Abbas will go to UNSC, US will veto, Israel will pay

September 17th, 2011


Yesterday, Mahmoud Abbas explained what he expects to get from the UN:

“We are going to the United Nations to request our legitimate right, obtaining full membership for Palestine in this organization,” Abbas said in a televised speech, indicating he would seek a vote on the issue in the UN Security Council…

“If we succeed, and this is what we are working towards, then we must know that the day following the recognition of the state, the occupation will not end,” Abbas said.

“But we will have obtained the world’s recognition that our state is occupied and that our land is occupied and not disputed territory, as the Israeli government claims,” he said.

He added that the move is not intended to isolate Israel or delegitimize its legal status. “Israel is there, no one can isolate or take away its legal status, but we need to isolate the policies of Israel. We need to put an end to the occupation and take away the legal status of the occupation.”

The PA president said that recognition of statehood with pre-1967 borders is necessary for renewed negotiations with Israel. “We need to have full [UN] membership within [pre-1967] borders in order to go to negotiations on a basis adopted by the world so that we may discuss the permanent issues of Jerusalem, borders, refugees – and our prisoners in Israeli prisons.”

For once, he’s telling the truth. Although they don’t like to admit it, and no matter how often their friends in the media say “settlements are illegal under international law,” the Palestinians realize that in fact the territories are at most ‘disputed’, and Jewish settlements east of the Green Line legal (see scholar Howard Grief’s arguments for Israel’s legal title to all of the area of the mandate here).

Abbas believes that a Security Council resolution that recognizes a state of ‘Palestine’ in the territories will overcome the precedents set by

the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920, the Mandate for Palestine conferred on Britain by the Principal Allied Powers and confirmed by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922, and the Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920 [Grief]

as well as UNSC resolutions 242 and 338, which state that the disposition of the territories captured in 1967 shall be determined by the agreement of all of the parties (and not imposed by the UN), and of course the Oslo accords which reaffirmed that principle.

All of this, he hopes, will disappear. But statehood will not confer any responsibilities on the Palestinians, such as to feed their own people or resettle any of the Arab refugees (except in Israel).

A PLO official remarked that statehood would not affect the right of refugees to return to their ‘original homes’ in Israel. Indeed, it will not affect the status of any Palestinian ‘refugees’, not even the ones within the PA.  They will remain in refugee camps, supported by the UN (mainly with US money) until they can be mobilized to overrun Israel and turn it into West Palestine!

The arrogance is remarkable, considering that the Palestinians have no economy, have created no real institutions, do not have a unified leadership, and have proudly announced that they plan to create an apartheid state which will engage in ethnic cleansing of its Jewish inhabitants. But none of this seems to matter.

The PA — and this doesn’t include payments to the UN refugee organization, UNRWA — receives half  a billion dollars a year of US taxpayer funds, plus millions more from the EU. US instructors train its army, which is armed with US weapons. Much of the money is paid to PA officials in Gaza, which is under Hamas control. Without this international dole, there would be no PA.

They are asking the UN for statehood while Hamas — an explicitly racist group which espouses genocide against the Jewish population of Israel, which is holding a kidnapped Israeli incommunicado in violation of international law, and which continues to fire rockets at random against a civilian population (a war crime) — is officially part of the PA.

All of this is justified by an invented, inverted historical narrative, and — in the case of Hamas — a radical Islamist ideology.

The only thing preventing the passage of such a resolution is a threatened US veto. Abbas claims that a veto would “destroy the two-state solution.” In Abbas-speak, a “two-state solution” does not mean a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish one. It means that there will be a Palestinian state where Jews are forbidden to live, and an ‘Israel’ where 4.5 million Arab ‘refugees’ will have the right to join the existing Arab minority to create another Arab state. So according to this definition, he is correct.

Direct negotiations with Israel could have given the Palestinians a state in the territories with generous borders and serious concessions on Jerusalem. But it could not, ever, give them a right of return for refugees because no imaginable Israeli government would commit suicide.

It’s also the case that any bilateral agreement would have to include recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people, and a statement that the Palestinians have no further claims, territorial or otherwise, against Israel.  These conditions would not be acceptable to the Arabs for obvious reasons. It is not “Israeli intransigence” or construction within settlements that has prevented a bilateral agreement. It is simply that Israel won’t negotiate itself out of existence.

The Obama Administration has promised to veto the Palestinian proposal in the Security Council. Most analysts believe that it will do so. Polls show that most Americans support Israel. It is already becoming a partisan issue, with Republicans increasingly staking out pro-Israel positions. Can you imagine what would happen if Obama became the first president in history to permit an anti-Israel resolution to pass in the Security Council?

