UN General Assembly Majority Greenlight Russia’s Rape of Ukraine

 

The UN General Assembly completely lost its moral compass when it voted on April 7th for Russia’s suspension from the Human Rights Council - with only 93 of its 193 member Nations voting to do so. The voting records (see images below) show that within the space of just 14 days:

• 47 Nations - voting on March 24th (the first resolution) to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - failed to vote to boot Russia from the Human Rights Council on 7 April (the second resolution) 

Those 47 Nations had embraced the first resolution’s principled position:

“Recognizing that the military offensive of the Russian Federation inside the sovereign territory of Ukraine and its humanitarian consequences are on a scale that the international community has not seen in Europe in decades, Reiterating the call of the Secretary-General to the Russian Federation to stop its military offensive, as well as his call to establish a ceasefire and to return to the path of dialogue and negotiations, Recalling its demand that the Russian Federation immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders”

14 days later these 47 Nations were unable to follow through and administer even the mildest of rebukes on Russia for blatantly ignoring this clarion call.

• 5 Nations supporting Russia in opposing the first resolution had increased to 24 after voting on the second resolution.
• 38 fence-sitting Nations abstaining on the first resolution had seen their numbers jump to 58 after voting on the second resolution.
• 10 Nations who refused to vote at all on the first resolution saw their numbers increase to 18 after voting on the second resolution

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his bloated massive bureaucracy attempted to cover up this shameful day of infamy in the UN’s history. The UN Meetings Coverage and Press Releases deceptively reported:

“The Assembly adopted the draft resolution by a recorded vote of 93 in favour to 24 against, with 58 abstentions, signaling [sic] the international community’s strong censure of Moscow’s aggressive actions towards a neighbouring State.”

“Strong censure of Moscow’s aggressive actions?” : When only 93 of the 193 member states voted to do so? 

UN News published an even more misleading report:

“The resolution received a two-thirds majority of those voting, minus abstentions, in the 193-member Assembly, with 93 nations voting in favour and 24 against.   Fifty-eight abstained from the process.  Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Vietnam, were among those who voted against.  Those abstaining, included India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Cambodia.” 

Who in the UN Secretariat decided to:

• Name and shame just 7 nations that voted against Russia’s removal - but failed to name the other 17?
• Out 17 nations that abstained - but not the other 41 nations that joined them?
• Not name any of the 18 nations that failed to vote or abstain: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Benin, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Rwanda, San-Tomé-Principe, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Zambia?
• Not point out that 6 of the 15-member UN Human Rights Council -Bolivia, China, Cuba, Malawi, Russia, and Uzbekistan - voted against Russia’s suspension -whilst another 4 - Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan and Senegal- - abstained?

No amount of window dressing by Guterres and his Secretariat can alter the fact that 100 of the 193 members of the UN General Assembly have depressingly voted to greenlight Russia’s continuing invasion and rape of Ukraine. 

The General Assembly is disunited, fractured and irrelevant - having totally capitulated on trying to end the murder, suffering and dispersion of Ukraine’s civilian population. 

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.

UN should use Israel-bashing model to oust Russia from Ukraine

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly needs to stop its pious bleating and move to immediately set up a network of Ukrainian-dedicated agencies to try and force Russia to end its invasion and occupation of Ukraine – adopting the same model it has established in trying to force Israel’s withdrawal from Judea and Samaria (West Bank) over the last 50 years.

The General Assembly has failed in Israel’s case – because:

• Sovereignty remains unallocated and still in dispute between Jews and Arabs after 100 years
• Israel has the legal right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home there pursuant to articles 6 and 25 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter
• Any Israeli withdrawal can only occur after secure and recognised boundaries are fixed pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 242.

However Russia’s invasion of the sovereign territory of another UN member state challenges the UN’s continued existence – as UN Secretary-General Assembly Antonio Guterres has pointed out: 

“It is wrong. It is against the Charter. It is unacceptable. But it is not irreversible”

Reversing Russia’s flagrant violation of the UN Charter justifies the General Assembly adopting its Israel-bashing model to establish the following Ukrainian-dedicated agencies to humiliate and bash Russia into withdrawing from Ukraine: 

• Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Ukrainian People (CEIRUP): To institute a programme that will enable the Ukrainian people to exercise their inalienable rights to self-determination, national independence and sovereignty without external interference; to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced. 

