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Hi guys,

Was having a chat in the pub with a mate and he said that Israel and Taiwan are not recognised as countries...

Its the first time I have had a WTF moment in 2011 and I did not honestly know if he was joking or being serious... (we were in a PUB ) Yet, said friend is also my former Business Strategy lecturer from my Masters Degree...

His explanation was that Israel is not a recognised country, but a political ideal... (his explanation was also more inflammatory than I can post here)

While Taiwan is an economy, yet not officially recognised as a country either, as the land still belongs to Republic of China.

Wiki describes them as:

Israel: officially the STATE OF ISRAEL, is a parliamentary republic in Western Asia, located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area.[6][7] Israel is the world's only Jewish-majority state,[8] and is defined as "a Jewish and democratic state" by Israeli constitutional law...

Taiwan: Taiwan (i /ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ TY-WAHN),[5] also known, especially in the past, as Formosa (from Portuguese: Ilha Formosa, "Beautiful Island"), is an island situated in East Asia in the Western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. It comprises 99% of the territory of the Republic of China (ROC) since the 1950s; therefore, the term "Taiwan" is also a common name to refer to the Republic of China itself...

I couldnt trust Wiki 100%, so I thought I would bring it up here and see if anyone could enlighten me further...

It is a country. Just because it is called "The State of" does not mean it isn't. In the same way that "The United States of America" is a country.

Just go onto wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel

Numerous references to Isreal being a country.

In 1948, the country was formally named Medinat Yisrael, or the State of Israel, after other proposed historical and religious names including Eretz Israel ("the Land of Israel"), Zion, and Judea, were considered and rejected.[28] In the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term "Israeli" to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett.[29]


Regards Taiwan:

ROC =/= PRC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China

The PRC does not recognize the legitimacy of the ROC and claims Taiwan and other ROC-held areas as a part of the PRC's territory, despite never having controlled them.

Israel is a country. It's recognised as such by its seat in the United Nations General Assembly, where it sits snugly between Ireland and Italy.

Taiwan is a different, and weirder proposition. It used to have UN membership, in fact it used to be a permanent security council member and have veto power, as the ruling KMT government was the government of China when the UN was first established, before they fled following defeat by the communists. This lasted until the 70s, when the US attempted outreach to China, and finally recognised them as the proper government. Since then Taiwan has had no formal recognition in the UN.

Taiwain is it's own country in that it's independent of China and every other country, and undertakes trade and other negotiations on its own behalf, but it isn't a country in that the rest of the world doesn't really see it as such, the US for instance recognises it as a province of China.

It gets even more confusing when you consider one of the two major parties in Taiwan considers Taiwan part of China. It gets just plain weird when that party goes on to declare that they're nost just part of China, they're actually the rightful government of all of China.

sebster wrote:Israel is a country. It's recognised as such by its seat in the United Nations General Assembly, where it sits snugly between Ireland and Italy.

Taiwan is a different, and weirder proposition. It used to have UN membership, in fact it used to be a permanent security council member and have veto power, as the ruling KMT government was the government of China when the UN was first established, before they fled following defeat by the communists. This lasted until the 70s, when the US attempted outreach to China, and finally recognised them as the proper government. Since then Taiwan has had no formal recognition in the UN.

Taiwain is it's own country in that it's independent of China and every other country, and undertakes trade and other negotiations on its own behalf, but it isn't a country in that the rest of the world doesn't really see it as such, the US for instance recognises it as a province of China.

It gets even more confusing when you consider one of the two major parties in Taiwan considers Taiwan part of China. It gets just plain weird when that party goes on to declare that they're nost just part of China, they're actually the rightful government of all of China.

I wouldn't say the claim itself was wierd given the history behind it, but the fact that they are still making it is.

Also, I noticed that Wiki didn't make a real mention of Palestine (as a bordering country) when talking about Israel.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

I wouldn't say the claim itself was wierd given the history behind it, but the fact that they are still making it is.

Also, I noticed that Wiki didn't make a real mention of Palestine (as a bordering country) when talking about Israel.

Israel does not like to recognise Palestine - Israel is essentially an occupied region of Palestine.

The founding of the nation of Israel was and still is extremely controversial. Nationalist Palestinians will say that Israel is not a legitimate country, and Nationalist Israelis will claim the same thing in reverse. Israel is accepted as legitimate by much of the global community despite their ironically fascist nationality laws.

Yes, what I wasn't aware of was the fact that Palestine isn't even mentioned at all. And now I can't find it on the more up-to-date world maps. I was aware of the dispute, I didn't know that the Global Community had erased Palestine off the map.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Yes, what I wasn't aware of was the fact that Palestine isn't even mentioned at all. And now I can't find it on the more up-to-date world maps. I was aware of the dispute, I didn't know that the Global Community had erased Palestine off the map.

If you want to hear about erasing countries off the map... while my parents were working as teachers in the UAE in the mid 80's, schools were being told to cut Isreal out of shipments of inflatable globes

SilverMK2 wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:Yes, what I wasn't aware of was the fact that Palestine isn't even mentioned at all. And now I can't find it on the more up-to-date world maps. I was aware of the dispute, I didn't know that the Global Community had erased Palestine off the map.

If you want to hear about erasing countries off the map... while my parents were working as teachers in the UAE in the mid 80's, schools were being told to cut Isreal out of shipments of inflatable globes

Interesting...

Why is Israel so important to the USA?

Zionism? In summary: put all the Jews in a basket and watch Jesus come back and send them all to Gehenna for crucifying him. When he's back there will be the rapture where only god-fearing christians will survive and the world will be plunged into strife until the final victory of Christ...

/sarcasm

AvatarForm wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:Yes, what I wasn't aware of was the fact that Palestine isn't even mentioned at all. And now I can't find it on the more up-to-date world maps. I was aware of the dispute, I didn't know that the Global Community had erased Palestine off the map.

If you want to hear about erasing countries off the map... while my parents were working as teachers in the UAE in the mid 80's, schools were being told to cut Isreal out of shipments of inflatable globes

Interesting...

Why is Israel so important to the USA?

Following World War 2 it was an important factor in the Middle East - indeed, had Israel not been founded (by Western influence, as it was) the US would have very little influence in the region whatsoever!

Phototoxin wrote:Zionism? In summary: put all the Jews in a basket and watch Jesus come back and send them all to Gehenna for crucifying him. When he's back there will be the rapture where only god-fearing christians will survive and the world will be plunged into strife until the final victory of Christ...

/sarcasm

It suddenly becomes clear...

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Following World War 2 it was an important factor in the Middle East - indeed, had Israel not been founded (by Western influence, as it was) the US would have very little influence in the region whatsoever!

Though if we/the US had played nice with the Middle Eastern countries, we may have developed ties with them, leading to long term peace.

But who knows

'Playing nice' was not an alternative to 'playing nasty'. The region was not considered a political opponent so much as a tabletop for the staging of real-life wargames.

Oh, I'm not disagreeing, trust me. Just pointing out that if the West had seen the disruption that would come from pretty much dismissing the Middle East and doing what it wanted with it we might well be living in far more peaceful times

Israel is widely considered to be a nation-state, and the state part is undoubtedly recognized by the majority of the world. While its founidng remains shrouded in controversey, Israel is de facto and de jure an independent state. It posesses all the requirements to be a country, just some extremists refuse to recognize it.

Taiwan is a much more interesting study, as it is de facto independent, but not de jure. The island of Formosa officially belongs to the Republic of China, which claims to represent all of China, however ever since the end of the Chinese civil war, the RoC has not had a presence on the mainland, which is controlled by the People's Republic of China, which also claims Taiwan as a 'wayward' province. In the early days, most of the world continued to recognize the RoC as 'China', but with the PRCs increasing economic status in the world, most states switched recognition to the PRC, so they could trade with them. However, Taiwan still answers to the RoC not the PRC. There has been talk of reunification, but so far it seems like the two have leaned to live with each other and not rock the boat. The PRC had what it wants--recognition of its control over China, not to mention all the money from trade--and the RoC has what it wants--de facto independence and security from the PRC. They continue to make claims, but both realize its safer to not act on them.

As for the question of the Middle East....well, you can't say the Brits and French did much better! That whole Suez Crisis thing, y'know. I would disagree with saying that the West would have 0 influence on the Middle East if there was no Israel. The West still buys enormous amounts of oil from states like Saudi Arabia, and we'd wield SOME influence through them, just not as much as we get through Israel.

But yeah....the Cold War both sides used the Middle East as a military proving ground. The Soviets gave the Arabs SAMs to test out against the Israeli's American fighter jets, and the Americans gave the Israeli's jets to test out against Soviet AA defense, and Soviet made fighters. Just another one of the many hot wars that grew up laong the periphery of the Cold War struggle.

You're right - the Brits themselves had far more to do with the founding of Israel than the US, although more recently Jewish sentiment in the US has led to far stronger ties.

No one can deny that Israel is definitively a country, but just as Jews refer to themselves as a 'race', the legitimacy of the claim itself is the problem. Classification has little bearing on the actual identity of a thing - for example, to claim that 'all Israelis are fascists' simply because that is the nature of their nationality act is completely erroneous.
Likewise, to label all who argue against the legitimacy of Israel as a nation as 'extremists' shows little merit...

ChrisWWII wrote:Israel is widely considered to be a nation-state, and the state part is undoubtedly recognized by the majority of the world. While its founidng remains shrouded in controversey, Israel is de facto and de jure an independent state. It posesses all the requirements to be a country, just some extremists refuse to recognize it.

To be fair, it is also the political ideal of Zionism; though in that sense it extends beyond the present, official borders of the current state.

ChrisWWII wrote:Israel is widely considered to be a nation-state, and the state part is undoubtedly recognized by the majority of the world. While its founidng remains shrouded in controversey, Israel is de facto and de jure an independent state. It posesses all the requirements to be a country, just some extremists refuse to recognize it.

Taiwan is a much more interesting study, as it is de facto independent, but not de jure. The island of Formosa officially belongs to the Republic of China, which claims to represent all of China, however ever since the end of the Chinese civil war, the RoC has not had a presence on the mainland, which is controlled by the People's Republic of China, which also claims Taiwan as a 'wayward' province. In the early days, most of the world continued to recognize the RoC as 'China', but with the PRCs increasing economic status in the world, most states switched recognition to the PRC, so they could trade with them. However, Taiwan still answers to the RoC not the PRC. There has been talk of reunification, but so far it seems like the two have leaned to live with each other and not rock the boat. The PRC had what it wants--recognition of its control over China, not to mention all the money from trade--and the RoC has what it wants--de facto independence and security from the PRC. They continue to make claims, but both realize its safer to not act on them.

As for the question of the Middle East....well, you can't say the Brits and French did much better! That whole Suez Crisis thing, y'know. I would disagree with saying that the West would have 0 influence on the Middle East if there was no Israel. The West still buys enormous amounts of oil from states like Saudi Arabia, and we'd wield SOME influence through them, just not as much as we get through Israel.

But yeah....the Cold War both sides used the Middle East as a military proving ground. The Soviets gave the Arabs SAMs to test out against the Israeli's American fighter jets, and the Americans gave the Israeli's jets to test out against Soviet AA defense, and Soviet made fighters. Just another one of the many hot wars that grew up laong the periphery of the Cold War struggle.

Can you explain 'de facto' and 'de jure' in the context you are using them in please?

Emperors Faithful wrote:Yes, what I wasn't aware of was the fact that Palestine isn't even mentioned at all. And now I can't find it on the more up-to-date world maps. I was aware of the dispute, I didn't know that the Global Community had erased Palestine off the map.

That's because there never really was or is a "Palestine." The West Bank may be the land of Palestine, but not really, because it's under Israeli control and Jordan (who never really had 'title' to the land in the first place) surrendered the land to Palestine.

But the PLO claims the entire state of Israel as Palestine: "Palestine with its boundaries that existed at the time of the British mandate is an integral regional unit."

I take the position that Palestine isn't a state because:
(1) When the Mandate was created, the UK didn't designate ownership of the West Bank.
(2) Israel didn't specifically claim ownership, but also didn't disclaim ownership, in '49.
(3) Jordan captured the area in '49.
(4) Israel captured the area in '67.
(5) Jordan tried to give the area (still under Israeli control) to the PLO in '88.

(6) If Israel's conquest of the area in '67 wasn't legitimate, then neither was Jordan's.
(7) The Arabs didn't want to follow the British Mandate, so why should Israel be forced to follow it?

and finally:
(8) Most of the countries of the world were created based on the right of conquest. Why punish Israel/Jordan for being late to the party?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AvatarForm wrote:Can you explain 'de facto' and 'de jure' in the context you are using them in please?

de facto means "as a matter of fact."
de jure means "as a matter of law."

Pot possession in California is not allowed de jure (federal law), but is de facto allowed (non-enforcement of that law).

biicat got it right. de facto is what the situation really is, de jure is what the situation is by law. So, de jure Taiwan is part of China, but de facto it's independent.

Common sense dictates to me that there is no right or wrong answer. We just divided up the land and wrote lines on it and decided what ended there. Who says exactly where Germany starts and France ends? Or any nation for that matter?

Its simply down to the decision of the masses, so there is no right answer in my eyes. Isreal is most defintely a nation in the eyes of the international community, but there are people in every nation on earth that will say otherwise. Same goes for Taiwan, the people who live there feel extremely strongly on this issue, who decides who is right?

Its down to personal taste, Israel is a legitimate nation in my eyes, i doubt you could convince many muslims otherwise though, and whos to say who is right or wrong? The UN? Are they the ultimate authority?

Im pro Israel so i say it is, but i wont argue with anyone who says otherwise, they have reason to complain!

mattyrm wrote:Who says exactly where Germany starts and France ends?

Well, a big line of bunkers with guns pointing the wrong way used to say where Germany ended and France began

biccat wrote:
But the PLO claims the entire state of Israel as Palestine: "Palestine with its boundaries that existed at the time of the British mandate is an integral regional unit."

That's no longer true. Arafat nullified all language in the charter which failed to recognize Israel, and its right to exist, in a '98 letter to Clinton. As of 2001 there is a draft constitution that's basically floating around waiting for approval pending internal conflicts regarding Fatah's relevance. Certainly there are people in the PLO that don't regard Arafat's changes favorably, but the official position is no longer what's written in the Covenant.

biccat wrote:
(8) Most of the countries of the world were created based on the right of conquest. Why punish Israel/Jordan for being late to the party?

Most Palestinian organizations no longer claim that Palestine is a state, instead referring to it as a nation, or people. Either way, sovereign recognition isn't really about fairness, its about achieving political goals. The whole PRC/RoC is a great example of this.

mattyrm wrote:Common sense dictates to me that there is no right or wrong answer. We just divided up the land and wrote lines on it and decided what ended there. Who says exactly where Germany starts and France ends? Or any nation for that matter?

Well, Germany and France fought a lot of wars over that very question. A lot of nations fought wars over that question, and in the end they negotiated a treaty which said 'THIS is the line between us'. And that's how international borders are formed. In some places, the borders are old natural barriers that were used as convenient lines in the sand. So yes..... We do still have problems with this, especially in more remote areas of the world. The border clashes between the Soviets and Chinese, and the Indo-Pakistani wars are evidence of this.

Its simply down to the decision of the masses, so there is no right answer in my eyes. Isreal is most defintely a nation in the eyes of the international community, but there are people in every nation on earth that will say otherwise. Same goes for Taiwan, the people who live there feel extremely strongly on this issue, who decides who is right?

In a sense you're right, to be recognized as a state, the government needs both internal and external sovereignty. Internal means that the people within the territory accept them as the one government. They will listen to what the government says, and will cooperate with it. External is that other states around the world recognized the government as having control over its territory. To use a hypothetical example, imagine a group of people known as the Absurdi. The Absurdi live on a territory that is de jure controlled by the state of Nonsenseistan. The Absurdi, however want their own nation. They want a free and independent Absurdistan. So the Absurdi gather, and declare and form their own government, distinct from Nonsenseistan.

If the Absurdi begin to recognize the Absurdistan government as the governing body of the people, then Absurdistan has gained interanl sovereignty. It's people recognize the state as their governing body, however Nonsenseistan and most other countries, refuse to accept that the Absurdistan goernment is in control. The world continues to deal with the Absurdi through Nonsenseistan, not their proclaimed state of Absurdistan. So, Absurdistan lacks external sovereignty.

With the case of Israel and Taiwan, both 'countries' posess both external and internal sovereingty, the people in Taiwan look to Taipei as their government, not Beijing. In the same sense, people deal with the Israeli people through the Israeli government, and nations don't go talk to Beijing if theyhave a problem with Taiwan, they talk to Taipei.

So yeah, it is all a matter of what the politcal leaders think, however facts on the ground often shape their policy. To go back to a slightly changed form of the Absurdistan example, if the United States has a problem with Absurdistan, which we'll assume has de facto control over its territory, it has two options. It can try to talk to Nonsenseistan, but that will accomplish nothing, as Nonsenseistan no longer has any real power over Absurdistan. So, even if the majority of the people in the government don't want to believe that Absurdistan is a new nation, the United States is forced to deal with the Absurdistan governemnt, thanks to the actual situation on the ground.

dogma wrote:That's no longer true. Arafat nullified all language in the charter which failed to recognize Israel, and its right to exist, in a '98 letter to Clinton. As of 2001 there is a draft constitution that's basically floating around waiting for approval pending internal conflicts regarding Fatah's relevance. Certainly there are people in the PLO that don't regard Arafat's changes favorably, but the official position is no longer what's written in the Covenant.

If he really had such authority, he also made a statement that the Charter was void, "C'est caduc."

The issue was that, at the time of the Palestine Charter (the founding document of the Palestine State), the charter claimed land that it had no authority to claim, either in the West Bank or Israel.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
(8) Most of the countries of the world were created based on the right of conquest. Why punish Israel/Jordan for being late to the party?

Most Palestinian organizations no longer claim that Palestine is a state, instead referring to it as a nation, or people. Either way, sovereign recognition isn't really about fairness, its about achieving political goals. The whole PRC/RoC is a great example of this.

Well then can we get rid of the idea of a "Palestine State"? Also, the "Palestinian people" is a pretty recent innovation as well, at least as a political body.

But you're right, it's about political goals. And the goal of many Arabic nations is the weakening of the State of Israel.

biccat wrote:
If he really had such authority, he also made a statement that the Charter was void, "C'est caduc."

Sure, but my point is that the PLO, and really all Palestinian organizations (except Hamas), aren't the sort of things that you can talk about as collectively saying X.

biccat wrote:
The issue was that, at the time of the Palestine Charter (the founding document of the Palestine State), the charter claimed land that it had no authority to claim, either in the West Bank or Israel.

The Covenant is one of two founding documents of the PLO, it isn't really about the foundation of a Palestinian state except in the sense that such is the PLO's goal.

biccat wrote:
Well then can we get rid of the idea of a "Palestine State"?

No, because the political goal of the Palestinian nation, or Palestinian people, is almost always stated as the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Then there's the matter of Israel treating the OT as a mixture of actual foreign occupied territory, and the future full territory of Israel; which necessarily complicates things.

Palestine isn't a state, sure, but it also isn't just unremarkable territory. It gets called a state because its easier, and because a lot of people want it to be exactly that.

biccat wrote:
Also, the "Palestinian people" is a pretty recent innovation as well, at least as a political body.

Sure, but so are all the other political organizations in the Middle East.

biccat wrote:
But you're right, it's about political goals. And the goal of many Arabic nations is the weakening of the State of Israel.

Are you using nation in the formal sense, or the colloquial sense? If its the former, then I contend that such nations are incapable of having goals.

Moreover, I'm curious as to which Arabic nations are trying to weaken Israel. Saudi Arabia is the only one that immediately comes to mind, and that's more a matter of popular desire than state policy. I guess you could also count Lebanon, but that's almost as complicated as the OT.

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:
But you're right, it's about political goals. And the goal of many Arabic nations is the weakening of the State of Israel.

Are you using nation in the formal sense, or the colloquial sense? If its the former, then I contend that such nations are incapable of having goals.

Well, I disagree. It was certainly the goal of the United States to weaken or overcome the Soviet Union. It was the goal of the USSR to spread communism. It was the goal of the British Empire to expand their holdings throughout the world.

If nations can't have goals like the weakening of a neighboring state, what goals can they have? Or are you suggesting that there's no national responsibility for inhumane acts (which I could understand and seemed to be the point of the Nuremburg trials) or acts of war (which seems inconsistent with post-war treatment of vanquished nations, particularly Germany and Japan, but not Italy).

dogma wrote:Moreover, I'm curious as to which Arabic nations are trying to weaken Israel. Saudi Arabia is the only one that immediately comes to mind, and that's more a matter of popular desire than state policy. I guess you could also count Lebanon, but that's almost as complicated as the OT.

Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and until fairly recently, Iraq. Jordan and Egypt, until relatively recently, were very anti-Israel, even going so far as to declare war on her.

AvatarForm wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:Yes, what I wasn't aware of was the fact that Palestine isn't even mentioned at all. And now I can't find it on the more up-to-date world maps. I was aware of the dispute, I didn't know that the Global Community had erased Palestine off the map.

If you want to hear about erasing countries off the map... while my parents were working as teachers in the UAE in the mid 80's, schools were being told to cut Isreal out of shipments of inflatable globes

Interesting...

Why is Israel so important to the USA?

It is the world's leading producer of zinc. He who controls the Zinc controls the Universe!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SilverMK2 wrote:

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Following World War 2 it was an important factor in the Middle East - indeed, had Israel not been founded (by Western influence, as it was) the US would have very little influence in the region whatsoever!

Though if we/the US had played nice with the Middle Eastern countries, we may have developed ties with them, leading to long term peace.

But who knows

We did. But the distatorships need something to focus their people on externally to keep their populations from rising up against them. Worked pretty well until recently...

biccat wrote:Well, I disagree. It was certainly the goal of the United States to weaken or overcome the Soviet Union.

No it wasn't. It was the goal of the ruling political party to do that. Same with the other examples.

Ruling political party != the entire nation.

On the positive that whole Libya thing is apparently the fault of the evil Zionists. Glad that got sorted out.

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=210444