Palestine: Netanyahu needs to expose PLO hoax

[Published 21 February 2017]


The first visit to Australia by a sitting Israeli Prime Minister – Benjamin Netanyahu – has been preceded by a statement signed by 65 prominent Australians on the initiative of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network.

That statement declares:

“The Australian Government needs to rethink its one-sided support for the Israeli Government. We are appalled that our Government opposes the recent UN Security Council resolution supporting the application of international law to Israel and Palestine, when most nations, including the United Kingdom, Germany, France and New Zealand, support it. Even the USA did not oppose it. It is time for the suffering of the Palestinian people to stop and for Australia to take a more balanced role in supporting the application of international law and not supporting Mr Netanyahu and his policies.”

Signatories to this statement include:

1. senior legal professionals – including former Solicitor General Gavan Griffith QC, and former Federal Court judge Murray Rutledge Wilcox
2. former parliamentarians –and diplomats including Jon Stanhope, former ACT Chief Minister, former ALP Minister The Hon Alan Griffin, and Ambassador Bruce Haigh
3. senior clergy – including Bishop George Browning, Bishop Pat Power and former Uniting Church President Rev Gregor Henderson AM
4. Artists – including actor Miriam Margolyes, writer and commentator Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, artist Luke Roberts, and filmmaker Christina Wilcox
5. Academics – including Dr Susan Carland, Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees AM and Associate Professor Peter Slezak, and many others

Their signatures are a sad testament to their embrace of Security Council Resolution 2334 and to its claim that the Jewish Quarter, the Kotel and the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and the Machpelah in Hebron are “Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

If they did not understand that is what they were endorsing then they should withdraw their signatures immediately.

Interestingly they also signed up to “supporting the application of international law to Israel and Palestine”

International law indisputably establishes:

1. The right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Jerusalem, Hebron and Judea and Samaria (West Bank) pursuant to the provisions of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine
2. The preservation of such vested legal rights under article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – Israel’s “partner for peace” has:

1. declared this established international law to be “deemed null and void” under its Charter
2. claimed in its 1964 Charter:

“Article 24. This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.”

This article remained unamended when UN Security Council Resolution 242 was passed after the Six Day War. Article 24 was removed from the Charter in 1968 but no claim to sovereignty replaced it.

The PLO claim in 2017 to a separate State where sovereignty still remains unclaimed under its own Charter has been one of the greatest scams perpetrated on and swallowed by the international community during the 100 years conflict.

That persons of the quality and calibre of these 65 prominent Australians should have signed this declaration is testament to the stunning inroads that false Arab propaganda has been used to influence public opinion over the last fifty years.

The idea of two Arab states in the area covered by the Mandate for Palestine has been offered to – and rejected by - the Arabs on many occasions since 1922.

Prime Minister Netanyahu should take the opportunity to say a few words on this PLO hoax during his visit to Australia.