2014, the UN Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

[Mosby]

Palestinians, and their undemocratic UN cohorts, are off to a roaring start for 2014, the UN Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

Last week UNESCO tore down an exhibit on the Jewish people’s ties to the land of Israel, just before it opened to the public, because it offended Arab states. Unfortunately, the move was only the tip of the UN iceberg.

All visitors to UN Headquarters in New York, including school children from across America, walk off the elevator straight into the “Palestine” exhibit.

The UN tour’s first stop communicates malignant historical revisionism. According to the display, Palestinians are the new Jews, having suffered an “exodus” in 1948. Total Arab rejection of a Jewish state (contrary to the 1947 UN partition resolution), and repeated efforts to annihilate Israel, are not mentioned. Instead, in 1948 “the first Arab-Israeli war breaks out.” Nor is there any apparent reason for the “two wars” of 1967 and 1973.

The only “contravention of international law” is by Israel. The year 1987 began not a murderous campaign against Israeli civilians, but a justifiable “Palestinian uprising.” There are triumphant photos of Yasser Arafat, maps pre-dating modern Israel, and lots of photos of miserable-looking Arab children. Not a Jewish victim in sight. And the exhibit announces, there are now 11 million Palestinians worldwide.

The UN propaganda campaign against the legitimacy of Israel has now reached epidemic proportions.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/2014-the-UN-Year-of-Solidarity-with-the-Palestinian-People-338975

[Jefferson23]

1. Interesting author, Bayefsky.

2010:

Obama's dangerous overreaction on Israel



The Obama administration's hysterical response to Israel's announcement that it will continue to build new homes for its expanding population in disputed territory ought to evoke one response: Methinks thou doth protest too much.

Given that the United States is supposed to be committed to the parties determining ultimate legal ownership of the land in final status negotiations, what is going on?

The Palestinian Authority is the only side refusing to sit across the table from its interlocutor without preconditions. Recent reports indicate that Mamhoud Abbas and company are still inculcating the next generation of budding terrorists in the abc's of antisemitism, refusing to put Israel on the map in their authorized school books and fanning the flames of Islamic extremists at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem - all of which is incitement and a gross violation of the Roadmap. As for Hamas, the other Palestinian authority running Gaza, it is just openly dedicated to Israel's annihilation.

None of that is preventing the Obama administration from insisting that Israel negotiate with one half of the Palestinian split personality.

In fact, the words of Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Clinton, and top advisor David Axelrod in the last few days suggest, instead, that what really concerns the human rights gurus in the White House is preserving the option of apartheid Palestine. After all, the purpose of denying the ability of a Jew to build a house on land that theoretically may one day change hands, is to ensure that a Jew-free Palestinian state can come into existence unimpeded.

This strategy is not only repugnant, it is nonsensical. Making settlements the issue will only have the predictable effect of pushing the Palestinians further away from the negotiating table.

Reading between the lines, the true explanation of the hyperbole of describing the announcement of housing plans as "insulting" - to use Clinton's word - is something else entirely: Iran. Ironically, when Vice-President Biden went before the Israeli public on March 11 and told them "The United States is determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, period," only politeness prevented Israelis from laughing out loud. Nobody believed him. Everyone knows that the UN is not going to deliver a Security Council resolution imposing serious sanctions on Iran in time to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. Every time Obama officials claim they are working on sanctions, it just reinforces the conclusion that they have absolutely no intention of doing what is necessary to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.

That leaves Israel holding the bag. And Obama - along with European countries and Australia - do not want Israel to use force against Iran's nuclear facilities regardless of the mortal threat that they pose to Israel's population. The President's only way to prevent Israel from acting - without using more overt intimidation that would reveal his having put Israel's security way down on his list of priorities and risk a backlash in Congress - is to scare Israel fast with threatened isolation on a trumped-up affront like a bunch of new houses in the desert.

Exactly the same calculation occurred with the Dubai affair and Israel's alleged assassination of one murderous Hamas mastermind. If the Europeans and Australians could manufacture enough moral outrage about forged passports in the context of the demise of a genocidal killer and the Obama White House can keep the settlement issue on the front burner, Israel will find itself on the defensive - at exactly the moment it is thinking about going on the offensive.

Will members of Congress buy the President's nonsense about Israel being the stumbling block to peace between Israelis and Palestinians? Will they place more importance on houses and living than incitement and dying? Will Jews who voted overwhelmingly for Obama now perceive this President to be the most anti-Israel sitting U.S. commander-in-chief in Israel's history? Will Israelis be sufficiently intimidated by the international blowback every time they make a move to defend themselves, or to exercise their right of self-determination, that they decide not to go it alone on Iran?

We don't yet know. What we do know is that the White House's misinformation campaign should not be the deciding factor. And we also know that for the Vice President of the United States to stand before Israelis, address the greatest immediate threat to their peace and security and misrepresent the President's willingness to do what it takes to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb - is what is really insulting.

Bayefsky is a Professor at Touro College and a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/obama-dangerous-overreaction-israel-article-1.176399#ixzz2r9am4QSG


** Looking back is telling.

[Scootaloo]

2. Always amusing to see propaganda whining about propaganda

According to the display, Palestinians are the new Jews, having suffered an “exodus” in 1948.

