Palestinian culture at work at UNESCO - restricting freedom of speech

Now that the Palestinians have joined the morally bankrupt rewriting history cultural organization anti-Semitic anti-America UNESCO, it is only fitting that they spread their "beautiful culture" into UNESCO.

UNESCO seems to have picked this up already!

Ha'aretz:



Photo by: Eran Wolkovsky



 Wow! Talk about people who can't handle some criticism and freedom of speech! 

Israel's ambassador to UNESCO didn't know whether to laugh or cry when a senior official at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization called him in for a tongue-lashing on Wednesday.

The reason? A cartoon published in Haaretz.

The November 4 cartoon, a riff on the government's anger at UNESCO's decision to accept Palestine as a full member, showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak sending an air force squadron to attack Iran, with Netanyahu ordering, "And on your way back, you're gonna hit the UNESCO office in Ramallah!"
hen he met with Eric Falt, UNESCO's assistant director general for external relations and public information, Ambassador Nimrod Barkan was stunned to be handed a copy of this cartoon and an official letter of protest from UNESCO's director general, Irina Bokova. Falt told Barkan the cartoon constituted incitement.

"A cartoon like this endangers the lives of unarmed diplomats, and you have an obligation to protect them," Falt said, according to an Israeli source. "We understand that there is freedom of the press in Israel, but the government must prevent attacks on UNESCO."

Barkan pointed out that the government has no control over editorial cartoons printed in the papers. "Ask yourselves what you did to make a moderate paper with a deeply internationalist bent publish such a cartoon," he suggested. "Perhaps the problem is with you."

After Barkan reported the conversation to the Foreign Ministry, it cabled back: "What exactly does UNESCO want of us - to send our fine boys to protect UNESCO's staff, or to shut down the paper? It seems your work environment is getting more and more reminiscent of 'Animal Farm.'"

The ironic thing is that I view the cartoon, published by the leftist media outlet Ha'aretz, as a satire on Israel - NOT UNESCO.  It appears to be mocking Israel's overreaction to Iran (although I strongly disagree, a nuclear Iran is a threat to the world), saying that after Israel attacks Iran, they should attack UNESCO for accepting Palestine as a state, which itself is just silly.

Well, at least U.S., Israeli, and Canadian taxpayer money isn't going to fund organizations that restrict freedom of speech and don't tolerate criticism!

Which reminds me of this video of the morally bankrupt hoster of human rights abusers U.N. Human Rights Council, refusing to accept criticism and silencing opponents:

Fisking and Destroying the EU and the U.N.

With all due respect to the EU and the U.N. Secretary General, in this post I will do my best to "destroy" you (don't fear, I'm speaking metaphorically, not literally).

JPost:

The European Union on Sunday criticized Israeli plans to construct a new neighborhood in east Jerusalem.

All right... Nothing new here...  Same old same old.  Israel builds on land they won in 1967 when multiple Arab countries tried to obliterate Israel, Israel gets condemned...

What gives the world the right to think they can tell Israel where to build on land they got in a defensive war, especially in their historic 3000 year old capital - and only under Jewish control has Jerusalem been open to all religions and people.

Great video - The Truth about the West Bank

“These initiatives run contrary to the current EU and Quartet efforts to bring about the resumption of peace negotiations,” EU Foreign Affairs chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement.

What exactly are your efforts?  Just politely asking for the past few decades for both sides to make peace with each other?  You don't think it will take a bit more than that?  And mind you, Israel has agreed to the Quartet initiative, while the PA hasn't. 

Maybe you should tell the PA, "We've got better things to do.  You want to refuse our offer? Go make your own peace.  Or call us when you're serious about this.  But we've got better things to do with our lives."

The Givat Hamatos project, which is located over the 1967 Green Line, will include 2,600 new housing units.

Correction - 1948 armistice lines.

OK, so let's accept this for a moment.  Then why did you condemn a neighborhood - not a settlement - which would remain part of Israel in any agreement, and which Erekat conceded to Livni and Rice in 2008?

Check out this post and this post for more info.

On Friday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Israeli plans to build more than 2,600 apartments in the new Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamatos, over the 1967 Green Line as "unacceptable."

Once again, nothing new here.

"The Secretary-General is deeply concerned at continued efforts to advance planning for new Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem," Ban's press office said in a statement.

