UN and EU semantic war in Judea and Samaria backfires

 

Many travel agents, tour operators and airlines seem to have been unwittingly caught up in the Arab-Jewish conflict – as the case of Australia’s national airline – Qantas – has exposed.

Websites like Reservations.com (image below), Champion Traveler and Zen Hotels have also been using the term “State of Palestine” to identify the location of holiday destinations in Judea and Samaria.

Qantas is currently conducting an investigation:

Other travel websites use the term “Palestinian Territories” to pinpoint the location of holiday spots in Judea and Samaria. 

The United Nations (UN) and European Union (EU) have been using the term “occupied Palestinian Territories” for the last 20 years to define the territories known as Judea and Samaria (West Bank), East Jerusalem and Gaza (“Territories”). 

These Territories should be re-labelled the “Disputed Territories” as explained in 2002 by Dore Gold — former Permanent Representative of Israel to the UN (1997 -1999):

“... the use of “occupied Palestinian territories” denies any Israeli claim to the land: had the more neutral language of “disputed territories” been used, then the Palestinians and Israel would be on an even playing field with equal rights. Additionally, by presenting Israel as a “foreign occupier,” advocates of the Palestinian cause can delegitimize the Jewish historical attachment to Israel. This has become a focal point of Palestinian diplomatic efforts since the failed 2000 Camp David Summit, but particularly since the UN Durban Conference in 2001. Indeed, at Durban, the delegitimization campaign against Israel exploited the language of “occupation” in order to invoke the memories of Nazi-occupied Europe during the Second World War and link them to Israeli practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”

The right of the Jewish People to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in these Territories – part of their ancient and biblical homeland 3000 years ago - was specifically granted by the: 

• San Remo Conference and the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 
• League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922
• Article 80 of the 1945 UN Charter has preserved this Jewish entitlement until today. 

Travel tour operators cannot escape identifying ancient Jewish sites in Judea and Samaria – even as they use this false and misleading UN and EU language designed to bury their existence:

Tripadvisor describes Kalia Kibbutz as being: “Adjacent to the Caves of Qumran Kalia 90666 Palestinian Territories”

The Dead Sea Scrolls were initially discovered in the Caves of Qumran in 1947. The Scrolls comprise more than 800 documents written on animal skin and papyrus that shed light on the histories of Judaism and Christianity. Among the texts are parts of every book of the Hebrew Bible — the Old Testament —except the book of Esther. The Scrolls also contain the earliest version of the Ten Commandments. Most were written between 200 B.C. and the period prior to the failed Jewish revolt to gain political and religious independence from Rome that lasted from A.D. 66 to 70.

Tripadvisor fails to disclose that Kalia Kibbutz was established in the 1930’s but was destroyed by Transjordan in 1948 when it invaded and conquered Western Palestine. Residents of Kalia and nearby Kibbutz Beit HaArava – established in 1939 - fled by boat on 20 May 1948.The area remained unpopulated save for a Jordanian military camp until lost by Jordan to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. Kalia was re-established and resettled by Jews in 1972 - Beit HaArava similarly in 1996.

The UN and EU use of language denying Jews have any proprietary rights in Judea and Samaria is pointedly racist.

UN engagement in such reprehensible conduct in blatant violation of its own Charter explains why the UN has failed to end the 100 years old Arab-Jewish conflict. 

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.

Trump won’t swallow Erekat’s PLO-Palestine poison pill

[Published 3 October 2017]


Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Secretary-General Saeb Erekat has managed to grab international headlines to promote yet another PLO canard regarding the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict.

Unabashedly and unashamedly Erekat has declared:

“Israel is internationally recognised as the occupying power over 100 percent of Palestine, including in and around occupied East Jerusalem”

Yet according to Article 2 of the PLO Charter - Jordan is the occupying power over 78% of Palestine.

“Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.”

The British Mandate for Palestine between 1920 and 1946 encompassed what is today called:

1. Israel (17%),
2. Jordan (78%),
3. Judea and Samaria (West Bank) (4%) and
4. Gaza (1%).

The Hashemite dynasty has been the occupying power in Jordan since 25 May 1946 (having rebuffed the PLO’s attempt to overthrow it in 1970).

Hamas has occupied Gaza since 2007.

40% of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) was occupied by the Palestinian Authority between 1993 and 2013 until the Palestinian Authority was disbanded on 3 January 2013 by decree of Mahmoud Abbas - the PLO assuming occupation thereafter.

Erekat’s claim that Israel occupies 100% of Palestine is therefore utter rubbish.