• Department for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs’ (DPPA) Division for Ukrainian Rights:To serve as the Secretariat of CEIRUP and provide the following core functions: 

1. Organising the meetings of CEIRUP and its Bureau at UN Headquarters;
2. Monitoring political and other relevant developments;
3. Organising programmes of international meetings, conferences and CEIRUP delegation visits;
4. Implementing a publications programme;
5. Developing and maintaining the United Nations Information System on the Question of Ukraine (UNISUKR) and managing CEIRUP’s outreach efforts including via social media;
6. Cooperating with civil society organizations active on the Russia-Ukraine issue;
7. Organising an annual observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Ukrainian People;

• United Nations Ukrainian Works and Relief Agency:  To carry out direct relief and works programmes solely for Ukrainian refugees. 

• Special Rapporteur: To assess the human rights situation in the Occupied Ukrainian Territories, report publicly about it, and work with governments, civil society and others to foster international cooperation.

• Special Committee: To investigate Russian practices affecting the human rights of the Ukrainian People and other residents of the Occupied Ukrainian Territories

• United Nations Special Coordinator for the Russia-Ukraine conflict: The Secretary-General’s Personal Representative and the focal point on the ground for UN support in all political and diplomatic efforts related to any peace process, responsible also for coordinating the activities of all UN Russia-Ukraine agencies, funds and programmes on humanitarian and development assistance to be set up to assist the Ukrainian People

These agencies will neutralise any Russian veto in the Security Council and reinforce sanctions and other decisions made by individual UN Member States to force Russia out of Ukraine.

Simultaneously the UN Human Rights Council should establish an ongoing independent, international commission of inquiry - appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council - to investigate in the Occupied Ukrainian Territories all alleged violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law by Russia leading up to and since 22 February 2022.

The UN will cease to have any credibility or relevance if the General Assembly fails to implement these measures. 

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.

Palestine - UN Special Rapporteur Bans Free Speech

[Published 31 March 2013]


United Nations Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967” - Professor Richard Falk - has taken the extraordinary action to ban posts on his blog page “Citizen Pilgrimage”.

This has happened to myself and at least one other person when we attempted to post comments in response to an article written by Professor Falk titled ” What was wrong with Obama’s speech in Jerusalem”

My detailed comment sought to point out what was right with President Obama’s speech in Jerusalem. It had been published as an article on many Internet pages around the world and reproduced on the web sites of scores of others without editorial amendment.

I presented a considered and reasoned analysis of what President Obama had said. It was not couched in inflammatory or defamatory terms. It considered aspects of President Obama’s speech not referred to in Professor Falk’s article and came to an entirely different conclusion to the views expressed by Professor Falk.

To my amazement Professor Falk’s response to my post was:

“My blog is no longer open for this sort of polemics on the Israel/Palestine conflict. There are many other more important venues to carry on these discussions.”

My reply to Professor Falk - pointing out his decision amounted to the banning of free speech and requesting he reconsider his decision - went unanswered.

I subsequently sought to post an entirely different response to another contributor’s comment - but it was also not published.

One person who sought to post a comment to Professor Falk’s article received the following response:

“Mr. Skolnik: My blog is no longer open for this sort of polemical responses that insult either me or others who submit comments. There are many other venues for this sort of debate.”

Stangely Professor Falk had no similar qualms in publishing the following comment from one of his readers:

“I have been following events in Israel and Cyprus closely, and stand by my assertions. I find it both fascinating and terrifying that Germany is the force behind the Cypriot haircut, in which unscrupulous jewish industrialists, all of whom hold Israeli passports, are having their bank accounts seized and money transferred to Germany. Who would have predicted this turn of events, but really, once you spot the pattern, it becomes impossible to deny this jaw-dropping turn of events, and its ominous implications.”

