David Singer: Palestine – Changed Narratives Needed To Nurture New Negotiations

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

France is not expected to present its anticipated draft proposal for the declaration of a Palestinian State to the U.N. Security Council in September – having reportedly been criticized both by Israel - which does not want any external solution imposed on it – and by the PLO – which fears the Security Council will not meet its demands.

The Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap are dead and buried – even if the headstone is yet to be ceremoniously unveiled marking the actual date when the collective records, transcripts and secret minutes detailing fruitless negotiations conducted during the last 20 years between Israel and the now-disbanded Palestinian Authority were finally consigned to the graveyard of history.

It is now also becoming increasingly apparent that creating a 22nd independent Arab State between Israel, Jordan and Egypt can:

1. ever peacefully eventuate without Israel, Jordan and Egypt’s express consent

2. be unilaterally imposed on Israel as a result of any resolution passed by the United Nations Security Council contrary to the express terms of its own Resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973).

Filling this potentially explosive void will require the groundwork to first be meticulously prepared before any new negotiations can actually be undertaken to try and resolve competing Arab and Jewish claims to sovereignty in the remaining 6% of the territory of the former Mandate for Palestine – Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), East Jerusalem and Gaza – where sovereignty still remains undetermined (”the disputed territories”).

Such groundwork will require the following factual narratives to have been commonly agreed on and adopted by the negotiating parties prior to commencing negotiations to resolve the conflict:

1. Two of Israel’s immediately adjoining neighbours – Jordan and Egypt – have recognised the existence of Israel as a sovereign State in peace treaties signed by them with Israel in 1979 and 1994 respectively. These peace treaties have been honoured and respected during difficult periods when they might have been abrogated. They stand as a tribute to the determination of all three sovereign States to maintain a state of peace and avoid a position of confrontation as differences were resolved. Jordan and Egypt are accordingly indispensable parties to any new negotiations with Israel – if Arab sovereignty is to be established in any parts of the disputed territories.

2. Two of Israel’s other immediately adjoining neighbours – the PLO and Hamas – have since 1964 and 1988 respectively maintained in their respective Charters that the Jews have no claims to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in any part of the territory of the Mandate for Palestine vested in the Jews by the unanimous vote of all 51 members of the League of Nations in 1922. Including either the PLO or Hamas in any new negotiations is pointless and meaningless whilst those Charters remain unrevoked.

3. The on-going conflict needs to be re-branded “the Jewish-Arab conflict” replacing “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. The current conflict had its origins in the events that took place during World War One – well before the State of Israel was declared in 1948. Marginalising the ongoing conflict by avoiding any consideration of the events that occurred between 1915 and 1948 has operated to paper over any proper discussion of the many opportunities presented to and rejected by the Arabs in relation to gaining territorial sovereignty in the disputed territories during that time - and indeed after 1948. This could impact on the current Arab claims to sovereignty over any of the disputed territories which may have been jeopardised or prejudiced as a result.

4. Recognition that the territory of the Mandate for Palestine is currently under Jewish sovereignty in 17% (Israel), Arab sovereignty in 78% (Jordan) with the remaining 6% comprising the disputed territories.

5. Claims that the building of Jewish settlements in the disputed territory are illegal in international law – based on the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention - need to be reconsidered having regard to the following prior territory-specific piece of legislation – Article 6 of the 1922 Mandate for Palestine – legalising such Jewish settlement: 

“The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.”

Pursuant to this provision – preserved in 1945 by Article 80 of the UN Charter – Jews have legally settled in the disputed territories between 1922 and 1947 – and since 1967.

6. The continued use of language referring to the disputed territories as being “occupied territory” or “Occupied Palestinian Territories” and the need for Israel to “end the occupation” fails to recognise that it was the Jews whose occupation in the disputed territories was first abruptly ended in 1948 – after every single Jew then living there was forcibly driven out by six invading Arab armies and not allowed to return until after the Six Day War in 1967.

Unless these narratives are changed, nurtured and mutually accepted by the parties before formal negotiations actually begin - one can confidently predict that any fanfare trumpeting yet another round of negotiations will be destined to see those negotiations inevitably end up in their own designated graveyard plot alongside the tomb housing the Oslo-Roadmap failed negotiations.

Negotiations based on shaky foundations without real substance can only guarantee their eventual death throes.

David Singer: "Pope’s Political Power Play Promises Pandemonium ... Papal Bull Has Been Given A New Meaning"

Titled "Palestine – Pope’s Political Power Play Promises Pandemonium", here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

The visit of Pope Francis to Amman, Bethlehem and Jerusalem this week proved that His Holiness is just as fallible – and gullible – as a host of other world power brokers like US President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Kerry and the negotiators representing the Quartet – the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and America.

All had plunged into the political mire that constitutes the 130-years-old Arab-Israel conflict believing they could resolve it  – but ultimately discovered it was destined to become their political graveyard.

The Pope’s descent into the political hell-hole that comprises former Palestine was totally unnecessary.

Regrettably the Pope chose to turn what should have been a purely spiritual pilgrimage to the Holy Land into a highly contentious political one. The Pope – in Bethlehem’s Manger Square – addressed the following politically charged words to Mahmoud Abbas  – the unelected and unconstitutional self-styled “President” of the “Palestinian Authority” since 2009 – who had unilaterally disbanded it in January 2013 – thereafter proclaiming himself “President of the State of Palestine” – a State that has no legal basis in international law:

“Mr President, you are known as a man of peace and a peacemaker. Our recent meeting in the Vatican and my presence today in Palestine attest to the good relations existing between the Holy See and the State of Palestine. I trust that these relations can further develop for the good of all."