But in my opinion, the President and his advisers are a slim reed to lean on. And supposing that there is a veto, what will Israel have to pay to get it?

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Palestine no refuge for Palestinians

September 15th, 2011
Jewish refugees, Czechoslovakia, 1946. Israel made room for them.

Jewish refugees, Czechoslovakia, 1946. Israel made room for them.

The very first thing Israel did as a state was to do its absolute best to bring Jewish refugees everywhere home.

European refugees from the Holocaust, Jews expelled from Arab countries with little more than the clothes on their backs, Jews in danger in Ethiopia — every Jew who needed a home was given one, despite the enormous cost, the lack of food and housing, and the precarious existence of the Jewish state.

Now that the Palestinian Arabs are, or think they are, on the verge of statehood, what do they plan to do for the 4.5 million or so people who claim Palestinian refugee status?

After all, statehood is supposed to provide a solution for the “plight of the Palestinians” and part of their plight has always been said to be the horrible circumstances of the ‘refugees.’ So surely one would expect that a top priority for the new state of ‘Palestine’ would be to help these people: give them citizenship, homes, education, jobs, etc. Get them out of camps and help restore their self-respect.

But in keeping with the Fundamental Axiom of Arab Prioritiesâ„¢ which says that “Hurting Jews is Always More Important than Helping Arabs,” that is not the case.

Thanks to Elder of Ziyon for bringing this to our attention:

BEIRUT: Palestinian refugees will not become citizens of a new Palestinian state, according to Palestine’s ambassador to Lebanon.

From behind a desk topped by a miniature model of Palestine’s hoped-for blue United Nations chair, Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah spoke to The Daily Star Wednesday about Palestine’s upcoming bid for U.N. statehood.

The ambassador unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state, an issue that has been much discussed. “They are Palestinians, that’s their identity,” he says. “But … they are not automatically citizens.”

This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.”

Abdullah said that the new Palestinian state would “absolutely not” be issuing Palestinian passports to refugees.

Neither this definitional status nor U.N. statehood, Abdullah says, would affect the eventual return of refugees to Palestine. “How the issue of the right of return will be solved I don’t know, it’s too early [to say], but it is a sacred right that has to be dealt with and solved [with] the acceptance of all.” He says statehood “will never affect the right of return for Palestinian refugees.” –  Daily Star, Lebanon

In other words, the refugees will continue to be stateless, living on the UN (mostly US) dole, in ‘refugee camps’, as they have for the past three generations, until they can finally fulfill their purpose — to overrun the Jewish state.

So not only will ‘Palestine’ be a racist, antisemitic, apartheid state, it will not lift a finger to help its own people. They want a ‘right of return’ to Israel, but they will not get one to Palestine!

Tell me again why the UN will vote for Palestinian statehood, please.

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UN will vote for a racist, apartheid state and approve ethnic cleansing

September 14th, 2011
Maen Areikat tells reporters that Palestine will be free of Jews

Maen Areikat tells reporters that Palestine will be free of Jews

The Palestinians are so confident that their program will succeed that they have stopped trying to hide its real nature:

By Oren Dorell, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – The Palestine Liberation Organization’s ambassador to the United States said Tuesday that any future Palestinian state it seeks with help from the United Nations and the United States should be free of Jews.

After 44 years of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, “it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated,” PLO Ambassador Maen Areikat says.

“After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated,” Maen Areikat, the PLO ambassador, said during a meeting with reporters sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. He was responding to a question about the rights of minorities in a Palestine of the future.

Such a state would be the first to officially prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany, which sought a country that was judenrein, or cleansed of Jews, said Elliott Abrams, a former U.S. National Security Council official.

In case there is any question about what he means by ‘separation’, here is a snippet from an interview with Areikat last year in Tablet  (big h/t to Challah Hu Akbar):

Q: When you imagine a future Palestinian state, do you imagine it being a place where Jews, if they wish to become Palestinian citizens, could own property, vote in elections, and practice their religion freely?

A: I remember in the mid-’90s, the late [PLO official] Faisal Husseini said repeatedly “OK, if Israelis choose to stay in a future Palestinian state, they are more than welcome to do that. But under one condition: They have to respect and obey Palestinian laws, they cannot be living as Israelis. They have to respect Palestinian laws and abide by them.” When Faisal Husseini died, basically no Palestinian leader has publicly supported the notion that they can stay.

