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A Proposal on Embassy Locations
128 countries have decided that they have every right to tell another nation what can and cannot be its capital city. Each of these countries marked in green has said that Jerusalem is not Israel’s capital city and that agreeing with Israel that it is should be punished.
Let us extend the principle. If one nation can tell another nation what its capital is, then it follows that the United States can declare for those nations where their capitals are. Instead of having to put our embassies close to their governments and where they think their capitals are, we can put our embassies in places convenient for us.
- Oh, look, the United Kingdom has endorsed this principle. So, we can move our embassy to their new capital, according to us, of Brighton. Less traffic, fewer people, lower real estate prices, and it’s a nice seaside town.
- Who else do we have? Japan? New capital on the island of Iwo Jima, perhaps?
- Zimbabwe? Nobody wants to actually be in Zimbabwe. Let’s move their capital to somewhere more convenient, like Newark, New Jersey. Nobody wants to be there, either, but it’s much more convenient than Harare.
- The Principality of Andorra? Wait, we don’t have an embassy or other mission in Andorra. Well, that’s okay. We’ll move the capitals of both Spain and France there, and then we will have an embassy there.
If they complain, we just say, “But in the UN, you said…”
Published in Humor
A: No. Or, more accurately, NO!
There is not now nor will there ever be a “Palestinian State.” There will only be a growing pyre fueled by UN fatuity until finally, eventually reality sets in and everybody all the time accepts this fact:
There is not now nor will there ever be a “Palestinian State.” QED
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one; I do think states have a right to exist, and they have the right to determine who can immigrate to them.
Yes. And ppl also don’t accept that Peak Stupid has a summit or that “magical thinking” has limits.
From the Times of Israel:
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee, said that a clear distinction must be made between settlers and Jewish individuals who choose to live in a Palestinian state.
“Any person, be he Jewish, Christian or Buddhist, will have the right to apply for Palestinian citizenship,” Ashrawi told The Times of Israel. “Our basic law prohibits discrimination based on race or ethnicity.”
She added, however, that Palestinians would not accept “ex-territorial Jewish enclaves,” where residents will maintain their Israeli citizenship status. Abbas, she said, had no problem with Jews within the Palestinian state, including in the international security force deployed in the Jordan Valley.
There’s also the part most Palestinians won’t mention: A whole bunch of them didn’t just “leave” their homes out of panic. They sold them to Israelis well in advance (we’re talking years, not days), planning on coming back and getting the homes back for free after the other Arabs went into Israel and killed all of the current owners or drove them out.
Up until the Israelis started working on the problem, most of Palestine was basically “that piece of crappy land where nobody lives and nobody bothers to claim.” Literally not owned by anyone. Once the Jewish folks came in and started growing crops, though, suddenly there were thousands of people who kinda-sorta-remembered that great-grandpaw whatsisname used to “own” that land that was suddenly not worthless.
An awful lot of “Palestinians” in the Middle East today also have only ephemeral connections to Palestine. I went to college with a guy who claimed to be “Palestinian,” who had a Saudi passport, and whose family hadn’t been anywhere near Palestine since before the First World War, when they moved out because the place just wasn’t worth living in…
Ambit claim.
Where’s the proof?
Wait – the pre Civil War American State existed and had the legal right to classify many African Americans as non-citizen slaves, but it was not a moral right.
The pre WWII German State may have had the legal right to strip Jews of their German citizenship and civil rights – but it had no moral right to do so.
Just because they can doesn’t mean that it’s moral.
Look, they used to say that about a free South Africa…
And there you have the gist of human history.
If “they” think SA is an analogue for the “Palestinian State” then “they” better forget history and look at a map.
Sigh, I have found this handy video to explain to you Americans what the UN Vote was about.
You’re twisting what I said. The Arab Israelis have the same rights the Jewish Israelis do, except I don’t think they can be drafted.
You made my day. Thank you.
I haven’t run this past the “Foreign Office”, but……
Ha good post. To continue along those lines why don’t we move our Embassies in Paris and Berlin to Mecca. Pretty soon the caliphate will own those cities.
I was thinking along your lines, but I reversed the order. See above.
I had forgotten about that. Though meant as humor, it was actually brilliant. I fully endorse it.
Wait, that was humor?!
I mean, the man’s not funny. I know funny, and he’s not funny.
Isn’t the real principle that the UNGA has the right to tell each country where its capital is, not the US?
It was telling the US where it could have an embassy.
The US isn’t telling anyone anything except that its embassy will be in Jerusalem, which Israel has always maintained is its capital.
To clarify, my initial point was that since these 128 countries think they have this right to tell countries where their capitals are, then we should also have that right. But the reality is that no nation has that right over another (unless it is conquered territory).
The Romans once ruled over London. Maybe Italy should be able to tell the British that they cannot call London their capitol. This could be a fun game. Unless your tribe has an unbroken chain of rule going back to a city’s very founding, you can only call it your capitol if the whole world agrees.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/02/israel-racism-law-160224111623370.html
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/06/database-discriminatory-israel/
https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/7771
My source was my old friend the Palestinian, who would tell me stories about his friends back in Saudi Arabia who were pissed because they didn’t get to go back and get the land they used to own for free.
Do you understand what ‘proof’ means?
It’s double the percentage of alcohol by volume, isn’t it?
Who, in his right mind, would want to?
Australia has one of the most effective anti-immigrant policies in the world. Why aren’t you burning down Parliament?
I was responding to:
Basically because there seem to be a lot of unsupported assumptions about this.