Israel criticised by Britain over West Bank university plan

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Guardian

The British government has warned that the official authorisation of Israel's first settlement university will create another hurdle in the peace process.

Israel's defence secretary, Ehud Barak, approved the upgrade of a college in the settlement of Ariel, 11 miles inside the West Bank, earlier this week.

In a statement released on Thursday, FCO minister Alistair Burt said the UK was deeply disappointed by the decision.

"Ariel is beyond the green line in a settlement that is illegal according to international law. This decision will deepen the presence of the settlements in the Palestinian territories and will create another obstacle to peace," the statement said.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/28/israel-britain-west-bank-university

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

1. Until the world...let's be honest the West explains to their friend Israel

that they can no longer accept continued colonization of the Palestinian lands Israel will continue to obtain...let's be honest belligerently steal territory that doesn't belong to them.

What other modern Democracy can actually boast that they are moving its citizens onto territory not recognized by the world community as their own?

England? France? Germany? America? Greater Europe? Asia? India? Australia? South America? Mexico? Canada? Others? Who?


Sometimes friends need tough love and interventions in order to recognize they are acting in self destructive or anti-social ways.

Israel will ignore the UN while treating the Palestinian as squatters on their land; when the world knows what is happening is the opposite.

Until the actions of the West change from disappointment to expectations through sanctions Israel will continue with its program of apartheid...regardless of what sugar coating others will put on that word.

[Igel]

2. Turkey?

Then again, you did say "modern" and "democracy."

After all, Turkey's interesting take on the I/P situation is startlingly like not its own Kurdish problem (which has historically been bad enough), but Cyprus. Even to the point of trying to use expropriated, colonized territorial boundaries to punish Greek Cypriots and, surprise, Israel.

Hard to know what to make of the Han expansion, not just in Tibet but pretty much in every place where there's not a 100% Han population in the PRC. Again, "democracy," I guess, is the problem. Also lets Sudan off the hook, as well as a bunch of other countries which, being who they are, merit no condemnation. Poor things. Can't expect them to live up to Westerners' standards of inherent virtue.

And there's the entire caveat of "recognized as their own" business. Didn't apply to Poles, Czechs, Italians, Slovenes, Indians, Pakistanis, Russians, or a lot of others when boundaries self-servingly shifted in post-WWII Europe. Or to expropriated property--after all, the property was still, I guess, the "governments' own". (Although we usually hear the opposite claim when it's abandoned, forcibly or otherwise, property in Israel. Odd this asymmetry, one standard for one group and a different standard for another. Politics and bias by any other name--say, hypocrisy--still smells as rank.)

I don't like the settlements. The university's a mistake, IMO. But let's not add to Israel's faults by being venal ourselves and acting like only the shit on Israel's face is actually stinky, while on everybody else's face it's a beauty mask that smells like attar of roses.

(I'm cranky today.)

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

4. "But let's not add to Israel's faults..."

The OP was about Israel, and there's a lot of shit to go around. I never said the world was historically clean.

Turkey has been for a long time a Democracy with the approval of the Generals. For some time they have kept the fundamentalists in check. They only recently have broken with Israel. Too bad.

Israel's boundaries are pretty well drawn, and the Palestinians need to be treated and they need to treat others with basic human rights.

It is time that they got their tiny piece of land, and if the settlers wish to stay then they should be protected but live under a Palestinian flag. Otherwise they should accept the 1967 borders at least and move back into Israel proper.

I'm sorry you are in a cranky mood.


Peace.