Free Palestine - The Struggle

[Mher]

Re: Free Palestine - The Struggle

IN FAVOR (107) : Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, China, Congo, DR Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, North Korea, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Luxembourg, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Syria, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zimbabwe.

AGAINST (14): Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Palau, Panama, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Sweden, United States, Vanuatu.

ABSTAINED (52): Albania, Andorra, Bahamas, Barbados, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cook Islands, Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Fiji, Georgia, Haiti, Hungary, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kiribati, South Korea, Latvia, Liberia, Macedonia, Mexico, Monaco, Montenegro, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Portugal, Moldova, Romania, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Switzerland, Thailand, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Zambia.

ABSENT (12): Antigua and Barbuda, Central African Republic, Comoros, Dominica, East Timor, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Madagascar, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Mongolia, Niue, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan.

[Mher]

Re: Free Palestine - The Struggle

Here is the full list of votes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palesti...e-unescovr2-37

[Mos]

Re: Free Palestine - The Struggle

Happy to say that Armenia voted IN FAVOUR of this largely symbolic Palestinian victory. I watched the vote and when Israel voted no, almost all the countries' reps laughed at the Israeli representative. He had a shocked face!

That's good to hear. Very few countries voted with Israel. Do you have source for what countries voted what?

[Federate]

Re: Free Palestine - The Struggle

Happy to say that Armenia voted IN FAVOUR of this largely symbolic Palestinian victory. I watched the vote and when Israel voted no, almost all the countries' reps laughed at the Israeli representative. He had a shocked face!

[Mher]

Re: Free Palestine - The Struggle

Unesco Approves Full Membership for Palestinians
By STEVEN ERLANGER and SCOTT SAYARE
Published: October 31, 2011

PARIS — Palestine became the 195th full member of Unesco on Monday, as the United Nations organization defied a threatened cutoff of American funds under federal legislation from the 1990’s. The vote of Unesco’s full membership was 107 to 14, with 52 abstentions.


The step will cost the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization one-quarter of its yearly budget — the 22 percent contributed by the United States (about $70 million) plus another 3 percent contributed by Israel. Unless that shortfall is made up by other nations, Unesco will have to begin closing offices and laying off staff.

Cheers filled the hall at Unesco’s headquarters here after the vote, with one delegate shouting “Long live Palestine!” in French. The Palestinian foreign minister, Riad al-Malki, praised the organization, saying that “this vote will help erase a tiny part of the injustice done to the Palestinian people” and will help protect world heritage sites in Israeli-occupied territory.

In a long speech that was met with applause, Mr. Malki said that “this membership will be the best step toward peace and stability,” insisting that the Palestinian request for membership in Unesco was “linked in no way to our request to join the United Nations.”

The Obama administration, which values its membership in Unesco, tried unsuccessfully to keep the vote from taking place, while Irina Bokova, the American-supported director-general of the organization, traveled to Washington to meet with congressional leaders and ask them to alter the law.

Legislation dating from 1990 and 1994 mandates a complete cutoff of American financing to any United Nations agency that accepts the Palestinians as a full member. State Department lawyers judged that there was no leeway in the legislation, and no possibility of a waiver, so the United States contribution for 2011 and future years will not be paid.

Addressing Unesco’s general conference after the vote, the American ambassador to the organization, David T. Killion, said that the United States “remains deeply committed to Unesco,” which he called a “vital organization.” But he repeatedly called the vote on Monday “premature” and said the United States would seek other means to support the agency, though he did not offer specifics.

Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said an expected November payment of $60 million to the agency would not be made.

The United States argues that Unesco should have waited to act because the Palestinians applied in September for full membership in the United Nations, and that application is still under study. Washington also argues that Palestinian statehood should emerge from negotiations with Israel, not from acts by third parties or international groups, and it has been pushing the two sides to restart those talks. Otherwise, Washington has argued, U.N. membership will change little for Palestinians on the ground.

Arab diplomats say that the American positionn is a bit disingenuous, though, since Washington has promised to veto full Palestinian membership in the Security Council. At Unesco, no country has a veto.

In a statement, Mr. Killion said that “the only path to the Palestinian state we all seek is through direct negotiations.” He added: “There are no shortcuts, and we believe efforts such as the one we have witnessed today are counterproductive.”

Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the Unesco application “inexplicable.”

Elias Sanbar, the Palestinian ambassador, said that in talks with Mr. Killion over the weekend, the American described Washington as “prisoners of this law.”

Both parties in Congress denounced the Unesco action on Monday. Representative Nita Lowey, Democrat of New York, called it “counterproductive,” saying in a statement that “Unesco is interfering with the prospects for direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians at a time when both parties have taken the positive step of committing to present comprehensive proposals on borders and security.”

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Florida Republican who heads the House foreign affairs committee, characterized the Unesco move as “anti-Israeli and anti-peace” and called for the group’s money be cut off promptly. “The administration must stop trying to find ways not to fully implement this law,” she said.

There has been some discussion of Arab nations contributing more to make up the budget shortfall, but nothing has been promised. And the Unesco bylaws seem to require that extra funds contributed to the group cannot be used for its operating budget.

Ms. Bokova. the Unesco director-general, said in interviews that she was concerned about immediate financial problems for her agency, and about American disengagement from the United Nations, which she said ran counter to America’s “core security interests” and which she hoped would be temporary. After the vote, she said that she was worried that “the universality and financial stability” of Unesco would be jeopardized.

The Israeli ambassador, Nimrod Barkan, said that Unesco has done “a great disservice” to international efforts to restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. “Unesco deals in science, not in science fiction,” he said, noting that a Palestinian state is not otherwise recognized by the international community. Unesco, he said, had acted on a “political subject, outside of its competence.” he said.