That's pretty much what happened. What, only Jews can be exiles?

Total Arab rejection of a Jewish state (contrary to the 1947 UN partition resolution), and repeated efforts to annihilate Israel, are not mentioned.

I love the sense of entitlement here. How dare the inhabitants of the territory oppose the notion of granting the majority of their territory to an immigrant minority on the say-so of Uruguay and Holland! Amusing also how Israel accepts this rather barbaric decidion of the UN's as holy writ... yet has been casually violating the other side of the same decision - that the Palestinians should also have a state - since before the british left.

Instead, in 1948 “the first Arab-Israeli war breaks out.” Nor is there any apparent reason for the “two wars” of 1967 and 1973.

Isn't that how Israel handles it? There was no reason for any of these, except "you know how Arabs are!"

The only “contravention of international law” is by Israel. The year 1987 began not a murderous campaign against Israeli civilians, but a justifiable “Palestinian uprising.”

Stateless populations aren't subject to international law in the way states are. Funny how Israel wants international law to smash and bloody and punish Palestinians as if they were a state, while adamantly refusing any possibility of a Palestinian state, and also denying that its own gross violations are worthy of any international attention whatsoever. Again with the entitlement.

There are triumphant photos of Yasser Arafat, maps pre-dating modern Israel, and lots of photos of miserable-looking Arab children. Not a Jewish victim in sight.

And? Must there be Jewish victims slathering the walls when speaking of Palestinians? Should there be Palestinian victims slathering the walls when speaking of Israelis? i suppose not, as the previous "Jewish connection to Israel" display presumably did not contain photos of Haganah soldiers cheerfully smiling for the camera amid the stacked bodies they had created in Dier Yassin.

The UN propaganda campaign against the legitimacy of Israel has now reached epidemic proportions.

By which the author means, the Un might start treating Israel like a nation instead of a pet project. Hurray!

[Jefferson23]

3. Photographs Tell a History of Palestinians Unmoored

snip* “When was the last time that any United Nations agency raised so much money and invested so much effort in organizing and circulating around the world the documentation of a specific plight like that of the Palestinian refugees? Never,” said Yigal Palmor, the spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

“This only emphasizes the strident anomaly of the dedication of a disproportionate part of the United Nations budget, staff, time and resources to the Palestinian issue exclusively at the expense of, and to the detriment of, all other similar issues,” he added.

Israel vehemently rejects the Palestinian demand for a right of return for the refugees who, by the agency’s count, now number around five million, including the descendants. It says that any mass influx would spell the end of Israel as a predominantly Jewish state. Israelis often blame the very existence of the agency — which was set up in 1949 to deal with the Palestinian refugees and which provides relief, education and health services — for prolonging their sense of impermanence.

The world’s other refugees are handled by a single agency that was set up later, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Mr. Palmor said that while the agency mostly did good work on the ground, it was “dedicated to preserving the refugees’ status rather than encouraging their resettlement or integration in their current or alternative locations, contributing to the perpetuation of the Palestinian refugee problem.”

At the exhibit, Mr. Grandi said he was aware that the refugee issue had its political aspects. But, he added, “Remember, this is also about people, about individuals with their own plights and achievements.”

Christopher Gunness, an agency spokesman, said its mandate was to help the refugees and to advocate for their rights until all sides to the conflict negotiated a just and durable solution.

“What is perpetuating the refugee problem,” he said, “is the failure of the political parties to resolve it.”

Mr. Gunness added that the Palestinian refugees would have the same rights and status under any United Nations agency.

“Everyone has a right to understand, to study and feel a part of their history,” he said. “Are we supposed to engage in denial of the events of 1948? The refugee experience is an essential part of Palestinian identity.”

Funding for the project, about $1 million so far, has come from the Danish and French governments and from the Palestinian private sector. It comes as the agency is struggling with a budget deficit and appealing for emergency funds to cover its needs in the West Bank and Gaza and to contend with the crisis in Syria.

Mr. Gunness said that the money raised for the archive project had nothing to do with the budgets for staff salaries or refugee welfare.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/29/world/middleeast/photographs-tell-a-history-of-palestinians-unmoored.html?_r=0

[azurnoir]

4. more from Ms Bayefsky on Obama's 'record' with Israel

Obama’s Real Record on Israel

Just a partial rap-sheet speaks for itself.

President Obama never visited Israel during his time in office, despite having been as close as thirty minutes away in Egypt, and managing to go to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iraq.

President Obama told Jewish leaders in July 2009 that he was deliberately adopting a policy of putting daylight between America and Israel.

President Obama has legitimized the UN body most responsible for demonizing Israel as the world’s worst human rights violator. The President joined the UN Human Rights Council in 2009 and is now seeking a second 3-year term, despite Israel’s requests that he do the opposite.

President Obama made Israeli settlements the key stumbling block in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Starting in 2009 he chose to castigate Israel publicly, often, and in extreme terms at the General Assembly and the Security Council. The Palestinians took the President’s cue and ended direct negotiations until such time as Israel capitulates, even though the subject is supposed to be a final status issue.

President Obama treated Israel’s Prime Minister to a series of insulting snubs during his visit to the White House in March 2010.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/10/23/obamas-real-record-on-israel/

[Jefferson23]

5. She gets right to the point, doesn't she. n/t