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from the tactical-advance-away-from-them dept.
The Guardian, The New York Times, Al-Jazeera over the decision of USA and Israel to withdraw from UNESCO over 'anti-Israel bias'
The Guardian
The United States has formally notified the UN's world heritage body Unesco that it is withdrawing its membership of the organisation citing "continuing anti-Israel bias".
The announcement by the Trump administration was followed a few hours later by news that Israel was also planning to quit the financially struggling cultural and educational agency.
...
The body is best known for its world heritage listings of outstanding cultural and natural sites but has often drawn the ire of Israel and the Trump administration for a series of decisions, including the listing of Hebron, a city in the southern part of the occupied Palestinian territories, as a Palestinian world heritage site.
...
Disclosing the US government's decision, the state department said in a statement it would seek to "remain engaged ... as a non-member observer state in order to contribute US views, perspectives and expertise".The statement added: "This decision was not taken lightly, and reflects US concerns with mounting arrears at Unesco, the need for fundamental reform in the organisation, and continuing anti-Israel bias at Unesco," the US state department said. The withdrawal will take effect on 31 December 2018.
The New York Times
The administration also cited mounting arrears at the organization as a reason for the decision.
"We were in arrears to the tune of $550 million or so, and so the question is, do we want to pay that money?" Heather Nauert, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said Thursday at a news briefing. She added, "With this anti-Israel bias that's long documented on the part of Unesco, that needs to come to an end."
...Cultural organizations in the United States criticized the decision, saying Unesco played a key role in preserving vital cultural heritage worldwide.
"Although Unesco may be an imperfect organization, it has been an important leader and steadfast partner in this crucial work," said Daniel H. Weiss, the president and chief executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
...
Analysts said that withdrawing from the organization was a significant escalation by the United States in its criticism of United Nations bodies."This is another example of the Trump's administration's profound ambivalence and concern about the way the U.N. is structured and behaves," said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator and adviser in Republican and Democratic administrations.
In July, Unesco declared the ancient and hotly contested core of Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as a Palestinian World Heritage site in danger, a decision sharply criticized by Israel and its allies. And in 2015, Unesco adopted a resolution that criticized Israel for mishandling heritage sites in Jerusalem and condemned "Israeli aggressions and illegal measures against freedom of worship."
Al-Jazeera
In a statement announcing its withdrawal, Israel called the US administration's decision "courageous and moral", and accused UNESCO of becoming a "theatre of the absurd".
"The prime minister instructed the foreign ministry to prepare Israel's withdrawal from the organisation alongside the United States," Benjamin Netayanu's office said in a statement.
...Thursday's development demonstrates the US administration's "complete and total bias" towards Israel, says Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party comprising mostly secular intellectuals.
"This behaviour is counterproductive and shameful," he told Al Jazeera by phone. "Sooner or later they will see Palestine in every UN agency. Will the US respond to that by withdrawing from the WHO or the World Intellectual Property Organization? They will be hurting only themselves."
...
Russia's foreign ministry said it regreted the decision, adding that the move would disrupt a number of important projects planned by UNESCO."We share the concern by many countries that the activity of UNESCO has been too politicised lately," the ministry said in a statement.
...
Barghouti, of the Palestinian National Initiative, said it is "as if Israel is dictating US policy not only in the Middle East but also in international organisations."This is going to have a very harmful effect on the idea of the US being a mediator between the Palestinians and the Israelis."
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday October 23 2017, @06:11PM (19 children)
Yeah, Israel is pretty vile. But there doesn't seem to be any answer for them, either. Israel is quite small and has been surrounded by countries that have explicitly called for their destruction since nearly the date of their creation. The Palestinians have a convoluted history, but they haven't exactly been good guys either, and at some points they were explicitly working with outside powers for the destruction of Israel.
So what can they do? I don't see any answer. Telling someone to fuck off and die, which is one of the alternatives, doesn't lead to reasonable behavior, and both sides have been told that. Often by the other side.
