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True

'[Palestine is] NOT a country and was once part of Jordan.'

Oh look -- wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine -- apparently it is a state!

"On 29 November 2012, in a 138-9 vote (with 41 abstentions and 5 absences),[25] the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 67/19, upgrading Palestine from an "observer entity" to a "non-member observer state" within the United Nations system, and was described as de facto recognition of PLO's sovereignty.[14][26][27][28][29] The new status equates Palestine's with that of the Holy See; similarly, Switzerland was a non-member observer state for more than 50 years (until 2002)."


"the forum post states we can vote for TWO. Why oh why can I only vote for one then?"

Its means the top two finishers will be added.

State is not a country...

They're interchangeable terms in this context. The UN terms its members 'member-states' not 'member-countries.'

To the contrary, State is a country.
If the "S" is upper case. It refers to a country.
If the "s" is lower case. It's the equivalent of a province.

The sovereign State of Canada.

Nope.

The text '"non-member observer state" within the United Nations system' refers to the Palestinian state, not a region of somewhere (where exactly?) which Palestine belongs to.

Whether its lowercase or uppercase has nothing to do with anything.

Basically it's an Authority..

The united nations is less useful than my nipples (clothes pegs try it sometime 😉 )

and the decisions they make are about as important as an ants

I agree completely, but then how you view the UN depends on whether or not you're getting free blow jobs from them. xD

Whether they are a State or a state is unimportant to me. It's how they go about taking what they want. If they existed long ago as a separate culture that is fine. Where is their culture prior to 1948? Palestine as a people did not exist for hundreds of years. As I stated below, it is as if a group of people started calling themselves Babylonians and insisted they be given Iraq. Preposterous that it is even considered.

Israelis as a people (unique from Jews being a people, and one deserving of a nation-state, which is the essence of Zionism) did not exist before 1948 either. Yet those who would form the basis of Israeli society "insisted" (I'm using the term loosely here) on going back to the ancient land of Israel (most were happy to just get out of Europe).

Besides which, whether they referred to themselves as Palestinians at the time or not, there was an Arab population in what is now Israel and the occupied territories. They had a culture, one shared with others in the fairly newly created neighbouring states, whose borders were only created after 1918.

Are they (or African countries, whose history in those set borders dates back a mere few decades before the end of WWI) not deserve recognition either?

P.S. Look up the Irgun and the Stern Gang at some point - even (the) Haganah - sometime when you get the chance and then we can talk again about the tactics of taking.

And there was Israel before the Babylonians took them in exile Then some Assyrians took over, and blah, blah, blah. Point is nobody wanted the worthless dessert until the Jews irrigated and planted crops, found natural gas and oil, built modern cities and manufacturing companies. Now crybabies want to clam it as their own.

@dill - The it-was-all-just-desert before Israel arrived is an obvious red herring and completely untrue. The modernising of the region was in step with most of the rest of the world, inc. most first world nations.

'And there was Israel before the Babylonians took them in exile Then some Assyrians took over...'

Semites lived in the region for as long as recorded history, of which Jewish ethnicity is an offshot. Presentday Palestinians can also trace their heritage to the original Semitic-language speaking inhabitants, as well as Arab migrants, who's been present in the region for thousands of years.

"Point is nobody wanted the worthless dessert until the Jews irrigated and planted crops, found natural gas and oil, built modern cities and manufacturing companies."

First up, that piece of "worthless desert" has been fought over and changed hands for thousands of years, so no, people did want it. Secondly, like anyone in the region, including the then British empire, had the industrial power to irrigate parts of the desert!? Best not to confuse industrial techniques like that with the arable farmers who've lived off the land there for thousands of years 😉

"Now crybabies want to clam it as their own."

No 'claim' required, Palestinian and Israeli lands are protected by international law. You should probably be aware that Palestinian lands ARE NOT included in the present territory of Israel in Erepublik, in case you think this is a landgrab.

Main body of reply below.

Quote NFM "...Palestinian and Israeli lands are protected by international law."
Yes they are. While the Palestine Mandate set forth and approved by the League of Nations in 1917 was to provide Jews a homeland there were considerations given to the other inhabitants.
Quote Art 2 of the Mandate "...and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion."
No one has every tried to run off, or impede the rights of anyone that is just 'living there'. The problem is when you have riots and terrorism in your country that you have every right to keep the peace.

But anyhow I'm done trying to give any input to this. Too much BS on both sides and it don't matter at all to me. People will always be taking from other people. We are all greedy bastards at heart. When will the people here start bitchin' about Putin? Bastard thinks he can just walk in and take part of the Ukraine.

First of all, the populated part of Israel and the Palestinian territories is not useless dessert. The Galillee, the coastal areas, the Jordan Valley are all quite fertile. It may surprise you to learn that the Negev Desert is still, by and large, an inhospitable place with very little agriculture.

Secondly, if nobody wanted it, Israel wouldn't have been invaded after declaring independence. The original 700,000 Palestinian refugees certainly wanted it.

You seem to be very hung up about the fact that they weren't calling themselves Palestinians at the time, disregarding the fact that they and their ancestors have lived their for centuries.

