this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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GenZedong
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they are objectively a country they aren't a country with any moral legitimacy but they clearly are a country
No they aren’t.
They lack one of the four primary distinctions that make any country a country. They lack sovereignty over the land they control and occupy. An occupation is not a country, and much of the world recognizes that either Palestine and Israel but hold sovereignty, or Palestine holds sole sovereignty, the Israeli position is to shaky to be definitively stated as such.
For example, the United States also falls under this classification of being a settler colony, but they are still a country in that they satisfy all four requirements to be considered one. No matter how morally unethical the process was to accomplish those 4 main requirements were.
Israel can’t even do that.
Might want to look into Wittgenstein's Language Games, can help clarify the purpose and function (and at times pointlessness, not saying that is the case here) of the sorts of pedantic and 'technically correct' dysentery folks seem to engage in.
I’ll look into it! Sounds like a good read!
But I’m really not trying to be pedantic, it’s essentially just elementary school level politics that a country must have 1. Land, 2. Population 3. Government and 4. Sovereignty. It really isn’t negotiable.
Fair enough, why do you think people seem to get up in arms about it (say, as in this thread?)
Israel defenders. Or weird pedantic nerds (myself included). Either or. But to be a weird pedantic nerd you at least have to be correct.
What does sovereignty mean in this context?
The ability to exert recognized control over a defined territory.
Israel defacto satisfies this, but their territory is undefined (what borders do they go by)? The territory overlaps with what is rightfully considered Palestinian sovereign territory, and the Palestinian population is not recognized by the Israeli authority.
What does “recognized authority” mean?
Also apologies if I’m misreading your statement, but you seem to be saying that having disputed territory/borders renders you no longer a country. Surely that can’t be the case. For example, various island nations (e.g. Philippines, Japan, Brunei) have disputes with China (and each other) over whether certain islands are part of their territory. Yet these 4 entities are countries.
Not just disputed territories, territory disputes are very common and normal. But not when your entire country is disputed territory. The only other contemporary example of this would be Taiwan, which is not considered a country.
No one is disputing that the Hokkaido is Japanese, or Manila is Philippine, but all of Israel is disputed.
Also recognized authority means that the people living there, and international observers agree that the governing body of a territory is the one they identify with. The vast majority of Palestinians do not see the Israeli government as legitimate, and Israel doesn’t recognize Palestinians as citizens or as people.
Was China not a country prior to 1971, because Taiwan had the Chinese seat in the UN (it meets the international observers standard(?)) and the entirety of China was “disputed”?
As for recognized authority, isn’t it the case that for certain areas of Israel (e.g. certain areas within the 1948 UN partition plan, or 1967 borders) it meets the test you laid out? I.e. people living there agree that the Israeli government is the one that they identify with and international observers agree to recognize the Israeli government’s control over those areas? In that case, Israel would be a country with some disputed borders (I.e. everywhere outside that area with recognized authority).
they have land, an army, and a governing bureacracy to my mind that makes them a country
To bad your mind has no bearing on what’s true or not 😂
Dang, you used the solipsism card.
If one believes that their mind is all that is real or matters, then they are disconnected from reality.
Also thinking your mind is right is one of the most goofy statements, because that implies everyone else is always wrong lol.
it's a figure of speach
well they are in the UN so I'm not the only one to think they are a country
Also I don't understand why we are calling them not a country it doesn't make any difference to anything call them a bloody cup if you want it doesn't change the reality of the situation that they are a settler colonialist state built on theft and murder
They are in the UN because it aligns with western interests. Being on the UN doesn’t make you a legitimate country, and they can change their mind all the time.
Same as what happened with Taiwan and it no longer being considered a real country by the UN.
Is Taiwan a country? They check your boxes. The UN doesn’t think so though.
Israel = occupying state
Palestine = country
this is just stupid semantic games words mean what people use them to mean and if I went and asked anyone I know in real life they would say Israel is a country so it's a country
If you asked some random cracker they’d tell you Taiwan was an independent country too. Doesn’t make it true.
by the definition of a country needing to control all the territory it claims, which one user made in this thread, China and Argintina also don't qualify as countries
this is a stupid argument over semantics