Less than 10 years ago, Germany, and especially Berlin, was held up as a beacon of openness and inclusivity in a western world rocked by Brexit and Donald Trump. Angela Merkel’s decision to take in thousands of refugees displaced by the war in Syria boosted her country’s reputation in progressive circles, with many international artists and academics choosing to make the German capital their new home.
Yet the conflict in the Middle East is showing Germany in a new light, highlighting fissures in society and the arts world that until now had been easier to ignore.
Please don’t put words into my mouth. I have never made any qualitative claims about the UN and international law.
Also, to put the word infallible and any political organisation into the same sentence is absurd, hardly warranting a response.
Original claim is “all of the below can be true: […] c) Israel has a right to exist.”
My counterpoint is a Israel is a state, states are tools, tools don’t have a right to exist, and harmful tools shouldn’t be kept working so they continue harming people.
Your counterpoint to mine is “If we reject the UN and international law by rejecting Israel’s right to statehood, we go back to the rule of the strongest.” by which the underlying implication is going backwards in human rights development and betterment of humanity.
Were you championing that we reject UN and international law, and go back to the rule of the strongest? Or were you just stating that UN and international law attached Israel an undeniable right to statehood? How do you make a connection with this to what I’m saying being possibly liked by Putin, without making any implications, then?
Please explain yourself.
Oh man, you’re confused. Let’s take it step by step.
The existence of a state is recognised theough the UN. UN rrcognises your state? It exists. Like France. It’s not recognised? It doesn’t exist, like Northern Cyprus, or South Ossetia. This is how international law works. We don’t have to argue whether it is a good system - but we can certwinly agree that it is better than the previous one, where militarily strong states imposed their will upon their neighbours. Like Putin is trying and failing now, or like the British and Spanish empires did centuries ago. If it is “right of the strongest”, we shall have wars.
If you reject the UN, you are arguing for war, because that is the only other option we have.
Get it now?
UN is a political entity as you have hinted before in your previous comment. A state existing can best be measured by its acceptance through the UN usually, but even then one of the 5 imperialist powers can veto a state’s recognizance proposal on their whims, and this completely nullifies it as a dependable metric. It comes to the example “All animals are equal, but some are more equal.” from Animal Farm without any complexity governing it at all. It just doesn’t cause many wars currently, although it does not help ease the stressful atmosphere. And where it causes war and suffering due to some imperial power on the other side of the planet exerting undue and unfair power over the peaceful talks between the sides, it becomes hell on Earth.
It is not better than the previous system if the already powerful can exert influence and claim interest in a local conflict it is not anywhere nearly part of. The strong still strongarm land-grab and killing, without the borders on the map not changing to their own name, but their pawns’. Adding a subterfuge element to it does not make the lives of the victims of the exploited region any more better, just suffocates through removal of oxygen rather than outright stabbing. In the case of Palestine, openly turns it into a concentration camp.
If only the US didn’t veto any remotely fair resolution, or failing that proposals for heavy military sanctions against Israel for its genocide, the world could easily have ended this conflict decades ago. US could keep aiding Israel with technology and supplies related to prosperity rather than for one-sided war. Israel could still be a major powerhouse if their sugar mommy wanted, without having to actively expand land and kill innocent babies all around.
How is simply asking for Israel’s statehood to be questioned and scrutinized, in the light of its continued genocide and invasion throughout generations and leaders, is asking for war? No such nation has a right to exist!
but even then one of the 5 imperialist powers can veto a state’s recognizance proposal on their whims
The full assembly votes on such a matter, not the security council