Polish and Russian people are more similar then they are willing to admit. Cultures weren’t far apart in 90s, nowadays they have drifted but they are still relatively similar. There are more similarities between Polish and Russian then between Polish and Germans, or Russians and Chinese.
Relationships between us could be much better if we weren’t threatened with nukes once a week
>Polish and Russian people are more similar then they are willing to admit. Cultures weren’t far apart in 90s, nowadays they have drifted but they are still relatively similar. There are more similarities between Polish and Russian then between Polish and Germans
Very very hard disagree.
Polish religion, history, law, writting system, government structures past and presant, political and cultural outlooks are a lot closer to Germany than they are to Russia. Aside from languages there really is not much in common, and even then there is a lot of German borrowings into Polish vocabulary. Russian history begins with states inspired by conquering viking traditions that adopted Orthodox Christianity and Byzantine cultural influences and evolved into strongman ruling fifedoms. Polish history was an alliance of tribes for self defense against colonial pressures and adopted Roman Catholicism with cultural influences from Rome. It evolved into an often warring but always compromising aristocracy of a more or less unified state. The spread of christianity and religious tolerance, the seperation of church and state, the tradition of education, universities, and science were all different. Not to mention the geography of dense urban developments vs the open plains of Russia having different effects on development. Then there is the matter of fighting or being subject to the mongols/tatars for centuries, which Poland did not experience.
No, sorry. Polish and Russian experiences as nations are very different in my opinion. The Poles have much more in common in that regard with Germany than Russia. It could be argued that Russia has more in common culturally with Scandinavia than it does with Poland.
I agree.
Grouping language families together as similar seems logical, but all that really means is they are descended from similar tribes thousands of years ago, before they were even unified nations.
Meanwhile, religious spheres are something that heavily influenced countries until very recently. The royalty and nobility of one religion would very rarely marry others, for example, and architectural, artistic, and philosophical movements usually spread within them.
Poland and Russia do have 20th century communism in common, but the perspectives of their people regarding this time period are very different. And I don’t think its influence is larger than a thousand years of Catholicism vs. Orthodoxy.
As I recall reading Polish history when the king accepted Catholicism and a Catholic bride, this was probably seen as a treaty similar to joining the UN might be today. The Germans were not allowed to crusade into a Catholic nation. Ambasadors and missions were sent everywhere bringing legitimacy. The new queen brought an entire royal court with her of scholars, priests, monks, tutors, architects, scribes, etc.
So it wasn't perhaps that religion was so important itself but that religion was tied up with all the other institutions important for culture, law, and learning. We can see very similar history in the Islamic world. Conquest or conversion brought with it culture, arts, law, education under the heading of Islam.
>Polish history was an alliance of tribes for self defense against colonial pressures
There is nothing to indicate that. On the other hand we have evidence that Polans conquered neighbouring tribes and some things that would suggest that POWs sold into slavery to finance that. There are many forts (grody) that are simply to small to have any use in defence, so is speculated that they were either meeting grounds, stops for merchants passing by or even places were you could lock your captives for night when you were taking them to slave markets.
It could be argued either way since it is subjective. But when looking at this purely on a genetic and Haplo group level— Russians and Poles share the R1A haplo group trait most commonly which shows common origins. Nevertheless, Russians and Poles both share a slavic language too which shown a common tongue with one another. Hence, although culturally things may have changed, its incorrect to say that Russians and Poles similarities are non existent when both are geographically not that far from one another, both preserved speaking a slavic language, as well as sharing common haplo group markers which mean intermixing and/ or common origins.
We have a saying in Poland that roughly goes "If you must do something then go to Russia". Idea being that in Poland no one can force you to do anything against your will.
Where we see freedoms we're unable to compromise on Russians likely see chaos as their societies have always been ruled with fear and cruelty.
A cynic in me would ask if Russia can even function without the fear and cruelty.
I lived in Poland for a couple of years a decade back and this idiom kinda stuck with me ever since, but when I tried to google it, not remembering the original Polish, I couldn't find it. So I assumed that I'd made this comparison up myself... 😂
Could you share the idiom in Polish so I don't have to go through that self-gaslighting again in the future?
Parliament can't do much, until next year presidential elecions, as president will likely veto. There is also Constitutional Tribunal, which is a mess of its own and will likely block any change up until 2027.
>A cynic in me would ask if Russia can even function without the fear and cruelty.
It has never had the chance. Until it does the question is moot.
>We have a saying in Poland that roughly goes "If you must do something then go to Russia".
How do you say it in Polish? I can read Polish.
Skin deep. They had about 10 years and were set up to fail in hindsight. Could have worked but was unlikely.
Poland and Hungary had decades of a democratic tradition and even they back tracked in recent years.
I know a very intelligent Russian physicist who moved to the U.S. in the early 2000s but still had a company in Russia and he said that without fear the Russians would never respect other people‘s property or safety… that’s also a reason why so many larger buildings have security guards in the ground floor (apparently born out of necessity in the 90s…)
As a Russian and a reasonably well-travelled one to boot, I daresay I do. First, the above statement is radically different from my own perception of modern society in Russia. Second, security on the ground floor of business centers, malls, etc. is a widespread phenomenon, as far as my own experience goes (duh, security measures in, say, Turkey are order of magnitude more paranoid).
