[skinster]

Yeah it's always a new method when it's something you don't like, but otherwise, when cops kill people with impunity and such, it's all good.

[One Degree]

Using the UN as an objective observer on Palestinians would need to be justified with their lack of support for Catalans and Kurds. They all three want the same thing so why is not the UN condemning Spain?
There seems to be something very unobjective in who they support.
This is why a new system for determining autonomy is needed.

[anasawad]

@One Degree
Because Spain did not conquer and occupy its territories, nor did the regional nations did to the kurds.
Israel, however, did.

[One Degree]

@One Degree
Because Spain did not conquer and occupy its territories, nor did the regional nations did to the kurds.
Israel, however, did.

Not bothering to get in to the truthfulness of that, why should it matter? Why would a people’s desire for autonomy be determined by past history?

[anasawad]

@One Degree
Its not past history.
The occupation and gradual annexation of an entire nation (palestine) is currently a work in progress. So it's not really much in the past.

Now for the question of why is the Israel\palestine issue so important; Its very simple actually, something called "A precedent" which everyone feels its very important not to establish here.

To explain;
Lets say the international community looked the other way and Israel annexed the Palestinian territories completely, or if we didn't want to go that far, continued annexing parts of it and no one did anything about it or even condemned it.
For now, it'll be a tragedy for the Palestinians but the world will go on as usual and nothing much will change really since the Palestinians aren't exactly that important on the world stage nor are they powerful enough to land any major objection or resistance at the current time.

Now lets say a war on the Korean peninsula broke out, and for whatever reason the US wasn't fighting in the war, North Korea went on and through the extensive usage of low armed human waves managed to capture all of South Korea and annex it.
Will that be bad ? Sure. Will it be illegal ? Not really, because remember, there is a precedent in Israel annexing Palestine.

Lets take another scenario with a much bigger nation; Russia.
Everyone objected when Russia annexed Crimea a while back. Now lets say Israel annexed Palestine fully without objection.
Then it'll be entirely legal for Russia to annex all those cute little territories it has it's eyes on in eastern Europe, and legally it's allowed to. Because remember, now annexing territories and even entire nations is acceptable.

Or what about China and its expansion goals in the south China sea and south east Asia.
You're telling me that a petty dwarf country like Israel can annex territories and an entire nation but a juggernaut of a nation like China cant ? get outta here man.


In short, the reason why its illegal to annex territories from other countries even through war is because thats how empire building works.
And there are countries far far faaaaaaaaar more capable of empire building than Israel is. And you really don't want them to get the gest its now legal or acceptable to go ahead and do so.

[One Degree]

@One Degree
Its not past history.
The occupation and gradual annexation of an entire nation (palestine) is currently a work in progress. So it's not really much in the past.

Now for the question of why is the Israel\palestine issue so important; Its very simple actually, something called "A precedent" which everyone feels its very important not to establish here.

To explain;
Lets say the international community looked the other way and Israel annexed the Palestinian territories completely, or if we didn't want to go that far, continued annexing parts of it and no one did anything about it or even condemned it.
For now, it'll be a tragedy for the Palestinians but the world will go on as usual and nothing much will change really since the Palestinians aren't exactly that important on the world stage nor are they powerful enough to land any major objection or resistance at the current time.

Now lets say a war on the Korean peninsula broke out, and for whatever reason the US wasn't fighting in the war, North Korea went on and through the extensive usage of low armed human waves managed to capture all of South Korea and annex it.
Will that be bad ? Sure. Will it be illegal ? Not really, because remember, there is a precedent in Israel annexing Palestine.

Lets take another scenario with a much bigger nation; Russia.
Everyone objected when Russia annexed Crimea a while back. Now lets say Israel annexed Palestine fully without objection.
Then it'll be entirely legal for Russia to annex all those cute little territories it has it's eyes on in eastern Europe, and legally it's allowed to. Because remember, now annexing territories and even entire nations is acceptable.

Or what about China and its expansion goals in the south China sea and south east Asia.
You're telling me that a petty dwarf country like Israel can annex territories and an entire nation but a juggernaut of a nation like China cant ? get outta here man.


In short, the reason why its illegal to annex territories from other countries even through war is because thats how empire building works.
And there are countries far far faaaaaaaaar more capable of empire building than Israel is. And you really don't want them to get the gest its now legal or acceptable to go ahead and do so.

Human history is annexation being acceptable. It is only recently it has been subjectivily considered a ‘no no’ and we are still dealing with it on a single basis. Therefore, your post is not really relevant. It also does not address the issue of why areas already under the control of others are stuck with it? Apparently Palestine is unique because the UN granted them a quasi status, which your argument apparently uses to exempt them from previous occupation considerations. No matter how you look at it, Palestinians are being treated with different standards than other areas wanting autonomy.
My argument can be boiled down to why don’t we have uniform guidelines? The answer is simple. The UN never had any interest in treating groups of people uniformly. Therefore, their views on Palestine can not be considered objective.

