• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Does Israel have the right to build more ettlements on the West Bank?

spud_meister said:
So a nation derives its rights via UN mandate?
Click to expand...

What do you mean 'derive'? It may claim them as it will. It will assert them as it can. None of that really speaks to the legitimacy of those claims or efforts as viewed by the international community.
 
Andalublue said:
UN resolutions form a part of international legislation, along with treaties and conventions. I was referring to the many, many UN resolutions that Israel has defied, including this most recent UNSC Resolution #2334.
Click to expand...

There is no such thing as international legislation. We are not a one world government. Treaties do not qualify as international legislation. They are simply agreements between the nations that sign them. As for resolutions against Israel, they are too numerous and one sided to be taken seriously. For instance, in 2015, there were 20 resolutions against Israel and only 3 against the rest of the world combined. As for the resolutions you claim that Israel defied, exactly how many of them were binding resolutions? Most are not. The United Nations whose original purpose was to prevent war after WW2 has become a sick joke. Where is the re a UN resolution condemning what has taken place in Allepo? Or Russia occupying areas of Ukraine? How about Iran's support for international terrorism? Why are they spending most of their efforts ganging up on Israel?
 
ObamacareFail said:
There is no such thing as international legislation. We are not a one world government. Treaties do not qualify as international legislation. They are simply agreements between the nations that sign them. As for resolutions against Israel, they are too numerous and one sided to be taken seriously. For instance, in 2015, there were 20 resolutions against Israel and only 3 against the rest of the world combined. As for the resolutions you claim that Israel defied, exactly how many of them were binding resolutions? Most are not. The United Nations whose original purpose was to prevent war after WW2 has become a sick joke. Where is the re a UN resolution condemning what has taken place in Allepo? Or Russia occupying areas of Ukraine? How about Iran's support for international terrorism? Why are they spending most of their efforts ganging up on Israel?
Click to expand...

so, when the UN recognizes israel as a sovereign nation, you approve of that international agreement
but when it comes to a matter where the international community disparages the israeli government's actions, you find the UN authority to be worthless
i will try to recall the name for such pretense of moral character
 
justabubba said:
so, when the UN recognizes israel as a sovereign nation, you approve of that international agreement
but when it comes to a matter where the international community disparages the israeli government's actions, you find the UN authority to be worthless
i will try to recall the name for such pretense of moral character
Click to expand...

Let me clear things up for you. There is quite a difference between recognizing a state as a sovereign nation and administering that nation. And to be honest, Israel did not need UN recognition to become a sovereign state. Most states now in existence did not start out with UN recognition, League of Nations recognition, etc. Israel became a state largely on it's own. The UN recognition was simply that...."recognition". Israel did not need a permission slip from the UN to become a state. Nor does it need a permission slip to build settlements in occupied territories that were used to attack Israel.
 
For those who advocate "might is right", and "rights" to land based on that, will it be "right" if the Palestinians get a hold of nuclear weapons or other WMDs and use them to do serious damage to the Israeli's, enabling them to take land currently controlled by Israel? Think major war where both sides have serious military capability and decide to use it. So far, the situation hasn't exploded because the strength of the parties is unbalanced, so one side has been able to keep its boot on the neck of the other. But we live in a world with WMDs and that change - I don't light matches near powder kegs.
 
LessBiased? said:
For those who advocate "might is right", and "rights" to land based on that, will it be "right" if the Palestinians get a hold of nuclear weapons or other WMDs and use them to do serious damage to the Israeli's, enabling them to take land currently controlled by Israel? Think major war where both sides have serious military capability and decide to use it. So far, the situation hasn't exploded because the strength of the parties is unbalanced, so one side has been able to keep its boot on the neck of the other. But we live in a world with WMDs and that change - I don't light matches near powder kegs.
Click to expand...

If the palistineans ever gain nukes and are stupid enough to even think of using them against Israel, it would be a suicide move for the palistineans. Israel not only has nukes, they have the capability to destroy the palistineans with them, even if Israel is hit first.
 
ObamacareFail said:
If the palistineans ever gain nukes and are stupid enough to even think of using them against Israel, it would be a suicide move for the palistineans. Israel not only has nukes, they have the capability to destroy the palistineans with them, even if Israel is hit first.
Click to expand...

The Palestinians are already desperate, angry, and ideological enough to engage in suicide attacks. We shouldn't underestimate the potential for either party to escalate the conflict to a level such that both parties are badly harmed. In conflict, sometimes the "winner" loses also. Think about the dynamics of feuds.

If Israel purports to be a civilized and democratic country, they need to take the condemnation of the world seriously and make a fair deal with the Palestinians. If they instead continue to allow their ideology to override pragmatism, I can only see the situation getting worse, possibly rapidly worse if it crosses a tipping point.
 
