borders. That is the meat to the resolution, if there is any meat, and it is what is pissing Israel off - not that it says they should not have built settlements to begin with, which of course is just rather obvious from a legal standpoint.

2. Basically says Israel has no place in East Jerusalem--again, this is a non-starter. In every peace deal the Israelis and the Palestinians have negotiated it has been understood that Israel will probably retain jurisdiction over the Jewish populate areas of East Jerusalem.

It basically says nothing of the kind. This is your attempt to make it out to be something it is not, so you can call someone who declined to vote against an "anti-Israeli, pro-Muslim".

So while you may be right that the reality is the 1967 borders are the "legal borders", that's like saying Crimea is legally part of Ukraine. There's a reality that exists on paper that no one really cares about, and the reality we've actually seen since 1967--and that is broad U.S. support for a bargaining position in which Israel retains some claims in East Jerusalem, its settlement blocs near the 1967 border, and in which it would give unambiguous Israeli territory to the Palestinians in exchange for annexing the settlement blocs.

This resolution changes none of that.

There's also been a reality that official U.S. foreign policy has been that the UN basically isn't to be involved in this process, that's why we've blocked these resolutions for generations, because we view it an issue for Palestine and Israel to negotiate, with U.S. working as mediator as necessary. Part of the reason for that is in the UN there's a lot of bad actors like all the Arab states that will promulgate a lot of troublesome shit if we let this business be negotiated by the UN (a body that largely fails anytime it tries to solve any political problem.)

We block them because we have been uncritically supporting Israel, and we claim that the UN has no place because that is a handy justification for doing that. The idea that the UN has no place in resolving a dispute like this is arguing that the UN should just be dissolved, since it's core purpose is in fact to provide a means and forum to resolve exactly this kind of dispute.

The attitude that NOT vetoing a largely symbolic vote that 100% of the international community outside of Tel Aviv agrees is a completely reasonable demand on Israel is some sort of betrayal is what actually is making Israel feel like they don't have to compromise at all when it comes to peace. The idea that the US will always do whatever Israel demands, even it if is clearly against US interests, is what empowers Israel to simply refuse to negotiate.

So you think's it's reasonable for Israel to go back to the 1967 borders?

Not really, but this is your strawman, not my argument.

That's what the resolution is basically endorsing

Except that it isn't.

--and that puts you basically pretty far hardliner for a Palestinian,  because there have been Palestinian fucking leaders willing to concede that isn't reality. Now, you at least aren't as far hardline as the Palestinians who still believe there shouldn't be a Jewish state in the region at all.

If your interpretation of the resolution leads you to conclude that the resolution is ridiculous, even for a Palestinian, then perhaps you might consider that your interepretation is somehow rather wrong. Or you can conclude, I suppose, that all 13 security council member nations that signed it are similarly more hardline than even the Palestinians? Seems unlikely.

Netanyahu is certainly a hindrance to peace, but he honestly just represents what I view as a reactionary Israeli response to failed peace talks in which it negotiated in good faith being followed up with things like the Gaza War, rocket attacks, kidnappings of Israeli soldiers and etc.

Basically, I think this is true. Bibi is Israels Trump - a predictable reaction to events.

That doesn't mean we should support him though - that is how diplomacy works. You don't look at Hitler and say "Gosh, I can see how the Germans might support such a guy....we should not oppose him, because it is understandable why he came to power..."

While Netanyahu himself made demands in 2009 that will never happen, and has been pretty clearly uninterested in serious peace negotiations,

Thanks for conceding my point.

the election of Netanyahu and the mood of the country is pretty reasonable. How many times does someone get spit on when trying to negotiate with someone before they get a little hot under the collar about it? Israeli politics has ebbs and flows just like America's, and the current right-wing era in Israeli politics will almost certainly subside at some point, and even still right wing Israelis are more reasonable in terms of being willing to negotiate than pretty much anyone in power in the PLA has ever been, which goes back to how ridiculous it is to paint Israel as the heavy in this.

I think I pretty clearly and unambiguously stated that I put the lions share of the blame on the lack of a deal on the side of the Palestinians.

Don't let that stop you from creating your army of strawmen though....GO GO ISRAEL! RAPTURE FOR ALL!

[LaCroix]

the disputed areas seem pretty worthless, economically and demographically, to israel. supporting israel on this just isn't worth it

[derspiess]

I can't believe our own Berkut has turned anti-Israel.  So sad!

[CountDeMoney]

He went off the kibbutz.

Re returning to the 1967 borders: I would agree that going back to the '67 borders would be a non-starter for Israel when they were at a conventional disadvantage, but they have possessed regional military primacy for several decades now.  The days of getting attacked by surprise and by combined forces larger than their own have been over for quite some time.
Sure, the Golan provides a mildly tactical edge, but the West Bank isn't the weak spot it once was.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Berk is clearly living in a different historical reality than I am. Israel fought and won a defensive war in 1968 and it is never going back to the indefensible borders from 1967. The Middle East's Arabs shouldn't have tried to destroy Israel and maybe none of this would have ever happened.