[anasawad]

@One Degree
It's not irrelevant, its the crux of the issue to explain the UN behavior.
For the Palestinians, the UN established both Palestine and Israel in 1948.
Palestine falling under occupation through war is irrelevant to the fact it is still a nation with equal rights as other nations.
The Kurds were not a nation that was annexed, the Kurds are an ethnic group whom lived inside a number of nations and suddenly decided they wanted independence.
They're not a nation state but rather seperatists.
The Catalonia issue is exactly the same, seperatists, not nation under occupation.
The same goes for many others alike.
The Palestinians are not seperatists fighting Israel to seperate from it, they're a nation under military occupation and being colonized, which makes it an entirely different case than all the others since its the only nation in the world currently that is actively under military occupation and colonization.

Lets be sure to make that distinction in the discussion going forward, i.e between seperatists wanting to split from a state, and nations under military occupation from an entirely different nations. Because they really are very different.

[One Degree]

@One Degree
It's not irrelevant, its the crux of the issue to explain the UN behavior.
For the Palestinians, the UN established both Palestine and Israel in 1948.
Palestine falling under occupation through war is irrelevant to the fact it is still a nation with equal rights as other nations.
The Kurds were not a nation that was annexed, the Kurds are an ethnic group whom lived inside a number of nations and suddenly decided they wanted independence.
They're not a nation state but rather seperatists.
The Catalonia issue is exactly the same, seperatists, not nation under occupation.
The same goes for many others alike.
The Palestinians are not seperatists fighting Israel to seperate from it, they're a nation under military occupation and being colonized, which makes it an entirely different case than all the others since its the only nation in the world currently that is actively under military occupation and colonization.

Lets be sure to make that distinction in the discussion going forward, i.e between seperatists wanting to split from a state, and nations under military occupation from an entirely different nations. Because they really are very different.

I will bow out of the discussion because my views take others off topic from the issues they want to debate.
I see no reason why the two should not be covered under the same guidelines, but that is currently irrelevant.

[noemon]

Not bothering to get in to the truthfulness of that, why should it matter? Why would a people’s desire for autonomy be determined by past history?

Dude, Catalans and Kurds are not being dragged from their houses in the dead of night and then told that their house is to be demolished to make way for a new Jewish-only settlement. Catalans and Kurds even though lacking the rights they wish they had, they still have access to the houses of their fathers, still have access to their fields, their groves and trees, still enjoy equal rights before civil authorities and are not subject to a military occupation which means that instead of police they do not have a hostile foreign army patrolling their streets instead of courts and jury they do not have military tribunals of a hostile foreign nation judging them. How does this not matter? How is this not relevant? And this going on for more than 50 years and counting. It's beyond pathetic complaining that the occupier is the victim of criticism while the occupied who has been stripped of his human decency should not even complain because it is hurting the feelings of his tyrrant. Have you lost it? If people and the UN failed to condemn this state of affairs, a state of permanent occupation, of constant degradation, then what would we be left with? These token condemnations that change nothing in the ground is the least anyone can do if not for the Palestinians but for our own collective sanity and fake facade.

The UN you say is biased in favour of Palestine?

On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.

This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.

ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE'S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE BASIS OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL.

[One Degree]

Dude, Catalans and Kurds are not being dragged from their houses in the dead of night and then told that their house is to be demolished to make way for a new Jewish-only settlement. Catalans and Kurds even though lacking the rights they wish they had, they still have access to the houses of their fathers, still have access to their fields, their groves and trees, still enjoy equal rights before civil authorities and are not subject to a military occupation which means that instead of police they have a hostile foreign army patrolling their streets instead of courts and jury they have military tribunals of a hostile foreign nation judging them. How does this not matter? How is this not relevant? And this going on for more than 50 years and counting. It's beyond pathetic complaining that the occupier is the victim of criticism while the occupied who has been stripped of his human decency should not even complain because it is hurting the feelings of his tyrant. Have you lost it?

The UN you say is biased in favour of Palestine?

I think the Kurds in Iraq would have serious disagreement about their freedom you describe, but these are not my issues. Mine was the UN can not be considered objective and I ended my participation in that in my last post.

[noemon]

I think the Kurds in Iraq would have serious disagreement about their freedom you describe, but these are not my issues. Mine was the UN can not be considered objective and I ended my participation in that in my last post.

