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Author Topic: Palestine.
BlackBlade
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As most of you are aware Palestine is going to submit their application for full statehood recognition from the UN.

Link. But they are not pushing for independence.

I'm tentatively pro-recognizing them. But could somebody give me an example of a state that has been/is recognized by the UN but is not independent?

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rivka
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
But they are not pushing for independence.

If you think this is not merely a ploy in that direction, you are naive.
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Aris Katsaris
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quote:
I'm tentatively pro-recognizing them. But could somebody give me an example of a state that has been/is recognized by the UN but is not independent?
It's usually the other way around, independent states exist that aren't recognized by the UN (e.g. Taiwan, Kosovo)

quote:
If you think this is not merely a ploy in that direction, you are naive.
Well I certainly *hope* it's a ploy towards the direction of independence. For the Palestinians to not want independence from Israel, would mean that they would like the whole of the territory of Israel instead.

Palestinian independence from Israel is the *happy* and honorable direction -- the negative directions would be the Arab conquest of Israel, or the Palestinian ethnic cleansing of the West Bank (and I doubt many argue Palestinians seek to be ethnically cleansed).

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Lyrhawn
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Of course this is a push for independence.

Recognition by the UN will give them increased access to different types of UN aid that have previously been unavailable to them. It will also allow both Israel and Palestine to pursue prosecutions in the ICC against each other, though I'm betting such a course would be almost entirely one-sided.

I'm all for recognizing them. They're a state under occupation by a foreign government. We can argue about everything else; terrorism, settlements, borders, right of return, etc., but that doesn't change the reality that Gaza especially is an open air prison.

There are larger regional political concerns that really make me wonder what will happen now. Turkey and Israel have grown increasingly hostile in recent weeks and months. Much depends on just how far Turkey is really willing to push Israel in their support of Palestine. If Palestine is recognized as a state, and Israel tries to blockade Gaza from imports, Turkey might feel both more justified and more compelled in moving to break the blockade. I think it emboldens Syrian activists as well, as just another piece of the Arab Spring wave that has swept the region.

Politically this might be a game changer, but on the ground, I don't really see it having that much of an effect other than increasing some aid to Palestine.

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TomDavidson
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I think opting to recognize Palestine and yet continuing to deny Taiwan would be inexcusable.
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BlackBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by rivka:
quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
But they are not pushing for independence.

If you think this is not merely a ploy in that direction, you are naive.
I meant they are not "pushing" right now for independence, which was why I was wondering about the two seemingly contradictory statuses.
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Lyrhawn
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quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
I think opting to recognize Palestine and yet continuing to deny Taiwan would be inexcusable.

Would not recognizing Palestine because we refuse to recognize Taiwan be fair?

Don't get me wrong, I agree that it's wrong to not recognize Taiwan, but it's politics, and no one wants to piss off China.

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natural_mystic
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quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:

Don't get me wrong, I agree that it's wrong to not recognize Taiwan, but it's politics, and no one wants to piss off China.

Does this currently include Taiwan as well? (i.e. since the Kuomintang came back into power, I have not heard much talk about Taiwan seeking independence; has it just passed me by?)
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BlackBlade
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natural_mystic: It might sound counter-intuitive, but today the KMT party is actually the party that favors friendly relations with China.

The last pro-independence candidate to win election was Chen Shui Bien (of the green party), and he was largely a dark horse candidate who won because the front-runner had to split the vote with a former ally suddenly. Corruption is probably the biggest thing people remember about Chen now. He did make a tons of independence noise his second term. That in part was something he had to keep bottled up until his second term. Candidates are largely consilatory towards China, and Chen was no exception his first term. Taiwan's trade relationship with China has become almost without deviation more reliant on China. Many Taiwanese business men run their businesses out of China.

Taiwanese people largely poll both ways when it comes to independence vs reunification. When asked if independence could be achieved without conflict, the vast majority vote independence. If asked if reunification involved protections on the current political system, they vote for reunification.

I don't think we are ever going to see much noise for independence from Taiwan, and more likely Taiwan and China will patch up their differences when China becomes democratic enough for Taiwanese people to feel safe again.

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Mucus
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natural_mystic: It's also a pragmatism thing, the other type of poll is along the lines of "What do you want Taiwan to do now?" and the clear majority is to maintain the status quo, no independence, no unification. The current situation is actually pretty nice, the economy is good, increasing trade is good, tourists from the mainland, there are civil rights protections without unification, etc. They can play China against the US and vice versa indefinitely.

That is different from Palestine where the status quo is precisely what the people are unhappy about.

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Samprimary
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So, what do people think the realistic effects of the statehood bid is going to be? Does it stand more of a chance of reducing the perpetual hateful, hardlining universal dysfunction in that entire region that makes it such a pitiable place? Or are things just going to get heated up more?
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Lyrhawn
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The latter.

