GreecePwns wrote:a6mzero wrote:Just because the PLO declared itself a state( of which most of the land it claims is occupied by Israel )doesn't make it a state. Just because the UN recognizes it doesn't make it a state. The UN is basically a body which is always quick to condemn Israel but never says shit about the mass bloodletting and dictatorships in the rest of the region.
Are you fucking kidding me.
The UN is the only reason Israel exists.
You are woefully ignorant of history.
Actually, he's perfectly correct.
Let's talk some Realpolitik, not your CNN fairy tales.
Palestine was promised to the Jews in 1916, before the British had even captured it. They were basically "selling short" because they needed financial support for the war, and also to entice influential American Jews to pressure America to enter the war.
After the war the British started to backpedal on their promise, because suddenly they no longer needed the help of the Jews and they thought they could sell them down the river. However, the Zionist lobby was well organised and kept the Brits' promise at least on the radar, albeit not imminently enforceable.
Between World War I and World War II, the world gradually changed. World War I ran on coal, but World War II ran on oil, and the world's biggest oil reserves were under Arab control. Nobody could afford to piss off the Arabs too much, especially the British who at that time had no domestic supply of oil. So, they agreed to give half of Palestine to the Arabs. It was purely a bribe to the Hashemite family, to cement the Hashemites' long-term alliance with Britain, through which the British hoped to broker the supply of Arab oil. (About a quarter of the Hashemite family were Christians, and of the Muslim three-quarters a great many were moderates, unlike the Saud family who were almost all Wahhabi extremists.)
The Jews weren't thrilled about having only half of what had been promised to them, but what could they do? They accepted the partition in good faith. It was the Arabs who weren't satisfied with being given half, and who launched an unprovoked assault on the Jews, with the stated intention of "driving the Jews into the sea" and capturing the whole thing for themselves. In layman's terms, they called "double or nothing!", rolled the dice, and came up with craps. That's what happens when you gamble; sometimes you lose.
The U.N. rubber-stamped the deal, but to claim "UN is the only reason Israel exists" is patently ludicrous. Then, as now, the U.N. was primarily a big circus tent showcasing the best propaganda from the various members of the Security Council and had no real purpose beside emitting smoke and mirrors for the masses.
The British acted in bad faith by giving half of Palestine to the Arabs after promising all of it to the Jews, but who can really blame them? Securing oil was the number one issue facing any world power. Sadly, the joke was on them. Their pretend-friends in Washington pumped millions into bribing the Saud family to change allegiance from Britain to the U.S., while the Russians pumped millions into a military coup which stole Iraq from their Hashemite allies. The British were left with Aden and their last few loyal allies in the Gulf -- Muscat and Oman and Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, plus their remaining Hashemites. (Iraq was not lost until 1951, so at the time of the Palestine partition they still held not only Jordan but Iraq as well.)
(What is absolutely fucking hilarious, in a dark and not-funny kind of way, is that after the Americans back-stabbed the Brits at every opportunity, bribed the Saud family to usurp control of Arab oil, conspired with the Russians to rob the British of their most important strategic supply line the Suez -- the Americans actually had the nerve, the unbelievable fucking gall, to complain that they were left holding the bag when the British finally got tired of the ordeal, cut their losses and walked away from further involvement in 1971, and left the Americans with sole responsibility for the region.)
Anyway, I don't have time to go into a rehash of the whole Israel thing, but I had to comment, because I almost burst a blood vessel at your assertion that the U.N. is responsible for Israel's existence. As if the U.N. is anything more than the world's most overpriced sketch comedy troupe! What goes on in the Middle East is primarily a chess game for control of oil, played by Russia and the U.S. (and prior to 1971, by Britain.) Israel exists because Britain needed cash to stay afloat in World War I, and because the Jews had the resourcefulness, after Britain tried to renege, to compel at least a half-satisfaction of its promise.