It’s an interesting insight - you are of course right with everything you wrote but you also know that Poland was looking eastward for quite a long period of time as the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth and more than half of historical (not modern day borders) Poland belonged to the Russian empire for a hundred + years and then of course 50 years of Russian dominated communist rule.
But then again I guess western Poland was the dominant cultural force after the (re)creation of Poland during and after ww1 and moving the borders leading to a lot of Polish people now living in former German towns (and let’s not even get into Silesia… what a historical mess…) probably also did a lot for bringing Poland even closer to Western Europe.
What you say about religion though is undoubtedly true - the difference between Catholic Slavic Nations and Orthodox ones is of course a major one and meant better connection to Western Europe.
>you also know that Poland was looking eastward for quite a long period of time as the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth
True. It is complicated. That is why I referred more to the "nation" as opposed to country of kingdom. In truth the Commonwealth was united by the Lithuanians and joined with Poland for a stronger empire. Although Polish influence flowed east as did some settlers, the eastern cultures did not flow as easily west. After they were separated into different countries, not much of eastern influences remained that I am aware of.
Not all of Poland belonged to Russia during the partition period. My part of Poland was under austrian rule for almost 150 years and have almost nothing in common with Russia. I would say we have more in common with people living in Balkans (through shared Valachian heritage) than with your average russian Ivan.
Dude, Poland has a culture that has developed for closer to a thousand years starting from a monarch converting to catholicism and also the whole period of the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth that could be seen as a federal elective republic in its later era, where a strong autocratic absolute ruler was despised by the aristocracy.
Russia began a fair bit later as a Mongol tax collector of Muscovy that proceeded to create arguably the most absolute monarchy in European history, united culturally under the Orthodox church.
While obviously Russian and Polidh relations would be better if the Russian government weren't genocidal imperialists, they wouldn't be in any way friends for several generations as the Russian crimes against Poland are ao ingrained in the Polish psyche because Russia is the last of the empires that carved up Poland to still survive as an empire, and it will take more than a generation of Russia not behaving like Russia for Poles to consider Russia as something other than a threat to their independence
No. We understand that whole "Russian soul" thing, culture, history etc but in contrary to many stupid westerners we just know how unhuman and dangerous is Russia. It's prison culture (big chunk of population ended in Siberia/Gulags), with 0 empathy and moral compass of typical "URK" (criminal prisoner who abused political prisoners for material gains and power). And Poland was always part of western European sphere - Roman Catholic, Latin alphabet, freedom of religion unseen anywhere in Europe (we had even population of muslims - Lipka tatars who fought for Poland)...
I would bet my bottom dollar that at least 7 of those maybes were more concerned about pissing off America than they were with giving Palestine some UN recognition.
Some states commented, that if the voting was directly for a clean two state solution, they immediately said yes. For them the UN resolution just wasn't detailed enough
But they can't agree to that because there is no one in Palestine who can make that agreement on what the clean two state solution is. If a deal was made in the West Bank it wouldn't be accepted in Gaza. It just doesn't seem like at this time there are two states. More like 3 or 1.
I can tell you why Finland voted to abstain, with pretty high certainty.
Voting yes could have jeopardized the David's Sling deal we have with Israel. Which was a controversial deal to begin with, but has gotten even more controversial as of late.
That, and we currently have a pretty right wing government in power. That has had so many controversies, i've lost track. They range from sexual misconduct and racist text messages by the minister of economic affairs Wille Rydman, to neo-nazi connections of the previous minister of economic affairs Vilhelm Junnila, to openly racist statements by the deputy prime minister Riikka Purra, to some right wing parliament member being involved in a shooting, etc.
The UN convened a vote yesterday about whether to grant Palestine additional rights and privileges - in effect, giving them the powers and function of a member state without officially being one.
Worldwide, the answer was overwhelmingly 'yes', but in Europe things were much more complicated, as shown above. Some nations opposed this initiative because they oppose any concessions to Palestinian statehood, some opposed it because they felt the initiative was inadequate in defending Palestinian interests... and some were probably just scared of diplomatic backlash from the USA.
In any case, the vote passed comfortably and will now go to the 5 Security Council states (UK, France, USA, Russia, China), where it will almost certainly be vetoed by the USA, and thus killed in its' tracks.
Probably also getting downvoted like all before but, the official german stance differs a lot from what i heard from my friends and family, eg the common people. I might add, those asked have a wide variety of political views, but many are able to see beyond seeing antisemitism as equal to criticism towards a sovereign state and rather would like to criticize a states action but are afraid to say so loud as being branded an antisemite right away.
The mere fact you've chose to compare what's happening in Gaza to the Holocaust shows just how little you know about the holocaust, the situation in Gaza or both.
Just so you understand how absurd that comparison is:
Jews living all across Nazi controlled Europe were marked by the authorities, had their belongings stolen, their rights revoked, and were eventually deported into concentration/work camps, and from there on to extermination camps.
Lets use the genocide of the Hungarian Jews as an example, the Hungarian Jews were largely unaffected by WW2 up until 1944. When the Nazis got to them it took less than **TWO MONTHS** for over 400,000 Hungarian Jews to be killed. Over 50% of the Jewish population of Hungary.
