Google Formally Puts Palestine On Virtual Map 338
hypnosec writes "Google has indirectly walked right into one of the Middle East's most obstinate conflicts by labeling Palestine as an independent nation — wiping off the term 'Palestinian Territories' and replacing it with 'Palestine' in its localized search page. Google's move is more or less in line with the UN's October decision to name Palestine as a non-member observer state. The status given to Palestine will allow the state to join UN debates as well as global bodies such as the International Criminal Court, in theory at least. Up until May 1, anyone visiting http://www.google.ps were shown the phrase Palestinian Territories. This change is definitely not a huge one but, it has attracted criticism from politicians in Israel."
Good. It's about time. (Score:2, Insightful)
Good. It's about time.
EOM
Rule of thumb on Israel (Score:1, Insightful)
If they don't like what you've done, you've probably done the right thing.
Re:USA:Israel::China:BestKorea (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the US funnels far more overt support and resources to its bellicose little buddies. I don't see North Korea shifting the DMZ southward every year, leveling South Korean cities so North Korean settlers can move onto the land. China doesn't throw an international diplomatic hissy-fit at the mere suggestion that South Korea should be allowed to have its own autonomous government, much less one armed and hostile to the expansion of North Korean power.
Re:About frickin' time! (Score:3, Insightful)
An organization that wants any other group wiped from the face of Earth deserves just that.
I assume you're talking about the Israeli government? Or do they not count, because they actually are systematically wiping Palestine off the map, instead of just wanting it?
Re:About frickin' time! (Score:5, Insightful)
Annex?
Don't you mean occupy? Or are you admitting that Israel is taking land by force?
I have no problem with Israel occupying Palestinian territories from which rockets are fired. They can do for as long as it takes for the attacks to stop as far as I am concerned. But its not their land to settle.
The Sinai was returned to Egypt as a condition of a peace treaty. And the Golan Heights will be returned to Syria based on the same.
Re:About frickin' time! (Score:5, Insightful)
It is about time! And with respect to any Israelis or Jews who might be offended by Google's actions today. I have just one thing to say to you: fuck you.
Google is responding to the reality of the situation on the ground today. The Palestinians people lived in a place called in English Palestine by everyone else including the Jews until 1948 when Israel was created. While it is true that they and other Arab neighbors did cause some problems by deciding not to bow to the reality of the political situation then and agree with the two-state solution created by the UN back then and to fight the Jews who through the UN legally stole half of Palestine from the Palestinians the fact of the matter is that there is a nation that is bottled up within the borders of the current state of Israel that do not want to be a part of Israel and would like some of the land back that the Israelis stole from them in 1967 not so fair and square.
Israel as it currently exists as a Jewish state is doomed because of the unsustainable situation it is in. The writing has been on the wall for a long time now. The nation is quickly losing the moral capital the Holocaust granted it by tacitly creating ghettos for the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza, regularly depriving these people of commerce, jobs, food, water, and electricity, and then expecting that the people they victimize will simply put up with it. Google's actions today are just another nail in the coffin of the Jewish state.
Ok, ok, I'm getting off my soap box now.
Re:Imagine The Poor Guy Who Changed This (Score:5, Insightful)
Since Israel's only claim to legitimacy is the U.N.'s declaration, I suppose this means no legitimate state occupies that land?
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:USA:Israel::China:BestKorea (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the US funnels far more overt support and resources to its bellicose little buddies. I don't see North Korea shifting the DMZ southward every year, leveling South Korean cities so North Korean settlers can move onto the land. China doesn't throw an international diplomatic hissy-fit at the mere suggestion that South Korea should be allowed to have its own autonomous government, much less one armed and hostile to the expansion of North Korean power.
I don't see the South electing a government with the stated goal of expelling or murdering every resident of the North, flatly stating that any and all negotiations are purely strategic moves to delay fighting when deemed necessary, that the commonly accepted "two state solution" will never be allowed to happen, or refusing to acknowledge the historical incidents predating the formation of their Northern neighbor and otherwise implicitly believing that no Northern citizen has a right to live.
So I guess neither of us like the analogy.
Re:About frickin' time! (Score:4, Insightful)
That their holy book says all infidels must convert or die doesn't give them any moral high ground.
That Israel ignores all the parts of their holy book demanding just treatment of foreigners (leaving only the parts about conquest and oppression and exclusion) nicely levels the moral playing field.
Re:USA:Israel::China:BestKorea (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice try, but unconvincing. Israel is just as complicit in the situation as Palestine is.
Re: USA:Israel::China:BestKorea (Score:5, Insightful)
And why would the Palestinians need Israel approval when Israel didn't need to ask permission to the Palestinians to exist?
The whole "negotiated solution" is propaganda for Israel to keep the Palestinians stateless forever, and continue the colonization. The longer they wait, the larger their state will be.
