When notorious terrorist Osama Bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in May 2011, United Nations committees issued various congratulatory statements.
UN Secretary General said “The death of Osama bin Laden, announced by President [Barack] Obama last night, is a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism. The crimes of Al Qaeda touched most continents, bringing tragedy and loss of life to thousands of men, women and children. The United Nations condemns in the strongest possible terms terrorism in all its forms, regardless of its purpose and wherever it is committed.”
UN Security Council statement read: “Recalling the “heinous” terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, as well as the numerous attacks perpetrated by the Al-Qaida network around the world, the Security Council welcomed today the news that Osama bin Laden would never again be able to perpetrate such acts of terrorism.”
“The Security Council’s Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee welcomes the news on 1 May 2011 that Usama Bin Laden will never again be able to perpetrate acts of terrorism and refers to the Presidential Statement of the Security Council dated 2 May 2011 in this regard.”
Israel did not receive a similar wave of congratulations in successfully killing Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas and chief architect of the gruesome October 7, 2023 massacre. As opposed to the commentary above, the UN used its various panels on October 17 and 18, 2024 to condemn Israel.
In a discussion about “Global Poverty,” Mauritania offered “Israeli aggression in Gaza and Lebanon has led to inhuman conditions, high levels of food insecurity and extreme poverty. Israel has targeted valuable infrastructure, including schools, mosques and churches as well as water and sanitation facilities.”
In a discussion about the “Rule of Law,” Oman “condemned Israel’s bombardment of hospitals, schools and other sites in which Gazan civilians have sought refuge, also warning against pursuing a policy of collective punishment,” while the representative from Palestine said “For 76 years, the Israeli exceptionalism has haunted the development of the rule of law and the advancement of the protection of civilians in an effort to make might right.”
In a discussion about “Machine Autonomy,” the representative from the League of Arab States “proposed an embargo on arms supplies to Israel.”
In a discussion about “Internally Displaced People,” Algeria called Israel a “killing machine,” while a Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression said that Israel was killing journalists “with total impunity” and was alarmed that Israel was attempting to call anti-Zionism a form of antisemitism.
In a discussion about “Colonialism,” Pakistan’s representative said “No Israeli massacre and brutality will extinguish the struggle for freedom and self-determination of the people of Palestine.”
In a discussion about “Food Rights,” a Special Rapporteur on the right to food said “Israel’s war proved to be a genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people.”
For those scoring at home, the Taliban in Afghanistan and China’s treatment of Rohingya were never mentioned. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was only referenced once in the report on food rights.
For his part, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres admonished Israel about the importance of UN’s military force in Lebanon, which has not prevented Hezbollah from digging tunnels to Israel or stockpiling weapons.
The UN Security Council hasn’t issued any statement since the October 17 killing of Sinwar.
No one at the UN denies that Sinwar planned and called for the massacre of over a thousand people and abduction of hostages. But since they also believe the targeted victims were Jews who perpetually carry some guilt like the mark of Cain, that he is absolved of all crime.
Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 massacre, was killed by an Israeli military operation in Gaza on October 17 one year later. The mourning among West Bank Arabs was likely much greater than for Gazans.
September 2024 PCPSR poll results for race for presidency
The appreciation for Sinwar was much greater in the West Bank than in Gaza, with 70% of West Bank Arabs expressing satisfaction with Sinwar to 29% in Gaza. Presumably this is because the Gaza Strip has felt more of the ramifications of Sinwar’s war against Israel than those living in the West Bank, although the poll does not ask.
The poll does ask about the “best means of achieving Palestinian goals in ending the occupation and building an independent state,” which showed the majority of 56% of West Bankers still preferring violence to 36% in Gaza, a 20 point spread.
Beyond the fighting forces of the decimated military in Gaza military while the armed terrorist groups in the West Bank remaining intact, is the gap in news sources. According to the poll, by far the biggest source of news to the region came from Qatar’s Al Jazeera, and “West Bankers are more likely than Gazans to watch Aljazeera, 80% and 30%, respectively.” That’s the media company which has told Palestinian Arabs that thousands of their comrades did not commit mass rape of Israelis and burn families alive, making films whitewashing the atrocities, despite ample evidence.