The Pope’s regrettable statement had clearly breached Clause 11(2) of the 1993 Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel which provides:

“The Holy See, while maintaining in every case the right to exercise its moral and spiritual teaching-office, deems it opportune to recall that owing to its own character, it is solemnly committed to remaining a stranger to all merely temporal conflicts, which principle applies specifically to disputed territories and unsettled borders.” 

Can you locate the “State of Palestine” in any world atlas? Where are its borders? What is its area, population, capital, currency? Who is its Prime Minister?

Bethlehem is disputed territory – claimed by both Arabs and Jews – and since 1948 has not been under the internationally recognized sovereignty of any legally constituted State.

Bethlehem is located in an area where the borders remain unsettled between adjoining neighbours pending the conclusion of negotiations between Israel and the PLO under the parameters of the Oslo Accords, the 2003 Bush Road Map and the 2007 Annapolis Conference.

It apparently matters not that the Pope can ignore the Fundamental Agreement made by the Holy See with Israel when it suits the Pope to do so.

The Pope has certainly sent a clear signal to Israel that it can no longer rely on any written agreement made with the Holy See.

If Israel can’t trust the Pope – then can Israel trust the PLO or Hamas to honour written agreements?

The Pope’s portrayal of “President” Abbas being “known as a man of peace and a peacemaker” – was uttered by the Pope without blinking an eyelid – and studiously ignored Clause 2.2 of the Fundamental Agreement: 

“The Holy See takes this occasion to reiterate its condemnation of hatred, persecution and all other manifestations of anti-Semitism directed against the Jewish people and individual Jews anywhere, at any time and by anyone.”

Abbas’s hatred of Jews is evidenced by the following remark made by him in Cairo on 28 June 2010:

“I’m willing to agree to a third party that would supervise the agreement, such as NATO forces, but I would not agree to having Jews among the NATO forces, or that there will live among us even a single Israeli on Palestinian land.”

Abbas is the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization whose Charter declares:

“Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong.”

Not a murmur or admonishment from the Pope was made against these Abbas manifestations of antisemitism. The Pope preferred to tell the gathered audience he was speaking “in the birthplace of Jesus the King of Peace” – conveniently forgetting to mention that Jesus was born and grew up as a Jew.

The Pope’s unscheduled stop at the security barrier to pray was a major PR coup for the PLO and Israel bashers - offering a unique photo opportunity and fuelling political expectations of future Papal support that will surely encourage Abbas to maintain his rejectionist stance – making resolution of the conflict even harder to achieve.

The Pope’s invitation to Abbas and Israel’s President, Shimon Peres – who also considers Abbas “a true partner for peace” – to join the Pope in prayer at the Vatican in June, will prove to be sublime pantomime.

The politically entrapped Pope will not be praying aloud for Abbas to recognise Israel as the nation State of the Jewish People.

Peres will soon retire and has no political power. Abbas illegally clings to political power but lacks the courage to exercise it to end the conflict.

Forget any breakthrough.

Political pandemonium and the hardening of entrenched negotiating positions are the most likely outcomes that continuing Papal political intrusion into this temporal long-running conflict will yield.

“Papal bull” has been given a new meaning.

David Singer On Why Kerry Must Heed America's Five Crucial Commitments To Israel

Here is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.  It is entitled
"Palestine – Historical Amnesia Causes Kerry's Downfall".

Writes David Singer:

John Kerry was well on the way to becoming another impotent and failed Secretary of State in November last year – as predicted in my article "Palestine – Kerry Destined For Political Scrapheap":

"Historical amnesia – Kerry-style – has been – and apparently still is - a potent factor in failed American attempts to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict.Such ignorance has clouded the thinking of many former well-intentioned Secretaries of State – who became ticking time bombs destined to end up on the political scrap heap because they tried to undo what was internationally guaranteed in former Palestine ninety years ago." 

Kerry – like previous Secretaries of State before him – made the same fatal error of ignoring the PLO's refusal to accept decisions taken in the international arena between 1920 and 1922 and since then – believing the PLO could be appeased into changing its mind.

Since its inception in 1964 the PLO has never been prepared to recognise the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country as laid down in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

The current Kerry negotiations were being conducted pursuant to the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 2003 Bush Roadmap – as amplified at Annapolis in 2007.

However the Roadmap itself was fatally flawed in its objective of seeking to create a second Arab state in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan – for two basic reasons:

1. Such a State had already been rejected in 1937, 1947 and 2000/2001 by the Arabs - and Kerry's hope there might be a change of heart in 2014 was clearly dispelled by the terms of the PLO Charter.

2. A 19-year window of opportunity had been available to create such a state with the simple stroke of an Arab League pen in the entire West Bank and Gaza at any time between 1948 and 1967 – yet no attempt had been made to do so.

Kerry was no doubt sincere in his desire to end the 130-years-old conflict – but so were those other Secretaries of State who preceded him and got nowhere because they pandered to the PLO, which has continued to maintain that every international decision since 1920 to the present is null and void.

Kerry's mission impossible not unsurprisingly turned out to be an ignominious diplomatic failure.

Kerry's political redemption will now depend on the release of his long awaited draft framework agreement for peace - promised by Kerry but postponed on at least three occasions due to Kerry's inability to procure agreement to its terms from Israel and the PLO.

Did Kerry's draft framework agreement encompass the following conditions enunciated by President Bush in his letter to Ariel Sharon dated 14 April 2004 – as overwhelmingly endorsed by the Congress:

1. The United States reiterates its steadfast commitment to Israel's security, including secure, defensible borders, and to preserve and strengthen Israel's capability to deter and defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats.

2. The United States is strongly committed to Israel's security and well-being as a Jewish state.

3. It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.

4. As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338.

5. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.

Kerry's imposed code of silence on anyone but Kerry making announcements on the progress of the negotiations can only lead one to speculate on whether these five crucial commitments were included in Kerry's framework agreement

Reports that Netanyahu was prepared to reluctantly sign the framework agreement indicate that some – but not all – of the above conditions were incorporated in Kerry's framework agreement, as would Abbas's reported refusal to sign the last draft under any circumstances.


Trying to tip toe around these American commitments to Israel would certainly have complicated the negotiations – and Israel's probable insistence that they all be included would surely have created insurmountable problems for Kerry in persuading the PLO to sign.


Kerry needs to come clean and put all the drafts of his framework agreement and the objections raised by Israel and the PLO into the public arena.


Failure to do so will leave Kerry under a diplomatic cloud and open to the claim that he failed to honour written commitments made by President Bush and Congress to Israel in exchange for Israel agreeing to unilaterally disengage from Gaza.

If Kerry has indeed not followed the terms of the Bush 2004 letter in pursuing these current negotiations – then irreparable damage to his diplomatic reputation will become a lasting legacy from which he will find it difficult to recover.


Another repeat of historical amnesia will surely consign Kerry to diplomatic oblivion.

Mark Regev On Israeli Democracy, Peace Prospects, and Hamas (video)

First, a video I stumbled across just now. This raucous song is offset by some fine views of Israel. Judging by those views, the makers/uploaders appear to be telling us that "Free Palestine" will mean the end of Israel.

And here's a five-minute clip from a very recent interview that Mark Regev gave to the Israel Broadcasting Authority's Channel 33:

News in Brief: Three Reasons To Smile ...

First, there's the welcome news that, following complaints, the British Advertising Standards Authority has banned the PA's Mission (or Embassy, as it seems to like to term itself) in London from wiping Israel from the map, at any rate on its website, and making egregiously misleading statements.

Secondly, as Ray Cook reminds us in his latest blogpost, a British Muslim, Kasim Hafeez, runs a website called theisraelcampaign.org, which, in Ray's words, "attempts to describe the current anti-Israel and antisemitic trends of Islam in the UK and abroad and put the record straight" and his postive comments at the recent Big Tent for Israel event in Manchester "made a huge impression on several hundred people, mostly Jewish".

Thirdly, here's a case of Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense.  Shook me to the marrow, it did.  I mean, those are four of a girl's recommended "five a day".
(Come to think of it, perhaps a more appropriate response than mirth is sadness that anyone should have such a warped attitude to elongated fruit - and to women.)

"It is still unclear whether they are inspired by the promise of building a new state, or the goal of destroying an existing one": Ron Prosor To The United Nations

Ron Prosor, the personable and popular (with Israel's friends, at least) diplomat who this year left the post of Israeli Ambassador to the Court of St James to become his country's envoy to the United Nations, has proved his mettle yet again as an outstanding representative of the beleaguered Jewish State.  His speech yesterday at the UN General Assembly on the occasion of the so-called International Day of Solidarity With The Palestinian People inaugurated by that Arab/pro-Arab-hijacked international body in 1977, bears witness to that.

 Declared Mr Prosor:

'A great Jewish sage once wrote, "The truth can hurt like a thorn, at first; but in the end it blossoms like a rose."
His words came to my mind today. His insight could really benefit many in this hall.
It takes a well of truth to water the seeds of peace. Yet, we continue to witness a drought of candour in this body’s discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. On this historic day, real facts in the General Assembly remain few and far between.
 
For any who have been here on November 29th before, today is déjà vu. Some of you may have noticed that some minor changes have been taking place in the Middle East lately, but any changes in this body’s resolutions condemning Israel are very, very rare.
Indeed, it didn’t take a creative writer to craft the language in these resolutions. The exact same text is copied and pasted, year after year – much of it dating back five decades.
 
The account we heard today is one-sided. It is unilateral. It is unjust. And it is unhelpful. It presents a distorted and impartial version of history.  It transforms the cause of Palestinian self-determination into a deliberate attempt to denigrate, defame, and delegitimize the State of Israel.
 

The political dynamics in this body are sadly predictable. Every November, the leaves change color in New York, but the automatic anti-Israel majority never changes its votes.
 
Each and every responsible member of the international community that affixes its seal of approval on this exact same set of resolutions – which are irrelevant at best, and damaging at worst— should do a little soul searching. Is this the message that you want the General Assembly to send to the world.... Let me take a moment to remind this Assembly about what actually occurred on this day 64 years ago – and in the days that followed.
 
