Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

interesting interview w/ head of joint list:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-top-arab-politician-seeks-a-future-in-the-jewish-state/

Just don't read the comments section, the Times of Israel, it would seem, being no different from any other online newspaper in that regard.

well this certainly doesn't sound like the IDF doing everything possible to minimize civilian casualties now does it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israeli-veterans-say-permissive-rules-of-engagement-fueled-gaza-carnage/2015/05/04/ab698d16-f020-11e4-8050-839e9234b303_story.html?hpid=z3

The soldiers described reducing Gaza neighborhoods to sand, firing artillery at random houses to avenge fallen comrades, shooting at innocent civilians because they were bored and watching armed drones attack a pair of women talking on cellphones because they were assumed to be Hamas scouts.

yup just usual war stuff

http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-the-11th-hour-netanyahu-finalizes-61-strong-coalition/

spoiler warning: bennett is in it

Not good. Will the coalition last?

they never do, but i think it has at least a little mileage in it before it collapses.

to get jewish home on board bibi ended up giving education minister to bennett, justice minister to shaked, and agricultural to ariel -

http://www.timesofisrael.com/who-is-ayelet-shaked-israels-new-justice-minister/

As a Knesset member, Shaked has pushed for passage of an amendment that would limit the High Court of Justice’s power, and has been an advocate for deporting African migrants, defending the government policy of detaining them in a Negev facility. She also supported the controversial “Jewish State” law, which would enshrine Israel’s status as a Jewish state into law. (Critics of the law said it undermined Israel’s democracy.)

She’s a fierce critic of Israel’s left and its media.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/isis-propaganda-machine-sophisticated-prolific-us-officials/story?id=30888982

^nb autoplaying video on page

“This is sophisticated. It is Madison Avenue meets documentary film making meets news channel with sensibilities and marketing value," Talan said.

In one video, ISIS produces its own, twisted version of the popular “Grand Theft Auto” video game. While ISIS fighters gun down victims on the screen, the message flashes, “Your games -- We do the same actions on the battlefield.”

"So it's the reverse of our culture, where we say 'escape real life and play a game.' They're saying, 'escape your life, come play a real game with real consequences,'" Talan said. "They are using products from American culture -- video games -- for their purposes, and taking and making a message that works for them.”

In one ISIS video posted on Twitter, soldiers hand out ice cream to a group of excited kids. A few scenes later, you see some of the young boys grabbing AK-47’s, waving them above their heads, and chanting ISIS slogans.

“It is disturbing, but there's a reason children are used.” Talan said. “Madison Avenue uses it all the time. ... It touches empathy. It gets people to say, 'Aww." It puts your defenses down -- it makes you want to pay attention and feel human.”

Disturbing.

But others are suddenly optimistic about Syria (including this op-ed writer below for the W. Post who leans to a hawkish position):

Driving the opposition push in Syria is a new working relationship between Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, the key backers of the rebels in northern Syria. Those countries had been at loggerheads since the Syrian revolution began in 2011, and their internecine quarrels and proxy wars were debilitating for the opposition. Conversely, their new alliance has bolstered the opposition’s chances — and led to major gains on the battlefield.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-new-cooperation-on-syria/2015/05/12/bdb48a68-f8ed-11e4-9030-b4732caefe81_story.html?hpid=z3

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/toughening-its-stance-toward-migrants-israel-pushes-africans-to-leave/2015/05/14/e1637bce-f350-11e4-bca5-21b51bbdf93e_story.html

Israeli authorities are sending letters to the first of 45,000 Eritrean and Sudanese refugees, informing them they have 30 days to accept Israel’s offer of $3,500 in cash and a one-way ticket home or to an unnamed third country in Africa, or face incarceration at Saharonim prison.

Nobody wants refugees, not Israel, not Europe, not Pacific Asian countries, not the US

I don't really know what I think about state obligations to refugees. On one hand, it's impossible not to sympathize with refugees. On the other, it's obvious that taking in a huge number of uneducated, unskilled, poor immigrants creates a huge burden for the current citizens of a given State. Otoh, humans are an important resource esp for places like Europe which are experiencing a falling birthrate. I started this thread last year to hopefully try and sort it out for myself: open or national borders? but it hasn't helped. Am I right in understanding that both the far left and radical free marketers are pro-open borders? And then everyone in between (and particularly the working class) is against?

It is complicated, but you would hope some countries could take in refugees. Also, if only Eritrea and Libya had nice democratic governments, plus a few other places around the world...

