Israeli Gasoline, meet Arab fire.

[No Elephants]

Stung by the vote? The overwhelming UN vote came as a surprise?

Stung by U.N. defeat, Israel pushes settlement plans

(Reuters) - Hours after the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to grant de-facto statehood to Palestine, Israel responded on Friday by announcing it was authorizing 3,000 new settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

An official, who declined to be named, said the government had also decided to expedite planning work for thousands more homes in a geographically sensitive area close to Jerusalem that critics say would kill off Palestinian hopes of a viable state.

The decision was made on Thursday when it became clear that the U.N. General Assembly was set to upgrade the Palestinians' status in the world body, making them a "non-member state", as opposed to an "entity", boosting their diplomatic clout.

The motion was backed by 138 nations, opposed by nine, while 41 members abstained - a resounding defeat that exposed its growing diplomatic isolation.

An Israeli official had earlier conceded that this represented a "total failure of diplomacy" and warned there would be consequences - which were swift in coming.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/30/us-palestinians-israel-isolation-idUSBRE8AT0R720121130


The sixty-four year long so called peace "process," including at least thirty-five years of jabbering about a two state "solution," do not auggest a "total failure of diplomacy?"

Making threats after most nations in the world either vote against your cause or abstain in deference to one of the nine nations that voted for your cause is not Israel's total failure in diplomacy?

"Settling" land that the rest of the world sees as a sovereign nation is not a total failure of diplomacy.


And then, if a Palestinian kills an Israeli working toward these "settlements" a result of your provocations, you will kill as many Palestinians as you choose, claiming you were only retaliating. The media will parrot that and the U.S. will give you moral and financial support, as well as putting all its/our might behind you. Now, that is really a total success in diplomacy.

And I love the UK in all this. "Taking up the white man's burden," it claims some sort of quasi-ownership rights in Palestine, and then purports to give Palestine away to Jews against the will of the Palestinians. Then it abstains from this vote.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Palestine


http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/james-renton/forgotten-lessons-palestine-and-british-empire


If I were a Palestinian, I, too, might one day forget my fundamental belief in nonviolence.

For some reason, Arabs in the Middle East seem very comfortable with Brits and very uncomfortable with Israelis. I have never understood that. Then again, the only Middle Eastern Arabs I know are those who can easily afford to travel to the U.S. a number of times.

In 1917, during the First World War, Britain defeated the Ottoman forces and occupied and set up a military administration across the former Ottoman Syria. The land remained under British military administration for the remainder of the war, and beyond. The British sought to set up legitimacy for their continued control of the region and this was achieved by obtaining a mandate from the League of Nations in June 1922. The formal objective of the League of Nations Mandate system was to administer parts of the defunct Ottoman Empire, which had been in control of the Middle East since the 16th century, "until such time as they are able to stand alone."<3>

But all that is water under the damned bridge, as the saying almost goes. We are well beyond 1948.

The issue now is whether Arabs and Israelis will ever make peace again, short of annihilation of one side or the other.

Doesn't look like it.

[Enthusiast]

1. I see it as you do. nt