The people that would become Israelis were Jews yet wanted to create a state with the same name as a kingdom that ceased to exist some 2,000 years earlier. I fail to see the difference between that and your analogy about Babylonians.

Actually, Jewish as a people did exist - there are many famous poets that wrote from Spain to Russia about returning to Israel.
Jewish songs involve comming back to the holy land as a nation.

Zionism started before 1900 by itself, Jews started migrating into Israel way before 1948.

"In the portion of the plain between Mount Carmel and Jaffa one sees but rarely a village or other sights of human life." ~B.W. Johnson, travel log, 1892.

"In Judea it is hardly an exaggeration to say that for miles and miles there was no appearance of life or habitation." ~Penrhyn Stanley, British cartographer, 1881.

"There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country." ~Mark Twain, describing the desolation in Palestine on a visit in 1867.

"Much of the country through which we have been rambling for a week appears never to have been inhabited, or even cultivated; and there are other parts, you say, still more barren." ~ W.M. Thomson, American missionary living in the Holy Land for 40 years, 1866.

"The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants." ~James Finn, British consul in Palestine, 1857.

"Outside the city of Jerusalem, we saw no living object, heard no living sound ... a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, in the highways, in the country." ~Alphonse de Lamartine, travel book, 1835.






The Peel Commission, appointed by the British government in 1936 to investigate the reasons for the civil unrest due to Arab uprising in Palestine, had this to say as part of its findings:

"The shortage of land is due less to purchase by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population. The Arab claims that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamps and uncultivated when it was bought." —Report of the Palestine Royal Commission, July 1937

All historical records confirm that the region remained largely in ruins from the Roman conquest in 63 AD up until the late 19th century when the first Zionists returned to dry up the swamps and made the desert bloom, thereby creating the new economic and employment opportunities that resulted in the large

[continue]
...that resulted in the largest influx ever of Arab immigrants from Egypt, Syria, and the Arabian Peninsula in the early 20th century

Chance4Admin

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The Palestine issue is a hot potato topic. As I understand it Palestine did not exist in modern times until the British map makers used the name to place on their map after defeating the Ottomans to denote the territory that was placed under the Palestine Mandate. Before that early forms that were to become Palestine were located all over the region. Prominently in ancient times they were the Philistines. The region of Syria known as Palaistinê. It was never truly a country of it's own and were absorbed into other cultures in the region.

In my uneducated opinion I consider the insistence that Palestine should take the land back from Israel is similar to if a group started calling themselves Babylonians and insisted that they be given modern day Iraq.

The British left. No one wanted the barren wasteland in 1948 when the land was returned to a group of people that have remained a single people group for hundreds of years without benefit of a homeland. (This cultural purity is unique BTW.) At the time the Arabs were not particularly alarmed. Then the Israels declared that they were an independent country on May 14, 1948. Immediately attack by neighboring Arab countries they defended themselves and exist to this day.

The territory was not take by force. It has been defended many time successfully. Primarily by negotiation has modern Israel lost territory. By comparison to any other country anywhere regarding war and the assumption of ownership they have proven the right to exist.

Wanted to add that I harbor no ill feelings against anyone. I think it's horrible what has happened. Governments are what cause the suffering. Palestinians cross the check points daily and work for Jews. They eat together and in some cases their children play together. Hate is perpetuated by those that love to hate. Please keep that in mind and try to live your life accordingly.

The name of the area and the borders of the territories are issues of semantics. There were people in what became Israel in 1948, whether they called themselves Palestinians or not. Some 700,000 left of were driven from their homes in 1948 during Israel's War of Independence when Israel expanded its territory from the original "N-plan" map, on which they had originally proclaimed a state, to the additional areas up to what is popularly known as the Green line.

This expansion was done by forceful military advancement, as was Israel's other advancements in 1967 (though I, too, have issues about the concept of conquest no longer being an appropriate means of expanding borders as it has been applied to Israel).

These people didn't want to go anywhere to have a country, they wanted to stay there (it's unclear whether they'd have preferred to have their own country or be a part of another).

As for the purity of Jewish culture, I'm afraid this isn't the case. There were Litvaks and Pollacks, the Yekkes (an Israeli created derogatory word for German Jews) among the Ashkenazis and the multitude of Sephardi groups, not to mention the Ethiopian Jewish community. Even in Canada there's a fight between Toronto and Montreal bagels (though I can't see how anyone could defend the former 😛) and then, of course, there are the numerous religious denominations which stretches back to ancient times when there was both a Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud.

Boy you sure talk a lot Adolph.

You mean Adolf? I wouldn't have to write so much if you knew what you were writing about so I didn't have to correct you. You're not doing anyone a service with your weak and hypocritical points as to why Palestine doesn't deserve to be a country.

crazy for potatoe

'The territory was not take by force. It has been defended many time successfully. Primarily by negotiation has modern Israel lost territory. By comparison to any other country anywhere regarding war and the assumption of ownership they have proven the right to exist.'

