US cuts funding for UNESCO after Palestinian vote

[MagickMan]

You guys can bitch all you want, but the truth is that until "Palestine" agrees to a peace treaty, and sticks to it, they aren't going to become a nation. Period. The US and UK will see to that, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it. So, you can take your bullshit "Zionism = Nazism" comments and stick them up your ass. Only a really sick bastard could ever believe that there's any equivalency there.

 

[kylebisme]

I see. So it's Israeli involvement that determines whether or not an ethnic group is stateless or not?

No, it's the majority of an ethnic group being "without citizenship from any internationally recognized state" which makes it stateless, while Israeli involvement is simply what has put Palestinians in that situation. In a similar vein, Saddam denied Kurds in Iraq citizenship, but their situation statelessness has since been resolved.

Let me help quote the parts you seem to have ignored:


The Kurds have been fighting for their own independence for a 1000 years longer than the Palestinians.

Way to ignore the facts right in front of you.

I ignored that because of the fact that it both began and ended long before the modern concept of the nation state came around. Besides, even if one insists on ignoring the difference between modern states and the kingdoms that were around before them, then Palestinians have arguably been strugging for indepedence since the Neo-Assyrian conquest of the region, considering the fact that "Like most other peoples today called Arabs, Palestinians descend from the pre-existing ancient inhabitants of their respective region and those who have come to settle it throughout history".

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Gotta love the TLC assertion that, "And many Palestinians are citizens of the various states in which they reside. It still makes Palestinians stateless as a group.

Does this really need to be explained to you or are you acting daft on purpose?"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But when Palestinian statehood is a huge sticking point for Israeli acceptance in the Mid-east, and Israel wants the land in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and in the GAZA strip Israel can never own, more than they want a just peace, we have to wonder how daft TLC and Israel are as they deny and delay the inevitable just to appease their crazed Israeli settler parties.

Sure go ahead, Israel can drag the USA into their own diplomatic isolation, but the USA has blown all their cred to broker any future Palestinian Israeli peace talks, and the next set of Nations to broker such talks will not take any Israeli bullshit. And they will not politely ask for an Israeli settlement freeze, they will demand it and enforce it.

The world international community may not care much for either the Israelis or Palestinians, but every industrialized country on earth is heavily dependent on Mid-east oil and mid-east political stability.

And when Israeli greed and stupidity is the greatest threat to mid-east political stability, even many people inside of Israel realize Bozo Netanyuhu has to go.

Any Israeli fan clubbers that think 2011 is bad for Israeli, will find 2012. 2013, far far worse.

Only the Pal cheerleaders like yourself give 2 shits what the ME opinion about Israel is. The fact is that Israel is an Internationally recognized country and all the combined anti-Israel hate in the ME and their usefull idiots in the West don't change that simple fact.

And "US diplomatic isolation?" lol. Just when one thinks LL can't make himself look even more idiotic regarding international relations he proves everyone wrong.

You really do live in your own private Idaho buddy.

 

[Craig234]

Bolded comments

Palestinians have never attempted to 'eliminate the Jews'.

Jews live around the world - I'd like to hear of any Palestinian effort to 'elimininate the Jews' anywhere except Israel.

There is a conflict over the land in Israel. Some is a conflict over all the land, giving any land to create Israel. Some is a conflict only over limited areas, such as the 1967 borders.

You're trying to misrepresent a land conflict as a genocide or holocaust.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

No, it's the majority of an ethnic group being "without citizenship from any internationally recognized state" which makes it stateless, while Israeli involvement is simply what has put Palestinians in that situation. In a similar vein, Saddam denied Kurds in Iraq citizenship, but their situation statelessness has since been resolved.

Well that knocks out the Palestinians in that case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_people

Total Palestinians: 10,574,521

West Bank and Gaza Strip: 3,761,000

By your own reasoning the Palestinians are not stateless.

I ignored that because of the fact that it both began and ended long before the modern concept of the nation state came around. Besides, even if one insists on ignoring the difference between modern states and the kingdoms that were around before them, then Palestinians have arguably been strugging for indepedence since the Neo-Assyrian conquest of the region, considering the fact that "Like most other peoples today called Arabs, Palestinians descend from the pre-existing ancient inhabitants of their respective region and those who have come to settle it throughout history".

You can ignore it for whatever lame reason you want to cite. The fact remains that my statement was correct.

 

[OCGuy]

Fuck the UN and Jihadis.

 

[kylebisme]

Well that knocks out the Palestinians in that case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_people
No it doesn't. As I said, "the vast majority are Palestinians living either under Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories or as refuges from Israeli expulsion", and as your one link explains "The remaining two thirds of Palestinians live abroad, and comprise what is known as the Palestinian diaspora, more than half of whom are stateless refugees, lacking citizenship in any country."

You can ignore it for whatever lame reason you want to cite. The fact remains that my statement was correct.

No again, based on your standard of ingoring the fact that nation states are a modern concept, Palestinians first struggled for independence in Biblical times, nearly 1000 years before the Kurdish revolt of 846.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Well that knocks out the Palestinians in that case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_people
No it doesn't. As I said, "the vast majority are Palestinians living either under Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories or as refuges from Israeli expulsion", and as your one link explains "The remaining two thirds of Palestinians live abroad, and comprise what is known as the Palestinian diaspora, more than half of whom are stateless refugees, lacking citizenship in any country."

Yet you claim that Kurds are all citizens of other countries while offering no proof, and offer no proof that Palestinians living abroad are devoid of citizenship. Methinks you are spreading major FUD without providing any backup other than the usual rhetoric.

No again, based on your standard of ingoring the fact that nation states are a modern concept, Palestinians first struggled for independence in Biblical times, nearly 1000 years before the Kurdish revolt of 846.

Kurds were considered to be Kurds way back when. Your claim is akin to claiming that pre-Clovis Americans should also be considered Commanches, Puebloes, or Seminole Indians. It's a stupid argument and a completely losing one that has no validity.

And nation states are a modern concept? Please tell that to Egypt, Persia, and Rome.

Finally, you argue about "modern concepts" while at the same time trying in vain to tie in the Palestinians to ancient tribes in that area. Do you not realize the complete and utter irony in that?

You're all over the place desperately trying to rationalize that which has no rational basis.

 

[kylebisme]

Lets take this one at a time:

Yet you claim that Kurds are all citizens of other countries while offering no proof

No, I didn't say that "Kurds are all citizens of other countries", I said:

the vast majority of them are citizens of the various states in which they reside.

And I said that in response to your completely unsubstantiated claim to the contrary. If you want me to take the time to dig up proof of my statement, first your going to have to show me what you believe proves otherwise, and I'll be happy to refute that.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Funny that the Palestinians did not show for nine months after Israel honored a Palestinian request for now new settlements.

Apparently they were not serious; so why should Israel bend over backwards for a group that does not want to settle their problem face to face.

Sad that people such as yourself still cling to the myth of the settlement freeze when even during it Israeli media was reporting Construction in West Bank settlements booming despite declared freeze.

The Palestinians asked for a freeze on no NEW settlements;
Israel honored that request.

Afterwards, apparently the Palestinians realized what they asked for may not be what they wanted.

However, Israel gave them what they asked for publicly.

And after the fact it was also found out that Abbas did not have any authority to negotiate.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Palestinians have never attempted to 'eliminate the Jews'.

Jews live around the world - I'd like to hear of any Palestinian effort to 'elimininate the Jews' anywhere except Israel.

There is a conflict over the land in Israel. Some is a conflict over all the land, giving any land to create Israel. Some is a conflict only over limited areas, such as the 1967 borders.

You're trying to misrepresent a land conflict as a genocide or holocaust.

The Palestinians sided with every Arab attack against Israel.

The Arab intentions were to destroy Israel and the Jews living there. The Palestinians that supported the Arab side were attempting to do such; they wanted it all.

Then after the Arabs stopped the attacks after '73 whupping, the Palestinians started up the terror attacks; And still got their buts whupped.

Israel was offering up controlled land for the promise of peace; it never came.

 

[kylebisme]

The Palestinians asked for a freeze on no NEW settlements;

All the reports I've seen suggest the call was for a freeze on on all settlement construction, this Guardian article being one example of many:

Mahmoud Abbas today underlined the stark reality of the stalemate in the Middle East peace process by again demanding a complete halt to settlement building in the West Bank before talks with Israel can resume.