The war has made Gazans turn towards negotiations with Israel, as their military has been defeated and the propaganda machine has fizzled, yet West Bank Arabs continue to prefer a war to negotiations by a two-to-one margin. It remains to be seen whether it will take a conclusive defeat and termination of Iranian and Qatari propaganda to make West Bank Arabs give up their quest to destroy Israel.
Or the Palestinian jihadists of the West Bank can continue to threaten Israel, much like Monty Python’s Black Knight.
Palestinian Arabs believe that the pathway to gaining land is through violence, while Israel believes that land given to Palestinian Arabs becomes a launching pad for terrorism. The cause-and-effect is a bloody mirror: violence-for-land (Palestinians) and land-facilitates-violence (Israelis).
Palestinian Arabs have a “greater confidence in the efficacy of armed struggle” to achieve their goals of a Palestinian State, according to Palestinian polls. They point to the success in getting Israel to hand over Jericho, Bethlehem and major Arab cities because of the First Intifada, and abandoning Gaza because of the Second Intifada. This continued more recently in May 2021, when Hamas’s rocketfire caused Israel to halt the eviction of Arab squatters living in Jewish homes in the Sheikh Jarrah section of Jerusalem.
Many Israelis see handing over Gaza as an enormous mistake as it clearly demonstrated that Arab-controlled land becomes a terrorist safe haven. Rather than turning the beachfront land into a peaceful paradise, the Gazans spent years building a terrorist infrastructure from which to launch a genocidal war to destroy Israel. In the aftermath of Israel leaving Gaza in 2005, Palestinian Arabs voted the US-designated terrorist group Hamas to 58% of parliament with the most antisemitic and genocidal charter ever written.
Palestinians are looking for more land; some want all of Israel to be wiped out in favor of Palestine, while others want personal property inside of Israel. Only a minority seek a two-state future.
Israel is not only attempting to destroy Hamas and rescue its hostages; it is educating the jihadists that violence does not pay.
One of thousands of Gaza terrorists killing civilians inside of Israel
It may be working.
A recent September 2024 Palestinian poll found that “for the first time since October 7, 2023, simultaneously in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, findings show significant drop in the favorability of the October 7 attack and in the expectations that Hamas will win the current war, and a moderate drop in the level of support for Hamas; moreover, findings show a drop in the Gaza Strip in the preference for a continued Hamas control over that area in the day after the war and a rise in the preference for PA control…. . Findings show significant rise in support for the two-state solution in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Support for armed struggle declines and support for negotiations rise.”
Both Israelis and Palestinians believe that land and violence are tethered in the holy land. Perhaps the current war is slowly severing that connection and will enable a pathway towards coexistence.
They were shipped to concentration camps to be gassed and incinerated.
They were sent on death marches in the winter to freeze to death.
They were lined up and shot in the heads after digging ditches to receive their corpses.
Almost the entirety of European Jewry was killed. One-third of global Jewry was liquidated.
Holocaust Survivors tried to return to their towns and homes after the war, to be greeted by the locals who had stolen their goods and moved into their homes, who quickly executed the survivors of horrors.
Yet the Holocaust survivors who watched their families, friends and people get annihilated did not take up arms against the German people. They didn’t begin gassing the Austrians after the war. They didn’t invade Poland to burn Poles alive.
Why?
People have argued that Israel’s war to destroy Hamas is breeding another generation of terrorists because of the massive death toll of Palestinian civilians. The argument posits that when young Arabs see the horrible devastation brought upon their families and towns, they will become terrorists when they grow up and seek revenge.
Yet the people who actually experienced a genocide – Jews – never embarked on such a lust for blood and revenge.
Why?
Jews wanted to just live a regular life before the Holocaust and afterwards. Their goals did not change with time. They went from loving their neighbors and governments in Europe to hating them but did not seek revenge.
Palestinian Arabs have also stayed their course. Their goal was to destroy the Jewish State and its founding and remains so today. The wars have not altered their goals and the death of friends and family are simply viewed as setbacks to achieving their aims.
Wars do not create a new generation of terrorists. A culture that dehumanizes the “other” as evil begets a generation of terrorists set on killing the invading entity.
During the Holocaust, Nazis kept Jews calm in concentration camps, making them believe that they were in forced labor camps, not death mills. In recent decades, the United Nations has kept Palestinian Arabs in “refugee” camps, making them believe that the world was going to help them reclaim the towns and homes where grandparents once lived.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews inside their camps, while the UN raised generations to kill thousands of Jews just a short distance away.
ACTION ITEM
Contact the White House and your local representative that UNRWA is a weapon of war that must be closed. Pressure the United Nations and Saudi Arabia to state clearly that there is no “right of return” for Palestinian Arabs to move into Israel.
If ever there was a champion of the woke, it is the author Ta-Nehisi Coates. He worked as a journalist for years at many left-wing publications including the Village Voice, Time and The Atlantic and has written a number of books. One of his books won the National Book Award.
His latest book, The Message is principally about his view on Israel which he believes is racist to the core. He spent ten days visiting cities in the West Bank and read reports about the country from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem, all organizations deeply critical of Israel to arrive at his conclusion.
His book tour took him to his favorite liberal outlets which could not heap enough praise on the author and his book.
The New York Times called Coates a “public intellectual” who could “wield his moral authority” to “call out injustice,” “especially regarding Israel and the occupied territories.” Why would the editor of a major news organization give a glowing review of someone completely unfamiliar with the region who based his entire view from talking to select individuals over ten days, and a number of publicly available jaundiced reports? That says much more about the Times than it does about the book and his analysis.
MSNBC gave him a glowing interview by a gushing Chris Hayes for sixteen minutes. Coastes called Israel an “apartheid state” which he said was immediately obvious since there were streets he could not walk down. Hayes chimed in that he agreed, having been on the “same streets and Hebron and had the same reaction which is that this is is obviously a moral abomination.” (5:20) The two of them were in violent agreement “obviously, obviously, obviously” they echoed to each other.
There was no discussion that 90 percent of Hebron is controlled by the Palestinian Authority and JEWS ARE FORBIDDEN from going there. No education that when the area was under Muslim control pre-1967, JEWS WERE FORBIDDEN from even entering their holy site of the Tomb of the Jewish Matriarchs and Patriarchs. No mention that the 1929 Arab riots which slaughtered Jews, led the British to ETHNICALLY CLEANSE ALL JEWS from the city, because the British concluded that the massacre was so savage and massive that the victims could not be protected from Muslim Arab mobs.
Hayes accidentally let out that the two of them are friends (7:35) and talked about writing together. That fact was not a disqualifier for the executives at MSNBC which wanted Coates to have a warm and glowing interview, pushing his book.
When Hayes asked Coates why he didn’t interview anyone pro-Israel (9:20), Coates offered that “it’s very very difficult to spend almost thirty years in media as I have, and not be very much exposed – and frankly to live in America as a thinking person and not be exposed – to the defenders of the ‘Zionist Project.'” A rich criticism that Jews who control the media have continuously lied to the American public to protect their racist ‘project.’
Hayes grunted in agreement.
He went on to say that because Israel is an apartheid state, nothing else matters. He doesn’t care what actions Arabs have taken or what they say because that inherent situation is evil.
Hayes pointed his finger and waved that Coates was right on point. He urged everyone to read the book.
Chris Hayes on MSNBC telling people to buy Coates’ book
At 11:50, Coates suggested that the Jewish State acts so bigoted and violent against Arabs because of “the humiliation of the Holocaust.” Stewart suggested (14:45) that Arabs around the Middle East were humiliated by the British and French chopping up the region post World War I. He thought the region needed to “reconcile humiliation” (16:50).
In this telling, the genocide of European Jewry was conflated with creating new nations. The extermination of six million Jews connected to the lack of a Palestinian State because the local Arabs want all of it. The return of Jews to their ancestral homeland could only be celebrated if Jews got to subjugate the people who had been living there.
If that premise were true, would Jews have accepted a partition for just part of the land in 1947? Granted all non-Jews Israeli citizenship in 1948? Handed the Jewish Temple Mount, the holiest site for Judaism, to the Muslim Waqf in 1967? Every other faith group which took the plateau for the past 2,000 years converted it to paganism, a church or mosque.
