Biden backs UN racist plan to exclude Jews from East Jerusalem

Israel has a real fight on its hands in resisting President Biden’s push to re-open the US consulate in Jerusalem.

The consulate was closed on March 4, 2019 — after former President – Donald Trump—had issued a Presidential Proclamation on 6 December 2017 that saw the US Embassy moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on 14 May 2018.

Trump’s Secretary of State – Mike Pompeo – has slammed Biden’s decision:

“I think it’s illegal. We don’t have consulates in the same city we have embassies anywhere in the world… It’s unnecessary and counterproductive, and I think, frankly, sends the wrong signal to the Palestinians as well. It signals to them back to business as usual, back to the kleptocracy, and ‘pay to slay’ and all the horrors that the Palestinian leadership and the West Bank imposed on its own people as well” 

Biden’s decision will certainly give added impetus to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 – passed on 23 December 2016 as then Vice President Biden was vacating his office in the White House prior to the handover of power from President Obama to President-elect Trump.

Security Council Resolution 2334:

1. Reaffirmed that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, had no legal validity and constituted a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace; 

2. Reiterated its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard; 

3. Underlined that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations;

This racist resolution: 

• Ignored that all Jews living in East Jerusalem before 1948 had been ethnically cleansed from there following Jerusalem’s invasion and partial conquest by Transjordan in 1948.
• Denied Jews had any right to return or take up residence there after 1967
• Failed to acknowledge that Jews had lived there for 3000 years

The Obama-Biden administration failed to veto this overtly anti-Jewish Resolution to ensure it could never be weaponised to attack Israeli policies. 

The departing administration shamefully chose instead to only abstain — as then Secretary of State John Kerry — now currently serving as Biden’s United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate — explained:

“.. . the vote in the United Nations was about preserving the two-state solution.  That’s what we were standing up for: Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state, living side by side in peace and security with its neighbors.  That’s what we are trying to preserve for our sake and for theirs.”

Preserving the two-state solution was more important for the Obama-Biden administration than denouncing the UN for denying Jews the right to live in East Jerusalem

President Trump’s closure of the US Consulate in Jerusalem helped neutralise this anti-Jewish parting shot fired by Obama and Biden.

Biden’s current Secretary of State – Antony Blinken – has announced that re-opening the US Consulate in Jerusalem will serve: 

“to underscore the commitment of the United States to rebuilding the relationship with the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people”

Why does rebuilding this relationship justify consular offices separate from the US Embassy in Jerusalem for those seeking to deny Jews the right to live in East Jerusalem alongside them? 

The US House of Representatives rejected Resolution 2334 by a vote of 342-80 on January 5, 2017. So should Biden – by keeping the former US Consulate doors in Jerusalem firmly and permanently closed.

Author’s note: The cartoon—commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”—one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators—whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.

 

European Union and Germany plot to see Jerusalem divided

The decision by the European Union (EU) and Germany to launch the East Jerusalem Tourism Development Programme is in reality a blatant attempt by them to see Jerusalem divided by creating political facts on the ground under the guise of helping promote tourism in East Jerusalem.

The German representative—Oliver Owcza – was quite happy to create this tourism smokescreen:

 “As Germans and Europeans we value tourism that is of quality and locally owned. We therefore are confident this project will connect the tourism community and support new concepts and services. As it will contribute to more and better job and career opportunities”

European Union Representative — Sven Kühn Von Burgsdorff – however — did not seek to hide the consortium’s real objective — firing these bullets:

“Palestinians in East Jerusalem are facing daily political, economic, and social challenges. Tourism has always been one of the main income-generating activities in the city and helped maintaining the Palestinian presence and identity of the city. 

Our joint work as Europeans reflects once again the clear and united position of the EU and its Member States with regard to East Jerusalem. For us, East Jerusalem is part of the occupied Palestinian territory and the status of Jerusalem as the future capital for the two states should always be respected and protected.”  

Words do have meaning.

“Palestinians in East Jerusalem”, “Palestinian territory” and “maintaining the Palestinian presence and identity of the city” excludes any rights Jews, non-Arab Christians and non-Arab Moslems might have in East Jerusalem — according to the definition of “Palestinians” in Clause 6 of the 1964 Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Charter:

“The Palestinians are those Arab citizens who were living normally in Palestine up to 1947, whether they remained or were expelled. Every child who was born to a Palestinian parent after this date whether in Palestine or outside is a Palestinian.”

