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The United States withdraws from UNESCO

state.gov

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Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#911

Post by atonse »

FireBeyond wrote: post #723
atonse wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard this for decades now. But how do they rank in importance compared to other juggernauts like the teachers unions, NRA, or United Auto Workers, Planned Parenthood? Not to mention individual lobbyists for massive companies? because the latter dominate discourse during elections.

When was the last time you had to sign an agreement not to boycott gun fairs or a car manufacturer, for a job? Planned Parenthood? You mean the healthcare-providing entity that has been entirely defunded by this administration?

But are there movements to boycott those other groups? The BDS movement seems to be only about boycotting Israel right?

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#912

Post by ActorNightly »

austin-cheney wrote: post #875
ActorNightly wrote: post #864

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly what I mean about seeing things from one side. >but how does that extend to the West Bank? When your country history includes all of your surrounding neighbors going to war to try to exterminate you, and that sentiment hasn't changed, you are going to be probably very expansionist. Not that the west bank settlements are morally right and they certainly don't help the cause, but the actions are somewhat unders…

> Again, try to be rational. Is it tribalism, or do they just want a future where citizens don't have to worry about terrorist attacks or getting rocketed anymore? That’s exactly what Milosevic argued to justify attacking his neighbors. We have to get them before they get us I am being rational and cannot imagine any justification for the complete eradication of Gaza or the illegal settlements in the West Bank. If th…

>We have to get them before they get us

In Israel case, its "we have to get them so they don't get us again". Not sure why this is so difficult to understand.

Not sure why you haven't bothered to read the rest of my comment as I addressed your two other points.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#913

Post by int_19h »

mola wrote: post #885
int_19h wrote: post #797

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the only way that Israel can continue to exist is as an apartheid state where a large proportion of the population has to be forcibly kept in a status with no political rights, or else expelled or killed altogether, then yes, Israel doesn't deserve to exist. Now, I don't know whether that is true. It seems to be the argument that the Israeli government and the right-wing majority of its population are making now -…

If Israel is alien to the region, so are Arabs which is what Palestinians are. That's nonsense. The Jewish people have a long (2000years) of calling Israel territory as home. Does it mean I deny the Palestinians national claim, no. But it sure as hell mean Jews have a claim atleast as much as Arab immigrants and conquerers

The vast majority of Jews who settled in modern Israel didn't have a 2000-year history of Israel as their home. They have a 2000-year history of religious beliefs that center around Israel and date back to their very distant ancestors living in that place, but that's not at all the same thing. I mean, can you imagine what the world map would look like if we were to apply this criteria to other nations today?

Palestinians, on the other hand, have actually been physically living in that place for well over a millennium. Not only that, but dismissing them as "Arab invaders" is also rather misleading - while the language and the culture is Arabic, the Palestinian population is mostly descendants of the same people who lived in this area 2000 years ago (Canaanites etc), with Arabic culture imposed on them during the early Islamic conquests. And again, if you're willing to look back that far to establish a link that translates to right of possession, then should we go back another 1000 years and talk about Torah's vivid descriptions of the invasion of Canaan by Jewish tribes and genocide of the local population?

I think it's foolish to try to derive some kind of meaningful claim today from what happened 2000-3000 years ago, though. And looking at the more recent history, what is today Israel was explicitly a settler colonialist project. Here's Ze'ev Jabotinsky writing in 1923, not mincing words about Palestinians being the native population that he wants to displace:

"There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future. I say this with such conviction, not because I want to hurt the moderate Zionists. I do not believe that they will be hurt. Except for those who were born blind, they realised long ago that it is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting "Palestine" from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority. ... Every native population, civilised or not, regards its lands as its national home, of which it is the sole master, and it wants to retain that mastery always; it will refuse to admit not only new masters but, even new partners or collaborators. ... Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach."

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#914

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

DSingularity wrote: post #803
FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have family in Israel (some of which go back to Roman times) and am quite familiar with the current nations founding. 'Palestine' is a modern convention from 1967. Prior to that, it was a regional term to refer anyone living in the area (including native Jews).

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#915

Post by austin-cheney »

amendegree wrote: post #890
austin-cheney wrote: post #875

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Again, try to be rational. Is it tribalism, or do they just want a future where citizens don't have to worry about terrorist attacks or getting rocketed anymore? That’s exactly what Milosevic argued to justify attacking his neighbors. We have to get them before they get us I am being rational and cannot imagine any justification for the complete eradication of Gaza or the illegal settlements in the West Bank. If th…

Illegal according to who? The concept of legal doesn’t apply to nation states. “Legal” presupposes an enforcement framework and process which simply doesn’t exist as it applies to sovereign countries. But more to the point you can’t claim to be rational while using terms like “the complete eradication of Gaza”. The population in Gaza has grown since the war started. Meanwhile in southern Syria the Druze are actually…

> Illegal according to who?

Everyone else in the world.

I can use terms like complete eradication. What percentage of buildings in Gaza remain in safe enough conditions for people to live in? The entire strip looks like a flattened dust pile.

Yes, killing civilians is bad regardless of their identity. It seems like you are trying to shift ground to something unrelated because you have nothing of actual substance.

Now how is the conduct by Israel not tribal warfare on a nearly genocidal scale?

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#916

Post by austin-cheney »

ActorNightly wrote: post #912
austin-cheney wrote: post #875

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Again, try to be rational. Is it tribalism, or do they just want a future where citizens don't have to worry about terrorist attacks or getting rocketed anymore? That’s exactly what Milosevic argued to justify attacking his neighbors. We have to get them before they get us I am being rational and cannot imagine any justification for the complete eradication of Gaza or the illegal settlements in the West Bank. If th…

>We have to get them before they get us In Israel case, its "we have to get them so they don't get us again". Not sure why this is so difficult to understand. Not sure why you haven't bothered to read the rest of my comment as I addressed your two other points.

It’s not difficult. I apparently guessed your sentiment accurately even though I was actually describing the first head of state to be convicted of war crimes for promoting genocide and ethnic cleansing.

But, let’s make this even less difficult. Is the goal here security or dominance? Security suggests reducing hostilities but dominance suggests removing a group of people from an area of land. I really don’t see any reduction of hostilities.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#917

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #847
austin-cheney wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has been able to explain to me how the Israel/Palestine issue is fundamentally different from the Serbia/Bosnia/Kosovo issue of the 1990s. Its weird the mental gymnastics people will go through to qualify any position in either of these events.

The major difference is Israel is one of the only modern states that cannot and will not extend citizenship and property rights to the majority of people under their control who existed there when the nation was founded because it would upend the ethnic makeup of the country. They will also not allow the creation of a state for those people, forcing them to be stateless. None of that applies in Serbia / Bosnia / Koso…

27% of Israeli citizens are not Jews, but Arabs. They have full citizenship, vote, hold office, etc.

Gaza is a competely separate country/territory. They have no connection to the modern Israeli state. If anything they should be asking for Egyptian or Jordanian citizenship since the majority have kin relationships and history from there.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#918

Post by mbs159 »

rtkwe wrote: post #43
netsharc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why fantasize that the GOP isn't going to do a Putin/Erdogan/Suharto? Those countries have "democratic" elections and keep electing the same president, they must be hella great guys!

There are clearly pockets that want to but I'm not sure there's enough support in important areas to actually have a coup like that succeed. Kind of have to wait and see how things develop.

The president, as head of arguably the most powerful military in the world, has enough military strength to enforce pretty much anything on anyone in the country if he wishes to.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#919

Post by lbrito »

amendegree wrote: post #890
austin-cheney wrote: post #875

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Again, try to be rational. Is it tribalism, or do they just want a future where citizens don't have to worry about terrorist attacks or getting rocketed anymore? That’s exactly what Milosevic argued to justify attacking his neighbors. We have to get them before they get us I am being rational and cannot imagine any justification for the complete eradication of Gaza or the illegal settlements in the West Bank. If th…

Illegal according to who? The concept of legal doesn’t apply to nation states. “Legal” presupposes an enforcement framework and process which simply doesn’t exist as it applies to sovereign countries. But more to the point you can’t claim to be rational while using terms like “the complete eradication of Gaza”. The population in Gaza has grown since the war started. Meanwhile in southern Syria the Druze are actually…

>The concept of legal doesn’t apply to nation states.

So when the US government repeatedly calls the Russian invasion of Ukraine illegal, you are saying they are wrong, right?

"Two years ago, Russian forces launched an illegal and indefensible all-out invasion of Ukraine"

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/368495...

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#920

Post by aprilthird2021 »

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #917
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #847

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major difference is Israel is one of the only modern states that cannot and will not extend citizenship and property rights to the majority of people under their control who existed there when the nation was founded because it would upend the ethnic makeup of the country. They will also not allow the creation of a state for those people, forcing them to be stateless. None of that applies in Serbia / Bosnia / Koso…

27% of Israeli citizens are not Jews, but Arabs. They have full citizenship, vote, hold office, etc. Gaza is a competely separate country/territory. They have no connection to the modern Israeli state. If anything they should be asking for Egyptian or Jordanian citizenship since the majority have kin relationships and history from there.

> 27% of Israeli citizens are not Jews, but Arabs. They have full citizenship, vote, hold office, etc.

How does that have anything to do with the conflict? Could there ever be 51% of Israeli citizens who are non-Jewish Arabs? That tells you why Israel will not extend rights to the majority of subjects under it's territorial control.

> Gaza is a competely separate country/territory

It is not. Israel does not recognize it as such, and Israel controls all the borders, all the electricity, all the water, all the Internet and essentially all the external commerce of the region, it even controls the waters off shore of the region.

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