First of all I agree that the U.S. should have taken the lead and co-sponsored a resolution that balances the criticism at both sides. Instead of taking a leadership role(sponsoring a resolution on the issue) we merely impeded somebody elses resolution. But is that really necessary? I've heard Bush, and just about every politician criticize the Palestinians many times without a balanced criticism of oppressive Israeli policies, or any mention of their oppressive policies at all. So if balance is what we want then we should want it to go both ways.
Guys, our government didn't let the guy with the most votes win in 2000; why would they let the UN win this year?
Yes, the majority can be wrong on any given subject. I haven't seen anyone debate that point. And were this an esoteric examination of the philosophical leanings of various gropus as they relate to morality, you might almost have a point. However, the prevailing thinking in Western society is that we are to adhere to conventional determinations of morally acceptable positions; the probability that a majority more accurately reflects the popular view of morailty greatly exceeds the probablity that the monority does. Increase both of these ( majority, monority) in extrmes, as in this case, and the probability increases exponentialy. We see this in our legal system ( juries) our political system ( democracy) and throughout our way of life. Now I am not, as it happens, a firm believer that the majority equals right...but I believe it to be a more accurate reflection of conventional morality than a minority the majority of the time. It might interest you to note that the original argument in this thread was against the assumption that we are always right and the majority was always wrong. You have stated that you see this as no less a defensible position than to conclude that the vast majority is 'right' the majority of the time...which helps me frame your responses in a more accurate light.
Conservatives demand global policies that promote "free trade." Any other global policy -- they're beneath U.S. recognition. Look, you can't have your cake and eat it too -- with global partners comes global responsibility and recognition. You want a "global market"? Then recognize that the rest of the world isn't "them" versus "us."
Aw, MacBeth, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You're getting a litte sensitive these days. What, I wonder, was the purpose of your question? Was it to possibly suggest bias on the part of the conclusions of the assessment of UN votes? Not sure what else the purpose could have been, so I cut to the chase and answered your question without qualification: It was the Jews. Well, I guess pointing out what your philosophical stances actually would look like in reality is not quite as appealing to you as saying 'Wow, MacBeth, how brilliant you are,' lol. I guess you don't like that too much and that's ok. I don't like your smug condecending attitude toward anyone who disagrees with you, nor your selective use of historical data, nor your inability to come to grips with criticism of your ideas. Again, I already told you. It was from a commission asked by the Jews to examine the record of UN voting. I'll save you the trouble of making a 'bias' argument. Prior to the Madrid Conference, of '91, the office of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir commissioned Shai Ben-Tekoa to do a statistical analysis of U.N. voting vis a vis Israel. If you have some contrary data, please feel free to post it. If you have an ARGUMENT sans data, please feel free to post it.
I don't think that's accurate. Even most of these reports talk about the US trying to get a resolution that criticized both sides. Yeah, I would agree they criticize the Palestinians more. I agree that shouldn't be the case. But again they did just attach funding into the equation for the first time, and they did denounce the whole kill arafat thing, and they did tell both parties not to take the veto as a green light to kill arafat.
I agree and I won't pretend that the U.S. has come out to publically support the idea of Exhiling or threatening ARafat. I also agree that the U.S. did try to get the resolution changed, and the resolution was changed to be more critical. It does denounce terrorist attacks. The only thing it didn't do was specifically name Hamas. Again if the U.S. would take the leadership and help draft the resolution they could insert wording more to their preference.
True to an extent. What would happen if the US came up and said 'hey we want to draft this resolution condemning Israeli statements about killing arafat, and condemning Hamas...'? I think the reaction would be the same as it is now, with a US veto. If the US didn't protect Israel to some extent, ( not really militarily since it can do that on its own) would isolating it really speed up the process to peace? I don't believe that is the answer.
Actually... our closest, most loyal allies, the UK, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Mexico, Spain, and yes, even the Philippines, turned their backs on us this time. I guess we must be SO far ahead of the curve in terms of correctness that even our closest friends can no longer comprehend us.
