I can understand why Israelis might be suspicious of the UN. The relationship between UN and Israel seems kind of fraught in a way that isn't true of pretty much any other country. The not allowing israel to fully vote until 2010 (edit: 2014), the (arguably) unequal focus only Israel's human rights record relative to other countries, and the whole UNRWA being totally different with different rules than any other refugee group, all make israel a bit unique in its relationship to the UN. I could easily understand how someone from Israel might feel that the UN treats them differently from other countries and is perhaps biased against them.
You're not going to throw that out without reference to how the US and Israel have consistently been the only countries to oppose Palestinian UN membership and voting.
It is possible to talk about why X might feel Y without talking about why other groups might feel the same way or even whether or not that feeling is justified.
Talking about motivations is different than determining what is "fair"
In fairness, the definition of state is pretty arbitrary and seems more like a popularity contest than anything else. Like how is taiwan not a state? How is the vatican a state? How is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta a state?
Taiwan has a permanent population, it has a government not under another, and it has the capacity to interact with other states (and does). There's no doubt Taiwan is a state and the only reason it's not universally recognized as one is China.
"Palestine" has no defined territory, no government, and really no capacity to interact with other states as one.
Wikipedia goes on to say: "There are also entities that do not have control over any territory or do not unequivocally meet the declarative criteria for statehood but have been recognised to exist as sovereign entities by at least one other state." including Palestine in this list.
It feels like the statehood of Palestinians should be a matter between them, Israel, Jordan and Egypt, the three countries that own the land that Palestinians desire to have as their state. Can the world declare that California is a state if the US doesn't want it to be?
Btw re: admission to the UN: "The requisite conditions are five in number: to be admitted to membership in the United Nations, an applicant must (1) be a State; (2) be peace-loving; (3) accept the obligations of the Charter; (4) be able to carry out these obligations; and (5) be willing to do so."
From what i understand, both Jordan and egypt have renounced their claim to the Palestine. Egypt did so in 1978 and Jordan in 1988
Two thoughts on this:
Firstly, every time a country is getting criticized for it's human rights abuses it, like clockwork, raises the spectre of being "unjustly singled out" about it's human rights abuses. To be clear, I would very much like every country on earth that engages in human rights abuses prosecuted for it, including mine, and specifically every U.S. President that's still currently alive since they are ALL guilty of them in varying degrees. And that way, we can't be accused of biases.
Secondly, I believe it's fair, even if we are biased against Israel in this way, to be biased since it has the rather unique position of being a state that exists solely because of and by the authority of the West. It is a colonialist project and has been from it's inception and I don't think you can take this situation on fully without acknowledging that fact.
Debating whether it should or shouldn't exist is rather moot at this point because it does, and tons of people live there who have committed no crime and done no wrong. That said, it is at the end all, an ethno-nationalist state built on a foundation of war crimes too numerous to count, that is currently incrementing as they barrage an utterly impotent neighbor to death, and it is doing so with the enthusiastic encouragement of FAR, FAR too many colonial powers. Maybe that's enough to say, ethically, that all of it's citizens should be displaced, maybe not. I do not know the solution. My point is that Israel's existence, in entirety, is violence perpetrated against every country it borders with, it wars with, and who's land it sits upon. That cannot be ignored.
My favorite one of these is when South Africa would say that the only reason people were angry about Apartheid was their obvious "anti-Boer prejudice." Which sounds stupid, until you remember that the British rounded up Boers and put them into concentration camps. It's still stupid, but if you accept the premise that being abused gives you the right to abuse, it's a claim as legitimate as any other of that type.
> My point is that Israel's existence, in entirety, is violence perpetrated against every country it borders with, it wars with, and who's land it sits upon.
They could have just torn down the walls, and still can. Israelis can call the resulting country Israel, and Palestinians can call it Palestine. It only requires both groups to give up any dreams of theocracy. What made the PLO and Arafat so distasteful to Israeli power players was the fact that they were secular, reasonable, and making moral arguments, not theological ones. People whose goal was to wipe out the Palestinians vastly preferred Hamas.