On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to partition then British-Mandate Palestine into two states: one Jewish, one Arab. Two states for two peoples.
 
The Jewish population accepted that plan and declared a new state in its ancient homeland. It reflected the Zionist conviction that it was both necessary and possible to live in peace with our neighbors in the land of our forefathers.
 

The Arab inhabitants rejected the plan and launched a war of annihilation against the new Jewish state, joined by the armies of five Arab members of the United Nations.
 
One percent of Israel’s population died during this assault by five armies. Think about that price. It would be the equivalent of 650,000 dying in France today, or 3 million dying in the United States, or 13 million dying in China.
 
As a result of the war, there were Arabs who became refugees. A similar number of Jews, who lived in Arab countries, were forced to flee their homes as well. They, too, became refugees.
The difference between these two distinct populations was – and still is – that Israel absorbed the refugees into our society. Our neighbors did not.
 

Refugee camps in Israel gave birth to thriving towns and cities. Refugee camps in Arab Countries gave birth to more Palestinian refugees.
 
We unlocked our new immigrants’ vast potential. The Arab World knowingly and intentionally kept their Palestinian populations in the second class status of permanent refugees.
 
In Lebanon for many years and still today, the law prohibits Palestinians from owning land – and from working in the public sector or as doctors and lawyers. Palestinians are banned from these professions.
 

In Kuwait, the once significant Palestinian population was forcibly expelled from the country in 1991. Few remain.
 
In Syria, thousands of Palestinians had to flee refugee camps in Latakia last August when President Assad shelled their homes with naval gunboats.
 
In the vast majority of Arab Countries, Palestinians have no rights of citizenship. It is no coincidence that the Arab World’s responsibilities for the “inalienable rights” of these Palestinians never appear in the resolutions before you....

The basic question underlying our conflict for 64 years has not changed. That question is: has the Arab World – and particularly the Palestinians – internalized that Israel is here to stay and will remain the Nation-state of the Jewish People?
 

It is still unclear whether they are inspired by the promise of building a new state, or the goal of destroying an existing one. [My emphasis]

Two months ago, President Abbas stood at the podium in this very hall and tried to erase the unbroken and unbreakable connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel.
 
He said the following:

“I come before you today from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine, the land of divine messages, ascension of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the birthplace of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him).”

This was not an oversight. It was not a slip of the tongue. It was yet another deliberate attempt to deny and erase more than 3,000 years of Jewish history. The Arab leaders from those two nations that sought peace have offered a different message.
 
For example, in 1995, King Hussein came to the United States and said (quote): “For our part, we shall continue to work for the new dawn when all the Children of Abraham and their descendants are living together in the birthplace of their three great monotheistic religions.”
In 1977, President Sadat came to Israel’s Knesset and quoted this verse from the Koran: “We believe in God and in what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and the tribes and in the books given to Moses, Jesus, and the prophets from their lord.”
 
President Sadat and King Hussein spoke of THREE monotheistic religions, not ONE or TWO.Mr. President,
 
The resolution that gives the 29th of November significance – General Assembly resolution 181 – speaks of the creation of a “Jewish State” no less than 25 times. We still do not hear Palestinian leaders utter the term. 
 

The Palestinian leadership refuses to acknowledge Israel’s character as a Jewish state. You will never hear them say “two states for two peoples”. If you ever hear a Palestinian leader say “two states for two peoples”, please phone me immediately. My office has set up the equivalent of a 9/11 number in the event of such an unprecedented occurrence.
Palestinian leaders call for an independent Palestinian state, but insist that the Palestinian people return to the Jewish state. This is a proposition that no one who believes in the right of Israel to exist could ever accept.The idea that Israel will be flooded with millions of Palestinians is a non-starter. The international community knows it. The Palestinian leadership knows it. But the Palestinian people aren’t hearing it. At this very moment, the gap between their perception and reality remains the major obstacle to peace.
 
Let me repeat that: the so-called right of return is and will remain the major obstacle to peace. It is not settlements. It is not the laundry list of baseless accusations launched against Israel in today’s resolutions.
 
I’ll repeat it again: the so-called right of return is the major obstacle to peace. Everyone knows it.
Yet, all of those who were so vocal today in telling Israel what is has to do for peace – mumbled, stuttered and conveniently lost their voices when it came to telling the Palestinians that the so-called right of return is a non-starter.
 

For decades, this body has rubberstamped nearly every Palestinian whim, no matter how counter-factual or counter-productive. What has this accomplished? The lip service of this body has only done a disservice for peace....

True friends of the Palestinians have a responsibility to tell them the truth.
They will stop promoting the distorted version of history that characterizes this day, and start delivering the real lessons of history that the Palestinian leadership now refuses to heed.
 
These lessons are clear: bilateral negotiations are the only route to two states, for two peoples – living side-by-side in peace and security; negotiations that resolve the outstanding concerns of both sides.
While bypass maneuvers may work for heart surgery and highway construction, they will not bring peace or security to our region.
 

Direct negotiations were the way of President Sadat and Prime Minister Begin, the way of Prime Minister Rabin and King Hussein. It has been the framework for advancing peace between Israel and the Palestinians for the past two decades.
 
Time and again, we have extended our hand in peace to the Palestinians. Prime Minister Netanyahu stood in this very hall last September and declared his commitment to the cause of Palestinian self-determination – and his vision for establishing a Palestinian state, alongside the Jewish State of Israel – two states for two peoples.
 