Though I wouldn't discount the real morale factor this will have among the Palestinian people. Despite all the negative press, they really have been working hard over the last several years to improve their economy, governance and security. This is a vote that would not have passed the General Assembly a few years ago because they hadn't reached the point of a viable state yet. Perhaps they still haven't, since they are under occupation, but there's a serious issue of pride to be considered here.

Other than that? It'll mostly just stoke the fires. Frankly I don't see how it hurts. Israel is just pissed because it further delegitimizes how they're handling the situation. Though if I was Israel I'd be a little worried about how some of the regional actors change their stance now that Palestine is officially a country (most won't bat an eyelash).

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Annie
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
natural_mystic: It might sound counter-intuitive, but today the KMT party is actually the party that favors friendly relations with China.

The last pro-independence candidate to win election was Chen Shui Bien (of the green party), and he was largely a dark horse candidate who won because the front-runner had to split the vote with a former ally suddenly. Corruption is probably the biggest thing people remember about Chen now. He did make a tons of independence noise his second term. That in part was something he had to keep bottled up until his second term. Candidates are largely consilatory towards China, and Chen was no exception his first term. Taiwan's trade relationship with China has become almost without deviation more reliant on China. Many Taiwanese business men run their businesses out of China.

Taiwanese people largely poll both ways when it comes to independence vs reunification. When asked if independence could be achieved without conflict, the vast majority vote independence. If asked if reunification involved protections on the current political system, they vote for reunification.

I don't think we are ever going to see much noise for independence from Taiwan, and more likely Taiwan and China will patch up their differences when China becomes democratic enough for Taiwanese people to feel safe again.

This. And the KMT people I met in Taiwan, when they even talked about reunification, talked in terms of the old KMT view that all of China is actually rightfully the Republic of China. There are very few Taiwanese people who would ever want to be part of the PRC as long as the communists are still in power.
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Annie
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I was talking to a friend about Israel/Palestine the other day and a question came up that maybe you all know more about than we did: is there anyone pushing for a one-state solution in which Jews and Palestinians are all citizens?

Do you think that would work?

All I can see coming out of two sovereign states is a perpetual state of animosity and one more Arab country that dislikes the existence of Israel. Would it actually be possible to have a functioning, peaceful state with a large Arab minority?

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Annie
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And by "anyone," I mean any external countries.
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Lyrhawn
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quote:
Originally posted by Annie:
I was talking to a friend about Israel/Palestine the other day and a question came up that maybe you all know more about than we did: is there anyone pushing for a one-state solution in which Jews and Palestinians are all citizens?

Do you think that would work?

All I can see coming out of two sovereign states is a perpetual state of animosity and one more Arab country that dislikes the existence of Israel. Would it actually be possible to have a functioning, peaceful state with a large Arab minority?

Not in a million years, for a variety of reasons. Israel is almost 8 million people, 20% of whom are already ethnic Arabs. There are possibly another four million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. If you make them all citizens of the same state, you get a country of almost 12 million people, where the populations are nearly equal between Jews and Arabs. On top of that, the Arab population is growing at an extremely accelerated rate compared to the Jewish population.

In other words, it wouldn't be an Arab minority; they'd nearly outnumber the Jews, and within two generations, Jews would be the minority. Now, possibly within two generations, nationalism would outrank ethnicity and religion when it comes to citizenship, but are you going to sell Israeli Jews on the idea that they should trust the safety of the Jewish state to Arabs in the next 100 years? Even the most liberal among them would laugh you out of the room, and honestly, I'd probably side with them.

One of Israel's major priorities is the protection of Israel as a Jewish state. You flood Israel with 4 million more Arabs and that goes out the window. Then there's all the little stuff like long-standing animosities and right of return and all that.

A single state solution is a non-starter.

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pooka
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Am I wrong that before Gaza was an open air prison, it was an open air mortar launching field?
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Lyrhawn
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And katushas, yep.

Look, I'm not an apologist for Palestinian terrorists, but we can't ignore the fact that a million people are penned up and literally walled off from the rest of the world. They have no freedom of movement beyond the tiny confines of Gaza. The price of imports is absurd given the local economy because of how Israel regulates what can and can't come into the country, and their infrastructure is almost non-existent, with no hope of being fixed any time soon.

The West Bank, on the other hand, is experiencing a dramatic economic surge. They've made impressive strides in building infrastructure, as well as the infrastructure of a functioning government. The West Bank, anyway, is just about ready for prime time.

I know how Gaza got to where it is, and I sympathize with the Israeli need for security, but there's a bigger picture here. Walling them off into oblivion only sows further seeds of discord. It ensures that Israel's siege mentality will exist for centuries to come by forcing Palestinians to exist in those conditions. And simply put, the border fence won't keep them safe. It's far more a psychological sense of security than a physical one. I'd like Israel to have REAL lasting security, and leaving Gaza as is ain't lasting security, it's putting up a wall and humming really loudly, hoping the problem will go away. It doesn't work that way.

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