UN Slams Israel's killings of civillians - Only USA not in favour of vote.

[Drake Tungsten]

At least I don't live in and support a terrorist state.

Yes you do. How is the treatment of Native Americans in Canada or the Maori in New Zealand any different than the treatment of Palestinians by the Israelis, other than being farther down the path of conquest? Hell, Israeli actions are probably more justifiable, given that that actually have a prior claim to the land and have yet to resort to genocide...

[Pax]

1. How did the Palestinians start the conflict? By revolting against an occupation?

2. The Palestinians have a claim on the land as well. Hello.

3. Treatment of the Indians was/is wrong. Now back to the Palestinians.

[Zevico]

1. How did the Palestinians start the conflict? By revolting against an occupation?

Incorrect. They began the conflict when they started to attack Jewish settlements in the beginning of the last century. Or when they started pogroms against Jews in the 20's. Or when they supported the Germans (ie. the Nazi government) in WW2. Need I go on? Things went down hill for them from there, really.

[Agathon]

Yes you do. How is the treatment of Native Americans in Canada or the Maori in New Zealand any different than the treatment of Palestinians by the Israelis, other than being farther down the path of conquest?

Um... get your facts straight. New Zealand Maori were never conquered. In the early days they spent more time settling scores with each other than worrying about the British.

In 1840 as many chiefs as could be found (most of them in the end) were convened at Waitangi and agreed to cede sovereignty to Queen Victoria in return for British Citizenship. Some bad stuff happened after that, but Maori have never been in the situation the Palestinians are now - they had full legal rights as citizens and their own guaranteed seats in Parliament. This means that Maori have the legal right, individually and collectively, to sue the Crown for past violations of their rights - and they have done and are still doing so. They have an excellent chance of success because the final court of appeal for New Zealand is the Privy Council in the UK - and the PC doesn't give a **** about anything other than following the law to the letter (so NZ political interests tend to fall by the wayside).

As long as New Zealand has existed, Maori have always been citizens. Besides, if were Maoris the Israelis were trying this with, Israel would probably have been destroyed a long time ago.

Don't ask me about Canada, because I just don't know.

[East Street Trader]

When the balkan peoples began, again, to act appallingly towards each other the world eventually stepped in and put a stop to it.

And I was in favour of that, and remain in favour even at the cost of maintaining a whole slew of peacekeeping troops there indefinately.

One day, I believe, the world will have progressed far enough so that it will be possible, and right, to put a stop to the foul things going on in the middle east.

But we have not grown up as an international community yet for that. For now the political will to do such a thing does not begin to exist.

I am in favour of telling the two sets of people that they are each behaving badly. But otherwise the only thing, it seems, that the rest of us can do is to stand right back and make sure we do absolutely nothing to encourage or aid any of the participants.

Voices may then be heard that at present are not. I think, for example, of the Israeli servicemen who refused to bomb civilians. And there will be Palestinians who do not willingly offer shelter to the men of violence among them.

But if such voices still are not heard - if they are so far gone that only savagery remains - I do not wish to have contributed to it in any way. As the bystanders and the children die they will have to find their own bizarre and distasteful justifications - as is done in this thread.

Sometimes the stance of Pontious Pilate is the only stance available.

[Drake Tungsten]

Um... get your facts straight. New Zealand Maori were never conquered. In the early days they spent more time settling scores with each other than worrying about the British.

In 1840 as many chiefs as could be found (most of them in the end) were convened at Waitangi and agreed to cede sovereignty to Queen Victoria in return for British Citizenship. Some bad stuff happened after that, but Maori have never been in the situation the Palestinians are now - they had full legal rights as citizens and their own guaranteed seats in Parliament. This means that Maori have the legal right, individually and collectively, to sue the Crown for past violations of their rights - and they have done and are still doing so. They have an excellent chance of success because the final court of appeal for New Zealand is the Privy Council in the UK - and the PC doesn't give a **** about anything other than following the law to the letter (so NZ political interests tend to fall by the wayside).

As long as New Zealand has existed, Maori have always been citizens. Besides, if were Maoris the Israelis were trying this with, Israel would probably have been destroyed a long time ago.

Your defense of state terrorism disgusts me. I guess it's all justifiable if your ancestors are the ones doing it instead of the Jews, though...

Anyway, here's the truth about the oppression of the Maori by the British army and British settlers.

http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/wpnz/raymaori795.htm

Choice quotes:

First it is necessary to recognise that the Maori are an oppressed nationality even today 150 years after annexation. Various forms of discrimination still exist unchecked despite vague attempts to make it appear that equality exists. Discrimination exists in employment, housing, and welfare. All of this stems from the annexation. It means that the Maori have equal citizenship in name only.

It should be noted that at the time of the annexation in 1840 Maori tribes had settled a great part of the North Island and some of the South Island. Following the annexation most were driven out of their land by fire and sword. The South Island was simply declared annexed. As regards the North Island the seizure of Maori land took place in a series of steps; in a nutshell the Maori were forcibly driven from the land that their tribes occupied.