Yet, today we wait for the Palestinians to give up the false idol of unilateralism – and get back to the real hard work of direct negotiations.  And – as they continue to run away from the negotiating table, the Palestinian leadership continues to move closer into their embrace of Hamas – an internationally recognized terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel.
 
This development brings to my mind Groucho Marx’s famous line: "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them … well, I have others." The Quartet has long applied three principles that Hamas must adopt.  It must renounce violence, recognize Israel and abide by prior agreements. At no point has Hamas satisfied these conditions – or indicated any intention to do so.
 

Those who advocate recognizing a Government that includes Hamas are urging a Groucho-Marxist policy in a complex, unstable region. If Hamas is too extreme to accept these principles, they argue, we must tailor our principles to match Hamas's extremism.The bar has been set very low. On these basic requirements for peace, there can be no adjustments. There can be no bargaining. There can be no Holiday Season discounts – in this hall or anywhere else....

Even more than the words spoken in the speeches here today – or the words in the resolutions before you— it is the words not spoken that speak volumes. This Assembly has made clear that it does not stand in solidarity with many people in our region today.
 
In this hall, I hear no solidarity with the one million Israeli men, women and children who live under the constant rain rockets, mortars and missiles from the Gaza Strip.
 
I hear no solidarity with the 16-year old boy who was killed last April when a Hamas anti-Tank Missile struck his school bus. Or the thousands of other Israeli civilians who have been killed and injured.
 
I hear no solidarity with the Israeli children who learn the alphabet at the same time that they learn the names Kassam, Grad, and Katyusha – the rockets that keep them out of school for weeks at a time.
 

I hear no solidarity with the Palestinians who are victims of brutal Hamas rule – with the political opponents who are tortured, the women who are subjugated, or the children who are used as suicide bombers and human shields.  [My emphasis]
 
And – ... today I hear no solidarity with the many people in the Middle East who are being repressed and slaughtered every single day for demanding their freedom. From Syria to Iran to Yemen, these people are no longer content with their leader’s explanations that Israel is to blame for all the problems of the Middle East – a fiction that is advanced through resolutions like those before us today.
Today the People of the Middle East demand real answers for their plight.
 

I also heard no discussion today about the incitement that continues to fill the West Bank and Gaza, where the next generation of Palestinian children is being taught that suicide bombers are heroes, that Jews have no connection to the Holy Land, and that they must seek to annihilate the State of Israel.
 
From cradles to kindergarten classrooms; from the grounds of summer camps to the stands of football stadiums; from the names of public squares to the public pronouncements of Palestinian leaders, these messages are everywhere.
 
Just last month, President Abbas declared that the Palestinian Authority would provide a grant of up to $5,000 to every terrorist released in exchange for Gilad Shalit, Israel’s kidnapped soldier.
These are people like Ibrahim Shammasina, who helped to murder four Israelis, including two teenagers. People like Walid Anajas, who planned bombings in the heart of Jerusalem and Rishon Lezion, which killed 32.
 

People like Wafa-al Bis, who unsuccessfully tried to blow herself up in an Israeli hospital.Washed in the blood of innocents, these terrorists are being held up as role models for the next generation of Palestinian children.
 
Palestinian Authority television broadcast President Abbas’ remarks to these released terrorists last October. He said, “You are people of struggle and Jihad fighters for Allah and the homeland... Your sacrifice and your effort and your actions were not in vain.”....

Sustainable peace must take root in homes, schools, and media that teach tolerance and understanding so that it can grow in hearts and minds.
 
It must come from a Palestinian leadership willing to tell its people about the difficult compromises that they will have to make for statehood.
 
It will come through the hard work of state-building, not the old habit of state-bashing.
 
Today none of these truths have been spoken.
 

Today I hear no solidarity with the principles of peace.
 
I know that the truth can be a burden. I know that old habits die-hard. I know that the convenience of the moment sometimes weighs heavy on the interests of the future.
 
Yet, only the truth will set us free. After years of darkness, I call on this Assembly to bring new light to this debate.
 
I call on each and every delegate in this hall to embrace pragmatic solutions, not automatic resolutions; to speak with candor, and not slander; to grapple for a new vision, and not old divisions.
 
I call on this Assembly to finally glean truth from this historic day, nourishing the seeds of peace in our region that can blossom into a brighter future.'

(Hat tip: Challah)
Update: see Michelle Huberman's interesting blog about this speech, specifically in relation to the refugee issue, here

Palestine: A Picture Paints 1000 Words ...

 

He's good, isn't he, that Elder?  I mean, he's really good.

And remember this?  http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/05/uk-palestine-embassy-website-wipes.html

Yes, I definitely think he's onto something...

Paint It Black (and Green and Red): That Old "Free Palestine" Trick Again

Just in case you haven't already seen (and read about) this on Elder's blog: http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/05/uk-palestine-embassy-website-wipes.html
And as Challa Hu Akbar noted recently, that Palestinian eagle looks a bit dodgy too: http://challahhuakbar.blogspot.com/2011/01/palestinian-nazi-symbolics.html

Mayday! Mayday! When They Say "Free Palestine" Israel's End is What They Mean

Such usual suspects as Oxfam and Jimmy Carter may be cock-a-hoop, but Israelis have reacted with consternation to last week's Hamas-Fatah Accord, and the prospect of Hamas being part of the Palestinian Authority's administration.

