Free Palestine Bill (Tabled)

[minionofmidas]

Free Palestine Bill

Section 1: Immoral Practices
1. The Republic of Atlasia condemns the practice of some Palestinians to cause harm to innocent Israeli citizens
2. The Republic of Atlasia deplores the nation of Israel for using curfews, walls, and other freedom-restricting measures on the Palestinian people.

Section 2: Recognition of Palestine and Israel
3. The Republic of Atlasia hereby recognizes the nation of Palestine as being made up by Gaza Strip and West Bank upon the above terms being met by top Palestinian officials.
4. The Republic of Atlasia hereby calls upon the United Nations, and more specifically Israel to recognize Palestine after the said conditions are met.

Section 3: Failure to Comply
5. If the said conditions are met and Israel still does not recognize Palestine, the Republic of Atlasia will hereby withhold 70% of military aid to Israel and 5% more aid will be witheld for every month Israel does not recognize Palestine.

Section 4: Neutrality
1. Atlasia agrees to remain neutral in conflict between Israel and Iran if Palestinians meet their terms of the agreement


Sponsor: Dwtl.

[CultureKing]

I would like to make an amendment:

Strike section 4.

[Јas]

I would like to make an amendment:

Strike section 4.

Indeed.

I also move to strike section 3.

[Torie]

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What pray tell are the "conditions?" What wall is being condemned. The one that keeps the perps out of Israel proper?

[minionofmidas]

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What pray tell are the "conditions?"

I think Dwtl edited the originally entered bill soon after introducing it. This seems an accidental holdover from the original version, in which these conditions were hazily defined. Basically a condemnation of terrorism by...er...I'm not sure that was clear. I think it wasn't.

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The wall cuts straight through the West Bank along a strange twisting boundary. It's basically a tough sell to claim it has anything whatsoever to do with Israel proper.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Motion to table

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I would like to quote from the Congressional Record (or whatever name we technically have for it)...

This bill is a load of feelgood cobblers.

1. As regards the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians (and the ongoing Palestinian civil war), recognition and so on are just minor, no, extremely minor side issues and nothing else.
There are much more important things to be worried about.

2. The entire premise of this bill is ludicrously arrogant to the point of hilarity. The idea that some stupid feelgood resolution (accompanied by some foolish (and inevitably counter-productive) threats, but more on those later) will "free Palestine", bring peace to the Middle East or do anything other than amuse or irritate people is riseable.

3. I thought that the whole point of the peace process was to calm down and moderate people; not to panic them and drive them into the arms of hardliners. If there's one thing that you should have all learned by now, it's that there's only one way to get any progress in the Middle East; and that's a combination of compromise, arbitration, negotiation and treading carefully.

4. I could go on like this for much longer, but what would be the point? That this bill is yet another example of the student hack approach to politics is essentially self-evident. If honourable Senators want to help the Palestinian people, then they should try sending a load of aid to the Palestinians instead of this folly.

I'd suggest tabling the bill, but I'd be surprised if there's enough support for doing so.

Under their current government, Israel will never be recognized as a nation. This is nothing but a waste of time.

But then there are consequences against Palestine as we do not recognize them and continue to ally against them with Israel.  They can get land and Atlasian recognition, if they pass that up then that's their problem.

Do you have any understanding of the current situation in the Middle East? I realise that you are, to slightly misquote the late Lord Stratford, living proof that a pigs bladder on a stick can get elected to the Senate, but even so...

I have a good understanding of what is going on

In the passage above, you said:

^{"They can get land and Atlasian recognition"}

This would seem to be reasonable proof that you do not understand what is going on. I have an awful feeling that if I were to bring up even something so well-known as Oslo, you would draw a blank.

Do you even know who the Palestinian Prime Minister is?

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Then what on earth is the point of it?

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The current situation (as regards relations between Israel and the Palestinians), while bad, is better than it was a few years ago and much, much better than it was a few decades ago. Progress has been made, however slowly.