Erekat has revived one of the greatest travesties perpetrated by the United Nations on the Jewish-Arab conflict in its publication “The Origins and Evolution of the Palestinian problem” (“publication”) – omitting any map of the British Mandate for Palestine.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations - Yehuda Blum – told the UN General Assembly on 30 November 1978:

“At the end of the first part of the publication, ostensibly dealing with the period of the Palestine Mandate, there appear a number of maps. The one map that is conspicuously absent is the official map of the Palestine Mandate which, until 1946, included Transjordan on the east bank of the Jordan River. This map was omitted because it does not fit into the PLO’s own scheme, as it would show too clearly that a Palestinian Arab state has already been in existence for 32 years on more than three quarters of the territory of mandated Palestine - that is, the state now called Jordan. That embarrassment is eliminated in this purportedly scholarly and impartial publication by the simple expedient of eliminating the map.”

Why then has Erekat chosen to follow the UN and delete Jordan from the map of former Palestine?

It has everything to do with the negotiations between Israel and the PLO – conducted with little success since 1993 and having been stalled since April 2014 – and the current concerted effort by President Trump to resolve this long-running conflict that has defied so many other American Presidents.

Jordan can help resolve that conflict – precisely because Jordan is historically, geographically and demographically 78% of Palestine.

Jordan remains the key to Trump ending the conflict between Jews and Arabs in former “Palestine”.

Whilst Jordan was part of the Mandate for Palestine between 1922 and 1946 - the League of Nations had under article 25 restricted the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home within just 22% of Palestine located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

Following Jordan’s independence in the remaining 78% of Palestine in 1946 - Jordan rejected international overtures under the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1982 Reagan Plan to enter into negotiations with Israel.

Erekat’s outburst signals concerns within the PLO that Trump may be looking to bring Jordan into negotiations with Israel to resolve competing Jewish and Arab claims in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) - whose last internationally recognised occupying power was Great Britain in 1948.

Trump won’t be swallowing Erekat's poison pill.

Trump, Kushner, Greenblatt flirt with phantom Palestinian Authority

[Published 26 June 2017]


President Trump has made a poor start in attempting to broker an end to the Jewish-Arab conflict by initially engaging with the “Palestinian Authority” —an entity that no longer legally exists.

Trump’s White House communique on 21 June highlights his glaring tactical error:

“Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner, Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt, and United States Consul General in Jerusalem Donald Blome met today in Ramallah with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and his senior advisors.”

The Office of the Historian in the State Department faithfully records the creation of the Palestinian Authority under “Milestones in the History of US Foreign Relations” (Milestones):

“On September 13, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Negotiator Mahmoud Abbas signed a Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, commonly referred to as the “Oslo Accord,” at the White House. Israel accepted the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians, and the PLO renounced terrorism and recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace. Both sides agreed that a Palestinian Authority (PA) would be established and assume governing responsibilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over a five-year period.”

However on 3 January 2013 Abbas unilaterally signed the Palestinian Authority’s death certificate when issuing the following Decree:

“Official documents, seals, signs and letterheads of the Palestinian National Authority official and national institutions shall be amended by replacing the name ‘Palestinian National Authority’ whenever it appears by the name ‘State of Palestine’ and by adopting the emblem of the State of Palestine.”

Quite bizarrely — the Palestinian Authority’s 2013 demise was never recorded in Milestones.

The reason was only made clear on 9 May 2017 when the Office of the Historian reported it had retired Milestones which was no longer being maintained or expanded. The Office explained that it had completed a review of its online offerings in Milestones and concluded that extensive resources would be needed to revise and expand its publication of any further developments in the subject matters dealt with up to 2000 to meet the Office’s standards for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

The timing of this announcement came just six days after the White House visit by “President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority”.

Indeed the full terms of the Abbas Decree - introduced with “minimal ceremony or fanfare” - can only be found to my knowledge in an article written by John Whitbeck - identified as having been:

“in Madrid in October 1991 to contribute ideas for the Palestinian speeches delivered at the conference which launched the “peace process,” in Cairo in April/May 1994 as a legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team which negotiated the Gaza/Jericho Withdrawal Agreement (the first “post-Oslo” agreement) with Israel and near Camp David in July 2000, when the “peace process” effectively ended, to be available to provide legal advice on any documents which emerged from the Arafat/Barak/Clinton summit.”

Whitbeck summarises the effect of the Abbas Decree:

“By this decree, the Palestinian Authority, created for a five-year interim period pursuant to the Oslo Declaration of Principles signed on the White House lawn in September 1993, has been absorbed and replaced by the State of Palestine, proclaimed in November 1988, recognized diplomatically by 131 of the 193 UN member states and supported in the recent General Assembly vote by an additional 28 states which have not yet formally recognized it diplomatically.”

Whitbeck’s article does not smack of “fake news”.

Either the Palestinian Authority was absorbed and replaced in 2013 or it still exists in 2017.

Flirting with phantoms is the height of folly and extremely foolish.

Palestine - Will Acceptance Ever Replace Rejection?