And their consternation is well-founded.  This map, by New York lawyer Mark Langfan, a specialist in questions of military strategy, issued by the organisation Americans for a Safe Israel (ASFI), shows that a Hamas-Fatah-controlled Palestinian state, whether its borders conform to current  PA demands or not, would leave all of the consequent rump of Israel within Katyusha missile range, with all which that implies for Israel's population centres.

To quote a news report on the matter:

'Seventy percent of the population of Israel, and 80 percent of the country’s industrial base is located in the coastal region that includes Netanya and metropolitan Tel Aviv, AFSI pointed out. One large PA city is Tulkarm, located only a few miles east of Netanya and overlooking the high-speed north-south Highway 6 (Kvish 6).

Jerusalem would be within easy range of Jericho, where the PA army is trained on a United States-funded base by American military officers.

Be'er Sheva already has been attacked by Grad Katyusha missiles from Gaza, as have been Haifa and the Galilee from Hizbullah terrorists in Lebanon.

“Mahmoud Abbas, our supposed ’peace’ partner, has now joined forces with Hamas, the acknowledged [Hamas] terrorist group", AFSI wrote. "This is actually a declaration of war against the State of Israel since Hamas has never disguised its intentions of destroying Israel.

“The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has used the diplomatic track, hoping to delude Israelis and the world with its words of peace, while pursuing its terrorist ideology. The truth is now out.”

[AFSI] added that the creation of a new Arab state controlled by Hamas and Fatah would be “suicidal” for Israel.'  (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/143793)

Suicidal indeed. Let's be clear why.

We've seen it written; we've heard it chanted: that wretched war cry of the Israel-delegitimising brigade in street demos and on campuses:
Palestine Shall be Free,
From the River to the Sea

"Free Palestine", as in this purple poster by a leftist Israel-bashing American group, entails the total eradication of Israel.

This nightmare vision often contains the Jewish State's replacement with what perhaps some of the keffiyeh-clad westerners - those who are not consciously antisemites gloatingly anticipating the dispossession of the Jews from their Land - who chant it imagine will be a veritable Utopia of inter-faith and inter-ethnic harmony, a state in which Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs will live happliy ever after.

That "one state solution" is merely the stuff of leftist imaginings, whether such leftists be naive or malevolent.

It's unjustified, because Israel is in fact an advanced liberal democracy.

It's antisemitic, even though the naive types mightn't quite realise that.  After all, what nation other than Israel is up for eradication on their agenda?  Not a single one.

It would mean yet another Islamic state in the Middle East, at worst one in which inciteful, murderous cries of Itbach Al-Yahud ring out and are acted upon, at best one in which Jews live in despised dhimmitude.

For it seems increasingly clear that the Palestinian Arabs would not be satisfied with a state that does not, ultimately, encompass the whole of what is now Israel. 

The adjacent image, a motif emblazoned on a Palestinian tee-shirt, speaks for itself, and has numerous counterparts, including a great many emanating from officialdom.

As Palestine Media Watch reports:

'The Palestinian Authority makes no attempt to educate its people towards peace and coexistence with Israel. On the contrary, from every possible platform it repeatedly rejects Israel's right to exist, presents the conflict as a religious battle for Islam, depicts the establishment of Israel as an act of imperialism, and perpetuates a picture of the Middle East, both verbally and visually, in which Israel does not exist at all. Israel's destruction is said to be both inevitable and a Palestinian obligation....

The Palestinian Authority adamantly rejects Israel’s right to exist and rewrites history to deny the 3,000-year-old connection of Jews to the Land Israel. The essential message of the PA to its people is that Jews have no historical connection to the land, and that the State of Israel was created by the colonial powers for two reasons: to rid their countries of Jews, and to establish a colonial bridgehead in order to control the region....

The Palestinian Authority paints a picture - both verbally and visually - of a world in which Israel does not exist. Children’s educational TV teaches that Palestine currently is a "state" (Arabic "dawla" = state) covering 27,000 sq. km - i.e., an area that includes all of Israel (the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip total only 6220 sq. km). Moreover, all Israel’s cities and infrastructure are referred to as "Palestinian"....'

(http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=433 and http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=466)

For instance, as noted by Palestine Media Watch along with many other examples of Palestinian chicanery, in a quiz show shown on Fatah TV in August last year, a contestant was aked "Name three Palestinian cities." She replied "Haifa, Acre, Jaffa." And was duly awarded $100 for her "correct" answer.

So was the next contestant, who to the question "Which countries surround Palestine?" responded "Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt." (See http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=466)

Even Jaffa (southern Tel Aviv) has been depicted as being populated by "settlers," as when a Palestinian Authority television programme last October alleged, with regard to a Muslim cemetery:  "Jaffa's holy sites are in the hands of the settlers.
(http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=433)

Little wonder, then, that when he hears his teacher enunciate "Palestine" the child in the above cartoon in a Palestinian Authority newspaper (coincidentally also last October) sees the map of Israel in his mind's eye.

Shelly Elkayom, chief executive of the organisation Impact-SE (for its finding see http://www.impact-se.org/research/pa/index.html), says:

 "The Palestinian Authority in an organised way has created a policy that is expressed in the textbooks in which there is no Jewish entity in the Middle East, no Jewish people, no human beings [who] are Jews in the Middle East."

