I wonder what drove Micronesia and Nauru to vote against the resolution rather than stay out of it.
Malta, Serbia, Albania, Cyprus, Czechia, Slovakia, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, and Sweden do.
The largest "industry" on Nauru was the processing of Australian offshore immigration seekers, a sordid business that has closed one end of the pipe and is now winding down leaving the facilities and the private security company looking for money.
I would not be suprised if the promise of future USofA offshore processing of US Asylum seekers (come to US|Mexico border seeking asylum? Get sent to a Pacific Island to wait) has influenced the vote in Nauru.
9/11 is the parallel that jumps out to me the most. And while maybe the many American servicepeople killed during the wars that came after that care about the distinction, I'm not sure many of the other dead find it a salient consideration.
And that's assuming you accept that the wars in response to 9/11 were in America's "own interest", which no longer seems to be something you can take for granted even from Republican Presidents.
While I agree with PG that this outcome should be jarring and force Americans to consider why our country has taken the positions it has, I think we also have to interrogate the resolution. What does a right to self-determination mean? Who gets to be a 'people'? If such a group is not unanimous in what they want, what does self-determination at the group level mean? When multiple such groups attempt to 'self-determine' in ways which are clearly in conflict, what does it mean for the international community to recognize such a general right?
I suspect similar for "The Quebequois" and Canada. The Scottish and the UK.
On a surface level it doesn't say much.
I'm all for human rights, individual rights. I agree that there is a basic floor of those rights which should be respected on either side of the partition, and everywhere else. But rights of a group of people to act as "a people" with a state, and control over a contiguous block of territory, seems way less credible.
Does every civilian have a right not to be bombed or shot at or have power and water cut? Yes. Also rights to be treated equally before the law, not be subject to arbitrary detainment, fair and public trials, etc.
But "a people" as a group having rights? Would Catalonia, Veneto, Wallonia etc have a "right" to be separate states if their populations desire it? Unclear. What if Afrikaners tried to assert such a right? Seems sus. Did people inside the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone have rights to create it? Probably not, even if they had organized a plebiscite first. So where's the line?
Let's face a simple truth, Israel has no plan for Palestine but refuses to let it go. They are not winning this except by ethnic cleansing.
We can imagine a State of Palestine stabilizing eventually, but we can't imagine how Israel can ever stabilize its roofless GULag camp.
Since then Hamas established a brutal dictatorship taking all of the inhabitants of Gaza as hostages. Freedom of speech? Nope. Women‘s rights? Forget it. Gay rights? Of course not. Taxes and international monetary support was side channeled to establish an underground military force using hospitals and schools als command centers. For decades they fired rockets on Israel civilians and still Israel let them going on. Until they crossed the border last year killing hundreds of civilians and even took over a thousand of hostages including children.
When you insist Gaza being „Israel‘s gulag camp“ you are being delusional, put yourself far outside any civilized discourse and make yourself essentially a supporter of a truly criminal and violent gang.
I wish Gaza people all the best but their only hope for freedom is the total and utter destruction of Hamas‘ network of terrorists.
Hard fact Israel cleared out of Gaza 17 years ago and since then the Palestinians have let themselves be ruled by a terrorist organization. So doesn't seem like the Palestinians should be allowed to have their own government. Normally the solution to this sort of problem is they'd be handed over to some other government. Problem is no one wants the headache.
The hard reality is the Palestinians are a couple of million people that can't get their shit together vs 30 million refugees many of whom are in grave danger not of their own making.
After 50 years of paying attention to these guys I really can't care anymore. And that's really what everyone else should do. Because if no one cared about them anymore they'd have to deal with their own shit.
That's not true at all.
Finland closed the entire border with Russia because Russians kept ferrying migrants to Finnish border. Russia had tried the same tactic against Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland too. Strong response prevented the issue from snowballing out of control like in the Mediterranean where we see one artificial justification after another why nothing can be done.