This Arabs-only definition was repeated in article 5 of the new PLO Charter adopted in 1968. 

Jewish claims in East Jerusalem are expressly rejected by the PLO in the 1964 PLO Charter – repeated almost verbatim in article 20 of the 1968 Charter: 

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. 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.”

The EU and Germany have trashed the uniquely shared Jewish, Moslem and Christian identity of East Jerusalem — evidenced by the centuries–long presence of Jews, Moslems and Christians there and the formative and normative role East Jerusalem has played in the development of these three monotheistic religions.

The EU and Germany’s support for a recently-minted Palestinian identity fabricated to erase this shared identity is disgustingly racist. 

The only time in history that Jerusalem has ever been a divided city occurred between 1950 and 1967 after East Jerusalem was conquered in 1948 and then unified with Transjordan to form a single territorial entity called Jordan.

During this period:

• The Jewish Quarter of the Old City in East Jerusalem was destroyed and its residents expelled. 
• Fifty-eight synagogues—some hundreds of years old—were destroyed, their contents looted and desecrated. 
• The 2500 years old Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was ransacked; graves desecrated; thousands of tombstones smashed and used as building material, paving stones or for latrines in Arab Legion army camps. 

Jerusalem must never be divided again. 

 Author’s note: The cartoon—commissioned exclusively for this article—is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”—one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators—whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.

Antisemitic EU & ECRI policies on Israel cannot be whitewashed

 

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) - in attempting to whitewash European Union (EU) policies directed against Israel in Judea and Samaria being labelled as “antisemitic” – is engaging in similar antisemitic conduct in denying Israel’s right to claim sovereignty there.

Antisemitic EU anti-Israel policies:

• Require goods produced by Israelis living in Judea and Samaria to be distinctively labelled for sale in the EU: “Product from West Bank (Israeli settlement)” 
• Facilitate and finance illegal Arab building in Area C of Judea and Samaria  - totally under Israeli control pursuant to the Oslo Accords – without the EU seeking Israel’s approval

ECRI’s 47 members – one from each Council of Europe member state – are appointed:

“on the basis of their independence, impartiality, moral authority and expertise in dealing with issues of racism, discrimination, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance.”

ECRI – in a recent report - clarified when it considers criticism of Israel to be antisemitic:

“Contemporary forms of antisemitism can differ from traditional forms of prejudice against Jewish people, but both forms can also exist in parallel. Nowadays, antisemitism can also be expressed in certain criticism of Israel that is baseless. For example, denying Jews their right to a national homeland, holding the State of Israel to a different standard of behaviour than other states, or demonising the State of Israel and viewing it and its people as inherently evil or racist, may be regarded as antisemitic.” 

Under these guidelines:

• Textbooks used in Palestinian Arab and Saudi Arabian schools depicting hundreds of maps without “Israel” being designated on them - are antisemitic 
• The Palestine Liberation Organisation and Hamas - whose respective Charters deny Jews have any right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in their ancient and biblical homeland – are antisemitic organisations and their leaders are antisemites.
• EU criticism of Israel for its responses in protecting Israel’s citizens from rockets fired from Gaza indiscriminately into Israeli population centres - is antisemitic - since European States would act similarly were their countries so confronted 

ECRI however shoots itself in the foot when stating what criticism of Israel is not antisemitic:

“However, ECRI strongly emphasises that any attempts to stifle, or stigmatise as antisemitic, legitimate criticism of Israel and its policies, in particular towards the Palestinian people and in the context of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, will jeopardise efforts to combat antisemitism and should therefore be rejected.”

ECRI’s choice of the phrase “Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories” is itself a manifestation of antisemitism – denying Jews have the right to reconstitute their national homeland in any part of Judea and Samaria – even though their right to do so was legally mandated - indeed encouraged - by:

• The San Remo conference and Treaty of Sevres in 1920
• Article 6 and Article 25 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine
• Article 80 of the United Nations Charter

Labelling these territories “Palestinian territories” – rather than “disputed territories” – denies Israel’s right to establish the Jewish national homeland in these territories and asserts that only the “Palestinian people” – not the “Jewish people” - has such a right. 