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Why?

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How?

[minionofmidas]

The vote is on the motion to table. Please vote aye, nay or abstain.


Nay.


Procedural note: Should the motion fail, I will open a vote on the amendments right afterwards. EDIT: Provided it takes at least 24 hours for the motion to fail, of course.

Personal note: While this thing is pretty bad in its current form, I'm not ready to give up on the chance to salvage something from it quite yet. Besides, there obviously is interest in debating it - see Senators' reactions.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Aye

[Torie]

Aye.

 I can't support this bill in any form. If someone wants to put up something about Israel dismantling its remote settlements on the West Bank, I could support that. The Wall is what cut way down the suicide bombers doing their thing in Israel. It should have been built long ago.

[DownWithTheLeft]

Nay

I'll admit the bill could use some fixing up and it is mostly just a copy/paste of the original with a few changes to make it a tad more friendlier.  We cannot continue to pretend a problem does not exist and blindly fund Israel

[Јas]

Aye

[DownWithTheLeft]

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What pray tell are the "conditions?" What wall is being condemned. The one that keeps the perps out of Israel proper?

The conditions are those outlined in Section 1 and Section 2

As for the wall, I have no idea that is copy/paste from the last one

[Bacon King]

aye

[Verily]

Aye. This bill is unsalvageable; we're better off starting over from scratch.

[CultureKing]

Aye

[minionofmidas]

Okay, I hear you.

To speed things up I change my vote to aye.

Vote count:
Aye 7 (Al, Torie, Jas, Bacon, Verily, Culture, Lewis)
Nay 1 (Dwtl)
abstain (voted) 0
abstain (did not vote) 2 (Sensei, Meeker)

This bill has been tabled.

[Sensei]

aye ftr

[DownWithTheLeft]

BUMP

Really shows what can be done in a productive senate and why the senate is so much better off with the senators there now

[afleitch]

BUMP

Really shows what can be done in a productive senate and why the senate is so much better off with the senators there now

True I suppose, but it still needs a companion bill to ensure the offer sits favourably with some stubborn Arab League nations who would hold a dagger over Palestine for it's own ends. I'm trying to put a draft together.

[DownWithTheLeft]

BUMP

Really shows what can be done in a productive senate and why the senate is so much better off with the senators there now

True I suppose, but it still needs a companion bill to ensure the offer sits favourably with some stubborn Arab League nations who would hold a dagger over Palestine for it's own ends. I'm trying to put a draft together.

I don't disagree with you but the latter has nothing to do with the former

[afleitch]

BUMP

Really shows what can be done in a productive senate and why the senate is so much better off with the senators there now

True I suppose, but it still needs a companion bill to ensure the offer sits favourably with some stubborn Arab League nations who would hold a dagger over Palestine for it's own ends. I'm trying to put a draft together.

I don't disagree with you but the latter has nothing to do with the former

What I was getting at is if you think the Free Palestine Bill took alot of work wait to you see this one It's got anti terrorism, trade, diplomatic recognition, conditions etc that need a co-operative Senate in order to make it work.

[Lief 🗽]

To be fair to the last Senate, they were essentially correct:

Aye. This bill is unsalvageable; we're better off starting over from scratch.

Which is what the Senate more or less did.

[DownWithTheLeft]

To be fair to the last Senate, they were essentially correct:

Aye. This bill is unsalvageable; we're better off starting over from scratch.

Which is what the Senate more or less did.

Well that's not necessarily what happened, we more or less changed the wording of it, it accomplished the same goals.  The former senator and current Holocaust lover stated that the bill simply could not be passed because I was the sponsor, something he echoed during this current debate as well.

[Franzl]

I wish we'd stop with the insults.

Yes, it worked out better this time....perfectly true, but that doesn't mean I blame the last Senate for not wanting to work with it.

I'm happy we accomplished something, DWTL, don't get me wrong.....but we did dramatically change the wording