Apply the argument they've-won-a-war-so-get-to-assume-ownership to Nazi Germany's wars for Lebensraum in Soviet Russia, or the genocide committed by the English "settlers" against Native Americans and you'll see how silly it is. Neither state is legitimized by the people they kill on the other side. There are treaties signed by the leaderships of both peoples that acknowledge that each state has a right to exist. The "wars" Israel fought -- if you could even call those wars -- are beside the point.

I'm not into this argument and don't care to debate it further. BS abounds on both sides. I've seen the pictures of the Jordan valley before and after. What I know of the subject is not empirical knowledge but only hearsay. Pictures can be manipulated and history is written by the victors so in essence anything said here is hearsay even is substantiated.

This however is a legal document on file and can be seen and touched (assuming permission is granted).
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp
So as you see it was the League of Nations fault. The same people that brought you Adolf Hitler. Maybe it was the Brits fault or maybe the Ottomans. Say, there's an idea, just give the original Palestine territory back to Turkey. I'm sure they'd take it. And as the last rightful owners before the evil British beat up on the poor Ottomans just like Nazis or Soviets the Turks have the first claim. Oh wait, wasn't there someone there before the Ottomans???

BS, people were fighting over that land before Abraham laid eyes on it. By default ownership goes to whoever wins and holds territory. Just happens that recently Israel was given the land by international law. "Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country..."

shouldn't we stop wars? That would be funny...

Is this comment why they gave you the temp ban...?

LOLz

The Palestine thing makes me long for a downvote button.

There's a lot of things wrong with erepubliks map. Falkland and other over sea territories not being part of the uk, Puerto Rico in America, Greenland with Denmark, French Guyana, etc

Thedillpickl. You first make statements as if they are facts. You then backtrack and say it is the way you understand it, after which you backtrack and say its just your opinion, you then declare that you do not care and both sides are wrong. Frankly, your knowledge of the Palestine/Israel issue is evidently almost zero, if not non-existent. The Palestinian people are mentioned in the Old Testament, yet you say they did not exist prior to 1948. You also mix race with religion. "Jewish" is a religion. There are Jewish Arabs, of which are Palestinian. There were Palestinian Jews, Muslims and Christians living in that area, the keyword here is "Palestinian". After 1948 the European powers moved Jews (which is a religion) from different nationalities into Palestine. Therefore you go Germans, Polish, French, Austrian and other people going into an Asian country and declaring it as theirs. Their reason is that "God" promised them that land. This is similar to Chinese, Koreans, Japanese who happen to be Buddhist, going to the UK and declaring England their country because their "God" promised them that land. The inhabitants of that land are English, their religion could be any of the thousands in this world. It is similar to the Europeans going to American, and taking the land from the Native Americans. If those Jews were Palestinian, and there were many of them, it would have been fine. However the Jews who took over and declared Israel are Europeans who have nothing to do with the area.

And to say that the area of Palestine was not inhabited and a desert (Palestine is green by the way, except for the south negev desert) prior to 1948, then i ask you where exactly did the Crusades happen? I wonder whose blood was flowing through the streets when the Crusaders slaughtered the inhabitants of Jerusalem as reported in history books, i assume its blood of people? Human beings? Or were they ghosts since nobody lived there?

More reading: Canaanites, Phonecians, Philistines

You do realize you can't be a real Jew without being ethnically & Culturally Jewish. No one is converting to Judaism and claiming Israel to be their birthright.

That actually happens all the time. Jews don't proselytize and makes it pretty hard to convert but once you're in, you're all in.

You aren't considered jewish unless your mother is Jewish by blood. That's been their tradition form the start.

No, Judaism allows conversion and has going back to at least the time of Ruth, a convert, who is the central figure in the Jewish Bible's Book of Ruth.

ah fuk...here we go!!

Reposted for those who's sight is weak:

I'm not into this argument and don't care to debate it further. BS abounds on both sides. I've seen the pictures of the Jordan valley before and after. What I know of the subject is not empirical knowledge but only hearsay. Pictures can be manipulated and history is written by the victors so in essence anything said here is hearsay even is substantiated.

This however is a legal document on file and can be seen and touched (assuming permission is granted).
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp
So as you see it was the League of Nations fault. The same people that brought you Adolf Hitler. Maybe it was the Brits fault or maybe the Ottomans. Say, there's an idea, just give the original Palestine territory back to Turkey. I'm sure they'd take it. And as the last rightful owners before the evil British beat up on the poor Ottomans just like Nazis or Soviets the Turks have the first claim. Oh wait, wasn't there someone there before the Ottomans???

BS, people were fighting over that land before Abraham laid eyes on it. By default ownership goes to whoever wins and holds territory. Just happens that recently Israel was given the land by international law. "Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country..."

Repeating yourself doesn't make your argument any more valid. This one is too nonsensical to even address.

Then just reply to this.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp
I didn't write it.

Last time I saw comments this long was before NAACP killed that N word! Looks like I'll be careful next time I want to say the P word!

National?

Vote Palestine - much lulz and butthurt will ensue.

I'm surprised that nobody brought up Taiwan in this discussion. It's recognized by fewer countries than either Kosovo or Palestine and yet it exists in-game. That is an under-recognized and fascinating situation.