UN discrimination against Jews traps Unilever and J Street

 

The United Nations (UN) false designation of Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem as the “Occupied Palestinian Territories” (OPT) has seen the sorry spectacle this week of:

• A multinational corporation — Unilever PIC (Unilever) — discriminating against the sale of ice cream to Jews who live in those areas by its wholly owned subsidiary Ben & Jerry’s and
• A Jewish organisation — J Street — defending Unilever’s decision.

The term “Occupied Palestinian Territories” ignores the 1948 Arab-Israeli War that saw every Jew living in those territories prior to 1948 being:

• driven out and expelled from their homes and businesses by the invading army of Transjordan and
• prevented from returning to resume life there until the conclusion of the Six Day War in 1967.

Moreover this loaded anti-Jewish term papers over the destruction, damage and vandalizing of Jewish synagogues, cemeteries and properties during the 19 years those areas remained Judenrein.

Had the UN any intellectual honesty in presenting a fair and balanced account of what happened between 1948 and 1967 — it would be calling these territories the “Re-occupied Disputed Territories”. Its continuing failure to do so indicates the disturbing anti-Jewish bias that permeates the United Nations and its agencies.

Ben & Jerry’s’ press release headlined “Occupied Palestinian Territory” (below) has clearly influenced Unilever’s decision to justify its policy of discriminating against Jews living there — whilst being more than happy to continue selling its ice cream to those Jew-haters who:

• Forcibly evicted and expelled all the Jews living there between 1948 and 1967
• Murder and maim Jews living there now on an ongoing basis and are financially rewarded for doing so.

Strange values indeed for a multinational organisation to embrace — values that are leading Unilever into growing commercial challenges internationally by those decent enough to not share Unilever’s perverse values.

Even more disturbing and reprehensible is this J Street defence of Unilever’s anti-Jewish discrimination policy:

J Street gets it very wrong in relying on false and misleading decades-old UN propaganda when making the following claims:

• The battleground is not the “Israeli-Palestinian debate” — it is the “Jewish-Arab conflict” - begun 100 years ago with the 1920 San Remo Conference and Treaty of Sevres and still unresolved - when there were no “Israelis” or “Palestinians” — only “Arabs” and “Jews”.
• The “Palestinian people” was not defined until 1964 — a racist and apartheid Arabs-only definition that excludes all non-Arabs and Jews who lived in Palestine after 1917.
• The “rights and freedom of the Palestinian People” specifically excluded any claim by its sole spokesman — the Palestine Liberation Organisation - to sovereignty in “the West Bank of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” - or the right to establish a separate State there — in addition to Jordan — which occupies 78% of former Palestine.
• “Illegal settlements” are “legal” under article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter.

Words do count.

J Street’s readiness to defend Unilever’s decision is appalling. No self-respecting Jewish organisation espousing “our Jewish values” should ever defend decisions discriminating against Jews.

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN — Yehuda Blum – confronted the UN General Assembly and trashed its treatment of the Jewish-Arab conflict on November 16, 1978:

“The history of international conflicts, and particularly those with complex historical origins, can only be properly written by objective historians who enjoy complete academic freedom. The practice of writing and rewriting history according to the transient interests of a political body is of course characteristic of certain regimes. It is regrettable that the United Nations has now been drawn into that pattern.”

Unilever and J Street have seemingly swallowed the UN’s pernicious rewriting of history to justify discrimination against Jews because of where they live.

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.

"Restoring Jewish sovereignty" is not "West Bank annexation"

[Published 6 April 1920]

Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz have reached a critical point in their negotiations to form a Government of National Unity: whether to seize the opportunity presented by President Trump to restore Jewish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria — the heartland of the ancient and biblical Jewish National Home — after an absence of 3000 years.

Netanyahu wants to do so in tandem with President Trump — immediately a Government of at least 61 members headed by him as Prime Minister is formed. Gantz is not prepared to do so unless the Arab States — notably Jordan — and the international community agree – virtually guaranteeing it will never happen.

The Jewish media do not seem to have grasped this unique opportunity given to the Jewish People to turn a 3,000 year old dream into a miraculous reality.

Using what can only be described as the language of the enemies of the Jewish people – the mainstream Jewish media in Israel and elsewhere have been headlining their reports of the ongoing struggle between Netanyahu and Gantz with very similar headlines:

1. “Gantz weighing limited West Bank settlement annexation – report”

2. “Two leaders forced to yell to each other with PM in precautionary isolation; main disagreement is still over annexing parts of West Bank, which Netanyahu wants as his ‘legacy’”

3. “Gantz reportedly prepared to accept limited annexation of West Bank”

4. “Report: Gantz agrees to limited West Bank annexation, inches closer to unity gov’t”

5. “Dan Shapiro: Gantz and Netanyahu are ‘haggling’ over West Bank annexation”

6. “West Bank annexation remains a sticking point in Israel unity government talks”

These Jewish media reports are doing the Jewish People a great disservice.