Until the Jews. They handed control to Muslims in the fervent wish for peace and coexistence.
Stewart, a professed “cultural Jew”, endorsed the book.
CNN’s Amanpour & Co. interviewed Coates in an 18 minute interview. He talked (5:00) about how Palestinian Muslims had to wait as much as 45 minutes to enter the Old City of Jerusalem, while those entering from Israel were able to just walk in. Notice: that’s called border controls; Israeli Arabs have no issues going to the Old City of Jerusalem and do so constantly.
He went on to say that Israel’s laws are like the Jim Crow era of separate and unequal. He called Israel an “illegal apartheid regime (8:00)… based on what I saw and read afterwards.” But in interviews Coates made clear that he only read from parties that lambast Israel. He defends himself by saying that the context was irrelevant and the situation is intolerable and inhumane. That has the intellectual and moral idiocy of criticizing a prison without understanding the crime of someone, or the harshness of what chemotherapy does to a person without considering the cancer that riddles a person’s body.
Israel has not annexed the area east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL/ “West Bank”) because it hopes to arrive at a two-state settlement. It has already given Gaza and the major Arab population areas to the Palestinian Authority to give Arabs there self-determination. Unfortunately, the Arabs made clear in the Second Intifada/ Two Percent Pogrom that they want all of Israel, not just pieces of it.
The interviewer pushed back at 9:00 that Coates was only there for ten days and Jews have indigenous claims to the land too. Coates said that “context… won’t make [it] okay.” He then compared defenders of Israel to American Southern racists telling northern White people condemning slavery that “you don’t know the Negro like we do.” (11:25) Coates implied that the pro-Israel community wants to treat Arabs like Black slaves. He said that in Israeli “citizenship is decided by ethnicity and religion, and rights are decided by ethnicity and religion” (16:05) showing that he is completely misinformed and ignorant about the country, where 26% of its citizens are non-Jews.
Coates went back to his theme (17:40) “that just because you went through some horrific experience you therefore have a kind of moral authority and are therefore then not capable of inflicting hurts on other people.” Coates seemingly thinks that Jews think themselves both “humiliated’ (Daily Show) and morally superior because of the Holocaust, and can therefore act with impunity.
The basic context that Coates refuses to acknowledge is that the Holocaust wiped out one-third of global Jewry. While he thinks of himself as a minority, there are over one billion Black people in the world. There are nearly two billion Muslims in the world. Jews are not majority-minorities that are discussed constantly, but a minority-minority of just 15 million people which are on the endangered humans list. When they returned en masse to their homeland, five Arab armies and the local Arab population tried to genocide the remaining rump of Jews. In the lands that Arabs conquered in the 1948-9 war, they ethnically cleansed the land of every single Jew and gave citizenship to people as long as they weren’t Jewish (1954 Jordanian Law, Article 3). They voted Hamas with a vile genocidal antisemitic charter to 58% of the parliament, and celebrated the group’s October 7 massacre.
CNN would not endorse the speaker or book.
The firestorm over the book came about recently when CBS interviewed Coates in a six minute interview by three interviewers. One of the three, Tony Dokoupil asked Coates why he omitted so much context (1:50) and Coates replied that the pro-Israel context is known so he didn’t feel compelled to repeat them, as well as making the arguments listed above in the other interviews. The staff at CBS went ballistic at the line of questioning so CBS News chief Wendy McMahon scolded Dokoupil for not meeting “our editorial standards.”
Perhaps Dokoupil was the only journalist who actually did his job, as most “news” organizations were no more than paid advertising spots.
The shame of Coates is the willful smugness of his ignorance. The horror of the media is the willful platforming of miseducation.