It is clear that there are many readers of Professor Falk’s blog who would be grossly offended by this Jew-hating language - yet it was published.

I do not seek to silence these Jew-haters airing their views on Professor Falk’s blog. Better the world should be aware such views exist and are exposed to critical comment.

My articles sometimes attract such vile and repulsive comments. Never would I seek to have them expunged. I prefer to respond to such comments or let my readers do so.

But why should a UN Rapporteur concerned with human rights seek to ban the views of others like myself and Mr Skolnik - if he allows such a vile post as this to appear as a comment on the same blog page?

Intrigued by the Professor’s totally unexpected and unexplained reaction to my post - I contacted other sites where his article had been published.

One was a virulently Jew-hating web site called “Shoah - The Palestinian Holocaust” It had no problem posting the identical response that I attempted to post on Professor Falk’s web page

Another was “Ramy Abdeljabbar’s Palestine and World News” - not what one would call a pro-Israel site. It published my response to Professor Falk’s article without indulging in the histrionics and petulance displayed by Professor Falk.

A third site was “Transcend Media Service” - which describes itself in the following terms:

“TRANSCEND International is an experiment in promoting peace by peaceful means throughout the world. Traditionally, institutes have been centered around a building where the people who work together meet on a regular basis. Since many people who share common interests in helping transform conflicts nonviolently and creatively are geographically scattered and cannot usually be physically together, our solution is to create an electronic network of members. This, in addition, diminishes our carbon footprints and contributes to attenuate the global warming crisis.”

Professor Falk is a member of the Transcend Network.

Transcend saw nothing objectionable in posting my response to Professor Falk’s article

Professor Falk needs to understand that attempts by him to ban freedom of expression and free speech on his web site demean himself and his position as a UN Special Rapporteur.

Those in authority at the UN who repeatedly express their support for the protection of human rights must be prepared to act against one of their own by denouncing Professor Falk’s actions in the strongest terms with a view to ending his crass attempt to deny the inalienable right of every human being to speak out and be heard.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and members of the UN Human Rights Council - are you listening or do you endorse Professor Falk’s outrageous conduct?

Palestine, Peoplehood And Presbyterians

[Published 8 July 2012]



The attempt by the Palestinian Arabs to create a second state - in addition to Jordan - reached the hallowed halls of the two million members of the Presbyterian Church in America this week.

By a razor thin margin of 333-331 with two abstentions, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), being held in Pittsburgh, rejected a motion to divest from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions.

The General Assembly is the highest decision-making body for the church.

A 2011 church report found that Caterpillar supplies bulldozers for the demolition of Palestinian homes, Motorola provides cell phone technology to West Bank settlements and Hewlett-Packard manages information technology for the Israeli Navy. The decision to vote on divestment came after the companies allegedly refused the church’s entreaties to change their policies in regard to providing services to Israel.

The ongoing fascination the Presbyterian Church apparently has for the cause of the Palestinian Arabs does not appear to be matched by any concern for other peoples around the world struggling for recognition of their right to self-determination.

Steven Carol has highlighted the plight of many such groups in these eloquent terms:

“Must all national and ethnic groups that want their own states and have struggled for them - get them, in the name of self-determination?
If so, why haven’t the Imazighen (Berbers), who predate their Arab conquerors by millennia and who have had their own language and culture, have their own state?

Why is there no independent Euskadi state for Basques? Elsewhere in Europe, why is there no state for the Bretons of Brittany, the Flemings of Flanders, the Catalans of Catalonia in north-eastern Spain, the Frisans in the Netherlands, and the Sami people in northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and on the Kola Peninsula of Russia?

Why is there no state of Tibet, Jola state of Casamance (southern Senegal), Lunda state of Katanga, Luba state of South Kasai, Ibo state of Biafra, Tuareg state of Azawad, stretching across the Sahara from Mali to Niger, Tamil state in north-eastern Sri Lanka, a state of Cabinda, and a state of Kurdistan?

Of all the peoples on earth who have not yet been granted the sovereignty they have fought for–the Chechens of Russia, the Uighurs of China, the Karens of Myanmar, the Mizos and Nagas of northeast India, the Saharawis of Morocco, and the Acehans of Indonesia, to name but a few–why must the Palestinian Arabs be given a second Palestinian Arab state?

They already make up some 80 percent of the population of Jordan, a nation created by the British in 1921 from 77.5 percent of the original British Mandate of Palestine which was to be the Jewish National homeland.

There never was a separate Palestinian Arab people, distinct from other Arabs during the 1,192 years of Muslim hegemony in Palestine under Arab, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Seljuk, Ayyubid, Mameluke, and Ottoman rule.

Should the Palestinian Arabs alone be acknowledged by many, of deserving not one, but two states?

One important benchmark of nationhood must be the degree of difference from its neighbors, and the need for a state to protect that uniqueness. The Tibetans, for example, have their own special culture, language, and religion, which they will lose if they continue to be ruled by the Chinese; the Kurds have a culture and language unlike that of the Arabs; the Karens, a language and religion different from that of the Burmese.

There never was a separate Palestinian Arab people, distinct from other Arabs during the 1,192 years of Muslim hegemony in Palestine under Arab, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Seljuk, Ayyubid, Mameluke, and Ottoman rule.

All through the period of the British military occupation and the subsequent British Mandate of Palestine, countless official British Mandate documents speak of the Jews and the Arabs of Palestine—not Jews and Palestinians.”

Unlike these various groups around the world - the Palestinian Arabs were offered their own state by the Peel Commission in 1937 and by the United Nations in 1947 - and rejected both opportunities.

Between 1948-1967 the Palestinian Arabs could have created an independent state in the West Bank and East Jerusalem - but chose to unify the West Bank with Jordan and become Jordanian citizens.

In 2000 and 2008 Israel made generous offers to the Palestinian Authority to divide sovereignty between them - which offers were again rejected.

The daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arab population are now under the direct control and administration of the Palestinian Authority.

The state of Palestine has been admitted as a member state of UNESCO, competes in FIFA Soccer international competitons and will march under its flag at the Olympic Games in three weeks time. Palestine has more diplomatic missions in countries around the World than Israel.

Why has the Presbyterian Church therefore thought it necessary to continue to concentrate its efforts in support of the Palestinian Arabs to the exclusion of other peoples engaged in the same struggle around the world - especially as the Palestinian Arabs have been offered so many opportunities in the past to obtain what they seek now - but have rejected those offers on each occasion?

The same question could equally be asked of the following groups:

1. Pension funds in Norway and Sweden - that have divested themselves of holdings in some firms involved in building in settlements or helping to erect Israel’s contentious West Bank separation barrier.
2. European activists - who picket stores that sell goods produced by Israelis, interrupt concert performances by Israeli artists in theatres around the world and object to Israeli academics lecturing in overseas universities.
3. The United Nations and the United Nations Human Rights Council - that both focus almost entirely on the plight of the Palestinian Arabs and virtually none of those other peoples around the world denied any international recognition or support of their Peoplehood.

The Presbyterian Church and these other groups must believe that their actions can influence the resolution of the conflict between Arabs and Jews in relation to the allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Otherwise why engage in this kind of conduct?

Why then do they not take similar action against China, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, Iraq and Indonesia to support many of these other groups striving for recognition of their own Peoplehood?

Are the Jewish people being singled out once again - whilst other national, religious and ethnic groups slip under the radar?

Double standards - clearly evident in the support of one group to the exclusion of other groups similarly seeking self-determination - requires to be explained.

Palestine - Israel ReadiesTo Extend Its Sovereignty Into West Bank

[Published 28 June 2012]


A confluence of events is increasingly pointing to Israel taking action in the very near future to extend its sovereignty over a substantial part - if not all - of the 61% of the West Bank it has totally controlled since 1967 - unless Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ends his posturing and submits to considerable loss of face by announcing he is now prepared to resume negotiations with Israel without preconditions of any kind.

