Palestine - Two New Arab Myths

[Published 14 April 2013]


Two new Arab myths have surfaced in the past week to complicate attempts by US Secretary of State John Kerry to procure the resumption of the long stalled negotiations between Israel and the PLO.

The first myth can be directly attributed to Mustafa Barghouti - a Presidential candidate for the now defunct Palestinian National Authority - who was roundly defeated by Mahmoud Abbas when elections were last held in January 2005.

Interviewed by Arab American News (AAN) - Mr Barghouti was asked the following question:

AAN: What about the United Nations situation with Palestine being granted Non-Member Observer State status this past fall, any new developments?

Mr Barghouti gave this remarkable answer:

“Not new, but this achievement was very important from a symbolic standpoint, it also eliminated any Israeli claim that the West Bank and Jerusalem are disputed territory. Now they are part of an occupied Palestinian state ... “

This is arrant nonsense.

According to Mr Barghouti there is apparently no need for further negotiations to determine the sovereignty of these areas - only a timetable for Israel to hand them over to the State of Palestine and to arrange for the uprooting of all 500000 Jews presently living there.

If you believe this myth - then you accept that

1. United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 are no longer of any relevance.

2. The 1948 armistice line is wiped off the map and negotiations to establish secure and recognised boundaries for the State of Israel can be shredded.

3. Article 80 of the United Nations Charter has become a footnote in history.

4. The Jewish claim to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine - including the West Bank and Jerusalem - as conferred by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine - is an anachronism. The claimed right of return for millions of Arabs into the State of Israel remains unresolved.

5. The United Nations decision has unreservedly endorsed the PLO’s stated policies of ethnic cleansing and apartheid in denying Jews any rights of residency or citizenship in the State of Palestine.

6.General Assembly Resolutions of the United Nations create binding obligations in international law.

Kerry’s planned fortnightly shuttle from America to Jerusalem and Ramallah appears to be a waste of time unless this latest myth is quickly nipped in the bud.

President Abbas needs to immediately repudiate Mr Barghouti’s statement.

If Abbas refuses - Kerry should start to shuttle between world capitols seeking declarations unequivocally disavowing any support for the Barghouti myth.

Simultaneously with the Baghouti myth comes the news that the cornerstone for yet another myth - a new museum of “Palestinian culture, history and society” - has been laid in Bir Zeit near Ramallah.

This will be no ordinary museum - as project manager Omar al-Qattan reportedly explained:

“It will be more than a traditional building with archaeological relics. We are looking at an institution that will transcend all boundaries—geographical and political”

Palestinian culture minister Siham Barghuti told AFP that the initiative was:

“A great achievement for the Palestinian people…The link between memory and everything related to it, to Palestinian history, and to having digital contact with Palestinians everywhere constitutes an important step”

The “museum” seems set to become the new repository for perpetuating the fiction of the existence of an indigenous “Palestinian people” or the “Palestinians” going back at least 3000 years to the Canaanites.

Featured exhibits in the museum will certainly not include:

1. The Mandate for Palestine 1922 - that made no mention of the “Palestinians” or the “Palestinian people” - but pointedly only included the then Arab population of Palestine among the “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” and called for “safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion”

2. The report of the Peel Commission 1937 - which again omitted any mention of a Palestinian people - but contained this statement which was accepted by the Jews but rejected by the Arabs:

“The problem cannot be solved by giving either the Arabs or the Jews all they want. The answer to the question which of them in the end will govern Palestine must be Neither. No fair-minded statesman can think it right either that 400,000 Jews, whose entry into Palestine has been facilitated by he British Government and approved by the League of Nations, should be handed over to Arab rule, or that, if the Jews should become a majority, a million Arabs should be handed over to their rule. But while neither race can fairly rule all Palestine, each race might justly rule part of it.”

3. Resolution 181 of the United Nations General Assembly dated 29 November 1947 which was also silent in acknowledging the existence of a Palestinian people - but proposed the following recommendation that was again rejected by the Arab population of Palestine:

“Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in Part III of this Plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948. The boundaries of the Arab State, the Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem shall be as described in Parts II and III below.”

Jesus the Jew will no doubt be prominently featured as Jesus the Palestinian. Archeological relics will be conspicuously absent.

Until fact replaces Arab fiction and self-delusion - the conflict between Jews and Arabs will assuredly continue.

Palestine - UN Special Rapporteur Fostering Jew-hatred Again

[Published 3 August 2012]


Richard Falk - UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights on Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 - appears to have landed himself in hot water once again - as his web site “Citizen Pilgrimage” - has hosted a series of posts that contain comments that are highly offensive and insulting of Jews.