Re:Violence and Palestinians Muslims (Score:2, Insightful)
Two counterpoints:
#1: Poor people are usually religiously backward. Israel has kept Palestine poor. If Palestinians were free to trade, and grew wealthier, they might become a bit more progressive.
#2: Even if Palestinians are backward hicks, that doesn't justify Israel's treatment of them. A Palestinian state may not be an ideal solution, if it has a high chance of turning into a theocracy, but is there any other way of preventing Israel from further mistreating them?
Re:USA:Israel::China:BestKorea (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Rule of thumb on Israel (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Tautology with no basis in reality. But even if it were true, that's batshit irrelevant to Palestinian right to self-determination, and their right to all of the land seized in the 1967 war started by Israel.
As it is, I find your lack of self-awareness disturbing.
Re:Bigoted Islamophobic Crap (Score:0, Insightful)
1967 was an offensive war? YOU ARE DELUDED. Israel was attacked in 1948-so self defense is wrong in your eyes?
1. Your 500K children killed is a myth. How many Kurds did Saddam use mustard gas on? (Hint:>500K)
2. Wow, politicians on both sides can be bought! Stop the presses!
3. Yes, everyone else is innocent in the world except the CIA. They are the sole source of evil in the world, correct?
Sorry, not drinking your mental flavor-aid.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean this [wikimedia.org] rocket right here? And the excuse for Israel violating ceasefires and killing hundreds of Palestinians a la Cast Lead?
More problems for tired Zionist apologia: Israel's justification for starting the 1967 war was the Egyptian blockade of the Straits of Tiran, one of many trade routes to Israel. But that means that Palestinian attacks in response to the total blockade of Gaza are perfectly justified by Israeli rules.
Repeating a big lie doesn't make it true, it just makes you a bigger liar. The Palestinians are entitled to all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but they've been willing to make concessions on that in order to get a state of their own. But Israel keeps making more and more draconian demands, or pulls out of negotiations.
Because Israel isn't interested in peace. It's interested in land, and waiting out the clock until it becomes a matter of taking land from someone's great-great grandchild to give to someone else's great-great grandchild.
Re:USA:Israel::China:BestKorea (Score:5, Insightful)
Jews have been living continuously in the region of Palestine for over 3000 years (the Arabs came later, and invaded around 1400 years ago).
Not going to take sides here, since both sides are reprehensible, and deserve very little sympathy at this point. I take that back, the normal people in both Israel and Palestine deserve it, the bellicose asshats in their governments and outspoken religious authorities deserve none whatsoever. That said; your statement is a bit wonky. Yes, modern Arabs, and later Muslims, were there later than Jews, but this is a bit false, since the root ethnicities and cultures that spawned both were there longer than either. Further "we were there first" is about as idiotic as one can get. Should the Native American tribes be allowed to partition American cities, restrict their ability to food and medicine, and generally treat them all like terrorists, criminals, and subhumans by default? They were here first, after all. Actually Siberians and the Japanese should be allowed to, since their genetic stock is more closely related to the original settlers of North America than most people here now.
No. Both people have to coexist, whether they like it or not. If they can't, I don't care, someone should come in and FORCE them to. And anyone who supports the hostilities of either faction should have as serious sanctions as someone supporting any other terrorist aggressor state, since they really don't hold a moral high ground on any issue anymore. They both are bad guys. No excuse changes this fact. Picking sides is nonsensical, its like arguing over who was less evil, Stalin or Mao.
Re:Imagine The Poor Guy Who Changed This (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean, the "wait out the clock" game that has been the Zionist goal since they first started to steal land from Palestinians in the 30's. Which is also rich, coming from the nation still pursuing Nazi war criminals and stolen assets from the 30's. If human beings lived 500 years Israel would still be hunting those people and assets down in the year 2400 A.D. But land stolen in an aggressive war of choice in 1967? 46 years is toooo loooong ago to worry about!
You know that's an irrelevant comparison, right? The is no equivalence for Israel, where a nation is carved out of existing land and people for the benefit of an immigrant population. There was no U.N. recognizing American statehood in the 1600's at the expense of Native Americans.
Ah, the "continuous presence" canard. Problem: at 1900, Jews made up less than 10% [wikipedia.org] of the population of Palestine. The "declaration of independence" was a land grab from a bunch of European immigrants no better than Manifest Destiny.
Second problem: if the surrounding Arab nations were to militarily "wipe Israel off the map", you'd have to be okay with that, because of a "continuing Palestinian presence" in the area.
Re:Violence and Palestinians Muslims (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I supposed to believe that these poll results distinguish Palestine or Muslims from the rest of humanity negatively somehow?
Let me tell you, being transgendered, from over here all the Abrahamaic religions look pretty much the same and pretty much all equally morally bankrupt. Those survey results don't look much different from what I'd expect one would obtain by interviewing local Christians around here. Including things you've identified to attempt to make Islam look regressive by way of being misogynist. Christians around here believe the same things, although they have different clothing than hajibs they believe superstitious things about.
