Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973
I'll make this my last post on the matter too.
Firstly, both Lakey and Sheila seem to have misunderstood what I wrote. I said the Brits were masters at organizing wars and did this in the running of their empire. Examples would be the 1899 South African War and also the first world War, which, if you read up on the latest research on this matter, was planned and organised and set into motion in London. They create chaos in an area and then set about handling the chaos by getting themselves into the driver's seat in that area thereafter. David Icke talks at length of this practise. The USA has been doing the same for may years. They learnt this habit from the Brits.
And Secondly: You make much of how "legal" Israel is because the UN declared that there should be to territories - one for Israel and the remainder for the Palestinians. But note that for thousands of years the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine lived in that land occupying all of it. They did not voluntarily vacate one part of it for the Jewish refugees to occupy. They were booted out and the Jewish settlers then claimed the land as their own. And only after this fact did the UN say "Oh that's all OK. We declare it to be legal."
The indigenous people had no say in this decision. They were not represented there, nor were they consulted in the matter. It was decided in New York and the decision was imposed upon them. How "legal" is this? I say it was a gross injustice. Suppose Hilter and his bunch had gotten the Reichstag to formally declare that the SS may arrest all the jews and gypseys and do to them what the did. Would we now all say "Oh it was legally done so it was all OK"? No we wouldn't. It is a total abuse of the legal system. And so it is with the UN decision that made Israel's land grab "legal".
And furthermore: Subsequent decisions by the UN on Israel's annexation of conquered territories, of its settlement of Israelis in these annexed areas, and much more besides have repeatedly been ignored by Israel. Scorned them even. This shows that they accept only what suits them and that they have no inherent or underlying respect for the UN as an institution designed to bring about and end to war.
So here again, your argument is nonsense.
Thank you.
Just a couple of words in reply. I made no comments about what you wrote about the Brits, Sheila made the only comments. Your comments comparing the Nazi SS passing laws okaying the rounding up and killing of Jews with the UN voting to divide Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, is not comparing apples to apples, not even apples to oranges, it is a silly comparison, which does not do anything to promote Leon's point of view. The SS had legal validity only in Germany and conquered nations which they controlled. Also an international tribunal at Nuremberg after the WWII, voted all such Nazi activity to be Human Rights violations and many Nazi leaders were executed as of a result of these findings.
In the United Nations vote of 1948, the UN was not a renegade body of one fascist state, a state which put killing all Jews near the top of their national priorities. The UN was an International organization voted into existence by the governments who won WWII. It was designed to solve international disputes such as the Palestine vs Israeli conflict. I Googled an article on the Partition Vote and here is a link to it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine.
By the way, look at the shape of Israel, originally decided by the UN. It is shaped like a ragged letter Z. Imagine trying to administer a country shaped like than and imagine trying to defend such a weirdly shaped country surrounded by hostile neighbors. There's no way any government could defend those weird boundaries! Moreover, about 2/3 of the country was the Negev desert, an area the Palestinians had not developed at all in 2,000 years!
BTW, the West Bank of the Palestinian portion was of good size and was contiguous. Palestine's portion also featured a long sea coast strip and an area which was connected to Egypt in the south and a portion which was connected to Lebanon in the North. Many of the key areas which the Palestinian people had developed were left in their hands.
The vote was 33 for partition, 13 against, 10 abstained and 1 was absent. Thus 57 world nations took place in the voting. I believe that a simple majority of 29 was required for a win. Israel only got 33 votes so there was significant opposition against Israel. Had the opposition obtained 29 votes, they would have prevailed. An international vote by 57 countries cannot be contrasted with a hypothetical decree ordered by the SS in Nazi, Germany. There is simply no basis of comparing one actual vote and a hypothetical Nazi SS decree and reaching the conclusion which Leon reaches.
I believe that in my last post I provided the most plausible argument which could be made for the Palestinian cause. My argument for the Palestinian side was that the Palestinian people did nothing wrong and were just going about living their lives when this new organization, the UN, which probably most Palestinians had never heard of simply held a vote which forced them off of their property. To me that is the best defense for the Palestinian cause, far more convincing and valid than Leon's feeble arguments.
Look, the Palestinian partition pitted two peoples against each other. Neither group had really done anything wrong in the events which led up to the Vote on partition. The Vote was limited to two possible outcomes. In one case, the Palestinian people would prevail and go about their lives as they had been for many years; meanwhile the Jewish people would lose and be left as Nomads with no land to call their home. In the other outcome, the Jewish people would gain their homeland but at the expense of taking land from the Palestinians, a people who had done nothing wrong. IT IS NOT A ZERO SUM GAME, THERE MUST BE A WINNER AND A LOSER AND IN EITHER CASE THE LOSER WOULD BE A GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO DID NOT REALLY DESERVE TO LOSE.
The UN was the best possible choice for who should mediate this difficult situation. If the United Nations was not chosen then why even bother creating it in the first place? I challenge Leon to name me some authority would should have mediated the dispute because they were less biased or more qualified to mediate it than the UN. There simply was no such authority at that time or really at any time, including the present.
The only alternative to the vote was for war to break out and for the situation to be decided militarily. The Palestinian side lost the vote and they and their allies attacked Israel anyway. Israel won that war and then won two more wars forced on them by the same group of states. Finally, Egypt, the biggest and strongest of the Arab states decided to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Jordan, also signed a peace treaty with Israel. Palestine and Syria did not sign and continue, to this day, to try and bring down Israel. Those two states are no match for Israel militarily but the country of Iran has taken up their fight for them. Iran is behind the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hesbolah. Hamas runs the government in the Palestinian West Bank. Iran needs to be reigned in and disciplined but instead of doing that our administration is making concessions to them, removing the sanctions against them, agreeing not to inspect their key nuclear installation and insuring for them that they will have nuclear weapons within ten years or so, probably much sooner. For all of the concessions our administration is making, they are getting almost no concessions in return. I find the whole situation sickening and very reminiscent of the deal which Neville Chamberlin made with Hitler in 1938 at Munich. It was until recently common knowledge that appeasing dictators never works, it seemed as if the world had finally wised up to this FACT but I guess the Obama administration and people such as Leon know better.
Once people have Leon's mindset, nothing is going to change their minds but it least I can counter his arguments a bit and feel like I gave it "the old college try".
Lakey