He apparently has not learned any lesson after having been rapped over the knuckles by UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay following his posting of an anti-Semitic cartoon on the same website last June - which drew the following admonition from Ms Pillay in a letter to UN Watch:

“Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Falk is neither a representative nor an employee of my Office, thank you for drawing my attention to the anti-Semitic image that was posted on his personal website. I utterly deplore and condemn anti-Semitism, as I do any form of incitement to hatred and racial discrimination.

I also note Mr. Falk’s series of public apologies, in which he explained his inadvertent mistake and clearly acknowledged the anti-Semitic and objectionable nature of the cartoon. I welcome the fact that he swiftly removed the image from his website, and expressed his regrets at his own “carelessness” in not examining it more carefully before posting it in the first place.”

One of Mr Falk’s apologies contained the following statement::

“My intention has never been to demean in any way Jews as a people despite my strong criticisms of Israeli policies,and some versions of “Zionist support". To be clear, I oppose any denigration of a people based on ethnicity, race, religion, stage of development, and believe in the human dignity of all people in their individual and collective identity.”

Yet one year later Mr Falk has allowed the following views (and many more) to be openly espoused on his web site in a series of separate posts:

“If Israel and the Jews hope to avoid the next shoah, they had better start learning a little empathy, because, while you are laughing now, things can change very rapidly, as we have seen in the last century (and the one before that, and the one before that….). Do you really want to be on the side that takes down our fragile civilization?”

“We can’t afford any more wars, especially ones to rescue Jews who have acted recklessly again and gotten themselves in trouble again with their big mouths and by flaunting their wealth in an unseemly manner.”

“The truth is that Jews have a terrible track record, and they seem to be obsessed with the (false) notion that people hate them for no reason. There are very good reasons for hating jews today, and that makes me sad. How can jews be acting this way so soon after the last catastrophe?"

I have been witness to these vicious posts as I endeavoured to get some responses from Mr Falk to objections I had taken to an article he had written in which he maintained that the moral and legal premises of Jewish claims in the West Bank were “without substance”.

Mr Falk’s assertion - at the time of his cartoon apology - that he opposed the denigration of people based on ethnicity - could not be possibly squared with what he was allowing to be published on his web site just twelve months later.

Mr Falk supposedly realised the seriousness of his publishing similar comments by stating:

“Recently my blog posts have attracted some venomous comments. I have somewhat reluctantly ‘approved’ of most such comments unless blatantly anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian, anti-Semitic, racist, or personally defamatory, and even with such offending comments I have leaned toward inclusion. Recently, however, I have received several critical messages (one of which I assume was from me - author) suggesting that allowing such comments demeans the quality of the dialogue generated by the blog. These messages have prompted me to reconsider my way of filtering comments,and lead me to become somewhat more of a gatekeeper.”

In a further sign of his intent to forbid posts such as those set out above - Mr Falk stated:

“ I welcome dissent, I will exclude ‘Jew haters,’ but include all who seek discussion and debate carried on in a civil tone, without bashing those whose views they disagree with.”

However, Mr Falk actually published these remarks the day before the publication of the above offensive statements. It would appear that his protestations at ending the publication of Jew-hatred posts lasted less than 24 hours.

Mr Falk might show how serious his intentions are this third time around by immediately removing the above offensive statements and many more posts in similar vein still able to be read on his site.

Will it be a case of “three strikes and you’re out” as Special Rapporteur if he doesn‘t?

These inflammatory statements have no place on the web site of a Special Rapporteur.

Perhaps he also needs to rethink his stated opinion that the Jewish People have no legal right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home anywhere in former Palestine as expressed by him in the following post:

“I regard the Balfour Declaration and the mandatory system as classic colonial moves that have lost whatever legitimacy that they possessed at the time of their utterance, and prefer to view the competing claims to land and rights on the basis either of the 1948 partition proposal or the 1967 boundaries, although if there was diplomatic parity, I would respect whatever accommodation the parties reached, but without such parity, it seems necessary to invoke the allocation of rights as per settled international law.”

Of course the partition proposal was in 1947 - not 1948 and there were no 1967 boundaries - only armistice lines.

Denying the Jews have any legal rights under the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter perhaps helps explain why so many vile comments were received on Mr Falk’s website such as this one:

“And give me a break with the nonsense about how there are 59 islamic countries but no jewish ones. Grow up, would you? Jews aren’t rich and powerful enough?“

The sooner Mr Falk acknowledges that his position requires him to uphold international law - not denigrate or demean it - the sooner he might be able to bring the prestige and influence of his office to bear in helping to end the 130 years old conflict between Jews and Arabs.

Has the leopard changed his spots or merely tried to camouflage his tracks?

I reserve my judgment.