Misogyny runs rampant in Abrahamaic religions. Judiasm, Christianity, and Islam just have different ways of expressing it. At least the one thing all three can agree on is that, drawing from the ancient Greek myth, that it must be a woman who's responsible for all the evils of the world.
Guess what. Most of the world, at different times, has been ruled by different people. What do you think the native inhabitants of this continent [The Americas] might think about their Christian conquerors? At least, the ones that are left to speak.
I'm going to get modded flamebait for this, but I honestly believe it, and I've got the karma to burn. Israel couldn't have done better to take plays out of feminism's playbook. They're always history's perpetual victims. They're always morally perfect. It's all completely bullshit. It's a passive-aggressive appeal to white, male, and German guilt.
Israel has no right to exist. Yes, what happened during the holocaust was terrible, but the answer to evil isn't more evil.
Israel Propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of the problem is Israel got Palestinian government classified as terrorists, so we never hear there side. Only Israels extreme version of their side.
You sir, disgust me, really. What Israel is doing is *actions* not words, and it results in a huge number of deaths each year.
Disgusting murderers.
Propagandist pot searching for kettle.... (Score:5, Insightful)
News at 11.
Ah, I see you're spamming the "legal case for Israel" propaganda. Problem is, reality has a well-known anti-Zionist bias, and Israel has zero legal justification for it's formation or land grabs.
First, it was formed by a bunch of immigrants [wikipedia.org] stealing land from the people already living there. Jews were a tiny minority - less than 10% of the population - in 1900. The Zionists "declaring independence" in 1948 were almost entirely just off the boat or first generation immigrants.
So, it's no different from Manifest Destiny: a sense of entitlement to other people's land.
That's always been slight-of-hand. Israel wants land, and peace gets in the way of their land-grabbing.
And rightly so. The British Mandate of Palestine was going to give 56% of the land to 31% of the population, almost all of whom were immigrants. It's like if the minority Cuban immigrant population of Florida up and laid claim to most of the state - think the rest of the population might reject such a proposal?
When did Zionists negotiate with Palestinians on the formation of Israel?
Another poster already called you out for that nonsense, but such hypocrisy deserves to be highlighted again.
Ah, the "continuing presence" propaganda. Again. So if the surrounding Arab nations were to militarily wipe Israel off the map - something you guys have been yelling about for decades - to form an independent Palestinian state, you'd be just fine with it it, right? Because Palestinians have had a "continuing presence" in the area? Like most Zionist propaganda, this talking point doesn't stand up to two seconds of scrutiny.
Did the fact that sub-Saharan African countries were majority-black mean Apartheid was okay? Two seconds of scrutiny...
You mean the international law that has always held that ALL the occupied territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem have always been illegal and should be returned to the Palestinians? That international law?
Feel free to do just that at any time.
Re:Rule of thumb on Israel (Score:4, Insightful)
Rule of thumb for "anti-Zionists" - Watch them - too few can stop themselves from crossing the line into either effective or outright anti-Semitism.
If it were anti-semitic it would be against Arabs as well.
Re:USA:Israel::China:BestKorea (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it doesnt stick "its" people in prison camp, only the people in the country that are undesirable.
It is horribly ironic and sad that some of the views held by the most extreme israeli political players mirror so many of the fascists ideas of nazi germany...
Re:USA:Israel::China:BestKorea (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry asshat but the rules are in our times. Not some bullshit date thousands of years because it favours your personal desires today. Pretty blow that religious bullshit out of your ass before ever contemplating using it to kill people or justify theft of their property. It has always been bullshit and will always be bullshit. Whether it was missionaries to the Americas, Salem witch trials, the inquisition, the crusades, the Mughals in India etc. etc. etc. It has always been exactly the same bullshit, a handful of psychopaths at the top hiding behind religion to feed their own personal ego and lusts whilst driving on the ignorant religious masses to fight and die for them.
Palestinian people legally owned most of the land in Israel. A bunch of Palestinian jews together with illegal immigrants initiated a terrorist war to steal those properties and expended the Israeli state from their. The US propped it up because the surrounding Arabic states where leaning towards the Soviet Union. You could bet if the US politicians at the time had known what a huge corrupt pain in the ass the Israeli government and the Mosad would become they would never have done so.
Re:USA:Israel::China:BestKorea (Score:5, Insightful)
What prison camps are these? Maybe read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_prisoners_in_Israel [wikipedia.org]
and compare it to what Nazi Germany did. Tip, trying people in a court and sending them to prison for a week isnt the same thing.
I get that Israel does some shady stuff, but its really important on an issue as touchy as this to try to be objective, and refrain from hyperbole. Neither side has been great about this, both sides have considerable grievances, but neither side is as bad as WW2 Germany or current North Korea.
Perspective, rationality, guys.