On October 3, 2024, the Director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Henrik Urdal, announced his updated list today for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. While PRIO is not associated with the Nobel committee, its views are considered influential. The list included:
OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms
UNRWA and Philippe Lazzarini
International Court of Justice (ICJ)
UNESCO and the Council of Europe
In selecting UNRWA, PRIO stated “The UN agency has faced a massive funding crisis for years, which has been exasperated by the war itself, and increasingly by the impact of US withdrawing funding following allegations by Israel that 12 participants of the 7 October attacks were Hamas militants, employed by UNRWA. The UN agency took the allegations seriously, by launching both an internal investigation and an external review of its procedures. UNRWA has extensive control mechanisms in place, with a zero tolerance, but not zero risk policy. They therefore terminated the employment of individuals where there was any indication that they might have had ties to militant groups. Throughout the war UNRWA itself has been heavily targeted by Israeli attacks, and by the end of September, 224 of its staff had been killed in Gaza, and 190 UNRWA installations had been damaged. UNRWA’s operation is absolutely fundamental to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. A Nobel Peace Prize to the agency and its Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini would send a strong message about its role in supporting the lives of millions of Palestinian women, men and children.”
Nowhere was it noted that UNRWA teaches its students to despise Israeli Jews. Nowhere was it mentioned that UNRWA has promised 6 million Palestinian Arabs – 42% of whom already live in historic region of Palestine – that their future is inside of Israel, whether Israel likes it or not.
In short-listing the ICJ, PRIO wrote “While a Nobel Peace Prize to the ICJ would largely be seen as uncontroversial, the Court acted boldly in January this year ordering Israel to take action to prevent acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip. In addition, it acted early in March 2022 by ordering Russia to ‘immediately suspend the military operations’ in Ukraine.”
The anti-Israel actions were not an accident or related to the current war.
In 2021, PRIO did not recommend Jared Kushner who helped engineer the Abraham Accords which formed normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab and Muslim countries, a feat which was once considered impossible. Instead it nominated B’Tselem & the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) for “contributing to raising awareness in Israel and elsewhere of the need for the Israeli regime to change course if the conflict is to have any chance of reaching a peaceful and just resolution.”
In short, the recommendations for a peace prize in the shadow of the brutal slaughter of Jews was to send a political message that Jews deserve neither peace nor justice; they should have neither until the Palestinian victims of preference achieve all of their goals.
ACTION ITEM
Contact PRIO at urdal@prio.org and +47 92 04 78 41 that the barbaric slaughter of Jews should be condemned clearly and the murderers brought to justice, and their protectors should not be celebrated on the global stage, a mockery to both living and dead Jews.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has many proxies surrounding Israel: Hamas which controls Gaza; Hezbollah which controls Lebanon; Syria; and farther away, the Houthis in Yemen.
Does it also have cells in the West Bank?
As Iran sent over 180 missiles into Israel on October 1, 2024, two Palestinian Arabs from Hebron shot and killed seven people in Tel Aviv and injured many others. The timing was minutes apart.
This was the first time that Palestinian Arabs shot up Tel Aviv streets during the year long war against Palestinian terrorists. Is it a coincidence that Palestinian Arabs decided to blast Tel Aviv just as Iranian missiles showered from above?
West Bank Arabs have been much more supportive of the October 7 attacks and commitment to destroying Israel than their counterparts in Gaza according to Palestinian polls. Israeli activity likely prevented a two-front war on October 7, which would have resulted in thousands of additional Israeli deaths in cities like Kfar Saba and Ra’anana which are very close to the 1949 Armistice Lines.
While the world is focused on the violent storm between Israel and Iran, Israel’s security will need to investigate how deeply Iran has integrated with the newer terrorist groups in the West Bank like Jenin Battalion, Lions’ Den and Tulkarm Brigades, to clamp down on yet another front of jihadi terrorism.
ACTION ITEM
Write White House and pro-Israel members of Congress like Ritchie Torres, Mike Lawler and Josh Gottheimer or your local representative to get the State Department to label the Jenin Battalion, Lion’s Den and the branches of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade as US designated foreign terrorist organizations.
This four stage battle plan was used by Arab nations leading up to the 1967 Six Day War. It is being used again now on a broader scale, as jihadi extremists brought in the whole world to the third stage on September 18, 2024.
