[quote=@POOHEAD189]
The Israel vs. Palestine debate is something I'm not too familiar with, at least for awhile, so I can't really comment. But I just read the top article. It's very contentious stuff, though it would be easy to look at it as the U.S. wanting out because they owe money, and don't feel like developing countries deserve their funding. 
[/quote]

I'm probably jumping off again on a random insignificant word choice here, but.... Why would developing countries "deserve" our money anyway? I don't even like paying taxes to my [i]local[/i] government. 

Anywho.

To me, there are two reasonable positions on Israel v. Palestine. The first is that Israel has every right to protect itself, and until there's real actual progress on [i]not randomly firing rockets into Jerusalem,[/i] shitty solutions like occupying the West Bank are justified. That's reasonable to me. The other reasonable position is that both Israel and Palestine are being shitty in equal measures, there's no "good guy," and the U.S. should back Israel only as far as its alliance can be considered prosperous. That, too, is a reasonable assessment in my book. What's [b]unreasonable[/b] to me, and this is just how I see it.... it's unreasonable to say that the PLO and Hezbollah and all their terror-buddies are the "good guys" in the story, and that if we're gonna back anybody at all we should really be on THEIR side. That, to me, is crap. But where I see some truth in A and B, UNESCO's actions are between B and C. In an effort, I think, to advance a cause of peace -- the best of intentions -- it's just, ya know, I'm perfectly fine withdrawing from a group that says "Gosh, know who we should be listening to? [url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-said-enraged-by-kushner-meet-refuses-to-cut-any-prisoner-salaries/]Mahmoud Abbas[/url]." [url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/unesco-votes-to-admit-palestine-over-us-objections/2011/10/31/gIQAMleYZM_story.html]Obama (reluctantly) cut that shit off[/url] and I thank him for it.