ECRI’s stated position is antisemitic under its own guidelines.

EU criticism of Israel’s settlement policy in Judea and Samaria also ignores Israel’s right to pursue that policy under the above internationally agreed consensus and is also antisemitic.

EU and ECRI – by their policies, statements and criticism of Israel in Judea and Samaria - are helping to fuel rapidly increasing antisemitism in Europe. 

Antisemitism - wherever and whenever it appears – needs to be exposed, condemned and eradicated. Organizations and their leaders – including the EU and ECRI - who propagate antisemitic criticism of Israel need to be named and shamed.

Author’s note: The cartoon — commissioned exclusively for this article  —  is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”- one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators  —  whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.

EU will defund UNWRA for using PA textbooks inciting Jew-hatred

 

The European Parliament has threatened to block €20 million in aid to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) — unless “substantive positive” changes are made by the next academic school year to Palestinian Authority (PA) textbooks used in UNWRA schools.

EU funding will instead go to organisations that “have a proven track record of promoting educational initiatives in school settings for children designed to foster tolerance, coexistence and respect towards the Jewish-Israeli ‘other’.”

Many PA textbooks currently:

• incite Jew-hatred, 
• prefer Jihad to peaceful resolution of the Jewish-Arab conflict and 
• do not recognize Israel on any of their maps 

The May 2021 Report of the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) has highlighted hundreds of examples of intolerance and hatred in current PA textbooks—pointing out:  

“Schools are one of the most powerful tools to mitigate extremist influences. They are key to achieving the tolerant and open-minded societies of the future. But they can also be where negative influences—skewed historical narratives, hatred of others, gender inequalities and even political violence–can take root.” 

The Report looked at 222 textbooks used in the 2021 Palestinian School Curriculum Grades 1-12. Of those—105 textbooks had not changed at all and remained as they were in 2019—finding: 

• there were no substantive positive changes made to the current Palestinian curriculum
• the curriculum had moved further from meeting UNESCO standards and 
• newly published textbooks were more radical than those previously published 

The Report concluded:

“There is a systematic insertion of violence, martyrdom and jihad across all grades and subjects. Extreme nationalism and Islamist ideologies are widespread throughout the curriculum, including science and math textbooks. The possibility of peace with Israel is rejected. Any historical Jewish presence in the modern-day territories of Israel and the Palestinian Authority is entirely omitted from the textbooks.”

Specific examples provided in the IMPACT-se Report substantiate:

Jew-hatred

•  An eleventh-grade Palestinian history textbook implies that Jews control the world, using imagery of an arm with a Star of David holding a globe 
• Grade 10 students are taught that Jews control money, the media, and politics and use them for their own benefit 
• Jews are characterized in a Grade 5 textbook as sinful liars and fraudsters for turning their backs on the Prophet in early Islam 

Rejection of Peace and the two-state solution 

• All peace agreements, summits and proposals with Israel post-1993 Oslo Accords — previously included in PA textbooks — have been completely removed from the curriculum. 
• Peace advocacy as a universal ideal appearing in a 2018 social studies fifth grade textbook was deleted from the 2019 edition and not reintroduced for 2020. 
• The peace treaty with Jordan is absent after appearing in pre-2016 editions of a Grade 12 textbook.

Encouragement of martyrdom and Jihad

• A fifth grade textbook chapter glorifying Palestinian martyrs describes dying as better than living
• A tenth grade textbook presents Jihad “for the liberation of Palestine” as a “private obligation for every Muslim”

Absence of Israel on maps

• Out of more than two hundred maps across the PA textbook curriculum — not one mentions the name “Israel”.
• Most maps illustrating Palestine’s current borders show the word “Palestine” written across the entire territory — without demarcation lines — entirely disregarding Israel’s existence. 
• Palestine’s territory is mostly described as from "the river to the sea”

Jerusalem

Third-graders learn that Jerusalem is an Arab city holy to Muslims and Christians alone — without learning about its historical connection to Jews or Judaism

Any peaceful resolution of the 100-years old Jewish-Arab conflict seems further away than ever whilst PA textbooks inciting Jewish-Israeli hatred continue to poison young peoples’ minds. 

Author’s note: The cartoon—commissioned exclusively for this article — is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones”— one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators — whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades.