UN Security Council Resolution 2334 and the Religious Right

[CajunBlazer]

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 and the UN Human Rights Council which had already condemned the Israel settlements. Israel is the sole renegade country here.

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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.

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UN Security Council Resolution 2334 and the Religious Right

[HassleCat]

1. Fundies love Israel

Many of them think it will hasten the Last Days.

[CajunBlazer]

2. You're on target

That's what I am getting from their posts on their websites. I wander if they understand that religious zealots have predicting that the "end of times" would come in their life times for the last 2000 years. Yet all of those people have gone to their graves "unfulfilled". And the current crop is clueless extremely likely to follow in like manner.

Surely most of them aren't aware that many biblical scholars don't regard the Book of Revelations to be a forecast of the end of the world. They instead believe that it is far more likely that it refers in a kind of coded writings to the end of the Roman Empire which was persecuting the early Christians at the time. Coded because it would mean certain death to anyone found possessing literature referring to the Romans in that manner.

I am reasonably sure that many of these present day zealots are just impressionable people unable to formulate their own opinions who are forced rely on others they deem more knowledgeable. They certainly don't understand that their masters want them to believe that "the end is near" because that is how they are best controlled.