[abeppu]

Poking around, I think this is the thing that vote was about: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/LTD/N23/318/77/PDF...

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?

[bombcar]

I suspect a "The Catalan people deserve self-representation" would get lots of yes votes and Spain would vote no.

I suspect similar for "The Quebequois" and Canada. The Scottish and the UK.

On a surface level it doesn't say much.

[whatshisface]

I think the language was chosen to mirror what a similar fraction of the world, except this time including the united states, would say that the people living on the right side of Israel's internal partition should have.

[abeppu]

I dunno that such a large majority of the world would agree with such a statement.

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?

[krapp]

A "state" is nothing more than an abstraction, a collective social construct. The monopoly on violence is a franchise granted by the people, not nature. Self-determination can't be a right which only belongs to certain groups of people (say, Americans or Israelis) but not others.

[cncovyvysi]

Do Gazans not have self determination?

[krapp]

Yes, they do, that was my point.

[thriftwy]

Who says their self-determination will be any less violent if their right is rejected and they do it anyway?

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.

[G3rn0ti]

The government of Ariel Sharon removed any Israel military presence from Gaza way back in 2005. So it is very far fetched to say Israel occupied Palestine — unless you pretend all of Israel‘s territory belongs to the palestines which does not give much room for compromise.

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.

[abeppu]

I think the "Gulag" label is a bit hyperbolic, but that's because Gulags were forced labor camps, whereas Gaza under the blockade has had extremely high unemployment due to the severely hamstrung economy. The "open-air prison" description that others have used seems close to being correct, however.

I think you tried to engage in goal-post moving, by arguing that Israel has not "occupied" Gaza following the "disengagement", which is not directly tied to the "Gulag" label you were disagreeing with. While I think the claim that Israel was not occupying Gaza during this period is literally true, this is only because international legal definitions of occupation have multiple specific requirements. Though Israel was not stationing soldiers inside the territory, and was not running a sole government in the territory, it has still had enormous control. Imposing a blockade by sea, air and land for years on end, and continuously imprisoning Palestinians without charge or trial, is technically not "occupation", but it is an enormous projection of state force over a territory that Israel claimed was not in its control. Perhaps it's not "occupation" as defined in international law -- fine. So let's come up with a new word for it, but continue to recognize it as abusive.

In that context, talking about the rights of women and gays inside Gaza seems like bad faith whataboutism; if Israel cared about their rights and equality, it could let women and queer people living in Gaza leave.

[G3rn0ti]

> but it is an enormous projection of state force over a territory that Israel claimed was not in its control

You conveniently ignore why Israel has been controlling Gaza’s borders. Because it is ruled by Hamas since 2007 misusing their power to build up an armed terrorist origanization instead of a country. And they keep attacking Israel’s territory. If Israel had established an open border policy (which they had when they were actually occupying Gaza) last year‘s massacre would have happened already years back.

I keep getting criticized for „ignoring history“ but your post is a very good example how the self-proclaimed supporters of Palestinians, here, are constantly engaging in cherry-picking the historical facts trying to win their arguments. Israel haters should really step back for a moment at least and consider who they are supporting and what cause.

[abeppu]

Gulags imprisoned individual people based on insufficient sham judicial procedures, but they say least made a show of imprisoning people who had done something to earn it. Keeping Israel as an open-air prison for residents who have not specifically done anything wrong is arguably worse. Detaining thousands of civilians in officially Israeli prisons without charges or trials

I have no objections to Israel trying to control the flow of dangerous individuals and materiel across its own land. Why should it have a right to block sea and air access? Why should it stop the flow of ordinary goods? Nowhere have I recommended open borders; there are lots of options between open borders and the blockade system.

I'm not actually a supporter of Palestinians. You'll note that I started this sub thread arguing that the UN resolution talking about right of a people to self-determination doesn't seem coherent. But I am a supporter of human rights, and this is a situation in which there seem to be many serious violations.

[text0404]

> The government of Ariel Sharon removed any Israel military presence from Gaza way back in 2005

Gaza is still militarily occupied. Israel controls the flow of goods and people, prevents Gazans from leaving the territory, uses violence and collective punishment against the civilian population, and discriminates against Palestinians.

> For decades they fired rockets on Israel civilians

for decades, the people of Gaza have been subject to apartheid. i don't agree with violence but claiming that Israel has the moral high ground here is ridiculous considering that Palestinian civilians have been terrorized since 1948.

> even took over a thousand of hostages including children

"An estimated 10,000 Palestinian children have been held in military detention over the past 20 years, with Save the Children noting that they are "the only children in the world who are systematically prosecuted in military courts.'"

yes, taking children as hostages is horrible. but your focus shows your bias and leads me to believe that you're not arguing in good faith.

> their only hope for freedom is the total and utter destruction of Hamas‘ network of terrorists.

we know this is absolutely false because this ethic cleansing predates the creation of Hamas. Israel was in fact involved in the creation of Hamas and supported it in the early days as a way to prevent the left-wing PLO from taking power.

in short, your "argument" completely ignores history and the context of this conflict.

[zozbot234]

Even supposing you're right purely for the sake of argument, do you really think Hamas' plan for Palestine is any better? Given their Oct 2023 atrocities, they're no different than ISIS at this point.

[orwin]

Hamas is not, and never was a majority in Palestine. It's trending upward since mid-november (what's happening in the West Bank might be the reason why).

[loeg]

They enjoy a plurality of support, in the ballpark of 50%. This is higher than, e.g., US Republicans.

[G3rn0ti]

> Hamas is not, and never was a majority in Palestine.

Well, except Hamas won the last elections held in Gaza way back in 2007.

[defrost]

Check the election stats, Hamas "won" but without any clear majority.

Moreover they won on the promise that they would seek a peaceful resolution with Isreal and they were (at that time) clearly the better of the only two realistic choices.

The Hamas of 2007 was not the Hamas of last year.

[G3rn0ti]

I’ve done some research. In fact, Hamas won 74 seats out of 132 [1] and, hence, acquired a convenient house majority. Assignment of seats were done by applying a mixed proportional and majority rule (similar to how it works in FRG), that’s why their voter share of 44% translated into more then twice the amount of seats. But, nevertheless, Hamas won the elections even by voter share alone. However, governance in Palestine is split between president and parliament. Since Fatah did not want to grant power to Hamas, president Abbas did not cooperate in the aftermath of the elections eventually resulting in a civil war and an ejection (and murder) of Fatah supporters establishing Hamas‘ one-party governance of Gaza. Israel’s sanctions came into effect after Hamas failed to renounce violence against Israel and its citizens.

(BTW: The elections were held in January 2006 — not in 2007 as I have stated above.)

[1] https://www.kas.de/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=c0e0eae4...

[thriftwy]

They can eventually settle down. Israel atrocities are already two orders of magnitude worse at this point.

[Gibbon1]

Let not be the type of person that doesn't let facts get in the way.

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.

[thriftwy]

> So doesn't seem like the Palestinians should be allowed to have their own government

Why not? Isn't that an universal right? How are Sudanese or Lebanese better than Palestineans in that regard?

Your attention is worthless because it did not led Israel to implement two-state solution. What would you want? Retirement benefits?

[Gibbon1]

I explained why not, because they elect terrorists to rule them. I'll add they regularly start wars that they then lose. Nobody else gets an endless amounts of do overs. And I think for them that needs to stop. They should get what every other group gets when they do stuff like what they did on Oct 7th. Your leaders get annihilated and you lose your sovereignty.

Contrast with Lebanon where despite everything that have some form of practical government. Sudan where it is an internal civil war. I'll point out there was far more refugees in Sudan than Palestinians. And most of those unlike the Palestinians are blameless. By rights every dime we give to the Palestinians should go to them instead.

[johnnyworker]

Human rights apply to all humans, as the individuals they are, not as members of a group you assign them to.

"They" is doing a lot of work here. Who is "they"? Half of the population of Gaza are under the age of 15. "They" keep electing terrorists and keep starting wars.

> They should get what every other group gets when they do stuff like what they did on Oct 7th.

Again, "they". What other group? Name them. Name one. Outside of what the Nazis did and how they rationalized it. Outside of how terrorist groups rationalize and attempt to justify what they do.

> This too does the for a totalitarian environment so well prepared vernacular express in its own way when it no longer speaks of "the" Russians or "the" French, but tells us what "the" Russian or "the" Frenchman wants.

-- Hannah Arendt

So cause the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet right now..

https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue...

.. blow up infrastructure and make fun of that...

https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17317722618482647...

https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/174329670657626944...

https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1743411493813575711

.. and then "they" will... stop being radicalized into terrorism?

And while you're at it, attack refugee camps in the West Bank? Because children who weren't even born in 2006 elected terrorists in Gaza, and enough is enough.

Nonsense. And everybody know it is.

> "In the context of de-legitimization - Hamas is an asset (for Israel) and the Palestinian Authority is a liability"

-- Smotrich, https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1741196470399783296

> If we act strategically correctly, there will be immigration and we will live in the Gaza Strip. We will not allow a situation where 2 million people live there. If there are 100-200 thousand Arabs in Gaza, all the talk about the day after will be different. They want to leave, they have been living in the ghetto for 75 years and are in need"

-- Smotrich, https://twitter.com/GLZRadio/status/1741347524693127398

So if you keep electing people who are murdering civilians to commit ethnic cleansing to take over the land, or keep electing leaders that supply those other leaders with weapons to do that, and then, as an adult, go on a forum to re-iterate that you personally agree with it, that's fine. But kids in Gaza, they have to pay for what they did.