You think wrong, Kurds in Iraq at the moment aside from enjoying the rights of Iraqi citizens also enjoy added autonomy rights of self-governance. Your ignorance about the state of affairs of Kurds in Iraq is not an excuse to post such nonsense and when they have been mistreated which they have indeed during various periods the UN has indeed spoken up.

[One Degree]

You think wrong, Kurds in Iraq at the moment aside from enjoying the rights of Iraqi citizens also enjoy added autonomy rights if self-governance. Your ignorance about the state of affairs of Kurds in Iraq is not an excuse to post such nonsense and when they have been mistreated which they have indeed during various periods the UN has spoken up.

Using their ‘state of the moment’ to justify your characterization of their history is disingenuous.

[noemon]

Using their ‘state of the moment’ to justify your characterization of their history is disingenuous.

It is indeed and that is why you should not do it. You did that, you said that Kurds in Iraq would disagree and you were not only disingenuous comparing an imaginary picture frame(of once upon a time in Kurdish Iraq) with a current(state of the moment) one in Palestine but you were wrong as well. Correcting you does not make me so.

[One Degree]

It is indeed and that is why you should not do it. You did that, you said that Kurds in Iraq would disagree and you were not only disingenuous comparing an imaginary picture frame(of once upon a time in Kurdish Iraq) with a current(state of the moment) one in Palestine but you were wrong as well. Correcting you does not make me so.

If a group wants their independence and are not allowed to have it without armed rebellion, then they are occupied territory. Whether you can see the tanks from your window at the moment does not change this.

[noemon]

If a group wants their independence and are not allowed to have it without armed rebellion, then they are occupied territory. Whether you can see the tanks from your window at the moment does not change this.

Having a tank in front of your house and not having one is in fact worlds apart. Having a hostile foreign army instead of your own local police(like the Kurds for example) and going to a military tribunal instead of before a civil authority composed of a judge and a jury of your peers also makes a huge difference. An objective difference in one's life and the fact that you have to deny that to sustain your position should tell you how ridiculous that position is.

[One Degree]

Having a tank in front of your house and not having one is in fact worlds apart. Having a hostile foreign army instead of your own local police(like the Kurds for example) and going to a military tribunal instead of before a civil authority composed of a judge and a jury of your peers also makes a huge difference. An objective difference in one's life and the fact that you have to deny that to sustain your position should tell you how ridiculous that position is.

What you describe is a subjective difference in occupation. They are still occupied. You are creating degrees of occupation. You seem to be suggesting it is okay to govern people against their will as long as you don’t let them see the tanks, even though they know the tanks are there.

[noemon]

What you describe is a subjective difference in occupation. They are still occupied. You are creating degrees of occupation. You seem to be suggesting it is okay to govern people against their will as long as you don’t let them see the tanks, even though they know the tanks are there.

No mate, the difference between a local police car and a foreign tank is not a subjective difference, the difference between a civil court composed of a judge & a jury of your peers and a foreign military tribunal is not a subjective difference. These are objective differences and the fact that you have to deny that to sustain your impossible and frankly disturbing position is serious bonkers. Get a grip before you make any more and at the end of the day you are not convincing anybody but simply trying to make an excuse for yourself and its obvious. Pretending that stealing a chewing gum from your mate's car is the same as a murder rape spree because they are both crimes and there are no degrees of crime is ----> The fact that you do this conversation every time you lose an argument in order to derail the fact that you have lost the argument is quite boring

[skinster]

Will a UNHRC without America rebuild and flex its muscles against Israel?
The UN Human Rights Council’s allegedly “unconscionable” approach to Israel is the reason cited by the Trump administration for withdrawing unceremoniously from the international body. Using the excuse that the UNHRC is biased against Israel, the United States has, without blinking — and in typical, cowardly fashion — exited stage right in the hope that other states will follow. At the moment, it looks as if the US is on its own apart from Israel itself.

Having America at loggerheads with an important part of the UN structure may be music to the ears of Israel, but it certainly does not augur well for whatever is left of the “prestige” of the only global superpower. Flexing its muscles to protect the world’s last remaining settler-colonial regime may have worked in the past, but that era has passed, thanks mainly to the overt and shameful collusion between the US President and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to impose the Israeli narrative of “victimhood” on the rest of us.

The new reality is that people all over the world have had enough of US-Israeli bullying and intimidation, even if some governments are still in awe of America’s power. What’s worse for the US is that its President is viewed as an unpredictable character, whose claim to legitimacy is mired in controversy. Donald Trump is considered by most reasonable people to be a buffoon surrounded by a coterie of right-wing racists who profit from his disastrously irrational policies.