I've only come up with one answer to the problem, and it's horribly repugnant, but if you were to confiscate all children under the age of six and raise them together without their knowing who their parents were that might work. This would need to be an on-going process for about 20 years, so that you had just over a generation of people who didn't know whether they were Israelites or Palestinians, but it ought to work. Now imagine the amount of coercion needed to get that plan put into operation.
P.S.: Please include a tag for underline. I often need something less forceful than bold but more recognizable than italic.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 23 2017, @07:01PM
We can at least stop having anything to do with them, and relegate them to the same place in line for our attention as, hmm, checking the world's countries ranked by population [wikipedia.org], Tajikistan, Papua New Guinea, or Togo.
Come to think of it, why not bring the struggles and issues of Tajiks, Papuans, or Togans (sp?) to the fore? It would be a breath of fresh air.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday October 23 2017, @07:50PM
Y̲o̲u̲ ̲c̲a̲n̲ ̲u̲s̲e̲ ̲c̲o̲m̲b̲i̲n̲i̲n̲g̲ ̲c̲h̲a̲r̲a̲c̲t̲e̲r̲s̲,̲ ̲l̲i̲k̲e̲ ̲t̲h̲e̲s̲e&.̲ But yeah, a <u> tag would be nice.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday October 23 2017, @08:03PM (1 child)
Those who forget text are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. Those that wait for others to implement their desire can wait a long time.
P.S.: Please include a tag for _underline_. I often need something less forceful than *bold* but more recognizable than /italic/.
See how much easier and quicker that was?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday October 23 2017, @11:09PM
Easier, quicker, and less intelligible.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday October 23 2017, @10:29PM (9 children)
Yes, there is an answer for them. They could do this without any approval from anybody outside of Israel:
1. Remove the Jews illegally settled in the occupied territories over the last 20 years, or at least tell them "If you stay here, you're on your own, we're not going to protect you with our army."
2. Retreat the armed forces to within the 1967 borders. Israel is perfectly capable of defending itself from within those borders.
3. Let the Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese figure it out from there.
That alternative and several variations of that basic idea have been discussed in Israeli politics for decades. Yitzak Rabin was working along those lines when he was assassinated. Prime ministers Ariel Sharon, Ehud Ohmert, and their Kadima Party were working along those lines, until they lost an election to the Likud Party.
The Likud Party that is currently in power has made it abundantly clear that their answer to what to do about the occupied territories is to make them permanently a part of Israel, and be Jewish-dominated. They aren't shy about it - it's right in their charter. Multiple members of the current Israeli cabinet (Ayelet Shaked and Avigdor Lieberman) have called for all Arabs living in Israel or the occupied territories to be killed. One of the major reasons there isn't a lot of outcry about this from the US is that a lot of Americans basically agree with that goal, including the genocide part.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday October 23 2017, @10:43PM (2 children)
Remember that Israeli politicians answer to Israeli voters, not to anyone else, and think about how many of those Israeli voters would feel (and understandably so in some cases, some of these settlers are relatively moderate secular people and they are there because that is where they can find affordable housing, because that's where the state has focused building efforts...) betrayed by even the slightest move in this direction, and you can see why it's simply not going to happen as long as the US continues to effectively immunize them against the consequences. This sort of bitter medicine may well be required if Israel is to survive as a nation, but it's still not going to be possible unless and until the Israeli voters can see those consequences as the alternative.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday October 23 2017, @11:39PM
I didn't say it was simple or easy. However, that plan is the road not taken for Israel. If somebody were looking for an alternate history turning point, Rabin's assassin failing to kill him might well be worth exploring: It's quite possible had Rabin survived that Israel would have let go of the occupied territories, and that might well have meant far fewer people getting involved in terrorist groups.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @09:15AM
STOP USING TT TAG FOR YOUR TEXT. IT"S ANNOYING AS FUCK
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday October 23 2017, @11:12PM (4 children)
If you remember 20 years ago, you'll remember that the tensions weren't any less. I don't think your proposed solution would suffice.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 24 2017, @12:18AM (3 children)
I do indeed remember what was going on in the early 1990's. And what was going on was that Israel struck deals with the PLO (now Fatah), Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. There were good reasons to think that there might be real movement towards a permanent if uneasy peace.