It's always worth remembering that the vast majority of refugees are not in MEDC countries and that poor nations still take the bulk of the burden. Pakistan has about 1.7m refugees, for example. Israeli courts have already rejected the indefinite imprisonment of asylum seekers as contrary to Israeli and international law, iirc. There's a principle that refugees can not be returned to their country of origin if they face credible threats of persecution unless it's done voluntarily. Saying "go or we'll jail you forever" stretches the meaning of "voluntary" beyond breaking point.

I can't help but feel like 'international law' is always for the country you're looking to condemn and never for yourself vis-a-vis esp first world countries (the US is particularly hypocritical re taking in refugees). I've grown very skeptical of international law in general over the last decade, both bc it has no real legitimacy (it can't override the sovereignty of a particular country, even though the language it is often expressed in tries to make a claim to universalism) and bc the UN is a political body that expresses the political objectives and grievances of its members. Too often it seems to become a tool for more powerful countries (or even not so powerful countries) to browbeat other countries into doing things they themselves will not.

When I was in college I took faith in the UN as a fundamental principle of liberalism, and distrust in the institution as representative of a right-wing, even nationalistic, ideology. But I think that was a canard - the UN is as much about expressing the nationalism of countries (through lawfare) as it is about trying to create standards of conduct. Especially since the standards of conduct never apply to the countries who most need them (bc they're totalitarian countries anyway so what do we expect? or they're too powerful to bring to heel). nb this is related to the common criticism of the ICC that they only ever go after African countries.

There's a principle that refugees can not be returned to their country of origin if they face credible threats of persecution unless it's done voluntarily. Saying "go or we'll jail you forever" stretches the meaning of "voluntary" beyond breaking point.

yes. i don't know anything about how this is handled in intl. law, or how much practical weight intl. law has in this case. but if israel is offering refugees a choice between returning to a dangerous home, being jailed in israel, or to "an unnamed third country in Africa", that's fucking terrible.

yeah I can't support this ruling, it's inhumane

inhumane, and yet it's awfully convenient to say that country X should be forced to keep their refugees while the US is currently deporting numerous ones itself.

I'm pretty sure that the 'Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees', which is what we're talking about here, is one of the best working conventions. The Danish right-wing sure hate it for no reason, if it doesn't do anything. And of course it's ok for Israel to send back refugees who has been denied asylum and unwanted migrants, every country in Europe does that all the time. But it does seem very very weird that only four Eritreans has been granted asylum, it's a pretty ruthless dictatorship which is known to persecute people who migrate. I think the problem would have more to do with the bureaucracy in immigration than it has to do with the practice of sending them home.

it's awfully convenient to say that country X should be forced to keep their refugees while the US is currently deporting numerous ones itself

how about "fuck the US too," that makes it all better.

I think it has a lot to do w/ Israel being a tiny country w/ a small population, and one of the very few Middle Eastern countries with a first world standard of living making it very attractive to refugees for whom Europe is too far away. xp

the US is currently deporting numerous ones itself.

c'mon man you know I'm not cool with this either

xps, The political objectives the UN was aiming to secure when the rights of refugees were defined in 1951 were to stop countries persecuting or deporting people in the way they had with European Jews during the Holocaust. European countries have been fairly quiet about the treatment of refugees in Israel, Australia, etc, recently as they tend to be pushing for harsher treatment themselves, with some exceptions, though.

International law has its complications and limitations but it's mostly well intentioned even where it's tough to enforce.

My point isn't what you are or aren't cool w/, but that if there's a convention and no one keeps it, then in what way does it exist? A law needs to be kept/enforced or it isn't a real law, it's just something we say we believe in to make ourselves feel good.

applying it wherever possible is better than never applying it

Like fuck the US. Ok, and fuck the UK and Russia and China and Israel and Germany and Denmark and Australia and okay so fuck every country so what exactly are we talking about here? That no countries live up to our high standards? What's the point exactly?

Right, so that's my point. UN conventions for thee but not for me.

Most countries western countries, by and large, do meet their obligations under international law even if it chafes politically.

Like the UK has pretty tough laws on who can claim asylum and what happens to you if you aren't judged worthy but still grants something like 85% of Eritrean applicants the right to stay.

How do Eritrean refugees to European countries compare to quantity that goes to Israel? Asking sincerely, I don't know those figures. My understanding tho was that Israel has a much, much higher % bc of its proximity to Eritrea.

I don't know how many apply per year in Israel but it's around 10k a year in Sweden alone. I'd guess something like 40k - 50k across the EU per year. That would be roughly the same as the number who have emigrated to Israel since the early 2000s, iirc. That's still small compared to the 250k in Ethiopia and Sudan.