LessBiased? said:
If Israel purports to be a civilized and democratic country, they need to take the condemnation of the world seriously and make a fair deal with the Palestinians.
Click to expand...

It's very naive to believe that something is right or fair because it is agreed on in the UN.
The fact that Israel is a civilized and democratic country does not mean it should surrender to the demands of a biased body guided by an immoral agenda, an agenda that doesn't really care for the Palestinians or anyone else Israel is in a conflict with but merely wishes to harm Israel itself.
 
Apocalypse said:
It's very naive to believe that something is right or fair because it is agreed on in the UN.
The fact that Israel is a civilized and democratic country does not mean it should surrender to the demands of a biased body guided by an immoral agenda, an agenda that doesn't really care for the Palestinians or anyone else Israel is in a conflict with but merely wishes to harm Israel itself.
Click to expand...

That's a view that I typically only see held by some Israelis, and by many Americans whose limited understanding of the conflict is based on what they hear from a US media biased in favor of Israel, rather than based on looking into the facts of the situation. If the world generally says that Israel is doing something wrong, perhaps Israel is actually doing something wrong?

Seeing that you're in Israel, I would encourage you to take a pragmatic view of the situation and push for making the compromises needed for a fair and lasting peace, rather than letting your path be controlled by extremists. As an example of this extremist mindset, I'll remind everyone of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, and note the connections to Netanyahu mentioned in the Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Yitzhak_Rabin
 
LessBiased? said:
The Palestinians are already desperate, angry, and ideological enough to engage in suicide attacks. We shouldn't underestimate the potential for either party to escalate the conflict to a level such that both parties are badly harmed. In conflict, sometimes the "winner" loses also. Think about the dynamics of feuds.

If Israel purports to be a civilized and democratic country, they need to take the condemnation of the world seriously and make a fair deal with the Palestinians. If they instead continue to allow their ideology to override pragmatism, I can only see the situation getting worse, possibly rapidly worse if it crosses a tipping point.
Click to expand...

That is an utterly ludicrous way of looking at it. The truth is that the occupied lands that Israel has been building settlements in were used to attack Israel. And everytime Israel returns lands for the sake of peace, the palistinean terrorists simply respond by moving the rockets into that territory and closer to Israel. They commit terrorist acts against Israel on nearly a daily basis. This has been going on for over five decades. If it were about the occupied territories, simply denouncing terrorism and seriously negotiating for peace and a two state solution would get the lands returned with the exception of a small buffer zone. Israel has dismantled settlements before. The daily firing of rockets and other acts of terrorism is not going to put Israel in the mood to stop settlements. At some point, Israel will rightfully decide that they have had enough and tell the palistineans to take a hike. The only reason that Israel has no yet destroyed Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups already is that they are somewhat sensitive to world opinion and do attempt to avoid collateral civilian casualties. That's why the terrorist groups resort to setting up their rockets, misslles, etc in crowded civilian areas like schools and hospitals. Israel is civilized and is only practicing self defense. Your pretending that Israel is the bad guy in this conflict does not make any sense whatsoever. If you lived in Southern California and Mexican terrorists sprang up in Tijuana and started terrorizing Americans across the border, you can be certain that at some point, the US military would occupy Tijuana if it did not stop.
 
LessBiased? said:
That's a view that I typically only see held by some Israelis, and by many Americans whose limited understanding of the conflict is based on what they hear from a US media biased in favor of Israel, rather than based on looking into the facts of the situation. If the world generally says that Israel is doing something wrong, perhaps Israel is actually doing something wrong?

Seeing that you're in Israel, I would encourage you to take a pragmatic view of the situation and push for making the compromises needed for a fair and lasting peace, rather than letting your path be controlled by extremists. As an example of this extremist mindset, I'll remind everyone of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, and note the connections to Netanyahu mentioned in the Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Yitzhak_Rabin
Click to expand...

Again no, the fact that the 'world' generally takes an anti-Israeli position in the UN doesn't mean it's right to do so. The fact this biased body made 282 resolutions against Israel and 8 against Syria since the beginning of the Syrian civil war shows how serious this body really is and why Israel treats it accordingly.

My view is already quite pragmatic as it is, I'll encourage you to not be convinced that you have a true understanding of the conflict.
 
