From The Telegraph in London:
Five European countries, including Britain, have registered formal protests with Israeli ambassadors over last week’s decision by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to build 3,000 settlers’ homes and develop an area of the West Bank that could render a Palestinian state unviable.
Along with Australia and Brazil, they were joined by Egypt, threatening to destabilise its fragile regional relations.
Did we get elected to the Security Council or the Sanctimonious Council?
kingsley
5 Dec 12 at 7:30 pm
You want to have sympathy for the israelis but building settlements is just dumb.
Pedro
5 Dec 12 at 7:32 pm
Why do you assume we all just blindly support Israel?
Paul
5 Dec 12 at 7:53 pm
Paul, not all of us “just blindly support Israel.”
Some of us support Israel with our eyes wide open, even because our eyes are open. It’s not perfect, but the (self-proclaimed) perfect are the enemy of the good.
e-girl
5 Dec 12 at 8:02 pm
I don’t blindly support Israel. I support Israel for good reason.
It is seven million people surrounded by hundreds of millions of people who want to exterminate them. The majority of people on earth support the wanna-be exterminators. They need all the support they can get.
It is a disgrace that Australia doesn’t take Israel’s side in this matter. We should hang our heads in shame.
jupes
5 Dec 12 at 8:11 pm
I have a lot of sympathy for Israel when it comes to defending itself against rocket attacks. I don’t have a problem with responding with reasonable force (like was done recently). But establishing settlements in disputed territory makes a two state solution in the long term much more difficult (or expensive if the Israeli government has to pay-off the settlers).
Chris
5 Dec 12 at 8:51 pm
The argument that is often used for Israel needing a lot of the West Bank is for security. Now they are putting civilians there not military instalations with no civilians. Is this a case of human shields?
kelly liddle
5 Dec 12 at 8:58 pm
No ding bat. It’s about creating new burbs, like we do in Australia for a growing population.
Get back to the cab and stop thinking so hard as it must hurt.
JC
5 Dec 12 at 9:00 pm
I wouldn’t be creating a new suburb in an area which is supposibly dangerous. I am curious of the long term plan of Israel though as they are simultaneously calling for 2 states and one state.
kelly liddle
5 Dec 12 at 9:10 pm
The so called ‘two state solution’ is a non starter.
The palestinians (a fabricated ‘people’, they’re simply fucking arabs) already have their own states.
They’re called egypt and jordon.
Rabz
5 Dec 12 at 9:14 pm
Oh f*ck! “jordan”…
Rabz
5 Dec 12 at 9:15 pm
Get out of that Queensland sun Kelly, it is rotting your brain and making you offensive.
Strange you did not make a “statement” about basing its missile batteries close to schools & hospitals…
Token
5 Dec 12 at 9:15 pm
You really think Israel would be happy for Egypt and Jordan to control the West bank and Gaza instead? I don’t see a one state solution which incorporates the West bank and Gaza with a 1 person 1 vote political system being acceptable to Israel either – the demographics would change their political system significantly. I really don’t see how a one state solution would in the long term lead to Israel remaining a Jewish state which is what many people in Israel want to preserve.
Chris
5 Dec 12 at 9:21 pm
Token what is that supposed to mean?
kelly liddle
5 Dec 12 at 9:31 pm
The whole country is dangerous.
1500 rockets have been launched at it this year.
jupes
5 Dec 12 at 9:38 pm
I would much prefer they used overwhelming, disproportionate force. It is more effective.
jupes
5 Dec 12 at 9:39 pm
If the US had never got hold of Hawaii we’d have been spared the Kenyan.
Infidel Tiger
5 Dec 12 at 9:45 pm
Every suburb in Australia is built on disputed land.
wreckage
5 Dec 12 at 9:55 pm
When compared to what? Israeli’s life expectancy is very high so not too many dying. If you take the homicide rate of US for example and then compare that number to deaths caused by homicides, rockets and military activities in Israel it is very clearly much more safe in Israel. The purpose of the rockets is to terrorise not to kill as they don’t kill many people. It might also be to sure up support for Hamas domestically.
kelly liddle
5 Dec 12 at 10:01 pm
“How did Australia get mixed up in all this?”