Stage 1: Attack Jews As Foreigners, 1960s-
Shortly after the Balfour Declaration of 1917 become codified in the San Remo Agreement of 1920, the Arabs in Palestine began to attack local Palestinian Jews. They objected to the global powers putting forth what would become the Palestine Mandate of 1922, calling for Jews to return to their homeland. While the Arabs never much objected to Jews living in Palestine, the idea that they would reestablish their homeland was appalling.
After a decade of on-and-off again pogroms killing Palestinian Jews in the 1920s to mid-1930s, Palestinian Arabs began a multi-year riot from 1936 to 1939 which effectively got the British to stop allowing Jews into Palestine, even as the Holocaust was unfolding in Europe. While at first they simply claimed that the land was Arab, over time they developed a narrative coined “decolonization” which swept through Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, and misapplied it to the Jewish State.
Stage 2: Gather the Masses to the Cause, 1973-
The humiliating defeat of the Arab armies in the 1967 war to destroy Israel set the stage for the Arabs to go broader and enlist the world in their genocidal quest. The Yom Kippur War was accompanied by an oil embargo to force the world to bend the knee to the Arab oil kings and blacklist Israel.
The Arabs pushed through a United Nations Resolution to declare “Zionism is racism” in 1975 and slowly dripped the idea that Israel was a European invention and part-and-parcel of colonial imperialism. The notion gathered more steam at the 2001 Durban Conference and fully captured the United States’ attention in the 2014-2016 advancement of Black-Palestinian intersectionality in the wake of several Black men being killed by police. Socialists took up the banner in the cause of a broad redistribution of wealth and power from the first world Jewish State in the midst of the impoverished Arab world that surrounded it, much as people of color were aiming to tear down perceived structures of “white privilege.”
The masses somehow absorbed the lie that Jews are not native to the Jewish homeland, and the Obama Administration turned that falsification of history into antisemitic international law in December 2016 with the passing of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, making it illegal for Jews to even live in their holiest city in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Stage 3: Remove the Enemy’s Defenses, 2024-
On September 18, 2024, the UN General Assembly voted 124-14 to strip Israel of its right to self defense in Gaza, the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. A large block of 43 countries were too chicken to vote against the absurd notion that a country cannot defend itself from barbarous murderers who killed thousands and threatened to commit the atrocities “again and again.”
UN General Assembly vote to deny Israel the ability to use self defense, September 18, 2024
The short list of Israeli friends were: Argentina; Czechia; Fiji; Hungary; Malawi; Micronesia; Nauru; Palau; Papua New Guinea; Paraguay; Tonga; Tuvalu and the United States.
BBC cited the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) which stated that the major arms suppliers to Israel were the USA (66%/ voted against the resolution), Germany (30%/ abstained), Italy (5%/ abstained) and some from the United Kingdom (abstained; figures don’t add to 100% due to rounding). It means that while some countries like Canada (abstained) may announce a halt of selling arms to Israel as it did in March 2024, the impact is limited. It is the USA and Germany that are the main suppliers to Israel.
And the anti-Israel radical left-wing in the United States is targeting those very arms.
Radical socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders was quick to advance a resolution “to stop the sale of U.S. arms to Israel.” Alt-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez retweeted her approval.
The situation may become more dire.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) of the Foreign Relations Committee, might be the next Secretary of State should Vice President Kamala Harris win the election in November. He has made clear that he supports conditioning aid to Israel, which would leave the Jewish State vulnerable to the many jihadist armies which surround it.
Stage 4: Assemble the Armies, ?
The Jewish State is becoming more and more isolated. Should the United States and Germany withhold arms to the country, just as the Islamic Republic of Iran obtains full nuclear weapons capability, the Jewish State will be critically vulnerable.
For the last fifty years, the Arab world convinced the world to embrace the idea that Jews have no rights or legitimacy in their holy land, capped by Obama’s blessing of UNSC 2334. That has metastasized over the past decade to bring the world to the point of trying to strangle Israel of its inherent right to self defense in the face of genocidal jihadists.
We are at a very dangerous point in history. It is now up to the United States and Germany, two foes who fought each other 75 years ago over the fate of Jews, to declare that they stand by Jews in regards to their history, heritage and human rights to live in peace and security, including having the capability to appropriately defend themselves from genocidal jihadists next door.