ObamacareFail said:
That is an utterly ludicrous way of looking at it. The truth is that the occupied lands that Israel has been building settlements in were used to attack Israel. And everytime Israel returns lands for the sake of peace, the palistinean terrorists simply respond by moving the rockets into that territory and closer to Israel. They commit terrorist acts against Israel on nearly a daily basis. This has been going on for over five decades. If it were about the occupied territories, simply denouncing terrorism and seriously negotiating for peace and a two state solution would get the lands returned with the exception of a small buffer zone. Israel has dismantled settlements before. The daily firing of rockets and other acts of terrorism is not going to put Israel in the mood to stop settlements. At some point, Israel will rightfully decide that they have had enough and tell the palistineans to take a hike. The only reason that Israel has no yet destroyed Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups already is that they are somewhat sensitive to world opinion and do attempt to avoid collateral civilian casualties. That's why the terrorist groups resort to setting up their rockets, misslles, etc in crowded civilian areas like schools and hospitals. Israel is civilized and is only practicing self defense. Your pretending that Israel is the bad guy in this conflict does not make any sense whatsoever. If you lived in Southern California and Mexican terrorists sprang up in Tijuana and started terrorizing Americans across the border, you can be certain that at some point, the US military would occupy Tijuana if it did not stop.
Click to expand...

The part that's missing in this cause/effect narrative is the little detail that Israel was created at the expense of displacing Palestinians who were already living in the area for centuries. It's analogous to faulting the Native Americans for fighting back, using the means at their disposal, when Europeans came in and claimed the lands they had inhabited for many centuries.
 
Apocalypse said:
Again no, the fact that the 'world' generally takes an anti-Israeli position in the UN doesn't mean it's right to do so. The fact this biased body made 282 resolutions against Israel and 8 against Syria since the beginning of the Syrian civil war shows how serious this body really is and why Israel treats it accordingly.
Click to expand...

A more neutral and natural interpretation would be that all of those UN resolutions against Israel, over a long period of time, are evidence of the wrongness of what Israel has been doing. I know Jews here in the US who came from Israel and have the same interpretation.
 
LessBiased? said:
A more neutral and natural interpretation would be that all of those UN resolutions against Israel, over a long period of time, are evidence of the wrongness of what Israel has been doing. I know Jews here in the US who came from Israel and have the same interpretation.
Click to expand...

That is far from a neutral and natural interpretation and it takes a lot of both dishonesty and the twisting of logic to find it acceptable.
I don't see how it's relevant what kind of people you know.
 
LessBiased? said:
A more neutral and natural interpretation would be that all of those UN resolutions against Israel, over a long period of time, are evidence of the wrongness of what Israel has been doing. I know Jews here in the US who came from Israel and have the same interpretation.
Click to expand...

I think I'm well known here to oppose settlements, the resolution in the UN however is ridiculous, do you even understand how ridiculous it is?
The UN resolution says that Jews are not allowed to live in the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem
 
ido_ said:
I think I'm well known here to oppose settlements, the resolution in the UN however is ridiculous, do you even understand how ridiculous it is?
The UN resolution says that Jews are not allowed to live in the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem
Click to expand...

Nonsense.A return to the 1967 borders imposes no new restrictions. Quibbles based on biblical history notwithstanding.
 
To my understanding the resolution says that Israel is not allowed to "relocate" population behind the 67 line. This includes the old city.

Now I dont know what biblical history you are refering to but the Jewish quarter was occupied by Jews for hundreds of years, hence its name.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 
LessBiased? said:
The part that's missing in this cause/effect narrative is the little detail that Israel was created at the expense of displacing Palestinians who were already living in the area for centuries. It's analogous to faulting the Native Americans for fighting back, using the means at their disposal, when Europeans came in and claimed the lands they had inhabited for many centuries.
Click to expand...

if you are going to attempt to use history as a crutch for your point of view, Israel has centuries more history on that land then the palistineans do.

Judaism 101: The Land of Israel

if you want to restrict the conversation to the last several decades, Israel is part of a two state solution partition imposed by the UN. Israel abided by it, the Palistineans did not.
 
ObamacareFail said:
if you are going to attempt to use history as a crutch for your point of view, Israel has centuries more history on that land then the palistineans do.

Judaism 101: The Land of Israel

if you want to restrict the conversation to the last several decades, Israel is part of a two state solution partition imposed by the UN. Israel abided by it, the Palistineans did not.
Click to expand...

The area was predominantly Jewish until about 1700 years ago. Then others controlled the area for the next 1600 years until Jews came in in larger numbers during the past century. Here is a more complete nutshell history, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Israel:

Although coming under the sway of various empires and home to a variety of ethnicities, the Land of Israel was predominantly Jewish until the 3rd century.[1] The area became increasingly Christian after the 3rd century and then largely Muslim following the 7th century conquest and until the middle of the 20th century. It was a focal point of conflict between Christianity and Islam between 1096 and 1291, and from the end of the Crusades was part of the Syrian province of first the Mamluk Sultanate and then the Ottoman Empire until the British conquest in 1917.