The Palestinian president used the fifth anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat, his predecessor, to warn that he would not return to negotiations unless Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, changed tack. Netanyahu has promised to exercise "restraint" on settlements but snubbed Barack Obama by insisting that "natural growth" in existing Jewish outposts will continue. Abbas said that too must end, as must Israel's exclusion of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as their future capital, from the scope of any peace deal.

So, what is your source for this "NEW" bit you claim?

The Palestinians sided with every Arab attack against Israel.

That's because those attacks were in response to Israelis having attacked Palestinians and drove them off their land by the hundereds of thousands, as recounted here. Does this fact have no relevance to your understanding of the conflict?

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Lets take this one at a time:


No, I didn't say that "Kurds are all citizens of other countries", I said:


And I said that in response to your completely unsubstantiated claim to the contrary. If you want me to take the time to dig up proof of my statement, first your going to have to show me what you believe proves otherwise, and I'll be happy to refute that.

Really? That's your rebuttal; nitpicking over words when you haven't shown any proof of your claim either way?

The simple fact here is that both peoples are stateless. By saying that I mean 'neither has a country they can truly call their own,' i.e. - Palestine and Kurdistan (Of course, you knew that already yet felt compelled to split hairs and make stupid arguments along the way.) and the Kurds have been pursuing their own country for far longer than the Pals. All of your desperate attempts to claim otherwise doesn't change those simple facts.

All I'm doing is demonstrating the complete and utter hypocrisy of the countries in the ME and also showing that it's not really about the Palestinians, a people without a state. The Pals are a tool, nothing more, to use as a blunt object against Israel. I suspect it's the same for quite a few in this forum as well. They couldn't give two shits about Palestinians. The object of their ire is Israel and Pals are merely a lens used to focus that ire.

 

[Orignal Earl]

I got to ask, why does the right stick up so much for Israel.
Israel is so far left from the American right, you can't even begin to measure it.

Is it only because of the perceived war on Islam?

 

[kylebisme]

The simple fact here is that both peoples are stateless. By saying that I mean 'neither has a country they can truly call their own,' i.e. - Palestine and Kurdistan

Where are you getting your definition of "stateless" from? Best I can tell, Wiki provides the accepted defintion:

Statelessness is the legal and social concept of a lack of belonging (or a lawfully enforceable claim) to any recognised state. Statelessness is not always the same as lack of citizenship.

De jure statelessness is where there exists no recognised state in respect of which the subject has a legally meritorious basis to claim nationality.

De facto statelessness is where the man, woman or child may have a lawful and meritorious claim but is precluded from asserting it because of practical considerations such as cost, circumstances of civil disorder, or the fear of discrimination or persecution.

Statelessness most commonly affects refugees although not all refugees are stateless, and not all stateless men, women and children may be able to qualify as refugees. Refugee status entails the extra requirements that one be outside one's country of nationality (or country of habitual domicile if stateless), and is deserving of asylum based upon a well-founded fear of persecution for categorized reasons which make one unwilling or unable to avail oneself of the protection of that country.

And by those standards there are only a small fraction of Kurds are stateless, while all the Palestinians in the Palestinian territories and the refugees in the surrounding countries are.

 

[Orignal Earl]

kyle, anyone can see the pattern here.
You post links and facts.
Chicken posts a link and hopes you won't click the link
You post links and facts
Chicken does his dance

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

What credibility - with the Arabs; it can change day to day.

Look at Turkey - they hated Israel because of the Aid fiasco, but when push comes to shove; accepted Israeli aid.

All the Arab world is like that and actually most of the third world.
Anti US until the US dollars show up.

Congress setup the rules; the Palestinians and their world supporters felt that the US would not back up its bark. Image was more important than principal.

Well that falsehood has again been exposed:biggrin:

Don't forget to mention all the people in Europe that hate America, even though if it wasn't for America, they'd all be goose stepping and singing German Hymns on their way to work.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

I got to ask, why does the right stick up so much for Israel.
Israel is so far left from the American right, you can't even begin to measure it.

Is it only because of the perceived war on Islam?

So why is the left so Anti-Israel? IS it because Israel is a land of relgious peoples that stick to convictions and don't turn tail at the slightest hint of danger?
Aka they're not cowards like the American Left.

 

[Orignal Earl]

So why is the left so Anti-Israel? IS it because Israel is a land of relgious peoples that stick to convictions and don't turn tail at the slightest hint of danger?
Aka they're not cowards like the American Left.