In a frightening spectacle of rewarding terror, a majority of countries at the United Nations voted to recognize the State of Palestine and give it a seat at the United Nations General Assembly. In so doing, there are two logical next steps for these 143 countries who claim to be supporting a two state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict: move their embassies to Israel to Jerusalem, and vote to dismantle UNRWA in the West Bank and Gaza.
Embassies to Israel in Jerusalem
For decades, many countries kept their embassies in Tel Aviv despite Israel’s capital being in Jerusalem. They did so, because the status of Jerusalem was always viewed as subject to negotiation. As originally envisioned in the November 1947 Partition Plan, all of Greater Jerusalem and Greater Bethlehem were to be held in a “corpus separatum,” neither part of an Arab state nor a Jewish State. Now, in officially recognizing Palestine as a state and deciding that eastern Jerusalem is “illegally occupied” by Israel, those countries are essentially also recognizing that the western part of the city is part of Israel.
“Corpus Separatum” in orange line of Greater Bethlehem and Greater Jerusalem as marked in November 1949 UN Partition Plan, compared to 1949 Armistice Lines between Israel and Jordan marking West Jerusalem in blue and East Jerusalem in white, a situation that existed for 18 years 1949-1967.
Norway, Spain and Ireland recognized a Palestinian State in 2024 but failed to announce that they were moving their embassies to Israel to western Jerusalem. Mexico recognized Palestine in 2023 but has not moved its embassy. Sweden recognized Palestine in 2014 but has still not moved its Israeli embassy.
If countries simply recognize Palestine in theory – without borders – than it should demand that the phrase “Occupied East Jerusalem” should be stricken from any U.N. resolution. Alternatively, if they really believe that the matter of Jerusalem and borders are already settled as indicated in their votes, than to hold back moving the embassies to western Jerusalem is a slap in the face to Israel.
End UNRWA in Gaza and West Bank
For countries that recognize Palestine as a country controlling land in the West Bank and Gaza, it is absurd to have “Palestine refugees” in “Palestine.” The U.N. special “Palestine refugee” agency’s operations should handed over to the Palestinian Authority. Almost every UNRWA employee in the West Bank and Gaza are local Palestinians, so the hand off would be simple.
Failing to close UNRWA inside their recognized “Palestine” would be an affront to the sovereignty of Israel, essentially demanding that Israel accept millions of UNRWA’s wards despite Palestinians having a state of their own.
UNRWA in eastern Jerusalem (photo: First One Through)
The recognition of Palestine has one of two flavors: it is merely symbolic and the countries still want the Palestinian Authority to negotiate borders, Jerusalem and refugees, OR these countries are actively attacking Israel in denying its sovereign right to declare its own capital and admit citizens of its own choosing.
If it is the former, than Israel should ask those countries to make clear that they do not consider “East Jerusalem” to be “occupied.” If it is the latter, Israel must consider taking strong political moves against them – together with allies which have not recognized Palestine like the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Australia.
In the aftermath of the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, the United Nations decided that the killers are “peace-loving.”
On May 10, 2024, the United Nations voted and approved A/ES-10/L.30/Rev.1 which said “that membership in the United Nations is open to all peace-loving States,” and that Palestine fully qualifies. It endorsed Palestine as “peace-loving” despite Hamas committing a brutal slaughter of 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, as codified in its genocidal antisemitic charter which is embraced by Palestinians who elected the terrorist group to 58% of parliament in 2006.
The recorded vote was 143 in favour to 9 against (Argentina, Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, United States), with 25 abstentions.
On September 10, 2024, Palestine took its seat at the General Assembly of the UN’s opening session. Delegates from around the world embraced the Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour.
Delegates of member states line up to greet Riyad Mansour, top right, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, as he arrives for the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, September 10, 2024 at the United Nations. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
The beheading of people is “peace-loving” if the victims are Jews. The burning of families alive is “peace-loving” if the family are Jews. The sexual abuse of women is “peace-loving” if the women are Jews. The abduction of babies as hostages is “peace-loving” if the infants are Jews.
So says the United Nations, an institution awash in moral rot which should be defunded and closed.
First One Through 