It’s ironic to see PG flagged on basically his own website.
At a start - what's the entire text of the resolution?
I read an article about Netanyahu that suggested he views any viable Palestinian state as a security threat to Israel, and hence has been doing everything possible to stop that from happening, up to and including enabling Hamas (to discredit/disrupt the Palestinian Authority).
Yes, we want to reel Israel in before they can commit genocide regardless of whether it degrades Hamas as an organization because Palestinians are human beings, not orcs. "Just let them keep killing until the problem goes away" isn't supposed to be an acceptable policy position in modern societies.
And it turns out it isn't - except to Israel, the US and Micronesian states which I assume are just vassals to the US.
One thing that's missed about the whole "eye for an eye" thing, is that at the time, it was a step forward from the status quo. A way to prevent a lost eye becoming a lost arm becoming a lost life, becoming 3 lost lives and so on.
Now it's become a by-word for barbarity, but it was state of the art of civilization at one point, thousands of years ago.
And sadly, if 'eye for an eye' was the rule followed in the current conflict, there would be less criticism of the Israeli government's response, as there'd be a lot less dead people.
Hamas was never imposed on the Palestinian people, of which a sizable proportion support the elimination of Israel ("from the river to the sea"). Maybe the horror of the calamity befalling them might concentrate some minds.
I think Israel is a wonderful country but at the same time its government does completely untenable thing.
I believe all these countries may be sincere. What's the worst that can happen after the vote, for them?
This is simply not true. If you look at spending since 2016, Israel is 10th, but didn't even break top 10 in 2023:
1. Liberia $183,313,959
2. Saudi Arabia $47,703,350
3. Japan $35,712,625
4. China $35,659,291
5. Hong Kong $30,717,811
6. Bahamas $26,763,000
7. Marshall Islands $26,579,703
8. United Arab Emirates $25,903,225
9. South Korea $24,050,739
10. Qatar $16,063,590
If the allies lost WW2 the right side of history would involve singing the Horst-Wessel-Lied with your morning coffee.
It is only thanks to human sacrifice and spirit of will that we don’t.
What about Perestroika? Which side of history was the right/wrong one there, the USSR or the RF?
Is the modern Polish or Ukrainian state on the right or wrong side? Israel and Palestine?
History is history, there’s just one and it’s written by humanity.
[edit] and yes, that mean that despite my dislike for the liars who pushed and implemented brexit, accepting this new relationship was the right thing to do.
If there is one thing to take away from the existence of the "Israeli foreign lobby" conspiracy theory it is that public ignorance of international relationships leads to impactful confusions as people seek to explain what is advertised by the mainstream in terms of ideas advertised by extremists rather than facts that have not been advertised at all.
1. US Chamber of Commerce $49,970,000
2. National Assn of Realtors $33,661,316
3. Blue Cross/Blue Shield $21,634,765
4. Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America $21,043,000
5. American Hospital Assn $20,928,991
6. American Medical Assn $15,330,000
7. Amazon.com $14,970,000
8. Meta $14,640,000
9. Business Roundtable $13,490,000
10. CTIA $11,570,000
He is talking about America's most powerful lobby FOR a foreign country. So this list is useless. Also, your second list only includes official foreign agents, while most pro-Israel lobbying is not registered as such (notably AIPAC).
> He is talking about America's most powerful lobby FOR a foreign country.
I'm only interested in discussing the actual text that received (as of writing) 2.3 million views and is the subject of this thread, not your own revision.
> Also, your second list only includes official foreign agents, while most pro-Israel lobbying is not registered as such (notably AIPAC)
I was responding to a comment about the "Israeli lobby." Israelis are not Americans, which is why I addressed foreign spending. But since you're insinuating that AIPAC is a channel for foreign influence despite being a US organization with 3 million American members, changing its status wouldn't influence the list I provided, so I don't see the relevance of this argument to the larger question of lobbying power.
