THBT Palestine Should be Considered a State
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 2 votes and with 9 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 4
- Time for argument
- Two weeks
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Con: Palestine should NOT be considered a state
Pro: Palestine should be considered a state
Burden of proof is shared
State: "A state is a polity under a system of governance with a monopoly on force. There is no undisputed definition of a state.[1][2] A widely used definition from the German sociologist Max Weber is that a "state" is a polity that maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, although other definitions are not uncommon.[3][4] A state is not synonymous with a government as stateless governments like the Iroquois Confederacy exist.[5]" -- Wikipedia
We will debate over which term of State is acceptable, and whether Palestine fits that definition.
"Palestine, area of the eastern Mediterranean region, comprising parts of modern Israel and the Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank . Both the geographic area designated by the name and the political status of it have changed over the course of some three millennia. The region (or at least a part of it) is also known as the Holy Land and is held sacred among Jews, Christians, and Muslims." [BRITANNICA]
- Is officially recognized as a de jure state by the UN, 138 UN members and other entities
- Is a member of the Arab league and other international arab bodies
- Is recognized as sovereign by the UN, and been granted status of observational state (and its declaration of indepence has been recognized by the UN)
- The name "the state of Palestine" has been accepted as the standard name for the entity withing the UN -- meaning the UN supports the statehood of palestine
- It has a functional government with multiple branches, diplomatic relations with other nations, and even have foreign embasies
- It also has its own Monetary Authority
The State of Palestine has a number of security forces, including a Civil Police Force, National Security Forces and Intelligencce Service, with the function of maintainging security and protecting Palestinian citizens and the Palestinian State." [ibid].
- political organization of society, or, more narrowly, the institutions of government.
- (Britannica)
- A country or its government
- A part of a country with its own government
- A country with its own government
- The government of a country
- (Cambridge)
This debate has curious interrupts to judging a straight-forward debate that is only slightly marred by Pro's confusion regarding which role Pro should play. The roles are very clearly defined by Con and should have been recognized by Pro upon acceptance of the debate.
However, Con complicated the debate by forfeit of half the rounds, and providing argument in only the third round, thus losing the debate by de facto forfeit.
Argument. The fact is, Con's R3 did, in fact, present nearly sufficient argument to deny the Resolution that Palestine deserves consideration as a state, but the argument fails by lack of any demonstration why this is so. There are, in fact, sufficient arguments against the alleged de facto statehood of Palestine, but Con does not bring them, let alone cite them. Pro wins the points be default for having a structured argument as well as Con's failure of sufficient arguement and de facto forfeiture.
Sourcing: Con offered no sources at all. Pro offered sufficient sources, such as by UN designation. Con could have argued against this notion, with sufficient evidence to support that the UN recognition fails to satisfy statehood recognition, but Von did not bring it. points to Pro.
Legibility: Pro loses by failure to understand the proper assigned roles, making his entire first round incongruent to the Description.
Conduct. Pro wins by entry of argument in all rounds, although they were incongruent in R1.
Con only offered arguments in 1 of 4 rounds. That said, he could have gone somewhere good with the danger factors and the SHOULD in the resolution, but he needed follow up.
Pro on the other hand, in addition to being able to switch gears so well, made a case that it both is a state and with a well worked appeal to authority of the United Nations, that it should be recognized as a state.
At least define what a state is. I mean, a US state is still a politically-defined piece of land.
It's OK, I won't be making good arguments either
I want both Israel and Palestine to join NATO. Then they would stop fighting each other.
I’ve been really busy these days. Can we tie and/or delete this debate? I’m not sure I’m able to produce good arguments
Sorry for the semantical approach i took. You asked for it though, and I can't continue losing to you for all eternity.
I'm having flashbacks of my "military is the most important agency" debate.
Its ok
sorry, I got too busy
Undefeatable
I know this is taken, but to clarif, I am Con also.
Yeah, this should be a good debate. However, I totally disagree with both definitions of 'state,' and not only because of my well-known disgust with Wiki. While you do acknowledge that no definition is undisputed, I do not see a state as necessarily an enforcer, nor as a nebulous sovereignty of land, either.
"We will debate over which term of State is acceptable, and whether Palestine fits that definition."
Maybe a better resolution would be "Palestine is a state".
You guys seem pretty good at semantic debates. There's a bit of policy involved here, but that's probably only half the fight.