More importantly, with an arrogant, fire-spitting loudmouth like Nimrata “Nikki” Haley as his ambassador at the UN, the contrast between good and evil could not be starker. In her shrill voice, Haley attacked the UNHRC as “hypocritical and self-serving” without any regard for the hypocrisy of her own government. Trump’s envoy, who is arguably there to serve Israel’s interest rather than America’s, may actually believe her own lies, but sadly for her and her Zionist patrons, world opinion is inclined to believe that Washington is complicit in Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians by its failure to act against its client state.

Such obvious failures apart, the US has deliberately sabotaged attempts by the UNHRC to hold Israel to account for its frequent and ongoing breaches of international human rights law. Shameless double standards dog Trump’s presidency, especially in the emphatic fashion that it continues to shield Israel.

As global outrage against Israel’s latest horrific bloodbath in Gaza grows, there can be no doubt that the settler-colonial regime is as fearful as the former South African apartheid regime was about the potential of the United Nations to curb its ability to act with impunity. It is well documented that the UN had a significant role in the abolition of South Africa’s notorious racist rule. Condemned as a “crime against humanity”, the UN established a Special Committee against Apartheid in 1962. A decade later it adopted the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. As the newly-elected President of South Africa in 1994, Nelson Mandela addressed the UN General Assembly by welcoming its role in the vanquishing of apartheid in his homeland.

Israel is obviously fearful of a similar scenario whereby leaders of the freedom struggle in Palestine would retrace Mandela’s steps and repeat his celebratory speech. Netanyahu’s government and its supporters are keen to have Trump as their proxy to destroy or at the least cripple the UN and key institutions such as the UNHRC. It is for this reason that the Israeli regime has sought to ridicule and slander UN Special Rapporteurs and Working Groups whose roles in the investigation of Israeli violations have been made impossible.

Israel is also aware that its conduct against Palestinians — especially in the emphatic way that its racist laws are being applied — is at odds with the charter of the UN. A regime of intolerable cruelty is in place which no organ of the UN can justify or ignore.

It is no surprise that South Africa has slammed the US decision to withdraw from membership of the UNHRC. The ANC-led government has correctly deplored the exit as “worrisome” and against the spirit of multilateralism as well as the UN Charter.

Human rights groups have argued consistently that the UN has not done enough to take Israel to account for its numerous violations of international laws and conventions. Discontent at its lackluster performance may be a polite way of expressing major disappointment. This critique is shared by Palestinians who argue justifiably that the endless list of crimes committed by Israel against them — all in violation of the UN Charter — have not resulted in swift, decisive action against the Zionist state.

Notwithstanding comprehensive reports by Special Rapporteurs and Working Groups, it is an undeniable fact that Israel has evaded censure and concomitant punitive measures, due mainly to the protection offered by the US from the UN Security Council down. Not only has it impacted negatively on the image of the UN, but the question of Israel’s impunity and defiance has also undermined the credibility of its institutions.

Now that Trump has taken America out amidst bellicose war cries by Haley, will we start to see the UNHRC rebuilding and then, more importantly, starting to flex its muscles? Victims of injustice around the world, not least the Palestinians, will certainly hope so.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180 ... st-israel/

[danholo]

Is there anything else we should dissolve danholo

I think you really missed my point, as did many others.

Why do you think I want anything else dissolved? Did you miss my point about why I don't find the UNHRC credible? Why do you find it credible?

To add, it's not like I'm saying it should definitely be dissolved, but as it is, it's a complete joke. I can't see anyone persuading me otherwise.

I mean, it's funny - the UNHRC likes to bash on Israel, yet what has Israel done after their condemnations? Nothing. Sounds like a club of very important people who actually have nothing real to do.

In politics, there's the real world, and then there's the UN.

[noemon]

I think you really missed my point, as did many others.

Why do you think I want anything else dissolved? Did you miss my point about why I don't find the UNHRC credible? Why do you find it credible?

The only thing you said is that the UNHCR singles out Israel. Have you considered the possibility that Israel deserves the treatment it is getting? It is the only country that is occupying another on a permanent decade old basis. That is quite a unique achievement that warrants unique treatment.

To add, it's not like I'm saying it should definitely be dissolved, but as it is, it's a complete joke. I can't see anyone persuading me otherwise.

Speaking up against injustice in the world and pushing for world leaders to do something about it is a worthy cause. If you were on the receiving end of that injustice your opinion would be different. The irony here would be funny if it were not so macabre.

I mean, it's funny - the UNHRC likes to bash on Israel, yet what has Israel done after their condemnations? Nothing. Sounds like a club of very important people who actually have nothing real to do.

The UN would have done something a long time ago if the US did not veto all the resolutions against Israel in the General Assembly and Security Council. The only reason you want to dissolve the UNHCR is to prevent it from putting pressure on the UNGA and UNSC, keeping the pressure up means that one day the US might act different than it has been.