That's an easy one
The left is not Anti-Israel

edit- I'm pretty sure the OP considers himself part of the left

 

[bononos]

In 1948 the UN proposed a two state solution, Israel complied and were given a state, Palestinians did not and thus has no state, they wanted ALL of the land and the expulsion of every Jew to comply, including the Jews that had bought land from previous land owners which was at that time every one of them.
........

The UN at the time didn't include many colonized countries who opposed such an obvious land grab.

The Palestinians who were the vast majority of the inhabitants of Palestine at the time obviously didn't feel it was right to give their own land away to outsiders. Comparing the rights of US Indians with Jews is odd since WWII was supposedly about peace and democracy - how could it justify the creation of Israel which necessitated the dispossession of Palestinians of their own homeland.

Earlier you said there wasn't any land taken away from Palestinians to create Israel sounds like the myth peddled by the likes of Joan Peter's From Time Immemorial which has been thoroughly debunked.

Arab Israelis are being discriminated against and treated like 2nd class citizens.

 

[Macamus Prime]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is cutting off funding for the U.N. cultural agency because it approved a Palestinian bid for full membership.

Wait - what happened to the screaming fits some of the conservative slime bags had over the Obama administration dropping Israeli support and taking on full 100% backing of Palestine?

I thought you guys said Obama wanted our only ally in the Middle East destroyed?

Oh,... right - that was just your overzealousness getting the better of you.

 

[nageov3t]

Wait - what happened to the screaming fits some of the conservative slime bags had over the Obama administration dropping Israeli support and taking on full 100% backing of Palestine?

I thought you guys said Obama wanted our only ally in the Middle East destroyed?

Oh,... right - that was just your overzealousness getting the better of you.

in fairness, by "Obama administration," what they mean is "Congress passed a law 20 years ago requiring this and the Obama admin has no say/influence in the matter one way or the other.

the whole thing reminds me of the time in college when I set my friend's leg on fire.

for 15 minutes, he kept on throwing his legs in my lap to use me as a footstool. I asked him to stop, and he wouldn't.

eventually, I was like "Rob, if you put your fucking legs in my lap one more time, I'm going to set them on fire."

so when he did, I set a match to his leg.

now, in retrospect, I probably overreacted, but he was warned about the consequences to his actions.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Where are you getting your definition of "stateless" from? Best I can tell, Wiki provides the accepted defintion:



And by those standards there are only a small fraction of Kurds are stateless, while all the Palestinians in the Palestinian territories and the refugees in the surrounding countries are.

Let me spell it out very simply for you before you trod any further down the your path of pedantry.

Their IS no Palestine as a formally recognized state for the Palestinians. There IS no Kurdistan as a formally recognized state for the Kurds.

Got it?

I am very sure you understood exactly what I was saying, particularly since I already spelled out how I used "stateless" in this context. Instead you continue to argue definitions, which tells me you are furiously attempting to avoid addressing the point I was making. I am not surprised whatsoever.

 

[kylebisme]

A bit more information on statelessness:

Nationality is a legal bond between a state and an individual, and statelessness refers to the condition of an individual who is not considered as a national by any state. Although stateless people may sometimes also be refugees, the two categories are distinct and both groups are of concern to UNHCR.

Statelessness occurs for a variety of reasons including discrimination against minority groups in nationality legislation, failure to include all residents in the body of citizens when a state becomes independent (state succession) and conflicts of laws between states.

Statelessness is a massive problem that affects an estimated 12 million people worldwide. Statelessness also has a terrible impact on the lives of individuals. Possession of nationality is essential for full participation in society and a prerequisite for the enjoyment of the full range of human rights.

While human rights are generally to be enjoyed by everyone, selected rights such as the right to vote may be limited to nationals. Of even greater concern is that many more rights of stateless people are violated in practice - they are often unable to obtain identity documents; they may be detained because they are stateless; and they could be denied access to education and health services or blocked from obtaining employment.

Given the seriousness of the problem, the UN in 1954 adopted the Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons.

Yet the problem can be prevented through adequate nationality legislation and procedures as well as universal birth registration. UNHCR has been given a mandate to work with governments to prevent statelessness from occurring, to resolve those cases that do occur and to protect the rights of stateless persons. A first step is for states to ratify and implement the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

Most Kurds don't have these problems, most Palestinians do.

Got it?