Whereas, she adds:

"In the Israeli textbooks there are children described as Palestinians, they are human beings and they go and eat together, there is no demonisation of the Palestinians at all." (Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/hate-v-hate-as-peace-is-sidelined/story-e6frg6ux-1226047182848)

Integral to the prevalent Arab mindset is this statement of the Palestinian Authority's Tourism Minister last year:

"This day [Festival for Tourism and Cultural Heritage] is meant to bring joy to people’s hearts and to preserve the Palestinian heritage. Moreover, it is part of the popular resistance whose goal is to bring about an end to Israel" (http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=449)

Here are some illuminating video clips:
 

Moreover, preachers of hate predict a dire fate for Jews, and the Jews alone, once the Caliphate comes:

See also:

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/01/vultures-are-circling.html

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/04/arabs-have-different-concept-of.html

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/04/palestinian-authority-wipes-israel-off.html

http://challahhuakbar.blogspot.com/2011/01/israels-end-and-annihilation-of-jews.html

How the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation Undermines Israel

During the prelude to the the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation announced last week, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned that

 "The Palestinian Authority has to choose either peace with Israel or peace with Hamas. Peace is impossible with both of them. Hamas is trying to destroy Israel, and sends missiles on our cities and our children."

 In response to Netanyahu's statement, a spokesman for PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced: "we say that the Palestinian reconciliation and the agreement that was signed today in Cairo are internal Palestinian issues."

Concurring,  Hamas representative Mahmoud Azhar reiterated that his organisation's policy is "no recognition [of Israel] and no negotiations". (http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=4951)

Switzerland is one of the few Western countries to talk openly with Hamas, and a reader of my blog, Roger, who resides in Switzerland, has alerted me to outrageously contentious remarks by Swiss analyst Riccardo Bocco in the course of an interview by Swissinfo, the news platform of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation.

Explains Roger:

"I have complained again and again about their relentless demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel but to no avail. This interview is a typical example."

Bocco (pictured), a Middle East specialist at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, said, inter alia:

"The negotiations that were going on had been stalled until the beginning of 2011. The events of the Arab Spring have just sped things up, pushing Hamas and Fatah to get together....

We really need to wait and see what the precise contents of the agreement are. It will be interesting to see what position Hamas takes: will it renounce violence and agree to recognise the state of Israel? From a purely strategic point of view, Hamas may be ready to make concessions, as long as there is some reciprocity - they too want to be recognised.Netanyahu has of course no interest in a united Fatah and Hamas. He has no real desire to make peace. He would be happy with a form of economic peace which would not involve the creation of a Palestinian state. As long as there are internal divisions among the Palestinians, Israel can point to the fact that there are no negotiation partners representative of the whole Palestinian people.

I am not trying to defend Hamas here, but we are looking at two kinds of terrorism: Hamas kills Israeli civilians, and Israel carries on its own state terrorism targeting the Palestinian civilian population. Getting out of this dilemma will require political will which only the United States can provide.

If the processes of change presently going on, particularly in Egypt, yield positive results - for example with the adoption of political pluralism - this will continue to give an impulse to processes of democratisation in other countries.

Israel will find itself in difficulty once it is no longer able to claim that it is the only democracy in the Middle East. At that point, one might begin to wonder about the kind of "democracy" that really exists in Israel, a country which discriminates against its Palestinian minority and which occupies another state using processes of colonisation.

To the best of my knowledge, there was no direct Swiss involvement in this latest Cairo agreement. I don’t know what role Swiss diplomacy will have in future, but I feel proud of what it has accomplished so far.

When there was that boycott of Hamas in 2006, Switzerland was one of the few to engage in dialogue with the new administration. The Swiss government’s position is an intelligent one. To boycott Hamas, as the Americans and Israelis did, just sends a message to al-Qaida and other extremist groups that following the path of democracy to achieve power gets you nowhere. And what was the result? Many of them have just kept up the armed struggle."

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/the_arab_spring/Arab_Spring_brings_Fatah_and_Hamas_together.html?cid=30119032

The Palestinian Authority Wipes Israel Off the Map

"The wish is father to the thought," goes the old saying, and as I showed in a recent post, Mahmoud Abbas's wish, and that of most Palestinian Arabs under his jurisdiction, would appear to be a Palestinian state that entirely replaces Israel (see http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/04/arabs-have-different-concept-of.html)

This ambition is further underscored in the following report, entitled "PA Carries out Ahmadinejad’s Threat and Wipes Israel Off Map" by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu:

'The Palestinian Authority has carried out Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threat to “wipe Israel off the map” and literally has done so by displaying maps of “Palestine” covering all of Israel at the same time its leaders talk about “two states for two people.”

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Fatah movement that controls the PA in Judea and Samaria, has in effect established a “one-state” solution in Fatah offices and in Palestinian Authority schools and offices.

The Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has documented that professional unions and private PA groups display maps showing a rifle and a quill over “Palestine,” from the Lebanese border in the north to Eilat in the south and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.

The maps have been circulated at the same time Abbas campaigns for international recognition of the Palestinian Authority based on the borders of Israel as they existed between 1949 and 1967, during which time Jordan was mandated by the United Nations to rule part of Judea and Samaria but then overtook and occupied the entire region, including large swaths of Jerusalem, after the War of Independence in 1948.

