#Albo needs to take a step back & look at the total #clusterfuck his Prime Ministership has become.
2023 Labor National Conference: Labor’s position is that Israel and Palestine should exist “as two states within their own secure and recognised borders”.
@Alpha1Nine That resolution is a long way from being possible. It requires the two parties involved to agree on the motion before any 'recognition' is afforded to 'both' states. IMO, recognising a Palestinian state which does not exists does nothing to stop Netenyau's madness, nor does it afford any international rights to the Gaza Strip. At best it is grandstanding, at worst, it lessens the impact of any diplomatic pressure Australia might put on to Israel to do something about the two state proposal. I understand the anger. What I cannot understand is why the same anger isn't applied to the horn of Africa, Ukraine, the autonomous regions of the PRC, etc... #Palestine#payman#Labor#TwoStateSolution
@DropBear@Alpha1Nine whoaaa, that one got past me. Apologies. Do you know what territorial boundaries th state is based on and voted on? I also note that the vote was not confirmed by the Security Council (no surprise there).
"what territorial boundaries" @RaymondPierreL3
I wondered about that. It turns out to be irrelevant. A "state" is an organised political community. Territory is usual, but not necessary under all definitions.
@RaymondPierreL3
There is no universally-agreed definition of "state" in this context. One of the few points on which all seem to agree is recognition.
🤔
A state is a state because it's recognised as such by other states. Recursive, but there you have it. #AusPol #Payman #FatimaPayman #Palestine #Israel @Alpha1Nine
@DropBear@RaymondPierreL3@Alpha1Nine I don't think there is agreement on Israel's territory borders but we recognise Israel. We should join the majority and recognise Palestine and sort out the issue of where the borders are after that.
@smitjo@DropBear@Alpha1Nine I may be proven wrong, but when Britain finally gave the ok for jewish refugee resettlement in Palestine, the border was mapped and defined. What happened subsequently to agrandise the borders of Israel is similar to what Putin is currently doing in Ukraine. #Palestine
@RaymondPierreL3@DropBear@Alpha1Nine you could be correct about that but my recollection is that Israel has never accepted the proposed borders. My point was really that if Australia can recognise one country that has unsettled borders then we should be able to recognise the country on the other side of that unsettled border.
@smitjo@DropBear@Alpha1Nine I also remember from my history classes that Palestine was created by the British as a prize of war, not by palestinians as such. The Arab states had previously taken conrol of the region know as the Biblical palestine (itself carved out by the jewish tribes through conquests as the Egyptian 'let them go'). It's complicated...
@RaymondPierreL3@DropBear@Alpha1Nine I agree it's complicated. I know that my Dad was in the British Army serving in Palestine prior to WW2 and I think much of that area was part of the Ottoman Empire prior to WW1.
I still don't accept that disputed borders prevent recognition of Palestinian Statehood. If we recognise the country on one side of the border then we should recognise the country on the other side.
@RaymondPierreL3 "Palestine was created by the British"
The concept of Palestine has existed for more than a millennium. If it was "created", then that could be said to have been done by the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century CE (though he was building on history).
"...carved out by the jewish tribes through conquests as the Egyptian 'let them go'..."
There's no evidence of substantial numbers of Hebrew slaves in Egypt. Ever. No Passover. No Exodus (at least, not on the scale of the mythology). Probably no Moses.
@smitjo
"my recollection is that Israel has never accepted the proposed borders"
One of the conditions imposed by the UN was that Israel would declare it borders. That has never happened. (They probably intend to take total control from the river to the sea, then move on to "Greater Israel".) If we're going to obsess over borders, then Israel doesn't formally exist. @Alpha1Nine #AusPol #Payman #FatimaPayman #Palestine #Israel
@RaymondPierreL3
It seemed to me that we were discussing from different perspectives. Some of us were learning. Others, evidently not.
For the record, I don't believe that there's a viable a two-state solution. It's pretty clear that the Zionists are intent on being the master race in the region. While Israel exists, the chances of peace are slim to none. @smitjo@Alpha1Nine #AusPol #Payman #FatimaPayman #Palestine #Israel #discussion
@DropBear@RaymondPierreL3@Alpha1Nine I tend to think that too. A two state solution sounds nice but it seems clear that neither of the two states genuinely want that.
@smitjo
The founding documents of Likud and Hamas both claim exclusive rights from the river to the sea (both parties have since moderated their language, but the intent is clear). Zionism also has a worrying history of aspiring to "Greater Israel". By some accounts, that stretches from the Euphrates to the Nile. @RaymondPierreL3 @Alpha1Nine #AusPol #Payman #FatimaPayman #Palestine #Israel #discussion #GreaterIsrael
@DropBear@RaymondPierreL3@Alpha1Nine
Ongoing program of land theft and expansion of illegal settlements seems to clearly demonstrate that Israel has no interest in a two state solution.
'Twas ever thus @smitjo
There are historical reason why, for example, the British Empire supported the Zionist enterprise (and the US Empire continued that support). Given the revealed character of that enterprise, the ongoing support of supposedly moral Western governments puzzles me.
The seeds of failure were evident from the beginning. It seems the Zionists made themselves unpopular from the moment they started arriving in Palestine. The image below is from a document by the US delegation to the 1919 Paris conference. The Zionists must have been pretty obnoxious. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1919Parisv12/d381 @RaymondPierreL3 @Alpha1Nine
@DropBear@RaymondPierreL3@Alpha1Nine it's a telling report. My dad was part of the Palestine Peace Keeping Force prior to WW2 - he was in the British Army and posted to Palestine in about 1936 I think. He was firmly of the opinion that the Zionists were cruel and dangerous terrorists.
History has proved your father oh, so right @smitjo
I rather like that "Jews are a religion and not a nation". Zionists have proved to be yet something else.
@DropBear@Alpha1Nine I won’t address the ‘whataboutism’ because that is your reading. I wanted to highlight the fact that in international affairs, things are rarely (not to say never) one-sided or simple. State sovereignty is a complex entity but one of it’s characteristic is the ‘unity’ of the people behind a national identity. Even in Belgium’s case (where political and linguistic fractures have marred its olitical stability) for as long as I can remember) there is a national consensual view of its Statehood. With Palestine we have two opposting political groups, divided along geographical as well as political lines vyiing for recognition. On the Payman matter, my view is simple, she knew Labor had rules when she ran for office and she broke one of them.
@DropBear@Alpha1Nine Should Israel exist? Good question and thee are valid arguments on both sides of the fence. I guess it boils down to the horrors of anti-semetism, the Holocaust, and the solution arrived at by the owers which won the war. Let’s face it, at the time, no country was welcoming of Jewish refugees (not even the US for all its rhetoric). Lastly, not all Israelites are Zionists. The greatest reponsibility for what has transpired since the first Jewish refugees landed in Palestine en-masse must be laid at the feet of the Kinoutz (Zionism) and the Arab States who tolerated neither Palestinians nor Jews. At least that is my reading of history.
There are indeed non-Zionist Israelis @RaymondPierreL3
There are even anti-Zionist Israelis. But the State of Israel is Zionist. The society of Israel is Zionist.
The Zionist invasion of Palestine began in the 19th century. Some of the documentation from the 1919 Paris conference is quite revealing. It seems they were pretty obnoxious from the beginning.