The correct name of the “West Bank” is “Judea and Samaria” — the geographic place name used for 3,000 years until 1950 — when its name was changed by Transjordan following its illegal occupation of Judea and Samaria and the ethnic cleansing of all Jews living there in the 1948 War of Independence. Transjordan and Judea and Samaria were unified into one territorial entity and renamed Jordan. The West Bank was the area of Jordan on the West Bank of the River Jordan. The area on the East Bank of the Jordan River comprised what was formerly Transjordan.

The term “Judea and Samaria” had been recently used in Part II A of the 1947 UN Partition Resolution.

The 1950 change of name to “West Bank” has since been used to mask any Jewish claims or connection to the land. To rub salt into the wound the United Nations now calls it the “Occupied Palestinian Territories”

The term “annexation” connotes taking something to which you have no claim. Yet the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine included Judea and Samaria as areas in which the Jewish National Home could be “reconstituted”. This right to do so is preserved today by article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Language is important.

The Jewish media is letting the Jewish People down at this critical moment in Jewish History. In seeking to underplay the Netanyahu-Gantz divide — the Jewish media is giving ammunition to our enemies to use “West Bank annexation” at every opportunity.

“West Bank annexation” is a distinctly anti-Jewish phrase. “Restoring Jewish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria” states the Jewish case. Four more words for media to include in their headlines and reports that create a very different perception and understanding of what is at stake.

As Jews recount the miracle of the Exodus from Egypt at their Seders this week — think of the miracle Jews may be soon blessed to witness with their own eyes: reclaiming patrimony in the ancient Jewish homeland after 3,000 years.

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. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog

Prince William visit will advance Jordan-Israel two-state solution

[Published 4 March 2018]


Kensington Palace’s carefully-crafted tweet announcing that “The Duke of Cambridge will visit Israel, Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the Summer” - could spark a diplomatic war with far-reaching implications.

The Palace clarified that:

“The visit is at the request of Her Majesty's Government and has been welcomed by the Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian authorities.”

This will be the first official Royal tour to the State of Israel since its establishment in 1948. Israel’s President Rivlin and Prime Minister Netanyahu have expressed their delight at this long-overdue announcement.

Jordan - visited officially by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip in 1984 – will enthusiastically welcome their grandson Prince William.

The British Government’s decision to also dispatch the Prince to visit the “Occupied Palestinian Territories” (“OPT”) - Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), East Jerusalem and Gaza – the last remaining 5% of the territory of the Mandate for Palestine where sovereignty remains unresolved between Jews and Arabs – is very intriguing.

The PLO and Hamas have been engaged in an internecine struggle for control in the OPT since 2007 – whilst the PLO has suspended negotiations with Israel over the allocation of sovereignty in the OPT since April 2014. Corruption and nepotism are rife and elections are long overdue. Murderers of Israelis are rewarded with financial payments for life.

PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas’s incendiary comments at the United Nations on 20 February claiming the British Government bears responsibility for the catastrophic consequences inflicted on the Palestinian people as a result of Britain’s 1917 Balfour Declaration - create a toxic environment for the Royal visit.

Indeed Abbas had earlier declared in the United Nations General Assembly in September 2016:

“We ask Great Britain, as we approach 100 years since this infamous declaration, to draw the necessary lessons and to bear its historic, legal, political, material and moral responsibility for the consequences of this declaration, including an apology to the Palestinian people for the catastrophes, misery and injustice this declaration created and to act to rectify these disasters and remedy its consequences, including by the recognition of the state of Palestine. This is the least Great Britain can do.”

Another Abbas demand in March 2017 that Britain apologise for the Balfour Declaration was swiftly rejected by the British Government.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson - writing in the Daily Telegraph on 29 October 2017 – went even further:

“I have no doubt that the only viable solution to the conflict resembles the one first set down on paper by another Briton, Lord Peel, in the report of the Royal Commission on Palestine in 1937, and that is the vision of two states for two peoples.”

The Peel Commission recommended two sovereign independent States be established in Palestine:

1. An Arab State - consisting of Trans-Jordan (now called Jordan) – 77% of the territory of the Mandate for Palestine – united with part of the remaining 23% of the Mandate territory within which the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home was proposed in 1922

2. A Jewish State consisting of the remainder of the 23% of Palestine

The Arabs rejected the Peel recommendations.

However Jordan’s subsequent independence in 1946 and Israel’s in 1948 laid the groundwork for the Peel two-state solution applying in 99% of former Palestine between 1950 and 1967 after Jordan and Egypt had illegally invaded and occupied the OPT in 1948.

Great Britain in 1950 and the PLO on its establishment in 1964 recognized this two-state reality – which remains the key to resolving the 100 years old Arab-Jewish conflict.

Prince William’s visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territories ensures that resurrecting the Jordan-Israel two-state solution once again takes center stage.