The US has long benefited from and been the chief promoter of the post-WW2 internationalist order, under which territorial acquisitions like this are "wrong", and the US has had little choice but to say so. But the reality is in both deed and word we as a country have largely supported the five large settlement blocs near the 1967 border. The other reality is this internationalist world order appears to me to be failing, it establishes ruled that we only apply on democracies or autocracies that are weak enough to be toppled by a moderately sized expeditionary source while the powerful play by different rules. From any moral or strategic perspective the U.S. should be dropping 50 years of pretense and make it clear there are parameters to the peace agreement that Palestine has to agree to if it ever wants all of this to end.

Berkut can continue to live in the fantasy word where Kerry's terrible speech condemning Israel is just status quo, a position reject led by several of our allies (including Britain which even voted for the resolution.)

At the end of the day there are two undeniable facts about Obama's actions here:

1. They have made peace less, not more, likely.
2. They have politically divided Democrats and united Republicans--many of whom were skeptical of Trump foreign policy, this thing has taken a lot of focus away from Trump's "cozying" up to Putin and shifted foreign policy wonk talk to an issue in which the GOP is 100% united.

Obama has been a terrible President when it comes to foreign policy, and this is the last gasp of a man who while was a decent guy and good political organizer never understood the game of nations nearly as well as he did domestic politics. Kerry has been an ineffectual and vapid Sec State and I suspect Exxon's Tillerson will almost certainly be an upgrade.

[DGuller]

He went off the kibbutz.

Re returning to the 1967 borders: I would agree that going back to the '67 borders would be a non-starter for Israel when they were at a conventional disadvantage, but they have possessed regional military primacy for several decades now.  The days of getting attacked by surprise and by combined forces larger than their own have been over for quite some time.
Sure, the Golan provides a mildly tactical edge, but the West Bank isn't the weak spot it once was.

Israel only has to fuck up once, or lose enough of a technological advantage for its numerical inferiority to start to matter.  I can understand them being a bit conservative with what they give up defensively.  The world can change quickly.

[Josquius]

I think the rational thing with the 67 borders is not that there is logically a chance in hell of Israel returning to them but that they are the legal default.
By saying they'll give back half of the settlements Israel isn't giving a concession of half of the settlements, it is  gaining the other half.
The 67 borders should be seen as the default and any of the settlements that Israel keep are gains for them that must be suitably compensated.

Though yes. Palestine has to start being willing to compromise.

[OttoVonBismarck]

There's been at least two deals on the table where Israel offered just that--territorial concessions in exchange for annexed West Bank land.

FWIW I don't remember us giving Germany territorial concessions after they started and lost WW2 and portions of Germany were given to Russia and Poland, but I guess starting and losing a war was seen as objectionable in the 40s, and by the 60s winning a war regardless of who started it was seen as wrong.

[CountDeMoney]

Obama has been a terrible President when it comes to foreign policy, and this is the last gasp of a man who while was a decent guy and good political organizer never understood the game of nations nearly as well as he did domestic politics. Kerry has been an ineffectual and vapid Sec State and I suspect Exxon's Tillerson will almost certainly be an upgrade.

You have a 401k;  so yeah, you would suspect that.

And if you thought Obama's academic detachment and deference to long-game diplomacy was bad, enjoy the unilateralist isolationism of the Trumphammer 40K universe.  Party like it's 1899.

[OttoVonBismarck]

When your own State Department lifers criticize your feckless foreign policy there's a good indication you're entering Jimmy Carter territory on foreign policy. About the only FP win I see in eight years is the Iranian nuclear deal, which it's still too early to say if they're going to comply with long term.

[CountDeMoney]

When your own State Department lifers criticize your feckless foreign policy there's a good indication you're entering Jimmy Carter territory on foreign policy. About the only FP win I see in eight years is the Iranian nuclear deal, which it's still too early to say if they're going to comply with long term.

Feckless?  Jimmy Carter?  Oh come now. Save the hyperbole for Hansmeister.  The only time you worry about a State Department is when it stops crying.

And TPP would've been a resolute victory for the US and the west, but noooo...knuckledragging wrench-turners that still wear their high school varsity jackets had to cry.  Hope all those VHS copies of Gung Ho were worth handing the Pacific Rim economy over to the godless yellow communist heathens.

[Valmy]

And TPP would've been a resolute victory for the US and the west, but noooo...knuckledragging wrench-turners that still wear their high school varsity jackets had to cry.  Hope all those VHS copies of Gung Ho were worth handing the Pacific Rim economy over to the godless yellow communist heathens.

Yeah I try not to think about it.

[derspiess]

Seedy hates the American worker.

[Valmy]

Seedy hates the American worker.

If Trump and Sanders are what it means to love the American worker then fuck the American worker. Their lot will only get worse under this kind of idiocy.