UN Palestine vote - what difference does it make

It is official.  The United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly voted to grant non-member observer State status to Palestine.  The vote took place exactly on the same day, 65 years ago, the same General Assembly voted to partition the British held/abandoned Palestine into 2 states - Israel and Palestine.
On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions and 1 absent, in favour of the modified Partition Plan.  The lone absentee was Thailand and for the record, India opposed the Partition then.

Yesterday the UN vote was carried 138 to 9 with 41 abstentions.  India voted for the 2-state partition.  The list of no-Sayers is interesting - joining the United States and Israel were Canada, the Czech Republic, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama.

• Well Canada we can well understand.  It is the de-facto 52nd state of the US (52nd as Puerto Rico has officially voted for statehood during the 2012 Presidential Elections).
• :-)
• The Czech Republic is surprising - seeing they themselves split up into Czech and Slovak Republic ‘peacefully’ in 1993.  I don’t understand what happened in 20 years for them to oppose a similar split in another tension filled nation.
• I don’t know what the Australian MPs eat, how they sleep or where they learn to count, but the outburst by the Jewish Liberal MP Josh Frydenberg is hilarious.  Josh Frydenberg wanted Australia “joining the moral majority and voting no”.  In his cockeyed view the likes of Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau are a *majority*.
• :-P

The votes of my own India are equally cockeyed.  In 1947 we opposed the division of Palestine into Jewish Israel and Arab Palestine.  In 2012 we enthusiastically support the reinforcement of the same split.

Guk!

Setting aside

• the cockeyed (the Yes votes),
• the bull-headed (the No sayers), and,
• the ostrich like (the absentees)

decisions and votes of various nations, is this upgrade in status really going to help Palestinians?

In my personal view - No!

Are the surrounding Arab nations and the Iranian mullahs going to have a change of heart and start working towards a real two-state solution?  A solution which would absolutely guarantee Israel safe, secure borders and let the Israeli people live, work and multiply in peace?  For that to happen the likes of Ahmadenijad need have a very *bad* day, one fine day, all together at the same time.
>:->

Will Israel let the Palestinians work, live peacefully and not treat the Israeli-Arabs as 2nd class citizens who would need constant watching?  For that to happen the likes of Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu have to become sane.
:-“>
Will the Palestinians (and other Arabs) accept the reality of Israel and move towards meaningful engagement and formulate a road plan for the welfare of their people?  For that to happen the … forget it, those hot-headed fools will never learn.
:-/

Will the bystanders, like us, leave them alone? encourage the Palestinians and Israelis to sit down and have a meaningful talk? not poke our collective noses in; not try to extract something for ourselves? and not muddy whatever waters are flowing down the Jordan?  Fat chance!
(:-‘)

• The Vatican reiterates the dormant demand of international special status for Jerusalem.  Holy Father!  In less than a month, we will celebrate Christmas.  Any more like this, Santa might well skip the whole city of Rome this year!
• Benjamin Netanyahu termed the vote ‘meaningless’ and accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of ‘defamatory and venomous’ speech at the UN.  Bibi, you naughty baby, isn’t it better (for Israel) that crazy Palestinians spew venomous verbal barrage than rain ‘M-75 and Fajr-5’ rockets on Tel Aviv?
• Ambassador Susan Rice of the United States, the same US which believes that 2 state solution can arise only from bilateral talks (between Israel and Palestine), called the overwhelming vote ‘unfortunate and counterproductive’ which ‘places further obstacles in the path of peace’.  This is the ‘Dissy from D.C.’ who is slated to take over from Hilary Clinton as Sec State.  Heckua choice Barack!

What more to say?



(image courtesy Pat Oliphant [via] gocomics.com)

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