Yigal Palmor, the Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, said the vote would not give the Palestinians “any advantage on the ground” and called the Unesco vote “a big diplomatic car crash.”

Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian spokesman in the West Bank, urged Washington to provide the funds for Unesco regardless of the law. He called the action on Monday “a vote of confidence from the international community” and said it was “especially important because part of our battle with the Israeli occupation” and what he called Israeli attempts “to erase Palestinian history or Judaize it.” Israel says it takes the obligation of protecting world heritage sites extremely seriously.

Palestinian officials on the West Bank rejected the notion that they had harmed Unesco and embarrassed Washington by pressing for the vote. “Washington has to look at these laws that should have been changed ages ago,” said Muhammad Shtayyeh, a close aide to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. “The P.L.O. is not a terrorist organization any more. It exchanged letters of recognition with Israel back in 1993.”

Unesco, perhaps best known for designating world heritage sites, is a major global development agency whose missions include promoting literacy, science, clean water and education, including sex education and equal treatment for girls and young women.

The United States rejoined the organization in 2003 under President George W. Bush, ending a boycott that began under President Ronald Reagan in 1984 that arose from charges that the organization then was corrupt, anti-Israel, anti-Western and had made efforts to impose licensing on the international press.

On Monday, the United States voted against Palestinian membership, joined by Germany, Australia, Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands and Israel, among others.

The European Union failed to come to a common position. Some European nations, including France and Belgium, voted in favor, joining China, Russia, Brazil, India and most African and Arab states. Many other Western nations abstained, including Romania and Latvia, which had earlier voted no in the executive council. Others abstaining included Britain, Poland, Portugal, Denmark, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Ukraine and Switzerland.

Earlier in October, Unesco’s 58-member executive board voted to put Palestinian membership on the agenda of the general meeting by a vote of 40 to 4, with 14 abstentions.

Unesco has a two-year budget of $643 million for 2010-11 and a projected budget of $653 million for 2012-13.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/world/middleeast/unesco-approves-full-membership-for-palestinians.html?pagewanted=all

[Haykakan]

Re: Free Palestine - The Struggle

Heh this is pathetic! Moraly bankrupt people dont care about other peoples issues but expect the world to care about theirs. So like why the hellshould anyone care if turcks commit genocide on the armenian race "they are at it for thousend years...". Hypocracy goes hand in hand with moral bankruptcy. Really disappointed in some of the young people here. You know besides national and other interests there are things which are right or wrong on their own merits. Eshin eskan batsadrei arden haskatseler.

[Serjik]

Re: Free Palestine - The Struggle

I agree with by bro Mos. I dont think Armos should care what Israels and Arabs are doing to each other. They are at it for thousands of years and they are very far from Armenia. I dont care. I dont like Arabs and I dont like xxxs.

[Mos]

Re: Free Palestine - The Struggle

You do realize that this means you have no human values attached to you right? If all you care about is selfinterest and being human and treating others with respect have no meaning to you then perhaps you should consider moving to isreal and becoming a zionist or perhaps you can go to germanyand be a nazi or maby go to russia and be a skinhead or perhaps stay in usa and join the clan. Moraly bankrupt people have many options in this world.

When the hell did I say that I do not carry sympathy for the Palestinian people? Stop putting words in my mouth, read carefully next time, and keep your childish insults to yourself. I said that I do sympathise with the Palestinian people and their cause, however at the same time, the security of Armenia is very important to me. Both play a factor in my view regarding Israel and given they have good relations with our enemies and the factor of my sympathy, my view towards Israel is rather negative. Human rights should play a role in one's relations with a given country, however it is impractical to give human rights a much higher emphasis than the welfare/security of your own country. There has to be a sensible balance and pretty much all countries follow this logic.

[Haykakan]

Re: Free Palestine - The Struggle

My main problem with Israel is that they have close strategic relations with Azerbaijan and that they have helped Turkey actively in denying the Genocide. I sympathise with the Palestinians, though those issues for me are more important. So, for example, if Israel was a country that had recognised Armenian Genocide, stood up to Turkish pressure, had strategic ties with Armenia, and in general was a friendly state to Armenia, I might have favoured them more on the basis that they are good for Armenia. But using my enemy's friend is my enemy logic plus my sympathies with the Palestinian people and cause, I am firmly in the anti-Israel camp.

You do realize that this means you have no human values attached to you right? If all you care about is selfinterest and being human and treating others with respect have no meaning to you then perhaps you should consider moving to isreal and becoming a zionist or perhaps you can go to germanyand be a nazi or maby go to russia and be a skinhead or perhaps stay in usa and join the clan. Moraly bankrupt people have many options in this world.

[Mos]

Re: Free Palestine - The Struggle

If Isael had anything resembling a conscience it would put a bullet in its own brain! The ut.ter inhumanity of that state which is based on lies, manipulation and mass murders should make anyone including Israelis question the value of such a state. They rounded up countless young man and put them in jails for years simply because they are palastinians and for no other reason. That state has so much blood , shame , and guilt on its hands that no matter how many prisoners it releases it will never be seen as anything good on this earth

My main problem with Israel is that they have close strategic relations with Azerbaijan and that they have helped Turkey actively in denying the Genocide. I sympathise with the Palestinians, though those issues for me are more important. So, for example, if Israel was a country that had recognised Armenian Genocide, stood up to Turkish pressure, had strategic ties with Armenia, and in general was a friendly state to Armenia, I might have favoured them more on the basis that they are good for Armenia. But using my enemy's friend is my enemy logic plus my sympathies with the Palestinian people and cause, I am firmly in the anti-Israel camp.