Jordan surrendered the areas in the Six-Day War in 1967, and Egypt and Syria did the same in Gaza and the Golan Heights respectively.

The maps declare Abbas’ intentions of making the “1967 borders” the temporary outline of a would-be Palestinian Authority country, even though – as PMW noted – U.S. President Barack Obama has criticized such maps as a security threat to Israel, in the same category as the threat from terrorist groups who want to destroy Israel.

"I will never compromise when it comes to Israel's security,” he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in 2008. “Not when there are still voices that deny the Holocaust. Not when there are terrorist groups and political leaders committed to Israel's destruction. Not when there are maps across the Middle East that don't even acknowledge Israel's existence."

Nevertheless, the PA’s version “Palestine,” as illustrated on the map with a rifle and quill, was displayed last week at a meeting of the General Union of Palestinian Writers, PMW reported.

The Palestinian Authority has embedded in its school system the ”one-state” idea of a Palestine – without Israel – for years. As far back as 2003, school posters have displayed the Palestinian flag over a map erasing Israel.

The policy has continued unchanged despite statements by Abbas to President Obama that the PA has ceased anti-Israel incitement. Earlier this year, a map in principal’s office in a PA school erases Israel and replaces it with "Palestine", with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flag flying over Israel.'
Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/143714

Read about and see many more PA maps and logos that are Israel-free: http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=4932
and
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=413&fld_id=558&doc_id=2560&sort=d

"The Arabs Have a Different Concept of Compromise," he warned...

With the looming threat of acquiescence by the UN General Assembly in September in the Palestinian Authority's quest for recognition of an independent state with the pre-1967 borders, it's hardly surprising that Israel is contemplating pre-emptive unilateral action - perhaps the annexation of the West Bank "settlement blocs".

Of those borders as they were at the start of the Six Day War, a prominent Israeli politician has said:

"Most Israelis will tell you that these are deadly lines, very difficult to defend.  These would bring back the horrors of pre-1967 Israel."

He added:  "I believe the Arabs understand that as long as Israel is strong they will have to reach some type of modus vivendi with us.

In other words, so long as Israel is not pushed back to her 1967 borders there is no way to get rid of Israel.  This explains the vehemence with which the Syrians and others want Israel to return to the 1967 lines.  They want this not to live in peace with Israel but to recreate the situation that existed before 1967 and reverse the course of history.  The weakness that Israel would project to the Arab world would be such that ... instability would be invited.

.... We must be able to defend ourselves and the ability to guarantee our defense has much to do with not returning to the 1967 lines.  The Arabs realize this.  It is essential that we find a solution that does not lead us to these old lines."

The following video shows just how vulnerable Israel would be if it returned to the situation prior to the Six Day War, given the jihadist threat, and spells out Israel's essential security requirements:

The politician I'm quoting warned that the Arabs:

"make no distinction between Ariel, Efrat, Ma'ale Adummim and Jerusalem.  This is a very interesting Jewish debate but is irrelevant when dealing with the Arabs.  They want all the land.... All the Jewish towns and villages that have Jewish inhabitants should be uprooted and the Jews expelled.... First they want us out of Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights and Jerusalem.  Perhaps after that they have other things in mind....

The problem really has a lot to do with the difference in perceptions between the Arab and Western concepts of conflict resolution.  According to the Western concept, if you and I have a conflict over a house, a car, money or any type of transaction and we cannot work out an arrangement where we are both completely happy we sit down and compromise.  I will not get everything I want and neither will you.  W keep bargaining until we reach an arrangement that is mutually satisfactory.

The Arabs have a different concept of compromise.  Let us say that we have a dispute about something.  My solution [if I were an Arab] is not to compromise but to wait a year, a decade, or a century.  Perhaps not my time or my son's time or his son's time.  I will not compromise but simply wait you out. [He gave as an example President Assad's remark that "I am not worried about the Golan Heights.  I will not get it now but in 25 years I will get it."]

If we ever reach the stage where the Arabs believe they need to compromise we will make some progress."

An interesting observation in light of the poll of Palestinians taken late last year, which indicated that a majority envisage a two-state solution as the precursor to the disappearance of Israel and a single Arab state in Israel's place. See http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2010/09/from-river-to-sea-public-opinion-in.htmland http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2010/11/still-crazy-after-all-these-years.html 

Interesting in view of the stubborn insistence on the refugees' and so-called refugees' "right of return". And interesting also in view of the following photographs.

Note the map on the wall behind Mahmoud Abbas.  It surely symbolises "the writing on the wall".  For it depicts Palestine as he wishes, indeed how he apparently ultimately intends, it to be:

Here's Abbas with another map of his future state:

And here he is with a stone model of it:

No wonder he's smiling slyly.

These children are well-prepared for what he has in mind for their inheritance :

The Israeli politician whom I've been quoting is Dan Meridor, once touted as a possible prime minister, speaking in Jerusalem to interviewer Norman Frankel nineteen years ago.  The entire interview appears in Middle East Focus: Canada's Magazine on the Contemporary Middle East (vol. 14, no. 3, Summer/Fall 1992, pp. 14-18.

I reckon it's still basically relevant to the situation today.

For Abbas and those maps: http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=3467 

See also http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4049873,00.html