What we are saying is the following: We need to separate. We have to separate. We are in a forced marriage. We need to divorce. After we divorce, and everybody takes a period of time to recoup, rebound, whatever you want to call it, we may consider dating again.

Q: So, you think it would be necessary to first transfer and remove every Jew—

A: Absolutely. No, I’m not saying to transfer every Jew, I’m saying transfer Jews who, after an agreement with Israel, fall under the jurisdiction of a Palestinian state.

Q: Any Jew who is inside the borders of Palestine will have to leave?

A: Absolutely. I think this is a very necessary step, before we can allow the two states to somehow develop their separate national identities, and then maybe open up the doors for all kinds of cultural, social, political, economic exchanges, that freedom of movement of both citizens of Israelis and Palestinians from one area to another. You know you have to think of the day after.

There is a word for separation on racial/ethnic grounds — apartheid.

One could ask Areikat if his argument doesn’t also imply that Arab citizens of Israel must pick up and leave, or if it doesn’t invalidate the alleged ‘right of return’ for Arab refugees to Israel, but you already know he doesn’t think so.

Mahmoud Abbas also said something similar recently, but he didn’t use the word ‘Jew’. He said that “not one Israeli” would remain in the Palestinian state. No antisemitism here, it was suggested. Well, now there’s no doubt.

So the UN will vote for a declaration of an explicitly antisemitic, apartheid state, in effect validating the third major ethnic cleansing of Jews in the last 100 years — while at the same time they will be holding a conference condemning ‘racism’ (except of course that the conference will ignore racism and condemn the Jewish state).

Areikat was also asked whether homosexuals would be allowed in ‘Palestine’. “Ah, this is an issue that’s beyond my [authority],” he responded. No wonder Hitler is a hero to so many Palestinians.

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J Street gets a ‘Rabbinic Organizer’

September 13th, 2011

By Vic Rosenthal

J Street: Hello, J Street. Ben Ami speaking.

Rabbi Malcolm Shain: Bon Ami? No, I didn’t want cleanser. I’m looking for J Street, the Pro-Israel, Pro-peace people.

JS: This is J Street. Although we could really use some Bon Ami. I can’t describe how disgusting the sink is since all the help quit. First we lost Spitalnick and Luria, and now Susskind has gone to Tides. Hmm, maybe some Tide would work on this sink.

MS: Oh. Well, I’m calling about the job…

JS: Great! Come over right away, and bring your mop and Bon Ami.

MS: No, not the janitorial job. I mean the Rabbinic Organizer that you advertised for. I’m Rabbi Shain. You can call me Mal.

JS: Oh. Are you sure you didn’t want the janitor position? It’s so hard to get good help these days. Well, we need to organize the Rabbis just as much as we need to clean the sink, so let’s go with that. First of all, I need to ask you one important question: are you absolutely, 100%, totally pro-Israel? Because that’s something we won’t compromise on.

MS: Positively. Whenever I’m in Israel, I join demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah or Bili’in. I work with Rabbis for Human Rights to protect Palestinian olive groves against those evil settlers. I work tirelessly for the Lef– er, I mean, for democracy. Because I love Israel and want to make it better!

JS: Well, that sounds good. What about here in the US?

MS: I’m pro-Israel here, too. I lead encounter groups for American Jews to meet real Palestinians to  learn how indigenous people are mistreated by the right-wing regime in Israel. Did you know that all Hamas wants is to end the occupation — and Bibi bombs them for it!

JS: Yes, Israel would certainly be a more vibrant democracy without Bibi. How do you feel about a two-state solution?

MS: It’s absolutely essential! Two states for two peoples! One for the Palestinian people, and one for the Arabs!

JS: Er, Mal… you meant the Jewish People, didn’t you?

MS: Oh, of course. I forgot about them. They have rights, too.

JS: We need a dynamic organizer who can whip our Rabbinic Cabinet into shape. They’ve been fleeing like rats deserting a sinking– I mean, there’s been a lot of attrition lately. Some of them don’t understand how important it is for them to make us look– I mean, to be validators of our pro-Israel message. What we need is a community organizer for rabbis.

MS: A community organizer! How inspiring! Just like–

JS: Exactly. The sky is the limit. Now tell me — can you handle rabbis? Can you talk the lingo, quote the text and liturgy? Some of them are religious.

MS: No problemo! I know what to order in a Chinese restaurant. One state from column A, one from column B. Ha ha, get it? I even have a kipa in my pocket that I borrowed from a funeral, just in case.

JS: Er, yes. You sound perfect for the job. When can you start?