A Jewish national movement, Zionism, emerged in the late-19th century. Following the British capture of Ottoman territories in the Levant, the Balfour Declaration in World War I and the formation of the Mandate of Palestine, Aliyah (Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel) increased, causing Arab–Jewish tensions and a collision of the Arab and Jewish nationalist movements. Israeli independence in 1948 was marked by massive migration of Jews from both Europe and the Muslim countries to Israel, and of Arabs from Israel, followed by the extensive Arab–Israeli conflict.[2] About 43% of the world's Jews live in Israel today, the largest Jewish community in the world.[3]

Since about 1970, the United States has become the principal ally of Israel. In 1979 an uneasy Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty was signed, based on the Camp David Accords. In 1993, Israel signed Oslo I Accord with the Palestine Liberation Organization, followed by establishment of the Palestinian National Authority and in 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty was signed. Despite efforts to finalize the peace agreement, the conflict continues to play a major role in Israeli and international political, social and economic life.​
 
To balance the discussion about "Israel", here are wikipedia articles on Palestine, the Palestinians, and the State of Palestine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_(region)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine

Reading this and trying to make sense of this messy and tangled history makes my head hurt. Given that I'm an American with no direct stake in the area, and that I don't consider US involvement in the area to be a net positive for the US, frankly I'd like to see the US detach its involvement from the area and let the two parties fight it out among themselves, with no US support for either side.

Though it would be nice if I'm proven wrong, I'm not optimistic that the US can be an effective broker for peace, and I don't like the fact that the US is dragged into this by Jewish lobbies in the US, Jewish influence on the US media, and Jewish influence in US politics. The Israelis have power and are driven by ideology to stay in the area and possibly expand the land they control. The Palestinians have large and growing numbers, and this was their home for many centuries before Israel was establish, so they're not going anywhere either.
 
Last edited:
LessBiased? said:
To balance the discussion about "Israel", here are wikipedia articles on Palestine, the Palestinians, and the State of Palestine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_(region)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine

Reading this and trying to make sense of this messy and tangled history makes my head hurt. Given that I'm an American with no direct stake in the area, and that I don't consider US involvement in the area to be a net positive for the US, frankly I'd like to see the US detach its involvement from the area and let the two parties fight it out among themselves, with no US support for either side.
Click to expand...

It would not end up being the two parties fighting it out among themselves. It would be the palistineans and nearly every arab government with the support of most of Europe ganging up on Israel.

Though it would be nice if I'm proven wrong, I'm not optimistic that the US can be an effective broker for peace, and I don't like the fact that the US is dragged into this by Jewish lobbies in the US, Jewish influence on the US media, and Jewish influence in US politics. The Israelis have power and are driven by ideology to stay in the area and possibly expand the land they control. The Palestinians have large and growing numbers, and this was their home for many centuries before Israel was establish, so they're not going anywhere either.
Click to expand...

What you need to learn to accept is that there are good guys and bad guys in the conflict. Israel is the good guys and the palistinean terrorists are the bad guys. When the palistineans are willing to give up their goal of wiping Israel off the map and live in peace side by side with Israel, peace will follow. Israel is merely defending itself from over 5 decades of terrorism. As for the Wikipedia links, I simply ignore them as I do not take such sites seriously when the text is editable by the reader.
 
ObamacareFail said:
It would not end up being the two parties fighting it out among themselves. It would be the palistineans and nearly every arab government with the support of most of Europe ganging up on Israel.

What you need to learn to accept is that there are good guys and bad guys in the conflict. Israel is the good guys and the palistinean terrorists are the bad guys. When the palistineans are willing to give up their goal of wiping Israel off the map and live in peace side by side with Israel, peace will follow. Israel is merely defending itself from over 5 decades of terrorism. As for the Wikipedia links, I simply ignore them as I do not take such sites seriously when the text is editable by the reader.
Click to expand...

If it doesn't serve US interests on balance - and I don't think it does - I think the US should stay out of it and Israel should fend for itself.

If so many parties want to "gang up" on Israel throughout the world, that's evidence that what Israel is doing is wrong and aren't "good guys" in this.

I'm tired of hearing Israel play the victim, when in reality most of the world knows that this all comes down to some (not all) Jews wanting this particular area of land, regardless of who was living there before and for how long, because of a religious ideology which considers this area a "promised land" for the Jews.

Setting aside the question of who has "rights" to the land, this kind of agenda involving taking land by force which was already inhabited by others for many generations was inevitably going to lead to major conflict. It would have been a different story if the Jews had come into the area and bought all the land. Then there would have been no issue with this land being a Jewish homeland called Israel, and there would have been no motive for animosity towards the Israelis and conflict with them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom