Quote:
Originally Posted by Michaelangelica
At one stage it was suggested that Israel be located in Western Australia.
I wonder how different the world would have been if that had happened?
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I don't think many Jews could have become passionate about a homeland other than Israel, and there would be no fundamentalist Christian Zionist if the homeland of Jews were not Israel. The religious influence on present wars would not be what it is.
The other day I came across some interesting information about the languages the UN uses. Arabic wasn't recognized as a language in the UN unitl 1973. I think that indicates who much the Arabs were respected when the UN decided to recognize Israel. The Persian language is not recognized by the UN and Iran is Persian not Arab. The Kurdish language is not recognized, so how much chance do they have in arguing their case?
I think we have an international problem that needs addressing, differently than the way Bush and Cheney are going about it.
Wikipedia quote:
Quote:
The six official languages of the United Nations, used in intergovernmental meetings and documents, are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.[9][10] The Secretariat uses two working languages, British English and French.
Five of the official languages were chosen when the UN was founded (the languages of the permanent members of the Security Council, plus Spanish, which was the official language of the largest number of nations at the time). Arabic was added in 1973; the number of Arabic-speaking member states had increased substantially since 1945, and the 1973 oil crisis provided the catalyst for the addition. A "documentary language" status was granted for use of the German language in 1974, allowing for translation of important documents (funded, however, by the German-speaking member countries).[11]
The UN standard for English language documents (United Nations Editorial Manual) follows British usage and Oxford spelling (en-gb-oed). The UN standard for Chinese (Standard Mandarin) changed when the Republic of China (Taiwan) was succeeded by the People's Republic of China in 1971. From 1945 until 1971 traditional characters were used, and since 1972 simplified characters have been used.
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