Israel accuse EU of being Impartial....

A

ajapale

Guest
Headline in todays Irish Times...
Israel accuse EU of being Impartial....
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this is very reassuring. However when you read the article it states:
that Israel accuses EU of not being Impartial enough.
Click to expand...
Are there degrees of impartiality? Can the US be more impartial than the EU?
ajapale
 
Hi LOP, good answer but not the one Im looking for!

Google Definitions of impartial on the Web:

showing lack of favoritism; "the cold neutrality of an impartial judge"
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

free from undue bias or preconceived opinions; "an unprejudiced appraisal of the pros and cons"; "the impartial eye of a scientist"
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

Not taking sides. My mother has always tried to be impartial in settling family arguments.
members.tripod.com/~tutor_me/book/glossary.htm

"not partial or biased : treating or affecting all equally"
sonsofliberty.org/wrecking_crew/rushdict.htm

Not favouring one side or the other.
www.assembly.ab.ca/pub/gdbook/glossary.htm
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I propose that its black or white : either you are impartial or your not.

ajapale
 
When has international politics ever been impartial?
 
never. but states often like to think of themselves as impartial.

Britian liked to portray itself as an impartial "honest broker" in the NI conflict when in fact it was a major protagonist in the conflict.

We in Irleand like to style ourselves as "neutal" or "non aligned" when if fact we tend to side with the Christian West against the "Islamic East"

Were fooling ourselves if we allow ourselves to believe that we are impartial.

ajapale
 
"Britian liked to portray itself as an impartial "honest broker" in the NI conflict when in fact it was a major protagonist in the conflict.

We in Irleand like to style ourselves as "neutal" or "non aligned" when if fact we tend to side with the Christian West against the "Islamic East"

Well...may dog strike me down if Britian fancied themselves as impartial in something they started!!!!!!! :\

As for Irish neutrality...I think it's fairly coommon knowledge at this stage that our neutrality is a bit of a joke. However...I don't think it's fair to say we align ourselves with the "the Christian West against the "Islamic East"". Economics has far more to do with letting the US use us as a stop-over rather than religion.
 
You're dead right piggy, how can we maintain that our neutrality is protected when we mandate the UN to act for us. If we vote for a resolution such as the UN's military action in the Balkans then we lose our neutrality, if we say that we wanted the UN to mandate the war in Iraq the same applies.
We weren't neutral in the second world war although political expediency allowed us to assist the British without becoming a target (intentional) for the German bombers.
As regards "aligning ourselves with the Christian West against Islam", this is clearly wrong. We're aligning ourselves with western (and far eastern) economic and cultural policy. We believe in western culture and as such have difficulty sympathising with that of the middle east, much of which we spent the last 2 centuries gradually abolishing in our own society. We practice capitalist economics and recognise that the greatest threat to this is the loss of control over the world's oil reserves. The current conflict is no more about religion than the crusades were, its about controlling the balance of economic power.
 
Impartiality

This has degenerated into a political slanging match attracting such political degenerates as piggy. ;)

I am taking up the much more uplifting intellectual debate "are there degrees of impartiality?". The answer is no, "im" means not. So just as there are not degrees of "impossibility" neither are there degrees of "impartiality".

Now "un" is a different matter, there are for example degrees of "unhappiness".:hat
 
Speaking purely as a political degenerate :) while I agree with most of what you're saying I would disgaree with..."We practice capitalist economics and recognise that the greatest threat to this is the loss of control over the world's oil reserves" where our neutrality is concerned. The US has a large hold over our economic environment and to disallow them access to Shannon would have been politically bad for us. Although, of course, I was against it...but this debate isn't about that.
 
true, return to the original question I'd say that there are degrees or impartiality, not by definition but by practice.
If impartiality means not being biased then examples of different levels of impartiality exist everywhere in daily life.
If I witness a minor car accident between 2 people I don't know I can be considered an impartial witness. Again, if I'm asked my opinion on the quality of 2 similar products and I'm not in any way associated with either I can again be considered impartial. However the degree of my impartiality differs between the two scenarios based on my social background, education, previous experiences etc.
So as I say, you can maintain that by definition there is no variation in impartiality but real life is never black or white and it is entirely fair to claim that the EU exercises a different degree of impartiality to its dealings with Israel than its dealings with Iraq for example.
 
This is my European Union of whatever.

EU impartial and Ireland Neutral?
Ah, whatever.
 
other question:

Is there a quality standard in journalism?
 
Re: other question:

There are not degrees of Impartiality.

But there are degrees of open mindedness and degrees of prejudice. You are impartial on an issue if your mind is EQUALLY open to both sides, and your prejudices if any are EQUALLY distributed.

Once you deviate even a little you become Partial, by definition.

In practice people/government who claim to be impartial are actually partial, but by keeping their mind open a tiny bit to the side they are not partial to they claim to be impartial.

-Rd
 
being pedantic

no, to agree with Teacher, there are no degrees of IMpartiality - it's an absolute.

But there are degrees of partiality!
 
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