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

[The Brain]

Can Israel deliver warheads to NZ?

[Syt]

I look forward to Trumpette giving Bibi a blank cheque and then going on holiday. It's worked well before.

[grumbler]

The Israel-Palestine situation is so weird to me because it's been so indecisive. Israel is by no means the only country to win a war and basically seize territory in the UN era. In fact Israel's actions are a lot less egregious than China's in Tibet or Russia's in Crimea (or even Georgia or Moldova, albeit it didn't annex land there.) But I'd argue even Crimea is already significantly "more resolved" than the Palestinian lands have ever been.

I think in part the reason is, despite frequent criticisms Israel has behaved with a lot more restraint in Palestine than any major power ever would've. Probably in part because the US has always bought into a misguided policy that we should use our status as Israel's greatest benefactor to push for Israeli restraint. Probably out of a misguided view that we could ever be friends with most of the Middle Eastern Islamists.

Chinese actions in Tibet and Russian actions in the Crimea are of a completely different kind than Israeli actions in Palestine (though the former is closer than the latter).  Tibet has historically been a part of China, as Crimea has historically been part of Russia. Israel has historically been part of Palestine, not the reverse.

I agree with the idea that the US cannot ever be "friends" with the countries of the Middle East; their motivations are too Middle-Eastern to ever conform to US interests.  And I'd agree that the indecisive nature of the conflict is the worst of all possible words for the US; whether the Israelis eliminate Palestine, or the Palestinians eliminate Israel, both outcomes are similar in terms of US interests (an Israeli victory being slightly preferable, probably), and both are better than the present situation from the standpoint of US interests.

The best outcome for US interests would be a two-state solution, but that simply isn't possible.

[grumbler]

Can Israel deliver warheads to NZ?

No, but they might be able to undercut NZ's prices on winter avocados delivered to France.

[The Brain]

I would give Bibi Andersson a blank check.

[CountDeMoney]

Hilarious.  As if the settlements are a suddenly new thing.  Poppy Bush took it on the chops when he withheld loan guarantees over the settlements in, what, 1990? 

Curious how, after over 40 years of diplomacy, a lousy UNSC vote that Israel would ignore anyway about these settlements are suddenly a linchpin in Israel's right to exist.  Since when did Netanyahu morph into Rudy Bibilani?

[Syt]

Well, I'm not surprised if Israel is stepping up their settlement project, considering their population has grown by 2/3, or over 3 million since 1995: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/israel_palestine_pop.html

And the territory is smaller than New Hampshire.

[Valmy]

Well, I'm not surprised if Israel is stepping up their settlement project, considering their population has grown by 2/3, or over 3 million since 1995: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/israel_palestine_pop.html

And the territory is smaller than New Hampshire.

That is really amazing. The Jewish population is growing at an amazing rate, completely insane and unsustainable. Yet somehow the non-Jewish population is growing even faster. Those people do realize they have limited supplies of water over there right?

[DGuller]

Well, I'm not surprised if Israel is stepping up their settlement project, considering their population has grown by 2/3, or over 3 million since 1995: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/israel_palestine_pop.html

And the territory is smaller than New Hampshire.

That is really amazing. The Jewish population is growing at an amazing rate, completely insane and unsustainable. Yet somehow the non-Jewish population is growing even faster. Those people do realize they have limited supplies of water over there right?

Both sides are filling up their stockpiles for the upcoming genocidal conflict.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Chinese actions in Tibet and Russian actions in the Crimea are of a completely different kind than Israeli actions in Palestine (though the former is closer than the latter).  Tibet has historically been a part of China, as Crimea has historically been part of Russia. Israel has historically been part of Palestine, not the reverse.

I don't really see how history has much to do with it, and I'd contest your "part of Palestine" argument in the first place. Palestine hadn't been a meaningful politically independent entity for like 2000+ years before the 1948 lines were drawn. It's always just been part of some greater empire, or a protectorate or etc. So I frankly don't really know what you're talking about there. The Zionist movement saw tons of Jews immigrate to the region--legally, and buy large amounts of land from Ottoman absentee land lords. This pissed off Arab tenants and Arab bedouins who had historically "felt the land was theirs" but under the actual laws of the country in which they lived (the Ottoman Empire) it wasn't. The Jews certainly weren't blameless and did some nasty shit in all of this, but if we're going to make the argument that Israel doesn't have a right to exist (which is one that could be reasonably drawn from what you've said about Israel), then neither does Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, North/South Korea, the list is basically endless. Most countries were previously part of some other country at some point.

But like I said, I don't find the historical argument all that interesting. Such arguments, as we know, have nothing to do with anything. Karelia has no business being Russian, Kaliningrad either. And the Crimea argument is even a difficult one, because Russia only acquired that in the 19th century, and the problem with historical arguments is you can always go back and forth on who owned/should own what.

What we do know is that under the international laws and norms of behavior laid out in the UN, Russia does legally own Kaliningrad, but its acquisition of Crimea is against international norms. Its behavior in Georgia and Moldova is outside international norms. China invading Tibet is outside international norms--and has been the subject of several UN resolutions over the years. What's also true is no one seems to care at all about these territories to the degree they care about Israel's occupation of "Palestine." The way I've always seen it, there's an ancient right in war called "right of conquest." We've tried to cover it up with legalese and other stuff, but when you see the international community "tacitly" accepting such things, like with Russia taking Crimea or China taking Tibet, or even for that matter the WWII peace treaties which saw Germany stripped of lands in the east that had been part of Germany for centuries, the reality is we still have the right of conquest.

Now, obviously the international community wasn't all that "cool" with Crimea at the time, but it's still fresh. I predict in thirty years the Crimean annexation will be forgotten by most as a footnote to history (much as Tibet is outside of people who use the phrase "Free Tibet" and sing Kumbaya), yet for some reason Israel won a war 50 years ago and took land and people are still butthurt about it. I can only guess that's because Israel has kept most of that land in a quasi-legal state of "occupation" instead of simply annexing it.

It's obvious to a point that Israel wants to avoid making its country majority Muslim. But I think we're probably at a point where Israel could just annex the West Bank and grant all the ragheads there Israeli citizenship. If they don't also annex the Gaza strip (which is generally better governed anyway, and more suited to independence), with the high Jewish birthrate in Israel, I don't think the Jews will become a minority. Although the demographic question is a complex one--I've read some who believe it is "obvious" that the Arabs will outpopulate the Jews, but I've seen other projections that show Jewish birthrate is high enough that in this scenario it is unlikely the country ever becomes majority Arab muslim. The rump state of Gaza would be furious at the West Bank annexation, but Israel could just unilaterally declare it an independent country and they'd be able to assume the international memberships of Palestine itself. Israel would be condemned for annexing the West Bank, but not much differently than Russia is being condemned for Crimea. Over time, the fuss would pass. Israel might fight in a constant low level war with Gaza, but if it's not an occupying power it's arguably freer to just blow shit up and kill even more people there any time they provoke stuff--since they would view the attacks no longer as terrorism but acts of war by a neighboring sovereign state.

I don't believe that solution would be clean or unmessy, but I at this point think the two-state solution proposed in the past where Israel abandons settlements is basically not going to ever happen, and a total one state solution puts too much demographic risk in play for the Jews (right now if it was all one state there would be about 6 million Jews and 5.7m Arabs.) It goes without saying if it ever ends up majority Arab there will be genocide and murder of all Jews in Israel, since Muslims cannot tolerate anyone but Muslims having political power.

I agree with the idea that the US cannot ever be "friends" with the countries of the Middle East; their motivations are too Middle-Eastern to ever conform to US interests.  And I'd agree that the indecisive nature of the conflict is the worst of all possible words for the US; whether the Israelis eliminate Palestine, or the Palestinians eliminate Israel, both outcomes are similar in terms of US interests (an Israeli victory being slightly preferable, probably), and both are better than the present situation from the standpoint of US interests.

The best outcome for US interests would be a two-state solution, but that simply isn't possible.

Right, I think we're in agreement on that. Israel is a pretty shitty country, largely supported because we have a lot of rich Jews in America and evangelicals who have various crazed reasons for supporting Jews in the Levant. But Palestine is probably worse, and I'll take Israeli Jews over Arab Muslims basically any day of the week. In Israel proper we do see a pretty free country, where Arab Israelis have full political rights, have seats in the Knesset and etc. Just in terms of our national worldview I think the opposite--if Arabs take over and  slowly start to squeeze out the Jews (which almost absolutely will happen), would be a "worse" outcome.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Well, I'm not surprised if Israel is stepping up their settlement project, considering their population has grown by 2/3, or over 3 million since 1995: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/israel_palestine_pop.html

And the territory is smaller than New Hampshire.

What I've often said about Israel is it's a shame the greater West didn't just step up after the Holocaust and say "we're going to jointly find an area of land to give you" I have no idea where the ideal place would be, but maybe they could've taken it from Germany (the greatest criminal in WWII by a vast margin), and we'd already stolen a lot of German land anyway. Plus since Germany was under division/occupation for a long time after WWII we basically could've forced the issue. [I've joked in the past we should've just given them 8500 sq. mi. in Montana or something, it's mostly depopulated and Montana would only be losing like 5% of its territory] I understand the historical/Zionist argument for establishing Israel in the Levant, but it's ultimately a really shitty place to build a "Jewish homeland."

[derspiess]

Stalin created an "Autonomous Jewish Oblast" in Eastern Siberia.  Not many Jews wanted to move there.  I think it still sort of exists.

[derspiess]

Btw a Facebook friend of mine said he bought Israeli Savings Bonds this morning in an apparent gesture of defiance at Obama's 'slap in the face' of Israel.  He's an interesting guy.  Kind of like a rightwing Seedy.

[Valmy]

Stalin created an "Autonomous Jewish Oblast" in Eastern Siberia.  Not many Jews wanted to move there.  I think it still sort of exists.

Yes I am aware of it. Shockingly Eastern Siberia was not that appealing

[Valmy]

Btw a Facebook friend of mine said he bought Israeli Savings Bonds this morning in an apparent gesture of defiance at Obama's 'slap in the face' of Israel.  He's an interesting guy.  Kind of like a rightwing Seedy.

I don't get it. We have never been in favor of the settlements.

Ah well. He should be happy enough soon.