HayesStreet, I agree with you most of the time, but on this I have to disagree. Counting votes for and against a nation should be considered less a test of bias, then a test of world opinion and international norms. By your logic, if we count the number of resolutions condemning Saddam and Iraq, couldn't we also infer that the UN is "biased" against Iraq too? Why is it that when the nation in question is Iraq, North Korea, or some other "rogue state", the UN vote is considered "moral authority" and "international mandate", but when it is targeted at Israel, it becomes "bias"? 133 nations said that it was wrong to consider the deportation or assasination of Arafat, pure and simple. The U.S. alone voted against such a gesture. Whatever excuses we may give, at the very least, this vote points that our foreign policies and values with respect to Israel and Palestine are seriously out of step with basically the entire world, including our closest of allies. We've lost ALL our friends on this one. Thank goodness we've still got control over some South Pacific territories. Otherwise it would prolly be 133-2. But I guess even that wouldn't impress some of the people here.
Since this was the end of the thread pertaining to our vote in the security council, let me post it again for a response: Asking for the UN to condemn terrorist groups does not really seem like that much of an unreasonable request, does it? We (the US) has spoken out against the removal of the head of one of the terrorist group factions (fatah), so why the hell can't we demand a condemnation of the terrorist groups? Why is that soooo unreasonable to condemn groups that intentionally blow up civilians?
It's a good question, and of course I don't know the answer. But Israel may have felt the heat, and thought more seriously about compliance with the road map to peace or any future peace plans. We do put pressure on Arafat to control Hamas and groups as we should, but there is little pressure put toward Israel. Maybe the U.S. actually writing a resolution for the UN might signal a shift in our attitude and put parties on notice that we are serious about getting something done. Maybe in itself the resolution wouldn't change it right away, but it might be the start of events that would change things.
Maybe Powell will drop the loan guarantees substantially due to the continued construction of settlements.
Well. It may not have been unreasonable, but apparently the conditions were sufficiently IRRELEVANT to 133 nations, every nation other than ourselves and Israel, that they did not consider it an obstacle to condemn Israel's behavior. By the same exasperating logic, must we name and condemn EVERY causal historical factor/group/institution/force in Yugoslavian history before we can condemn genocide in Bosnia? Must we blame the US, the French, the Communists, the scientists, Darwinian socialists, geneticists, German nationalists, the Christian right, Jesus and the Bible, etc. etc. etc., before we can condemn Hitler and the Holocaust? What is wrong is wrong. And as part of the international community, we have a responsibility to condemn what is wrong, without qualifying this, hesitating over that, and objecting against every little sensitivity we may have. The UN has only a mandate to fight whatever evil it can reach a consensus on. . This is the nature of international organisations. And in this case, we stood alone in fighting against and preventing international consensus, implicitly endorsing what everyone believes is wrong. But hey, who am I to argue with a foreign policy that puts semantics before principles? I guess the US HAS learnt a lot after all from those years of dealing with China and North Korea.
Your example is not comparable. The summary I posted is a COMPARISON between Israel and Palestinians/Arabs. It shows that in a conflict where MOST of us agree both sides are to blame for the cycle of violence, the UN consistently ONLY condemns Israeli action, or at least overwhelmingly condemns only Israeli action. What is the point? The point is that the UN has shown extreme bias in past votes on this very subject, and while the US also has shown extreme bias, albeit the other way, the General Assembly vote we did not vote for should not be seen as some mass humiliation or symbol of our immoral/wrong foreign policy. Add to this the fact that we DID: condemn any plan to kill arafat, condemn further settlements, and attach aid reduction to further settlements, and try to get the resolution to be BALANCED in its criticism (as opposed to the USUAL UN resolution condemning Israel only), and the title of this thread is misleading at best and offensive at worst. First, we didn't LOSE anyone. Second, we issued a statement with the rest of the council rejecting the deportation or assassination of Arafat. Third, we notified both Israel and Arafat that our 'veto' was in no way a greenlight for Israel to act against Arafat. As the compilation of statistics show, the only way we could be IN STEP with UN votes on Israeli/Palestinian issues would be to vote against Israel EVERY TIME. That's not the balanced view you are calling for.
Fourth, we announced, on the same day that the security council resolution was defeated, that loan guarantees to Israel will be reduced due to their continued spending on settlement construction.
