Palestine now a non-member observer state thanks to landslide UN Vote, US pissed off

To think that your issue is the credibility of sources is a hilarious thought.

Here is a differently credible source, now show us why the credibility of the source is critical to your assessment of the matter.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/mi...alestinians/cgtRq7hkvkWHDiyAjfD3FJ/story.html

 

That was in the first link too. The one that wasn't credible enough for you. See:

It's not for Israel to decide. It's also very clear that this is a punishment, as stated by the stooges themselves:

I ask again, and I worded it carefully to make it very clear: how is the credibility of the source critical to your assessment of the matter?

 

Dear Americans,

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/I5xjMa128ng" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

http://rt.com/news/uk-france-israel-settlement-105/

 

No you are confusing a couple of things. Israel could flatten almost any single country except for maybe 8-9. This is because they have a tremendous air force, hundreds of nukes, chemical/biological weapons and a well-trained army backed up by IIRC 750,000 soldiers they can call up at any moment.

Israel could make things literally a million times worse. There is no amount of Hamas/Fatah rockets that could stop or alter the behavior of the Israeli government. Israel can defeat all its neighbours simultaneously - nevermind the 12,000 basement-trained Hamas members who make rockets out of fertilizer in their backyard as their only weapon which has zero accuracy. Look no further than 11,000 rockets ever fired by them (since 2001) with a handful of casualties.

In a vaccuum, Israel can do a lot. But the source of this power is not Israel, it's the support of a certain set of countries. So today, Israel is what its supporters have made it and continue to make it. There will always be war-mongering Israelis - like any other country. But the ability of those war-mongers to come to power and execute their power with little official scrutiny is not endless. It's not limitless like the amount of weapons Israel can obtain or the number of people it can kill. Its limits are where the US and its buddies set them. While the US will always be the wild card, those buddies are hugely valuable to the economy of Israel, to the public perception of Israel, to the level of journalistic scrutiny Israel receives, etc. These are important things and they are the next step. We are not going to go overnight to a situation where the world powers change their mind about supporting Israel. The next logical step is the United States becomes even more isolated in its support - both horizontally (its friends) and vertically (its citizens).

So the way this goes is that Israel is at a very sensitive point right now. It CAN do worse. But I suggest that we are getting close to the point where every escalation by Israel causes fractures in the relationships between: (1) world powers and their citizens and (2) between world powers. This vote IMO was very positive - while still fantastically skewed given the overall picture, it has dared some countries to go a little bit further in their criticism of Israel. The EU is splitting on the settlement issue - google it. While the tide in Europe was heading to the right (and still is in some places), the outcome looks like among a whole host of things the people of Europe are starting to lean left. This is going to translate upwards given they are among the more democratic countries.

On the other hand, your politicians continue to fervently support Israel and largely turning a blind-eye to settlement issues. As was reported earlier, congress does not even discuss these issues preferring to spend time on pushing creationism in schools and deciding whether or not abortion is OK in the year 2012.

The rest of the world has always and will always be on the Palestinian side. Russia and China will be on the Palestinian side, and more staunchly as long as you are on the Israeli side. The widening gap between European and American opinion on Israel is significant, even if it will take a long time to materialize. So the question is not: can't Israeil kill more Palestinian civilians and targets? Yes it can. But the real question is: how many more Palestinian civilians can Israel kill while continuing to receive unwavering support from Europe?

Not long I say. Will Israel escalate if they are tried by the ICC? I guess the answer is yes if you are of the mindset that Israel is not going to do the same thing again unless provoked. I'm of the opinion that Israel does not need to be provoked to drag its people and, more fatally, Palestinians into another terror campaign. If they are tried, they'll do another Cast Lead or Pillar of Whatever.

I am more shocked that you seem to believe there is a way of dealing with these things such that Israel does not engage in another "surgical operation" - that is, of course, other than the disintegration of Hamas + the handing over of lands sought by extremist Israelis + acepted occupation + giving up rights to Palestinian assets + giving up right of return + giving up all of Jerusalem + little to no sovereignty.

Perhaps I should have re-phrased: what would Israeli do that it was not going to do exactly within 4 years which would not undermine the support it lives on if it was convicted by the ICC, to which it has not "acceded"?

 

The U.S on Friday condemned the Israeli decision to build 3,000 new homes in the settlements, which came as a response to the UN vote to upgrade Palestine's status to a non-member observer state.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diploma...-plan-in-jerusalem-west-bank.premium-1.481706