Abbas himself only last week declared the negotiating processes begun under the Oslo Accords in 1993 and the Bush Roadmap in 2003 to be “clinically dead” (whatever that means). If he is not prepared to at least try to breathe life into those stalled processes by unconditionally returning to the negotiating table - he will be presiding over the irreversible end of those negotiations. Israel is not going to continue to mark time waiting for Abbas to end his political filibuster.

Abbas’s attempts to procure international pressure to be brought to bear on Israel to freeze building activities in the West Bank as a condition of resuming such negotiations have failed. He has literally been left to hang out to dry.

His meeting with Russian President Putin - during Putin’s visit to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan this week - clearly indicated his desperation and frustration - as revealed in the following press release:

“We assured the president that the way to peace is through negotiations with Israel, and we continue to call for him to hold an international peace conference in Moscow, as we previously agreed. We asked our friends to help us to release our prisoners who were arrested prior to 1994, who it was agreed with Israel would be released, but have not yet been freed, If it (Israel) frees these prisoners, there could be a meeting with Mr Netanyahu for a session of dialogue but that doesn’t mean negotiations,”

Only one person - President Obama - can possibly resuscitate the negotiations by inducing Israel to impose a building freeze for a limited time in the West Bank or release more prisoners than the thousands it has already done so.

This would require Obama to grant a pardon to Jonathan Pollard who has been rotting away in American prisons for the last 26 years for spying for Israel. Since Israeli President - Shimon Peres - tried and failed to secure Pollard’s release in the past two weeks - Abbas would need a miracle for Obama to change his mind and save Abbas from the hole which he has dug for himself.

Another indicator of Israel’s readiness to end the logjam in the West Bank for the last 19 years came with Israel’s response to the suggestion this week by the United Nations Human Rights Council President - Laura Dupuy Lasserre - that a fact-finding mission on West Bank settlements might be despatched as early as July. This news was met with a curt response from Eviatar Manor, deputy director-general for international organizations at Israel’s Foreign Ministry - who stated:

“It is important for us to remind everyone that we are not going to cooperate with this fact-finding mission. They will not be allowed to enter the country or go to the West Bank,”

Any decision to extend Israeli sovereignty into the West Bank will not be harmed by the finalisation of a Report this week by The Committee to Examine the State of Construction in the West Bank.

Chaired by Retired Supreme Court Justice Edmund Levy and including District Court Judge Techiya Shapira and former Ambassador and Foreign Ministry Legal Advisor Allan Baker - this Committee has reportedly found that the West Bank is not under occupation rule,

The Committee is reported to have :

“analyzed the historic and legal background of Judea and Samaria and concludes that the belligerent occupation approach must be discarded as reflecting Israel’s status in those areas. According to the committee’s approach, Judea and Samaria were in a judicial vacuum before the Six Day War. The reason was that the Kingdom of Jordan, which held those territories, did so against the rule of international law, and its sovereignty over them was recognized solely by Great Britain. Since Jordan was not the legal sovereign, the report argues, the territories cannot be defined as occupied in the legal sense of the word.

In addition, the committee offers a string of arguments showing that Israel itself has a legal connection to those territories, which is another reason why it is not an occupier.”

The Report will be a smack in the eye to the international community and many Non Governmental Organizations in Israel which have long held the view that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal in international law. It will however bolster the resolve of one of the strongest National Unity Government’s in Israel’s history to act to end this game of diplomatic ping pong that has raged over the West Bank for the last 45 years by confirming the right of the Jewish people to live in and reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its biblical and ancient homeland as promulgated in the Mandate for Palestine and the United Nations Charter - and acknowledged in Security Council Resolution 242.

Add to this mix the deteriorating political situation and civil unrest in Israel’s immediate neighbours -Syria, Egypt and Jordan - then the strategic position of the West Bank takes on an increasing significance for Israel’s security and national interests ensuring that the generous offers made by Israel to the Palestinian Authority in 2000 and 2008 to cede Israel’s claim to sovereignty in more than 90% of the West Bank are not going to be repeated.

The inability of the international community to do anything to end the slaughter in Syria that has so far reportedly claimed 16000 lives in the last 15 months indicates that any protests at Israel extending its sovereignty into a large part of the West Bank where very few Arabs presently live - would be rhetoric at best and nothing more.

The racist demand - still repeated mantra fashion by the Palestinian Authority and its spokesmen - that 350000 Jews living in the West Bank be dispossessed and removed from their homes - supported by the silence of - and in some cases the active support of - a majority of a morally corrupt international community - could never and can never be acceded to by Israel.

The decision by UNESCO last October to recognize and admit Palestine as its 195th member State effectively ended the claim that the Palestinian Arabs are homeless and stateless. Whilst this decision was both illegal and unconstitutional - the failure by anyone in the international community to urge UNESCO to have its decision confirmed by the International Court of Justice amounts to de facto acceptance by all member states of the UNESCO decision.

Putting all these ingredients together - the issue of resolving sovereignty in a substantial part of the West Bank could be set to undergo a dramatic change in a very short time.

Palestine Recognized - United Nations Delegitimized

[Published 14 April 2011]


Any decision by the United Nations General Assembly to recognize a Palestinian State next September could signal the beginning of the end for the United Nations as a credible organization pledged to uphold the rule of international law in dealings with - and between - member states.

Its current reputation for doing so is under real threat even now - as calls for it to withdraw further consideration of the flawed Goldstone Report are being made following Justice Goldstone’s recent admission that the Report wrongly alleged that Israel had deliberately targeted Gaza’s civilian population during its invasion of Gaza in December 2008.

Goldstone’s Report had been tainted and compromised from the outset because all four Commissioners appointed by the UN Human Rights Council were biased - and in accordance with well established legal principles should have recused themselves from taking part in the Inquiry.

Failing to initially reject any consideration of this biased Report has now landed the General Assembly in its present predicament. Continuing to consider the Goldstone Report will indicate the General Assembly is prepared to ignore the law where it conflicts with a particular political objective. This is a recipe for disaster and inevitably must lead to the total loss of any credibility.

Should the United Nations actively attempt to do another “Goldstone” - by acting in defiance of a well established body of international law - then it could well end up imploding like its predecessor - the League of Nations.

Israel’s President - Shimon Peres - warned this week that whilst Israel believes in a two-state solution - it must be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians, not imposed by the international community.

Failure of the General Assembly to heed this message - by ignoring international law - can only lay the groundwork for another war

Vesting Arab sovereignty for the first time ever in recorded history in the whole or any part of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza - can realistically only happen in direct negotiations to which Israel is a party. Other alternatives to the creation of a new Arab State may have to be considered and negotiated if this currently preferred option cannot be realised.

The UN Documentation Search Guide sets out the following UN objective:

“International law is a primary concern of the United Nations. The mandate for the activities in this field emanates from the Charter of the United Nations which, in its Preamble, sets the goal “to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained”.

International law specifically dealing with Palestine that must be respected and upheld by the United Nations includes:

1. The Versailles Peace Conference 1919
2. The San Remo Conference 1920
3. The Treaty of Sevres 1920
4. The Mandate for Palestine 1922
5. Article 80 of the UN Charter 1945
6. Security Council Resolution 242 (1967)

This body of law conclusively establishes that:

1. the Jewish National Home is to be reconstituted in Palestine within secure and recognized boundaries - without prejudice to the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities
2. close settlement by Jews is to be encouraged on the land within such determined boundaries including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes

Any attempt to now deny the Jewish people these vested legal rights - without Israel’s agreement - will indeed be an exercise in futility.

Additionally the provisions of customary international law embodied in the Montevideo Convention 1933 sets out in Article 1 four criteria for statehood :

1. a permanent population;
2. defined territory;
3. government; and
4. capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

Short of a miracle occurring before September - there will not be:

1. any single Arab Government in control of all of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza - reputedly the territory designated to be the subject of the proposed General Assembly resolution
2. any permanent population in the designated territory over which any Arab declarant could claim to exercise control
3. any ability by any Arab government in those areas to enter into relations with other states and honour commitments made with those states.

As it did in 1947 - the General Assembly could examine the current situation and make its own recommendations to the parties. But these would be recommendations only - requiring the consent of both parties before they could be implemented.

Entertaining any other attempt to bring the matter to the General Assembly would undermine and could lead to the repudiation of:

1. the Oslo Accords - whose status even now is very questionable and
2. the Roadmap - to which the United Nations is committed to implementing as part of the four member Quartet comprising itself, the United States, the European Union and Russia
3. Changed circumstances on the ground since such a State was first proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937 and by the United Nations in 1947 make the possibility of the creation of such a State now only possible to achieve in direct negotiations with Israel.

The opportunity that existed between 1948-1967 to unilaterally create such a State with the stroke of an Arab League pen - when all Jews living in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza had been expelled by seven invading Arab Armies - is no longer available.

The reputation and integrity of the United Nations is at stake if efforts continue to procure the passage of a resolution to recognize a Palestinian State by the General Assembly in September.

America has already issued a precautionary warning against such action.

White House Middle East advisor Dennis Ross said this week:

“We have consistently made it clear that the way to produce a Palestinian state is through negotiations, not through unilateral declarations, not through going to the UN. Our position on that has been consistent in opposition.”

UN Secretary General Ban-Ki moon - and the General Assembly - would do well to heed this warning before embarking on this pointless journey to nowhere.

Egypt and Tunisia - The Power of Prediction

[Published 12 February 2011]

The West has been caught with its pants down following the popular revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia during the past month.

I wonder why.

There was plenty of evidence floating around to indicate that Egypt and Tunisia were repressive states where human rights abuses were the order of the day and people power was set to explode.

Rather the West preferred to avert its gaze and focus its concentration on alleged human rights abuses carried out by Israel - the only true democracy in the Middle East - to the total exclusion of subjecting.dynastic Arab dictators to the same scrutiny. Iran was shamefully allowed to retain its membership of the United Nations and strut the world stage calling for the destruction of Israel to the applause of these dictators.

Trade unions, church groups and human rights organizations led the chorus of campaigns and campaigners to boycott Israel and delegitimise its right to recognition as the Jewish National Home - whilst abuses of human rights in Arab countries never rated a mention on their radar screens.

The terrorist government of Hamas in Gaza democratically elected to power by the choice of the West Bank and Gazan Arabs - and removed by Presidential decree of Mahmoud Abbas - became the focus of the world’s sympathy as the Gazan Arabs became dragged into confrontation with Israel and the Palestinian Authority by a Government they had freely elected.

That the mayhem in Gaza was the direct result of their own voting decisions seemed inconsequential as the West sent in flotillas and demanded an easing of the blockade instituted by Israel and Egypt.

Meanwhile hundreds of millions of Arabs in other countries suffered ongoing abuse and persecution perpetrated by rulers those populations were never given the opportunity to elect - or reject. Were any protests made for their redemption or flotillas sent to their aid?

The banning of blogging and web sites on the Internet in 2009 in Arab countries was allowed to happen without any whimper of international protest - as contrasted to the outrage this repressive practice has hypocritically - and belatedly - received in 2011.

The UN Human Rights Council (with Egypt as a member) led the howling pack against Israel whilst serious human rights abuses in Arab countries were ignored, America sought engagement with this outrageous organization rather than identifying and isolating it as an affront to human dignity.

In December 2009 I wrote about a highly critical Report that came out of Cairo indicating in detail the human rights abuses occurring in many Arab countries - including Egypt and Tunisia.

I guess all the advisers to Presidents, Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers, as well as the Gaza do-gooders - not to mention the media - had enough information and stage managed events being spoon fed to them to lambast Israel and allow these Arab dictators to continue on their merry way unchallenged and uncriticised in the face of this very comprehensive report. The silence following its release was deafening.

We are all going to pay the price for the chaos and suffering that must now inevitably occur.

The new buzzwords “orderly transition” are meaningless. They may have been relevant fourteen months ago had the fundamental concerns in this report been addressed then using a modicum of the time and diplomatic pressure spent in exerting pressure on Israel.

But the genie has now been let out of the bottle as events of the last month in Egypt and Tunisia have proved.