I wonder if the situation is analogous to the south and central american asylum seekers the US must get

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/opinion/let-syrians-settle-detroit.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

These authors make the case for Syrian refugees to go to Detroit.

sv tick.jpg

what would be really equitable is if once the UN determined that people emigrating from a country count as refugees, every member of the UN is forced to take in some proportionate amount (maybe based on some combination of GDP, per capita, population size, geographical size, etc).

idk how that would work given that proximity and travel costs are a big deciding factor in where refugees go

i would feel bad for the 1 family that is sent to brunei, alone, with all of the other refugees spread out across the rest of the globe

that's why it's currently not equitable. countries that are easiest to get to tend to be ones facing similar challenges as the countries the refugees left. ie jordan + lebanon are not in an ideal position to take hundreds of thousands of syrian refugees.

'if sanctions are not universally enforceable then why bother' is just useless legal nihilism where every member of a given community is held to the standards of the lowest

in any case international law working as a moral norm in lieu of enforceability is surely best shown in the case of israel? the best case palestinians can make is that israel transgresses international law, it's at the centre of all the 'soft' pressure on israel worldwide (applies whether or not u agree with the justice of those rulings)

if israel wants to deport refugees to a country in the knowledge that some of them will be murdered then it is perfectly welcome to do so, it won't be forgotten

what would be really equitable is if once the UN determined that people emigrating from a country count as refugees, every member of the UN is forced to take in some proportionate amount (maybe based on some combination of GDP, per capita, population size, geographical size, etc).

― Mordy, Friday, 15 May 2015 17:21 (16 minutes ago)

this is a sort of emergent political project in the EU and it might succeed only partially because countries like the uk will refuse it

it's a good idea and it's better to try than not to bother

nakh otm

if israel wants to deport refugees to a country in the knowledge that some of them will be murdered then it is perfectly welcome to do so, it won't be forgotten

the problem w/ this is that it's hard enough to get individual ppl to do the right thing let alone an amorphous, depersonalized State. how many americans feel shame about the MS St. Louis? or could even tell you what it is?

it leaves you in a position where the countries who do feel shamed, and do follow the right policy, would probably do so w/out a UN resolution. and those that wouldn't don't care about the UN resolution anyway.

how many americans feel shame about the MS St. Louis? or could even tell you what it is?

― Mordy, Friday, 15 May 2015 18:03 (1 minute ago)

this doesn't make any sense because many americans evidently do feel shame about their country's moral obloquy, whether or not they can recount the full litany; in the case of the iraq war the normative power of that shame is enhanced by it being illegal as well as merely unjust

it leaves you in a position where the countries who do feel shamed, and do follow the right policy, would probably do so w/out a UN resolution. and those that wouldn't don't care about the UN resolution anyway.

― Mordy, Friday, 15 May 2015 18:04 (2 minutes ago)

the latter sure, there will always be dissenters

the former.....it's a lot easier to sell to a public that its treaty obligations reflect a moral duty when many others are also subject to it and the burden is shared

when the asinine 'public debate' about the european convention on human rights happens in the uk one of the more persuasive arguments will probably be 'do you want to be with every civilized european country or with belarus and nobody else'

in the sense that shame does creep into the national self-identity and influences future events, i think you're right that it's probably useful. i'm not sure 'illegality' or 'immorality' from an international POV contributes much to this. ime the shame is more about failing to live up to one's own declared codes. i'm skeptical about the ability of this 'international' construct to make any significant intervention. also, the shame has to be specific - I can imagine that American horror at the Iraq failure has made us more reluctant to conduct that kind of military adventure again (though probably not reluctant enough). A general shame that your country is "bad," is a kind of immature sensation that I'm not sure links to any actual productive changes in policy. to that extent, American shame over sending Jewish refugees back to Germany might exist for some ppl, but certainly not on a serious enough level that it influences our actual immigration & deportation policies (maybe I'm wrong but I don't see this kind of sensitivity in the mainstream). whereas the Iraq war is fresh in our minds etc and maybe kept us for putting boots down in Syria or invading Iran or whatever. (and even w/ Iraq I believe that the US is much more concerned w/ the cost of the war than the shame of humanitarian violations - ie I'm more likely to hear someone say that Iraq is shameful bc threw away 'treasure and lives' on it, than bc of abu ghraib (here i'm speaking more about the general pop and not u know, your average ilxor).

i feel like this is a question that derrida might have dealt w/ - the meaning of a country feeling shame about itself