Job Discussion Forums

[furiousmilksheikali]

[justme]

[Cleopatra]

[dmb]

[tvik]

eventually, living side by side with the arabs, the israelis will become as lazy and incompetant as them while the smart ones realize that europe was a much better place to live after all, then whatever is left of israel will look much like it did before the whole thing began.

[yaramaz]

[tvik]

yaramaz gets the last facial expression again!!!

[yaramaz]

[furiousmilksheikali]

[Cleopatra]

If nation states have a 'right to exist', why aren't Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia (to name but three states that once existed but are no more) with us today? Why did they not have to appeal to some international body before dissolving themselves? Why weren't Croatian or Lithuanian leaders shunned, and their people starved, because they elected governments which did not recognise another nation state? Israel has no more or less of a 'right to exist' than any other country, and yet you never hear international leaders fetishing this non-existant 'right' in any other case.

Nor is soverignity the same as a 'right to exist'. True, all recognised states are considered soverign, though the situation of Israel is a little unclear, given that it has always refused to declare its borders. Which rather begs the question of what exactly the Palestinians would be recognising, were they to recognise the non-defined state of Israel. In any case, recognising the de facto soveerignity of a nation state is not at all the same thing as recognising that state's inherent 'right to exist'.

As for Iran's 'right' to nuclear power, this right exists in the context of the NPT, to which Iran is a signatory. While this agreement does not grant its members the right to nuclear weaponry, it does permit nuclear power. Therefore, the Iranians are quite right in saying that they have this right. Ditto with the UNSC: the right of certain states to a veto is within the framework of the UNSC, it is not an inherent and inalienable right.

[furiousmilksheikali]

Actually my response was in regard to your comment that nations don't have rights. I argued that rights of nations are internationally recognized. I wasn't specifically referring to the "right to exist".

It would be interesting, however, if Hamas were to say that they would recognize a state of Israel which would include all the Palestinian territories on the conditions that all people within these borders were given equal citizens' rights and that this "rightfully existing" nation were a secular one.

Somehow, I don't think it would go down well with the Israeli government.

[furiousmilksheikali]

[Cleopatra]

Not really, though perhaps I should have been more specifc and said that nations dont' have inherent rights, certainly not any 'right to exist.'

[furiousmilksheikali]

It was a tongue-in-cheek suggestion.

[furiousmilksheikali]