That came to an end when Yitzak Rabin was killed. Hamas moved to break up the peace efforts by running a bunch of terrorist attacks, Rabin's party was voted out due to its inability to prevent those terrorist attacks, and both the Israeli right-wing and Palestinian right-wing effectively helped each other gain power at the expense of the peaceniks on both sides.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday October 24 2017, @05:26AM (2 children)
And that's (part of) the problem both now and then. No moderate plan that's been proposed can survive the attacks of the radicals. And there are too many radicals on both sides.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @07:24AM (1 child)
One solution:
Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @08:44AM
That suggestion seems eerily similar to the battle of Armageddon.
Why not nuke Mecca first and see if that mellows the situation before walking into a path written down for you something on the order of 3,500 years ago.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @11:25PM
There would be less than 10 miles from the West Bank area to the Mediterranean Sea. Pretty much any type of artillery will fully span that distance. Having this spot attacked would split Israel in two.
With the bulk of Israel's land being wrapped around the West Bank, artillery could reach nearly all of Israel, particularly the more populated areas.
It's even worse though, because Israel has previously had to fight all neighbors simultaneously. There might be a spec of desert in southern Israel that would require high-end artillery to hit. Most would be easy to hit.
There is also the matter of a water supply. Without that extra land, enemies can trivially cut off all water to Israel.
With the West Bank and Gaza Strip being free to arm themselves, war would be a certainty.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday October 24 2017, @08:59AM (4 children)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 24 2017, @02:02PM (3 children)
They should have carved it out of Germany. That would have been a just thing to do.
But, really, why should the Jews have been the only group persecuted in the Holocaust to get a country of their own out of it? Why not the Gypsies? Those poor bastards have been kicked around for a long time, too, and they were slaughtered in the millions by the Nazis, too. How about homosexuals? The handicapped? All rounded up and liquidated by the Nazis, but none of them got homelands as compensation.
I oppose ethno-states of any kind, but if they're gonna take a Nazi-like approach of separating people into different states by race and religion, etc., at least be consistent about it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday October 24 2017, @05:16PM (2 children)
Nobody knows where the Gypsies came from. People think they know where the Israelis came from. That they're wrong doesn't enter into political calculations.
The other groups that you mention aren't even ostensibly nationalities.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 24 2017, @06:37PM (1 child)
The Roma (called "Gypsies" by others, but never by themselves) came from the Indian subcontinent, probably somewhere near what is now the Punjab region. That has been determined by linguistic relationship between their language and Sanskrit, and also by genetic studies. So if we were going to do the same thing for the Roma that was done for the Jews, we would be giving them that area of India and Pakistan. This is something the Brits could have conceivably done, since that area was under British control at the time, but the Roma didn't have an equivalent of David ben Gurion agitating for a Roma homeland. And it's quite possible that there are more anti-Roma incidents in Europe these days than anti-Jewish incidents.
Had the Brits given the Roma their homeland in Punjab, I have to guess that the people living in Punjab at the time would have been none too happy with that arrangement. India has been making some noises along the lines of making it easier for Roma to become Indian citizens if they want to.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday October 25 2017, @12:46AM
Yes, there's a lot of evidence that the Romani have at least as much connection with somewhere around India as the Israelis have with Israel. But that all depends on how you figure connections. The Israeli were largely converted by government decree (and then refused to reconvert), and don't have much non-adopted connection (I'm talking about the ones that came from Russian controlled areas). The Romani, as far as I've ever heard, don't think of India as their homeland, even though many of their ancestors probably did come from there. So it's a very different kind of connection.
That said, you're probably right about why the Israeli ended up in Israel and the Gypsies didn't end up in the Himalayas. But it wasn't all happenstance, and there's a reason the Israelis campaigned to end up in Israel and the Gypsies didn't campaign to end up in the Himalayas.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.