Ever since, British imperialism has imposed by force the capitalist social order, based upon private ownership of the means of production. In Maori times land was never a commodity, it belonged to tribe and hapu (clan) and could not be alienated except under extreme circumstance. However, after what may be called the conquest of Maori territory, Land Courts were set up and to get any claim to land acknowledged Maori people had to go through the Maori Land Court and suffer interminable delays.

A beginning was made to challenge the legality and justification for occupation of Maori land by the authorities with the Bastion Point struggle by the Maori tribe of Ngati Whatua to restore ownership of their land. They were evicted with the major use of force by masses of police. The armed forces were held in reserve in case of need. This is an indication of the strength of the capitalist state which still rules New Zealand. Even in connection with Bastion Point there are still aspects of reneging by the Government over agreements with tribal representatives on the future of Bastion Point.

Not too long ago the more militant section of Maori attacked the Treaty of Waitangi claiming it to be a fraud. There were big demonstrations on these lines at Waitangi itself. What has changed? First, the development of national consciousness and of resistance to being cast in the role of an underclass. This has been the result of the concentration of Maori in the cities over a period of time, particularly since World War 2. Now the great majority of Maori are urban workers. They find themselves caught up in the class struggle against the capitalists who own the means of production, giving them common interests with all other workers, including Pakeha workers, in opposing their exploitation by capital. They began acquiring class consciousness - that is, consciousness of their position as members of a class - much wider than just Maori, the whole of the wage workers of New Zealand. Hence the development of a separation of these workers from the old tribes settled on the land and eking out a bare existence there.

What is now called Maori sovereignty is the outcome of a Maori rebellion against their conditions of life as an oppressed minority. But it only started to become an issue when seized upon by a Maori bourgeoisie who saw the Waitangi Tribunal as a lever to prise economic concessions from the Government which would be advantageous for them. There is much more that can be written on this which we have no room for in this article.

In our partyfs view the Treaty of Waitangi was no more than a deception of the Maori people which cleared the way for settler occupation of the land which was by then under the control of the Crown. The period following the Treaty saw innumerable disputes. According to eA History of New Zealandf by Professor Keith Sinclair: eat every one of the New Zealand Companyfs sites within a few years of the settlersf arrival, there was either fighting or the threat of war with the Maoris over the Companyfs disputed land purchasesf.

You need to open your eyes to the ugly truth of your country's oppressive history, comrade.

[Agathon]

That's from The Spark, which is a tired old communist paper run by tired old communists with little in the way of education and much in the way of conspiracy theories. These people are a cause of shame to the New Zealand left. Even the Maoris don't like them. A few years back they turned up to protest with the Maoris and got told to piss off.

What'd called "Maori Sovereignty" developed in the 70s when there were various radical movements in every corner of the world. The Maori movement claimed (often rightly) that the Crown had illegally taken their land, and the document they referred to was, of course, the Treaty of Waitangi. The response of the evil New Zealand government was to establish the Waitangi tribunal to deal with land claims. It's dealt with hundreds although it is a touchy subject with most whites.

That article is an exaggeration, of course. Compare New Zealand with Australia and you will see that there is a world of difference. Not long after I was born there were still "****** hunts" going on in Australia and not that long before I was born, the Australian government was allowing the UK to detonate nuclear weapons over Aboriginal lands (without bothering to check if anyone was there). I've met Australians who have never seen an Aborigine in the flesh, I used to share an apartment with a couple of Maori girls and most New Zealanders either work with, are friends with, or are married to or partly descended from Maori (or all of the above).

No one, least of all me is going to excuse crimes committed against Maori. But I point you to the solution - legally established mechanisms for settlements and compensation that recognize the full citizenship rights of Maori and seek their agreement as full partners in finding a pragmatic solution.


Anyway, I found this wonderful quote from the NYROB on the main topic.

The problem with Israel, in short, is not--as is sometimes suggested--that it is a European "enclave" in the Arab world, but rather that it arrived too late. It has imported a characteristically late-nineteenth-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law. The very idea of a 'Jewish state'--a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded--is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism.

[DinoDoc]

Someone taking Aggie's rantings seriously.

[Edan]

Israel, in short, is an anachronism.

It's a democracy. I guess in the middle east, that is an anachronism...

[Drake Tungsten]

a tired old communist paper run by tired old communists with little in the way of education and much in the way of conspiracy theories.

I tried to pick a source you would feel a kinship with...

Someone taking Aggie's rantings seriously.

You certainly aren't talking about me, are you? I haven't taken anything seriously on this board in years...

[Agathon]

Someone taking Aggie's rantings seriously

At least I say what I think. You and your ilk just stand by and make sarcastic comments in lieu of argument. Either that or post facile straw men.

But I suppose if you think that prejudice rules all, as conservatives seem to do, then there is no point coming up with anything as low grade as arguments or evidence.

[Agathon]

It's a democracy. I guess in the middle east, that is an anachronism...

Buy a dictionary... now.