Recently I encountered a post entered by a “friend” on my Facebook page criticizing President Obama for not using our country’s power as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to veto Resolution 2334. That resolution of course condemned Israel for its policy of encouraging settlements in East Jerusalem and on the West Bank. At the time I was doing research on the issue for an article on this blog. I had the facts in hand so I fired off a reply.
Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to understand if it weren’t for the support of the United States and Great Britain, Israel wouldn’t exist as a state – If you don’t know that, you don’t know your history. He should also remember that every day the US provides Israel $10.2 million in military aid or about $3 billion in direct foreign aid assistance each year. That means ever year we supply Netanyahu’s government with approximately $500 in subsidies for every Israeli man, woman and child. That’s you hard earned taxes at work folks. There are 195 countries on earth and one country, Israel gets a full one fifth of our entire foreign aid budget. And Netanyahu has the gall to turn around and bite the hand that feeds him.
Everyone also needs to understand that the Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank which the UN Security Council Resolution addresses violate international law which forbids a country from moving its population onto territories it conquered by military action. (See the 4th Geneva Convention agreements adopted in 1949 and ultimately signed by 192 nations including Israel in 1951.) It also needs to be understood that 14 the of 15 UN Security Council members voted for the resolution with only the US abstaining. Those countries include Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan and Sweden – these are not exactly renegade states. The resolution also had the support of the nearly every one of 193 countries which are members of the UN General Assembly. In fact there were 18 resolutions adopted in 2016 by the UN General Assembly the UN Human Rights Council which had already condemned Israel settlements. Israel is the sole renegade country here.
Ever since 1967 when the Israelis took control of the West Bank following the Six Day War, every US Presidential administration, both Republican and Democratic, has attempted to convince the Israeli government to cease supporting settlement building on the West Bank because the settlements are illegal and make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians almost impossible. Israeli settlement activity, lead by religious zealots, has increased greatly in the last few years under the Netanyahu administration. In 1967 there were essentially no Israeli citizens living in the West Bank. Today, there are 600,000 illegal Israeli squatters living in that territory. It is long past time for a US President to say “enough is enough” and quit supporting Israel‘s illegal activity which the rest of the world condemns.’
Well I doubt seriously that the original poster was aware of any of these facts, but her reply to gave me to understand that my rational arguments were never going to convince her. She replied, “People also need to understand that you can’t give away what doesn’t belong to you. God’s word trumps man’s law long before man’s law was enacted. God gave them that land. To try and give away what God gave ain’t smart and those that support such an action will reap a harvest.” That fits, a Christian religious zealot defending the illegal activities of Jewish Religious zealots in the name of God. And of course she is a “yuge” Trump supporter.
This is what we are up against folks. You can’t argue with folks like this one because they don’t form their own opinions based on their hard earned knowledge and the use of reason. They believe what they are told to believe by their over zealous ministers and other zealots on far right Christian websites such as ProphecyNewsWatch.com (often cited the person who wrote the reply above). That particular website claims its mission is “Keeping You Informed of World Events from a Biblical Perspective”. There you can find posts like, “Stand with Israel! Gods chosen people! Gods command!” along with many other comments declaring that “the end of times is near”. You would get more satisfaction out of encouraging a rock to do something useful besides just sitting there than arguing with these folks.
Cajun 1/3/2017
Text of UN Security Council Resolution 2334