Live data from Hacker News

The United States withdraws from UNESCO

state.gov

801–810 of 989 posts

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#801

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is one interpretation of that phrase. And I could always say "the final solution" is referring to my math homework. In the context of the Palestinian occupation, intifada ALWAYS is meant as violent. There is no other interpretation. Pretending that it doesn't is both bad faith and classic taqiyya.

taqiyya is a new word to me. I can’t help but feel it’s being used as a bit of a slur here - not sure, but just in case i’ll point out that there are examples of basically every religious group hiding their faith when threatened. Jews during the holocaust and in inquisition spain, and catholics in elizabethan england, are historic examples i’m familiar with.

Taqiyya is a big part of right-wing conspiracy theories about how Muslims who integrate into Western societies are just faking it and cannot be trusted even if they are model citizens - supposedly they are just biding their time until they are the majority, and then they'll vote the extremists in.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#802

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 15-year-old amendment mandating a complete cutoff of American financing to any United Nations agency that accepts Palestine as a full member As a non-American, doesn't this seem a little ridiculous to some people in the US? This screams of a kind of melodramatic, overdone theatrics that the US doesn't seem to do to anyone else. I get that the US has a lot of Israeli money/investments/customers and extremely religio…

> melodramatic, overdone theatrics that the US doesn't seem to do to anyone else Iran and North Korea. China with Taiwan. This is deeply precedented geopolitical drama. > It ends up coming off as the US bowing on their knees to relatively minor nations If Israel and Palestine are your issue, of course. (Everything will tend to be. This is just how pet causes and the availability heuristic work.) If not, it doesn’t.

Sorry, I don't think I articulated the main point of what makes the 'theatrics' seem like such to me. It's not just about putting things about international relations into law - most countries do that in regards to war, economics, immigration, etc. It's that this whole 'punishment' is contingent on something so seemingly minor as UN membership (a.k.a. state recognition?). People hate Iran and North Korea, but I don't think many are arguing for them to be expelled from the UN outright. No sensible person does business with the Taliban's Afghanistan, but it's not like people are saying that Afghanistan is no longer a country. I don't even think this stance ("we will not back an entity that recognizes Palestine in this way") extends to any other countries with limited recognition, but correct me if I'm wrong.

> If Israel and Palestine are your issue, of course. (Everything will tend to be. This is just how pet causes and the availability heuristic work.)

Despite the very-not-subtle-dig at me, this war isn't the most important war for me right now, and it's not one I'm too informed on, given just how much background and historical baggage there is to the Israel/Palestine relationship.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay that’s fine — call it naive. Way would you call condemning the Gazans for fighting against occupiers while white washing the long history of crime and abuse by Zionists?

Israel hadn't 'occupied' Gaza since 2005.

The majority of Gazans are refugees displaced from other parts of Palestine which are indeed presently occupied.

If you care to find out how they were displaced you might be shocked at how the living space for Israelis was created.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think hundreds of billions in dollars and unique testing bench for weapons development is a significant part. The fact that it has synergies with the American foreign policy for dominating the oil rich Middle East is also definitely another plus. It’s not just “oh the Israel lobby is strong”.

The Israelis don't buy that many weapons from America, either directly nor by having the American government buy and gift the weapons. It's significant, but weapon sales alone can't explain the fanaticism of American politicians in both parties and the American public. Weapon sales can't explain why states like Texas would pass laws requiring school teachers to swear oaths of loyalty to Israel. It can't explain why s…

I would have guessed that significant quantities of weapons were purchased given the fact that the main workhorse of the Israeli Air Force is probably the American f15 and most of its munitions are American made. Not to mention the f35 and so on.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#805

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of humanity? My friend, if Hamas surrendered tomorrow, the death would stop. They have no allies, they have no support, the war is over. It's now just how much of their own people they are willing to grind up. Western liberals on the keyboards are not going to stop Israel. The fractured and shattered Islamic middle east is not going to stop Israel. End the war, give up the land, and take the offer from Israel fo…

> if Hamas surrendered tomorrow, the death would stop Have we seen an end to the violence in the West Bank area of Palestine?

No we haven’t. But he won’t admit that. He wants nothing other than the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Don’t you worry — once that is achieved they will ethnically cleanse West Bank.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but I don't think he's saying to dismiss the Ministry's numbers, but more that the death toll is actually even higher than the Ministry's numbers, in opposition to Israeli claims that the Ministry is making up deaths.

Thanks for pointing that misread out.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#807
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to sign a document saying you won't boycott Israel, academic journals cancel editions which talk about Palestine, you can't be part of UNESCO for Israel. You can't write a college article critical of Israel or we'll kidnap you off the streets into an unmarked van. You can't be a business and not give a contract to Israel or your employee will tip off the Anti Boycott Office against you. Your Congressmen wear…

What happened on April third 2021?

It's a date important to me personally

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#808
post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump was talking about forced migration. There's no reason anyone else needs to support that. Legal restrictions could be reduced if there are any counties willing to take refugees.

he wasn't talking about forced migration. he was talking about giving people housing/etc in other countries while gaza been rebuild, and later if they want they can come back. at no point he was saying that gazans will be rounded up and moved out. the way that conversation is going now is (and i am not trump fan): - everybody: gaza is destroyed and nobody can live there. conditions are inhumane - trump: lets allow to…

I don't know any details about what the Trump administration proposed. Is there more to it than a few tweets?

A US administration that was serious about this would propose a deal to take some refugees from Gaza as a sign of good will. Something like "we will take 25% if other countries agree to take 75%." To say that other countries should take all the refugees, when they've shown no interest in it, is deeply cynical. So I didn't bother to look further.

Of course we'd never see that from the Trump administration. Unfortunately the Biden administration wasn't imaginative enough to suggest such a thing.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that many people if divided up among many countries. These don't seem like reasons not to accept women and children from a war zone as refugees. Perhaps with some limits.

Exactly. It's not that many people and they still get into a ton of trouble. That seems like an excellent reason to either not accept them, or to enforce that they need to be dispersed widely enough to prevent forming a community and conducting violence in its name until they're back in palestine. Like we can even blame the way things are on the israelis, or at least majorly on them, but that doesn't change the calcu…

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3296212/malay...

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 15-year-old amendment mandating a complete cutoff of American financing to any United Nations agency that accepts Palestine as a full member As a non-American, doesn't this seem a little ridiculous to some people in the US? This screams of a kind of melodramatic, overdone theatrics that the US doesn't seem to do to anyone else. I get that the US has a lot of Israeli money/investments/customers and extremely religio…

> melodramatic, overdone theatrics that the US doesn't seem to do to anyone else Iran and North Korea. China with Taiwan. This is deeply precedented geopolitical drama. > It ends up coming off as the US bowing on their knees to relatively minor nations If Israel and Palestine are your issue, of course. (Everything will tend to be. This is just how pet causes and the availability heuristic work.) If not, it doesn’t.

Clearly Palestine is as big a threat to the US as China.
Post reply on HN