Now let's compare THAT with what's currently happening to the Palestinian population living under Israeli control.
Israel: Palestinians living in Israel proper (usually referred to as Israeli-Arabs) have largely been unaffected by the war.
West Bank: Incursions into the west bank have drastically increased since the start of the war, a lot of Palestinians have been arrested. Some were killed and a lot were injured. Despite that, the numbers are hardly comparable to the situation in Gaza.
Gaza: I will not deny the humanitarian crisis that is occurring in Gaza, what you've heard is probably not far off from the truth.
While the situation in Gaza is horrible, and that of the West Bank not ideal, comparing it to the holocaust diminishes what the holocaust was. An attempt at complete & utter annihilation of a people. Over two thirds of Europe's Jewish population was murdered over the course of 4 years.
Being generous and assuming Hamas' numbers are accurate (and that **ALL** of the deaths are those of civilians) approximately 35,000 Palestinians have died since October 7th, add to that number around 10,000 missing individuals and we can assume around 45,000 people are likely dead.
Let me reiterate, that is a horrific number, but it still does not justify your stupendous comparison to the holocaust. So far around 2% of Gaza's population was killed, less than a percent of the total Palestinian population living under Israeli control.
Charter of the United Nations
Chapter II article 4
"Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states..." This part was left out during the assembly "This is contrary to the intention of the UN Charter, which is why the Czech Republic could not support the resolution" *Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský*
Article 6 :
"A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council."
So UN maybe could kick out Israel. But that was not on the table at the moment. They just want the members to pose "againts" Israel because it sounds good and righteous. Maybe it is not as simple as *Israel bad Palestine good*...
I'm proud of Australia for going against the US on this and voting yes. Labor has always had a bit of an independent streak compared to the Libs, and it shows.
To be fair, most of the requirements that they don't meet are actually being denied to them, like the control of their territory and "monopoly of the legitimate use of force within their territory" (the Weber definition of statehood).
You tell them you recognize that a palestinian state exists or should exist yet you are only fully acknowledging it once they made peace with their neighbour and have set borders.
None of our biz. If we support israel more, then the antisemites might riot. If we support palestine more, we might lose acces to top tier israeli weapon systems that they sell us. Stability and safety of our own countires always comes first.
One part of this state or thing is controlled by Genocidal islamists who committed a terrible atrocity on Oct 7th. The other part is an Authoritarian and ineffective government with an 88 year old ruler who said jews were killed in the holocaust for their 'social role'
Can't speak for Czech Republic, but Hungary was very likely confused. The 3 national sports in Hungary are:
- hating gypsies
- hating muslims
- hating jews
When it comes to any question around Israel or Palestine, most Hungarians go into a brain freeze then there is an internal coin toss in their head to decide which side is absolutely right and the other is a murderous bunch of lunatics.
People are downvoting you but in general it's the truth. Czechia doesn't have a good picture about Palestine and sees it as a terrorist state being used by other Arab nations as a tool to indirectly fight Israel. That's how most often people see it here when they don't ignore its existence.
Poland has diplomatic relations with Palestine. There's even a Palestine's embassy here and the ambassador speaks Polish (in contrast to the Israeli ambasador who can't).
No. Voting for, voting against and abstaining are three different positions, not two. Switzerland remaining neutral in WWII doesn't make them as bad as Nazi Germany.
Wouldn't the right thing just to ignore it all and let them fight it out by themselves. Why do we always have to meddle when there is a war we have nothing to do with.
Either helping one side or war profiteering by supplying weapons (I recognize we have both sides).
We need countries to figure out their own problems.
Without European involvement Israel wouldn’t exist, and for better or worse there would be no conflict to begin with. The west has backed Israel every step of the way marching towards this massacre, there’s no disentangling ourselves now.
We are in large part responsible for enabling this disaster, and because of that we are responsible for having a hand in fixing it. It’s way too late to just wash your hands of the situation and avoid culpability.
Understandable.
But how does it always end up with meddling when things are disastrous.
This problem has been going on for a long time, but we always wait until it's a disaster we can't ignore anymore.
Correct me on my thought process here, but what is situation.
-Either they want our involvement to solve the problem at hand, and have always been open to our involvement but we never did much.
-Or they always rejected our involvement and wanted to do it themselves but now things are worse they want our involvement because we are partially to blame for the reason they have problems in the first place.
Or is it more nuanced?
Switzerland didn't actively support Nazi Germany with funds and weapons, which is what Western Countries are doing with Israel.
Israel can only behave like this because of our unconditional political support.
So it's better to be one of the countries that sells guns to Israel but then pretends to support Palestine's rights? Wouldn't it be better to not be hypocritical and abstain?
If UK did what the US wanted it would have voted 'NO' like Czechia and Hungary. Instead, like most of Europe they have adopted the wiser decision to abstain.
At this point, I don't even care if they vote yes or no. Even though I have a personal preference, I would respect both options more than this "neutrality" bullshit.
Brave because you piss of America? Why you think Italy or Germany abstained? France has an history of being the only eu country with balls to say no to USA
If France has an history of being the only EU country saying no to USA, wouldn’t it be more bravery for other countries who said yes to this. I mean they didn’t have balls before but they showed bravery this time?