MS: Right away! My congregation decided not to renew my contract for some reason. Can you imagine? I’ll be over as soon as I get the tar and feathers off.

JS: Great! And Mal… pick up some Bon Ami on the way. We really need to take care of this sink.

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Palestinian supporters push fraudulent children’s art exhibit

September 13th, 2011
Drawing allegedly made by a Palestinian child in Gaza

Drawing allegedly made by a Palestinian child in Gaza

By Vic Rosenthal

The Oakland, California Museum of Children’s Art (MOCHA) has become a focus of controversy after the cancellation of a scheduled exhibition of art supposedly by ‘Palestinian children’ from Gaza, aged 9-11.

The pictures are emotionally powerful, showing the victimization of civilians, especially children, by demonic Israeli soldiers. They include scenes of horror, fear and death as well as Palestinian and Jewish political symbols. Note the Israeli flag on the soldier, as well as the Palestinian flag, the map showing Israel as ‘Palestine’ and what appears to be the Hizballah logo above it in the illustration above.

The exhibit was cancelled after community residents protested that the images were not suitable for children — the museum’s intended audience — and that the one-sided, highly political content was inappropriate.

It is an example of two characteristics we find over and over in pro-Palestinian propaganda: reality inversion and a propensity for audacious lying.

Let’s take the second point first: the sponsoring organization, the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) claims that the pictures were drawn by children from 9 to 11 years of age. That’s nonsense. Look at the drawing above. Note how the viewer’s eye is drawn to the slightly off-center focal point, the child cowering in the corner, the suggestion of despair evoked by the black shading around him. Look at the effective representation of the soldier’s face with a few strokes. Look at the sureness of the lines, the bold strokes. Whoever drew this was either an adult artist or a remarkable prodigy, sophisticated both artistically and politically.

Here are two more examples:

Did a child draw this?

Did a child draw this?

Or this?

Or this?

I showed them to a professor of Art at a local university. Here is what she said about them:

The paintings (color drawings) are highly sophisticated especially in relationship to detail. Did you see the barbed wire? Also, there is a carefully drawn Star of David in each work. The authenticity of the painting is remarkable for a child’s hand. The drawing of the planes and helicopters, the man in the tower, the dynamic brushstrokes that are well conceived and controlled all seem to project a more mature approach to art. Could these “children” be in their late teens, college age, or young adults [MECA says they were 9 to 11 years old]? According to the the quote, “much of the artwork was produced by children.” I wonder how “much”? Also, it is possible that the “children” were directed by an adult who supervised and perhaps completed the initial drawing.

Like the ‘death’ of another Palestinian child, Mohammed Dura, this exhibition is an invention designed to demonize Israel.

I mentioned Palestinian reality inversion. This is the phenomenon of attributing to Israel the vicious tactics used by Arab terrorists themselves. One of these is the deliberate targeting of noncombatant children:

The Ma’alot massacre, in which 25 Israelis were killed including 22 children, the Bus of Blood (35 dead, 13 children), the attack on the nursery at Kibbutz Misgav Am (3 dead, 2 children), the Dolphinarium bombing (21 teens dead), the Sbarro Pizza bombing (15 dead, 5 children), the shooting at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva (8 dead, 7 teens), the vicious butchering of the Fogel family (5 dead, 3 children), the antitank rocket attack on a yellow school bus (1 child) — these are just a few of a long, long list.

The Palestinians know that nothing tugs at the heartstrings more than the suffering of children. So they make ours suffer and accuse us of doing it to them.

The sponsoring organization, MECA, takes a radical position on the Arab-Israeli conflict:

  • MECA founder and Executive Director Barbara Lubin wrote “I think that the Jewish State is racist to the core.”  Lubin refers to the 1948 “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population” and wrote that “[t]he concept of ‘Jewish morality’ is truly dead. We can be fascists, terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else.”
  • In an interview, MECA Director of Gaza Projects, Dr. Mona El-Farra, explained that MECA refused USAID funding because it came with the condition that they promise “not [to] give any help or any aid whatsoever for the families of the militiamen, or their relatives, or anyone related to ‘terrorist attacks’” because “we consider it resistance” (emphasis added). — NGO Monitor

MECA plans to find another location for the show, perhaps in the street outside the museum. They are pitching the museum’s decision to cancel the show as ‘censorship’. Of course, this is nonsense — there is no free speech issue here. The museum is not required to give a platform to anyone who desires one, and it has a right to reject the exhibit on the grounds that it is inappropriate for its audience, is overt political propaganda — or because it is simply a fraud.

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