[Published 13 September 2011]


The expulsion of Israel’s ambassador from Turkey and the forced withdrawal of Israel’s entire diplomatic corps from Egypt have become the catalysts to ensure further virulent assaults on the Jewish people at the Durban 111 Conference on Racism to be held in New York next week and the UN meeting shortly thereafter to possibly consider a resolution calling for the recognition of a Palestinian Arab State.

Both of these meetings will set the stage for further violent confrontations between Israel and its neighbours unless steps are taken to end the Jewish people being singled out, vilified and dehumanised in an orgy of Jew-hatred to virtually the exclusion of any other human rights abuses taking place around the world at the very time these meetings are taking place.

In the circumstances attendees at both these meetings would do well to reflect that the world would be a very different place in 2011 - not only in the Middle East but world-wide - had the Arab League encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to accept any of the following opportunities to create a second Palestinian Arab State in former Palestine (in addition to Jordan):

1. When recommended by the UN General Assembly on November 29, 1947 pursuant to Resolution 181

2. At any time between 1948-1967 after all Jews living in Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem had been driven from their homes by six invading Arab armies in the 1948 War

3. When offered by Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2001 during negotiations at Camp David chaired by President Clinton

4. When offered by Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in negotiations during 2008

The major common stumbling block that has seen these opportunities fly out the window has been - and still remains - the refusal of the Arabs to accept any Jewish sovereign presence in the Jewish people’s ancient biblical and modern day legally sanctioned homeland as designated by the League of Nations and the United Nations.

Continuing Arab hatred and resentment of the Jewish people daring to have the political and intestinal fortitude to lobby for and come home to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in their historic homeland after 2000 years of dispersion and persecution has become too bitter a pill for the Arabs to swallow.

Arab denial of any right to a Jewish homeland in former Palestine is writ large in the Hamas and PLO Charters.

Article 11 of the Hamas Charter declares:

“Palestine is an Islamic Waqf The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. No Arab country nor the aggregate of all Arab countries, and no Arab King or President nor all of them in the aggregate, have that right, nor has that right any organization or the aggregate of all organizations, be they Palestinian or Arab, because Palestine is an Islamic Waqf throughout all generations and to the Day of Resurrection.”

Do those who call for the lifting of the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza share these views - which obviously were endorsed by Gazan Arabs themselves when voting Hamas into power?

Article 15 urges the slaughter of Jews by jihad:

“When our enemies usurp some Islamic lands, Jihad becomes a duty binding on all Muslims. In order to face the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we have no escape from raising the banner of Jihad. This would require the propagation of Islamic consciousness among the masses on all local, Arab and Islamic levels. We must spread the spirit of Jihad among the [Islamic] Umma, clash with the enemies and join the ranks of the Jihad fighters.”

Will this racist hatred rate a mention at Durban 111? Will those attending who have been seen embracing Hamas leaders and officials dare to utter a word of condemnation?

The PLO is scarcely better in its Jew-hating Charter.

Articles 1,2 and 3 make it clear that Jews have no national rights in former Palestine- which belongs to the Arabs and no one else.

Article 1:
Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.

Article 2:
Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.

Article 3:
The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal right to their homeland and have the right to determine their destiny after achieving the liberation of their country in accordance with their wishes and entirely of their own accord and will.

Whilst the Arabs constitute a nation, the same recognition is not extended to the Jews - as the PLO explicitly declares in Article 20:

“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.”

Will any member State at the UN demand the removal of this hate-filled and racist language from the PLO Charter as a condition of recognizing any Palestinian Arab State?

Featured speaker at Durban 111 will be Iranian President Ahmadinajad - who told Israel on August 26:

“Do not think that your existence will be recognized with the recognition of the Palestinian state. You have no place in our region and among our nations, and you will not be able to continue your ignominious life on even a small part of the Palestinian territories.”

Will Ahmadinajad’s appearance at the podium be marked by the same vociferous heckling that the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra received at the London Proms this week or will the delegates sit in silence as this Jew-hater extraordinaire continues his vile incitement against the Jews?

The refusal of the Arabs - and many of their allies such as Ahmadinajad - to accept the right of the Jewish people to independence in their ancient and biblical homeland will ensure the continuation of the 130 years old Jewish-Arab conflict.

Taking a stand at Durban 111 and the UN to demand Arab acceptance of Jewish rights to statehood - as the General Assembly made clear 64 years ago - must be the message that rings out loud and clear.

Unless this happens things are going to get far worse before they get better.

Palestine - United Nations Faces The Music

[Published 30 August 2011]


The horrendous news of the bombing of the UN headquarters in Nigeria’s capital - Abuja - reportedly by a radical Islamist group - killing at least 19 people and wounding more than 60 other persons - has been rightly described by the United Nations Security Council as a “heinous crime”.

This is not the first time the UN has been deliberately targeted in the past decade by those who contemptuously dismiss the rule of law as the basic source governing relationships between people and states.