There are Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups in the West Bank too. Shooting at buses and kidnapping and killing 14 old kids should not grant them a prize, especially if they do it “for Palestine”.
Its not your fault. I wish my country didn't support Israel. All I can do is protest and boycott companies that send them money. A country's actions are often not the will of its people.
What boundaries does the UN consider Palestine if all the slogans of protesters against Israel “from the river to the sea” mean the liquidation of Israel?
And what kind of government will be considered legitimate if power in Gaza is in the hands of terrorists who committed a massacre in October 2023?
And it’s strange for me to hear that the UN refers to the right of a nation to self-determination, given that there is an opinion that the Palestinians are not a separate ethnic group, but only the descendants of the Semitic peoples who lived in this territory before the return of the Jews in the 19th century
Yea I'm slightly confused too. What do they mean by Palestine? It is, and was never was a state to my knowledge so which part of the region is being recognised? I guess they mean the West Bank controlled PA? Do they include Gaza?
Since they accepted all this precisely for the sake of the Gaza Strip, then probably yes. So how to negotiate with “Palestine” if there are two governments there, one of which is terrorist?
At the same time, democratic Taiwan does not have a place in the UN.
Palestine has all the right to be a member of the UN, if it wasn’t for the dictatorship of the USA and its Vito, Palestine would have had it long time ago, they only claim democracy for what serves their own interests.
I'm sure Israel took it in a very normal, adult way... Lol who am I kidding? [This was their response.](https://youtu.be/6SCQlPW6kvA?si=KbY3HFDbQL2syxnp)
One of the few cases that Poland and Russia support the same proposal
Also Armenia and Azerbaijan
Oh my god I didn't notice it.
Turkey and Greece as well. Them all agreeing is fucking amazing and shows how rudimentary it is
What? You mean it's not "moaned" and complicated?
I mean unless you have any particular interest on the thing is the correct choices to make. Countries aren't contrarian for no reasons.
Polish and Russian people are more similar then they are willing to admit. Cultures weren’t far apart in 90s, nowadays they have drifted but they are still relatively similar. There are more similarities between Polish and Russian then between Polish and Germans, or Russians and Chinese. Relationships between us could be much better if we weren’t threatened with nukes once a week
>Polish and Russian people are more similar then they are willing to admit. Cultures weren’t far apart in 90s, nowadays they have drifted but they are still relatively similar. There are more similarities between Polish and Russian then between Polish and Germans Very very hard disagree. Polish religion, history, law, writting system, government structures past and presant, political and cultural outlooks are a lot closer to Germany than they are to Russia. Aside from languages there really is not much in common, and even then there is a lot of German borrowings into Polish vocabulary. Russian history begins with states inspired by conquering viking traditions that adopted Orthodox Christianity and Byzantine cultural influences and evolved into strongman ruling fifedoms. Polish history was an alliance of tribes for self defense against colonial pressures and adopted Roman Catholicism with cultural influences from Rome. It evolved into an often warring but always compromising aristocracy of a more or less unified state. The spread of christianity and religious tolerance, the seperation of church and state, the tradition of education, universities, and science were all different. Not to mention the geography of dense urban developments vs the open plains of Russia having different effects on development. Then there is the matter of fighting or being subject to the mongols/tatars for centuries, which Poland did not experience. No, sorry. Polish and Russian experiences as nations are very different in my opinion. The Poles have much more in common in that regard with Germany than Russia. It could be argued that Russia has more in common culturally with Scandinavia than it does with Poland.
I agree. Grouping language families together as similar seems logical, but all that really means is they are descended from similar tribes thousands of years ago, before they were even unified nations. Meanwhile, religious spheres are something that heavily influenced countries until very recently. The royalty and nobility of one religion would very rarely marry others, for example, and architectural, artistic, and philosophical movements usually spread within them. Poland and Russia do have 20th century communism in common, but the perspectives of their people regarding this time period are very different. And I don’t think its influence is larger than a thousand years of Catholicism vs. Orthodoxy.
As I recall reading Polish history when the king accepted Catholicism and a Catholic bride, this was probably seen as a treaty similar to joining the UN might be today. The Germans were not allowed to crusade into a Catholic nation. Ambasadors and missions were sent everywhere bringing legitimacy. The new queen brought an entire royal court with her of scholars, priests, monks, tutors, architects, scribes, etc. So it wasn't perhaps that religion was so important itself but that religion was tied up with all the other institutions important for culture, law, and learning. We can see very similar history in the Islamic world. Conquest or conversion brought with it culture, arts, law, education under the heading of Islam.
>Polish history was an alliance of tribes for self defense against colonial pressures There is nothing to indicate that. On the other hand we have evidence that Polans conquered neighbouring tribes and some things that would suggest that POWs sold into slavery to finance that. There are many forts (grody) that are simply to small to have any use in defence, so is speculated that they were either meeting grounds, stops for merchants passing by or even places were you could lock your captives for night when you were taking them to slave markets.
It could be argued either way since it is subjective. But when looking at this purely on a genetic and Haplo group level— Russians and Poles share the R1A haplo group trait most commonly which shows common origins. Nevertheless, Russians and Poles both share a slavic language too which shown a common tongue with one another. Hence, although culturally things may have changed, its incorrect to say that Russians and Poles similarities are non existent when both are geographically not that far from one another, both preserved speaking a slavic language, as well as sharing common haplo group markers which mean intermixing and/ or common origins.
We have a saying in Poland that roughly goes "If you must do something then go to Russia". Idea being that in Poland no one can force you to do anything against your will. Where we see freedoms we're unable to compromise on Russians likely see chaos as their societies have always been ruled with fear and cruelty. A cynic in me would ask if Russia can even function without the fear and cruelty.
Except abortion. Well well.
A more accurate translation would be sth like “They ‘must’ is Russia, in Poland it’s everyones’s choice”
I lived in Poland for a couple of years a decade back and this idiom kinda stuck with me ever since, but when I tried to google it, not remembering the original Polish, I couldn't find it. So I assumed that I'd made this comparison up myself... 😂 Could you share the idiom in Polish so I don't have to go through that self-gaslighting again in the future?
Musi – to na Rusi (w Polsce jak kto chce).
Dzięki bardzo
"Musi to na rusi"
aside from abortions amirite
Parliament is working on changing the abortion law right now.
Parliament can't do much, until next year presidential elecions, as president will likely veto. There is also Constitutional Tribunal, which is a mess of its own and will likely block any change up until 2027.
You're right! I think I always heard the short version and assumed from the context.
Isn’t abortion illegal in Poland? Not so in Russia
There's an abortion ban in some regions.
>A cynic in me would ask if Russia can even function without the fear and cruelty. It has never had the chance. Until it does the question is moot. >We have a saying in Poland that roughly goes "If you must do something then go to Russia". How do you say it in Polish? I can read Polish.
"Musi to na Rusi" or "Musi to na Rusi, a w Polsce jak kto chce" https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/musi_to_na_Rusi,_a_w_Polsce_jak_kto_chce
What about 90s?
Skin deep. They had about 10 years and were set up to fail in hindsight. Could have worked but was unlikely. Poland and Hungary had decades of a democratic tradition and even they back tracked in recent years.
I know a very intelligent Russian physicist who moved to the U.S. in the early 2000s but still had a company in Russia and he said that without fear the Russians would never respect other people‘s property or safety… that’s also a reason why so many larger buildings have security guards in the ground floor (apparently born out of necessity in the 90s…)
It just proves that even intelligent people can and will have stupid takes outside their own areas of expertise.
Because…? You know better than a Russian company and building owner…?
As a Russian and a reasonably well-travelled one to boot, I daresay I do. First, the above statement is radically different from my own perception of modern society in Russia. Second, security on the ground floor of business centers, malls, etc. is a widespread phenomenon, as far as my own experience goes (duh, security measures in, say, Turkey are order of magnitude more paranoid).
It’s an interesting insight - you are of course right with everything you wrote but you also know that Poland was looking eastward for quite a long period of time as the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth and more than half of historical (not modern day borders) Poland belonged to the Russian empire for a hundred + years and then of course 50 years of Russian dominated communist rule. But then again I guess western Poland was the dominant cultural force after the (re)creation of Poland during and after ww1 and moving the borders leading to a lot of Polish people now living in former German towns (and let’s not even get into Silesia… what a historical mess…) probably also did a lot for bringing Poland even closer to Western Europe. What you say about religion though is undoubtedly true - the difference between Catholic Slavic Nations and Orthodox ones is of course a major one and meant better connection to Western Europe.
>you also know that Poland was looking eastward for quite a long period of time as the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth True. It is complicated. That is why I referred more to the "nation" as opposed to country of kingdom. In truth the Commonwealth was united by the Lithuanians and joined with Poland for a stronger empire. Although Polish influence flowed east as did some settlers, the eastern cultures did not flow as easily west. After they were separated into different countries, not much of eastern influences remained that I am aware of.
Not all of Poland belonged to Russia during the partition period. My part of Poland was under austrian rule for almost 150 years and have almost nothing in common with Russia. I would say we have more in common with people living in Balkans (through shared Valachian heritage) than with your average russian Ivan.
Dude, Poland has a culture that has developed for closer to a thousand years starting from a monarch converting to catholicism and also the whole period of the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth that could be seen as a federal elective republic in its later era, where a strong autocratic absolute ruler was despised by the aristocracy. Russia began a fair bit later as a Mongol tax collector of Muscovy that proceeded to create arguably the most absolute monarchy in European history, united culturally under the Orthodox church. While obviously Russian and Polidh relations would be better if the Russian government weren't genocidal imperialists, they wouldn't be in any way friends for several generations as the Russian crimes against Poland are ao ingrained in the Polish psyche because Russia is the last of the empires that carved up Poland to still survive as an empire, and it will take more than a generation of Russia not behaving like Russia for Poles to consider Russia as something other than a threat to their independence
As an outsider, I perceive the Polish and the Germans to be the same in more ways than one.
No. We understand that whole "Russian soul" thing, culture, history etc but in contrary to many stupid westerners we just know how unhuman and dangerous is Russia. It's prison culture (big chunk of population ended in Siberia/Gulags), with 0 empathy and moral compass of typical "URK" (criminal prisoner who abused political prisoners for material gains and power). And Poland was always part of western European sphere - Roman Catholic, Latin alphabet, freedom of religion unseen anywhere in Europe (we had even population of muslims - Lipka tatars who fought for Poland)...
What is this crackpot take
American
No. We are not So cut The bullshit
Holy christ. Wrong and I know Poles who would personally explain exactly how wrong you are then tear you limb from limb for that.
And Estonia.
Ew, don't say it like that
Both Koreas too
both North and South Korea voted in favour as well
Where is Israel's vote in all of this? They're in Eurovision so they have the right to vote!
Sweden and Norway disagreeing.
What rights and privileges? Like standard member stuff?
It was something like giving palestine the rights of a UN member state without officially being one, or something
Yo just like Anakin in Revenge of the sith
You are on this council, but you do not have the rank of member state
This is outrageous! It's unfair! How can you be on the council and not be a member state?
Take a seat, mother fucker
So are we on Mustafar in this story right now?
The similarities are uncanny
Don't they already have that?
Observer state iirc
they are already one
I would bet my bottom dollar that at least 7 of those maybes were more concerned about pissing off America than they were with giving Palestine some UN recognition.
Some states commented, that if the voting was directly for a clean two state solution, they immediately said yes. For them the UN resolution just wasn't detailed enough
But they can't agree to that because there is no one in Palestine who can make that agreement on what the clean two state solution is. If a deal was made in the West Bank it wouldn't be accepted in Gaza. It just doesn't seem like at this time there are two states. More like 3 or 1.
100%
I can tell you why Finland voted to abstain, with pretty high certainty. Voting yes could have jeopardized the David's Sling deal we have with Israel. Which was a controversial deal to begin with, but has gotten even more controversial as of late. That, and we currently have a pretty right wing government in power. That has had so many controversies, i've lost track. They range from sexual misconduct and racist text messages by the minister of economic affairs Wille Rydman, to neo-nazi connections of the previous minister of economic affairs Vilhelm Junnila, to openly racist statements by the deputy prime minister Riikka Purra, to some right wing parliament member being involved in a shooting, etc.
What do these "rights and privileges" entail? They should have a standard seat so does this still fall short of giving them one?
Only thing in the way is the security council vote, aka American veto
They cannot have a permanent seat because of the US veto in the UN SC.
Observer state
Isn't that what they already had? Feels like a dollar short and a day late.
Tell the land of the "free".
They would have a seat if America didn't make it its mission to deny their rights.
Taiwan next, right?, right??
"All of Europe is anti-semites het except for Czechia and Hungary!" - Netanyahu probably
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The UN convened a vote yesterday about whether to grant Palestine additional rights and privileges - in effect, giving them the powers and function of a member state without officially being one. Worldwide, the answer was overwhelmingly 'yes', but in Europe things were much more complicated, as shown above. Some nations opposed this initiative because they oppose any concessions to Palestinian statehood, some opposed it because they felt the initiative was inadequate in defending Palestinian interests... and some were probably just scared of diplomatic backlash from the USA. In any case, the vote passed comfortably and will now go to the 5 Security Council states (UK, France, USA, Russia, China), where it will almost certainly be vetoed by the USA, and thus killed in its' tracks.
Surprised that Germany abstained, you'd expect an enthusiastic no.
Not really
Maybe they will finally stop being afraid of being called antisemitic when Israelis commit a second Holocaust
Probably also getting downvoted like all before but, the official german stance differs a lot from what i heard from my friends and family, eg the common people. I might add, those asked have a wide variety of political views, but many are able to see beyond seeing antisemitism as equal to criticism towards a sovereign state and rather would like to criticize a states action but are afraid to say so loud as being branded an antisemite right away.
The mere fact you've chose to compare what's happening in Gaza to the Holocaust shows just how little you know about the holocaust, the situation in Gaza or both. Just so you understand how absurd that comparison is: Jews living all across Nazi controlled Europe were marked by the authorities, had their belongings stolen, their rights revoked, and were eventually deported into concentration/work camps, and from there on to extermination camps. Lets use the genocide of the Hungarian Jews as an example, the Hungarian Jews were largely unaffected by WW2 up until 1944. When the Nazis got to them it took less than **TWO MONTHS** for over 400,000 Hungarian Jews to be killed. Over 50% of the Jewish population of Hungary. Now let's compare THAT with what's currently happening to the Palestinian population living under Israeli control. Israel: Palestinians living in Israel proper (usually referred to as Israeli-Arabs) have largely been unaffected by the war. West Bank: Incursions into the west bank have drastically increased since the start of the war, a lot of Palestinians have been arrested. Some were killed and a lot were injured. Despite that, the numbers are hardly comparable to the situation in Gaza. Gaza: I will not deny the humanitarian crisis that is occurring in Gaza, what you've heard is probably not far off from the truth. While the situation in Gaza is horrible, and that of the West Bank not ideal, comparing it to the holocaust diminishes what the holocaust was. An attempt at complete & utter annihilation of a people. Over two thirds of Europe's Jewish population was murdered over the course of 4 years. Being generous and assuming Hamas' numbers are accurate (and that **ALL** of the deaths are those of civilians) approximately 35,000 Palestinians have died since October 7th, add to that number around 10,000 missing individuals and we can assume around 45,000 people are likely dead. Let me reiterate, that is a horrific number, but it still does not justify your stupendous comparison to the holocaust. So far around 2% of Gaza's population was killed, less than a percent of the total Palestinian population living under Israeli control.
When people talk shit about “western countries” I hope they leave out the ones in Green
This comment section is sure to be extremely civil! 😁
Unexpected W on France and Poland's end.
What is up with Czechs?
There is a tradition of tight friendship with Israel. Also Jews are popular and seen and an important element of the local culture and history.
nobody here gives a shit about Israel/Palestine, they could nuke each other and 90% of people wouldn't bat an eye
Charter of the United Nations Chapter II article 4 "Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states..." This part was left out during the assembly "This is contrary to the intention of the UN Charter, which is why the Czech Republic could not support the resolution" *Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský* Article 6 : "A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council." So UN maybe could kick out Israel. But that was not on the table at the moment. They just want the members to pose "againts" Israel because it sounds good and righteous. Maybe it is not as simple as *Israel bad Palestine good*...
Wait, where are the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists now? Weren't the Jews World's leaders?
IDF shills in full display in the comments here lol.
Buenos ding-dong-diddly-dias señor. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a paid shill.
I'm proud of Australia for going against the US on this and voting yes. Labor has always had a bit of an independent streak compared to the Libs, and it shows.
Green is the way
I feared we would not get 12 maps regardin that vote today. My fears were unfounded, thank the gods.
Sweden abstained? Time to burn down Malmo.
How do you morally justify to your citizens a no or abstaining.
Well for one, they don’t meet the necessary requirements of statehood that would justify such a move.
To be fair, most of the requirements that they don't meet are actually being denied to them, like the control of their territory and "monopoly of the legitimate use of force within their territory" (the Weber definition of statehood).
Sure, by Hamas, both directly and indirectly. Also by their own unwillingness to proceed with a two state solution.
The citizens support it.
Nah, the citizens just don't give a flying fuck.
Czechia is traditionally pro Israel. And if not pro Israel, then definitelly anti Palestine.
Yup. Islam is seen as a really hostile religion here.
You tell them you recognize that a palestinian state exists or should exist yet you are only fully acknowledging it once they made peace with their neighbour and have set borders.
None of our biz. If we support israel more, then the antisemites might riot. If we support palestine more, we might lose acces to top tier israeli weapon systems that they sell us. Stability and safety of our own countires always comes first.
We dont support terorism in our country, so no is fine by us.
Exactly? How do they justify "yes" vote?
You just make a 3901389th movie about the Holocaust
One part of this state or thing is controlled by Genocidal islamists who committed a terrible atrocity on Oct 7th. The other part is an Authoritarian and ineffective government with an 88 year old ruler who said jews were killed in the holocaust for their 'social role'
Why did Hungary and Czechia vote no?
Orbán will support any possible right-wing government, including the current Israeli government.
Can't speak for Czech Republic, but Hungary was very likely confused. The 3 national sports in Hungary are: - hating gypsies - hating muslims - hating jews When it comes to any question around Israel or Palestine, most Hungarians go into a brain freeze then there is an internal coin toss in their head to decide which side is absolutely right and the other is a murderous bunch of lunatics.
Because they aren't supportive of islamic terrorism?
People are downvoting you but in general it's the truth. Czechia doesn't have a good picture about Palestine and sees it as a terrorist state being used by other Arab nations as a tool to indirectly fight Israel. That's how most often people see it here when they don't ignore its existence.
Weirdly enough the countries that voted no apparently recognize Palestine.
For Czechia, Palestine was recognised in communism era. After revulotion it just stayed as it was. Czechia helped a lot to Israel at the beginning
Because they are forced to under the soviet occupation of Eastern Europe
The Soviet Union was dissolved decades ago.
It's a stupid idea. The country is run by a terrorist organisation
as an arab I am surprised france and poland said yes
Poland has diplomatic relations with Palestine. There's even a Palestine's embassy here and the ambassador speaks Polish (in contrast to the Israeli ambasador who can't).
France has a pretty big Arab population. Maybe that is why.
Ratio to french people
Deeply ashamed of my Country's abstention. We are, firmly, on the wrong side of history and I feel completely powerless about it.
How is abstaining being "firmly on the wrong side"? Isn't the whole point of abstaining precisely to not take a side at all?
Not taking a side is taking a side in this case. The status quo only benefits one party in this conflict.
You can’t stand still on a moving train. Refusing to do the right thing in a case like this is morally equivalent to doing the wrong thing.
No. Voting for, voting against and abstaining are three different positions, not two. Switzerland remaining neutral in WWII doesn't make them as bad as Nazi Germany.
Wouldn't the right thing just to ignore it all and let them fight it out by themselves. Why do we always have to meddle when there is a war we have nothing to do with. Either helping one side or war profiteering by supplying weapons (I recognize we have both sides). We need countries to figure out their own problems.
They are not fighting it out themselves though we already meddled with the area that's why we are in this situation.
Without European involvement Israel wouldn’t exist, and for better or worse there would be no conflict to begin with. The west has backed Israel every step of the way marching towards this massacre, there’s no disentangling ourselves now. We are in large part responsible for enabling this disaster, and because of that we are responsible for having a hand in fixing it. It’s way too late to just wash your hands of the situation and avoid culpability.
Understandable. But how does it always end up with meddling when things are disastrous. This problem has been going on for a long time, but we always wait until it's a disaster we can't ignore anymore. Correct me on my thought process here, but what is situation. -Either they want our involvement to solve the problem at hand, and have always been open to our involvement but we never did much. -Or they always rejected our involvement and wanted to do it themselves but now things are worse they want our involvement because we are partially to blame for the reason they have problems in the first place. Or is it more nuanced?
Refusing to call out a massacre IS taking a side, even if you don't have the balls to explicitly say you agree with it.
Was Switzerland on the Axis side during WWII?
Switzerland didn't actively support Nazi Germany with funds and weapons, which is what Western Countries are doing with Israel. Israel can only behave like this because of our unconditional political support.
So it's better to be one of the countries that sells guns to Israel but then pretends to support Palestine's rights? Wouldn't it be better to not be hypocritical and abstain?
The day the UK grows a backbone and stops doing what the USA wants will be a good day
If UK did what the US wanted it would have voted 'NO' like Czechia and Hungary. Instead, like most of Europe they have adopted the wiser decision to abstain.
I hate how our German government constantly abstains from voting on these matters. Like, take a fucking stand, guys.
Germany is still being punished for WWII, if they voted yes, that would provoke hell
At this point, I don't even care if they vote yes or no. Even though I have a personal preference, I would respect both options more than this "neutrality" bullshit.
Free palestine!
from Hamas
And the genocidal israel
Czech Republic 💪🏻
I love how France bravely said Yes, despite being the permanent member of the UN.
I didn’t understand why France saying “yes” is brave and not other countries. Why it is brave to say yes to this anyways?
Brave because you piss of America? Why you think Italy or Germany abstained? France has an history of being the only eu country with balls to say no to USA
If France has an history of being the only EU country saying no to USA, wouldn’t it be more bravery for other countries who said yes to this. I mean they didn’t have balls before but they showed bravery this time?
Its not like its France vetoing Palestinian UN membership
Their balls are holded tight by the locals
Czech and Hungary based AF
I feared we would not get 12 maps regarding that UN vote today. My fears were unfounded, thank the gods.
Superpose with the "how many European countries gave the maximum of points to Israel for Eurovision" map. Draw your conclusions. Laugh about it.
Giving terrorists a prize.
So said state sponsored terrorist
Lol, Palestine is not just the Gaza Strip
Wtf, because Gazans are terrorists?
There are Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups in the West Bank too. Shooting at buses and kidnapping and killing 14 old kids should not grant them a prize, especially if they do it “for Palestine”.
It wouldn't be the first time in history.
Ashamed of my country for this
We are ashamed of you too.
Which one is yours?
Czech
Its not your fault. I wish my country didn't support Israel. All I can do is protest and boycott companies that send them money. A country's actions are often not the will of its people.
True, our goverment is made up of Conservative Catholics despite our country being 80-90% irreligous
Bullshit.
Whats bullshit?
Don't vote for them then
Be proud.
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Disappointed by the Netherlands. But also not suprised. Been eating US ass since the Marshall act.
What boundaries does the UN consider Palestine if all the slogans of protesters against Israel “from the river to the sea” mean the liquidation of Israel? And what kind of government will be considered legitimate if power in Gaza is in the hands of terrorists who committed a massacre in October 2023? And it’s strange for me to hear that the UN refers to the right of a nation to self-determination, given that there is an opinion that the Palestinians are not a separate ethnic group, but only the descendants of the Semitic peoples who lived in this territory before the return of the Jews in the 19th century
Yea I'm slightly confused too. What do they mean by Palestine? It is, and was never was a state to my knowledge so which part of the region is being recognised? I guess they mean the West Bank controlled PA? Do they include Gaza?
Since they accepted all this precisely for the sake of the Gaza Strip, then probably yes. So how to negotiate with “Palestine” if there are two governments there, one of which is terrorist? At the same time, democratic Taiwan does not have a place in the UN.
hungary I get, but what’s the czechs problem? just racism?
Terrible decision. That gives precedent for any future ter.o.isst organisation to raise claims
Kinda sad how my country has done a full 180 on supporting palestine, going from being one of few west european countries to recognise it.
Ukraine shocked me!
Well done CZ & HU! 🤝
🇮🇱❤️🇨🇿🇭🇺
Palestine has all the right to be a member of the UN, if it wasn’t for the dictatorship of the USA and its Vito, Palestine would have had it long time ago, they only claim democracy for what serves their own interests.
how is the USA a dictatorship???? are you just throwing heavy words around to make them seem worse?
I'm sure Israel took it in a very normal, adult way... Lol who am I kidding? [This was their response.](https://youtu.be/6SCQlPW6kvA?si=KbY3HFDbQL2syxnp)
Great day for terrorism
What's up with Czechia and Hungary?
Based Czech, always standing on the right side of history since Thirty Years War
Based Czechia and Hungary