That’s what I want to know.
What difference does it make to Australians ( assuming people on the Cat regard themselves as Australians ) who gains the upper hand between Israelis and Palestinians ?
With regards to Australian security, trade, freedom etc….
I’m really at a loss as to why this conflict , as opposed to others, is so dominant on Catallaxy.
jumpnmcar
5 Dec 12 at 10:03 pm
Have no idea. I just see it as in interesting thing to gain peoples opinions on but find many supporting either side to be convinced by the propaganda.
kelly liddle
5 Dec 12 at 10:14 pm
Because, to the ALP, muslim votes in south-western Sydney trump 64 years of bipartisan support for Israel since Australia voted ‘yes’ to the UN resolution that created the country, trumps our national interest, and trumps all the tenets of moral conduct and behaviour.
Both hamas and Fatah are terrorist gangs, run by murderous thugs. Once, the ALP recognised that.
Under the current bunch of corrupt gaol-dodgers, not so much.
Mk50 of Brisbane
5 Dec 12 at 10:20 pm
Still looking..
Israel an important trading partner ?
No.
http://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/tgs/Australias-goods-services-by-top-10-partners-2011.pdf
jumpnmcar
5 Dec 12 at 10:27 pm
Last count was over 2250 rockets launched from Gaza this year; the latest being 12 rockets launched one hour after the latest cease fire, to which Israel did not retaliate.
Gab
5 Dec 12 at 10:32 pm
I don’t want to make fun of Kelly, because she seems like one of those merely misguided Lefties – probably quite young, too – who are desperately trying to reconcile the real world with all the lies she has been taught to believe, like a newborn puppy struggling to open its eyes in the sunlight.
Bless.
alexnoaholdmate
5 Dec 12 at 10:35 pm
In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.
sdog
5 Dec 12 at 10:40 pm
Look, Chris, I’m a bit like you at 8:51pm
I have unequivocal support for Israel when it comes to defending itself against “hundreds of millions of people who want to exterminate them” (Jupes at 8:11pm)
I don’t have a problem with Israel responding with all the force it can muster as often as it feels necessary (unlike in its recent restrained counter attacks).
We are sooooo alike Chris.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
5 Dec 12 at 11:23 pm
I’m with you Jump. I couldn’t care less which side throws the most, biggest, furthest, smelliest, rocks at each other as long as they don’t throw them at me. In the same way I am nonplussed over border disputes in Africa or Kashmir.
None of it will change things if you believe this is just another sign of the end times.
There will be no peace until he returns.
Splatacrobat
5 Dec 12 at 11:56 pm
Splat, there’s a common thread running through most of these ‘border disputes’ as you so quaintly call them.
Here’s a hint – a seventh century mediaeval death cult.
Rabz
6 Dec 12 at 8:17 am
Daniel Greenfield:
(link)
Bruce
6 Dec 12 at 8:17 am
The Palestinians are quite different to the Bedouin tribes of Jordan, Rabz. Also, different to the gypos. For a start, the Pals have entrepreneurial nouse and tend to support whichever country they find themselves in. On the whole, Pals make good immigrants.
I know, from Australia it all looks so simple and easy to lump the Pals in with the beardy mouth breathers of Gaza, but they are two distinct factions, so educate yo-self.
Abu Chowdah
6 Dec 12 at 8:35 am
So if some blood crazed thrill killer cuts loose in a shopping centre, but is a lousy shot, then he’s not really a blood crazed thrill killer.
lotocoti
6 Dec 12 at 8:43 am
Abu
You are all the place. Who are these ‘Pals’ of whom you speak? If Gaza and the West Bank were in Palestine. then the mouth breathers in those two benighted areas are Palestinians. They may have different political views to the Pals you are talking about, but they are still the same people.
It is like diferentiating New South Welshman from Victorians and arguing that the latter are somehow feckless idiots whilst the former are noble, upstanding inhabitants of a State which is cultured and interesting and not besotted with sport. This is be true, but you wouldn’t say that Victorians and New South Welshmen weren’t both Australians.
Rococo Liberal
6 Dec 12 at 8:52 am
People on this site are very simplistic about Israel and Palestine. It’s embarrassing at times.
Abu Chowdah
6 Dec 12 at 8:55 am
RL, the PA are not Hamas. Only a dickhead would think they were one and the same.
Abu Chowdah
6 Dec 12 at 8:56 am
Chowds,
I’m not particularly interested in which offshoot of the palestinian peoples’ front either lot of them are in.
The goal of every arab government (and of most arabs) is the destruction of Israel.
There’s also the hypocrisy element here. How many generations of ‘palestinian’ ‘refugees’ are there now?
Millions of Jews were forced from their ancestral homes in various far flung parts of the middle east after WW2. They went to Israel and got on with their lives.
I’m sick of this disgusting, murderous whinging from these hate filled lowlife scum. They have no right to a state and they don’t crave peace.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
Rabz
6 Dec 12 at 8:58 am
QED
Abu Chowdah
6 Dec 12 at 9:04 am
abu, like 99% of arabs, you are an inveterate liar.
And if that’s a simplistic assessment then so be it.
Get back to us when you’ve renounced that whole “destruction of Israel” thang.
Rabz
6 Dec 12 at 9:10 am
FFS.
QED x 1,000,000
Abu Chowdah
6 Dec 12 at 9:11 am
I don’t have the energy to educate you, Rabz. Maybe over a few. Pints at the CCC, one day.
Abu Chowdah
6 Dec 12 at 9:12 am
Fair enough, I don’t have the energy to debate this either. It’s absolutely pointless as it won’t alter the current situation in the middle east one jot, anyway.
Rabz
6 Dec 12 at 9:16 am
Correct.
Abu Chowdah
6 Dec 12 at 9:19 am
Good grief.
So you reckon because the rockets don’t have a high kill ratio, Israel should be cool about it? The reason that the rockets don’t have a high kill ratio is because Israel builds shelters for its citizens.
Imagine if the Indons launched 2250 (thanks Gab) rockets into Australia per year. Should we be cool about it or should we treat it as an act of war and respond with disproportional force?
jupes
6 Dec 12 at 9:46 am
Like in Jordan, where they had to be expelled for trying to topple the regime there, because it was trying (however halfheartedly) to get along with Israel?
Like in Lebanon, where (after the Jordanian expulsion) they turned a relatively successful federal state into a hell hole and a war zone?
If you’re going to “educate” us about the Middle East, as you put it, please take the time to do some research first. Otherwise it’s rather insulting to us, your would-be students.
alexnoaholdmate
6 Dec 12 at 11:44 am
Fer crapsake.
The settlements are being built on Israeli land that would remain Israeli land even if they all go back to the 1967 borders, which seems to be what everyone is trying to get them to do (and which would see their annihilation).
Jack Lacton
6 Dec 12 at 11:48 am
For over 40 years I have always thought that new settlements on disputed land was a provocation and not a way for the Israelis to make peace with the Arabs.
But a lifetime of observation has taught me that the Arabs will not make peace, no matter what concessions the Israelis make, and now the Islamists are in control. Power is the only thing that the Islamists concede to.
More power to the Israelis.
Jannie
6 Dec 12 at 12:17 pm
Because Israel is a tiny island of enlightened liberal democracy in a sea of medieval intolerance.
The Israelis do Enterprise, Art, Science and Humour, for that alone they deserve support.
After they take the Israelis they will come for us.
Jannie
6 Dec 12 at 12:33 pm
Spot on Jannie.
jupes
6 Dec 12 at 2:26 pm