Seventeen U.N. civilian staff members were killed along with dozens of others in two terrorist car bombings that targeted U.N. and other premises in Algiers on December 11, 2007. The Abuja bombing came just days after the U.N. marked the eighth anniversary of the August 19, 2003 bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad that killed 15 U.N. staff including top envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and seven others.

The UN faces another particularly testing time in September as member states are forced to publicly declare their stance on a resolution calling for the recognition of Palestine as an independent and sovereign State.

If such a resolution seeks to determine the sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza - then this would amount to a total abrogation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 adopted unanimously on November 22, 1967.

Resolution 242 has underpinned all Arab-Israeli diplomacy for more than 30 years. Every major Arab-Israeli agreement refers to Resolution 242 starting from the 1979 Egyptian - Israeli Treaty of Peace.

The aim of the negotiations to be conducted by Israel with the Palestinian Authority under the 1993 Declaration Of Principles were intended to lead:

“to a permanent settlement based on Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). It is understood that the interim arrangements are an integral part of the whole peace process and that the negotiations on the permanent status will lead to the implementation of Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973)".

The Bush Roadmap - endorsed by America, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations itself also called for a settlement to be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the following terms:

“A settlement, negotiated between the parties, will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbours.

The settlement will resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and end the occupation that began in 1967, based on the foundations of the Madrid Conference, the principle of land for peace,UNSCRs 242, 338 and 1397, agreements previously reached by the parties, and the initiative of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah - endorsed by the Beirut Arab League Summit - calling for acceptance of Israel as a neighbour living in peace and security,in the context of a comprehensive settlement.“

Israel, however, did not accept this provision and conditioned its acceptance of the Roadmap on:

“The removal of references other than 242 and 338 (1397, the Saudi Initiative and the Arab Initiative adopted in Beirut). A settlement based upon the road map will be an autonomous settlement that derives its validity therefrom. The only possible reference should be to Resolutions 242 and 338, and then only as an outline for the conduct of future negotiations on a permanent settlement.“

In a statement to the General Assembly on 15 October 1968, the PLO rejected Resolution 242, saying:

“the implementation of said resolution will lead to the loss of every hope for the establishment of peace and security in Palestine and the Middle East region”

In September 1993, the PLO agreed that Resolution 242 should be the basis for negotiations with Israel when it signed the Declaration of Principles.

Resolution 242 is therefore the lynch pin that legally binds, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and all members of the United Nations in the quest to resolve the Arab- Israeli conflict.

The Security Council,
Expressing its continuing concern with the grave situation in the Middle East,

Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security,

Emphasizing further that all Member States in their acceptance of the Charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the Charter,

Affirms that the fulfillment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles:

Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;

Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;

Affirms further the necessity

For guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area;

For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;

For guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area, through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones;

Requests the Secretary General to designate a Special Representative to proceed to the Middle East to establish and maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the provisions and principles in this resolution;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on the progress of the efforts of the Special Representative as soon as possible.
Adopted unanimously at the 1382nd meeting.

The main points to note concerning Resolution 242 were detailed by Dr Meir Rosenne - former legal advisor to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Member of the Israeli delegation to Camp David and a former Ambassador to France and the United States - in the following terms:

1. The USSR proposed on November 20, 1967, to include a clause requiring Israel to withdraw to the pre-war lines of June 5, 1967, but this language was rejected.

2. After Resolution 242 was adopted, the Soviet deputy foreign minister admitted:
“There is certainly much leeway for different interpretations that retain for Israel the right to establish new boundaries and to withdraw its troops only so far as the lines it judges convenient.”

3. Resolution 242 is not self-enforcing; Israel is not expected to unilaterally withdraw from territories to fulfill its terms. It requires direct negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

4. According to Resolution 242, there is no Israeli obligation to withdraw prior to the achievement of a comprehensive peace. Nor is there any requirement of Israel to withdraw fully from the territories it captured in 1967.

5. There is no reference to a Palestinian “right of return” in Resolution 242.

Additionally Article XXX1 (7) of the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip signed in Washington, D.C. on September 28, 1995 provides:

“Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations”

Should any UN Resolution by either the General Assembly or the Security Council attempt to circumvent direct negotiations as called for in Resolution 242 (and reinforced by the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap) - then the United Nations could find its authority and integrity irreparably and irretrievably damaged.

The UN would in such case be entering uncharted waters. It would be solely responsible for the consequences of its decision and open the floodgates for member States to ignore any other UN Security Council resolutions with impunity in the future.

Any such decision will be eagerly seized on as precedent by those who seek to undermine the rule of law and pursue the path of lawlessness.

The 193 members of the UN are soon to face the music in being asked to decide whether to throw Resolution 242 to the wind or stick to the written score.

Hopefully they make the right choice.