And Israelis are deeply concerned over the release of 1000 terrorists.  Either way, 2600 apartments is only a few buildings, as each apartment building has many apartments.  That's about 1 or 2 blocks? Really? Condemnation?

"Recent developments in this regard have been unacceptable, particularly as efforts are ongoing to resume (Israeli-Palestinian) negotiations, and run contrary to the Quartet's call on the parties to refrain from provocations," it said.

Again, what efforts? The Quartet put forth a proposal which Israel accepted.  The PA has not.

Settlement construction is nothing new.  And in Jerusalem, there should be no question about it - it's the capital of Israel, and the ancient, historic, religious capital of the Jews.

"The Secretary-General reiterates that settlement activity in East Jerusalem and the remainder of the West Bank is contrary to international law," the UN statement said, adding such activity "must cease."

International law also allowed for Durban I, Durban II, and Durban III to take place.  The latter took place despite boycotts by almost every democratic country.

International law can say that the Earth was round until the Zionists flattened it... Doesn't make it right.

The Palestinian Authority on Friday also slammed the decision to build more housing units.

Oh... I thought they would rejoice in jubilation...

"Israel's plan to build 2,610 housing units ... between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, makes a mockery of ... efforts to bring about a just and lasting peace," Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said in a statement.

You know what's really contrary to peace? Your intransigence. Your refusal to accept anything less. Your refusal to give up anything. Your refusal to recognize Israel. Your refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist. Your refusal to recognize Israel's right to self-defense.  Your refusal to accept the Quartet peace proposal.  Your refusal for direct negotiations.

However, the project’s approval in September did not raise any red flags since the land for the project has many different owners, including the Spanish government and the Latin Patriarch, said Margalit. Determining and reorganizing the ownership for building purposes is a complicated legal process called “reparcelization” that can take years, leading activists and politicians to focus their energies elsewhere.

The reparcelization plan was deposited for public review on Tuesday, which began a 60-day period for review during which the public can file oppositions to the project. With the deposit, the project is close to the end of the complicated approval process, and construction could begin as early as a year and a half from now.

Nothing's final yet.  If the PA doesn't like this plan, then I suggest they sit down at the negotiating table with Israel and strike a deal.  As the article says - it'd take abouta year and a half for the construction to begin.  That's ample time for a peace deal - or at least the beginnings of it.  In that deal, the fate of this settlement would be decided by both parties.

What'cha waiting for Abbas?

Read the full article here.

Quite simply, they want it all

Barry Rubin, JPost:

No matter what the Palestinian Authority is offered – money, concessions and even steps toward statehood– the response is always “no.” Media, academic “experts” and governments seem to find this amazing phenomenon very hard to understand.The answer is simple, but a lot of the people paid to deal with this stuff don’t get it. So let me elucidate: The Palestinian Authority (PA) wants everything.

The PA wants an independent state on all the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem with no restrictions, no recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, no serious security guarantees, no limits on militarization, no agreement that this means an end to the conflict, no insistence that Palestinian refugees be resettled in the state of Palestine, and nothing to prevent them from pursuing a second stage of wiping Israel off the map entirely.
Now, one could say it’s common for people to want everything and to give nothing in exchange but that certain factors – missing in this case – push them toward compromise.

These factors include:

• Knowing they can’t get a better deal. The Palestinians know the West will always offer more if they are intransigent.

• The impasse favors your adversary because your intransigence will gain it international support. In this case, the more stubborn the Palestinians are, the more Israel is blamed.

• Economic pressure. Since the PA is almost completely supported by foreign aid that is not threatened by its hard line, this pressure does not exist.

• Public opinion pressure to change the situation. In this case, Palestinian public opinion is relatively radicalized and ideological and does not demand a compromise settlement.

• Concern that your political rivals will “outmoderate” you and win by offering to make a deal. In this case, the opposite is true: rivals “out-radicalize” one another and threaten to destroy you politically (and perhaps even physically) if you make a deal.

• Belief that time is not on your side. Due to religious and nationalist ideology, along with misperception of Israel, the PA (and even more so Hamas) believes that time is on its side.

That’s not a complete list. But the point is that the world in general – the United States and Europe, the UN, Arabic-speaking countries and Muslim-majority states – have created a “perfect” system.

Here’s a brief description:

• The PA has no incentive to make compromises for peace, so it won’t.
• The world insists that “peace” is an urgent top priority.

• The only variable is Israel, which must be made to give way. But Israel won’t because of past experience and the fact that the risks are now too high.

Deadlock.

So nothing will change. There will be no peace process, no Palestinian state. No “progress” will be made.

...

This is not left-wing or right-wing but merely an explanation as to why all the schemes and theories of those who do not see these facts never actually take wing. It may not be politically correct, but it is most definitely factually correct.

Now, you might ask, do I just criticize or do I have constructive policy advice?

I do. Here it is: When the Palestinian Authority rejects the Quartet proposal for negotiations, the United States, European Union and anyone else who wants to go along tells them, “We’ve tried to help you and you don’t want to listen, so since we have lots of other things to do, we’ll go do them. Good luck, and if you ever change your mind and get serious about making peace you have our phone number.”

The previous paragraph would send shock waves throughout policy circles, right? But why? If you can’t solve a problem and – let’s be clear here – the problem doesn’t need to be solved immediately, then you work on other problems. There are no shortage of those! I hope you have enjoyed this article and found it useful. We are left, however, with the following problem: Those in positions of political, media and intellectual power don’t get it.
The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center. He is a featured columnist at Pajamas Media and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) journal.

Direct negotiations are VITAL to peace

Ari Alexenberg, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New Hampshire, in Sea Coast Online:

Abbas coming to the U.N. for acceptance of a Palestinian state without acknowledging Israel as a Jewish state is ironic. For it was the United Nations' Resolution 181 in 1947 that recommended British mandated Palestine to become two states, a "Jewish state" and an "Arab state."

It is worthy to note that Resolution 181 called for an "Arab state" not a Palestinian state. The reason for this is that the notion of a Palestinian people didn't exist. A search on Google books (a database of millions of books going back hundreds of years) on the subject of "Palestinians" before 1948 will return no results.

Yet, Netanyahu, in his speech to the U.N. explicitly stated he will accept a state for the Palestinian people alongside Israel. The Israelis have shown a remarkable willingness to compromise, agreeing to cede land that is the heart of Jewish civilization dating back thousands of years, for the sake of peace. Giving the Palestinians statehood without their acceptance of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people portends the continuation of the conflict, not the end.

Israel wants peace! It does not want to rule over another people and it does not want to send their children into battle. But just like any other nation on Earth, they must know their neighbors are not sworn to their destruction. In his speech, President Obama articulated Israel's need for security by saying, "Let us be honest with ourselves: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel's citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel's children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them."

If the Palestinians have a state, its borders will run beside the heart of Israel's population center, a mere primitive rocket launch away from Tel Aviv or Israel's only major airport. How can the Palestinians be granted statehood when approximately 40 percent of its population is ruled by Iranian backed Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist group. Netanyahu made this clear in his speech when he said "Israelis are prepared to have a Palestinian state in the West Bank, but we're not prepared to have another Gaza there."

Peace is not a unilateral decision, it is a partnership. There are difficult issues that need to be negotiated. Borders, status of Jerusalem, settlements, Palestinian right of return, security arrangements and many more. A unilateral declaration of statehood doesn't address or solve the real issues on the ground. As President Obama iterated, "peace is hard, peace is hard." Netanyahu is willing to sit down without preconditions to do the hard work of negotiating peace. Abbas' unilateral declaration avoids doing the work necessary to bring a Palestinian state to fruition. It is a shallow exercise that will yield nothing on the ground for the Palestinians. It will only serve to isolate Israel and embarrass the United States by potentially forcing it to veto a Security Council resolution. The Palestinians need a leader whose vision for creating a democratic Palestinian state is greater than his aversion to accepting a democratic Jewish state.

Hypocrisy: Kurds, Syrians, and Palestinians

Jonothan S. Tobin:

The assassination of a Kurdish opposition leader in Syria may lead to more violence as protests against the Assad regime escalate. But it should also serve as a reminder of the hypocrisy of much of the world’s attitudes about the Middle East.

While most of the world has been obsessing about the alleged wrongs of the Palestinians, few seem to think it’s worth caring about the fact Kurds remain the object of violent suppression in both Syria and Turkey. Yet as we saw this past week, when Russia and China vetoed United Nations resolutions condemning the crackdown against dissent in Syria, few among the globe’s chattering classes seem willing to condemn any nation in the world other than Israel. Nor do many seem concerned with the plight of any national or ethnic group demanding sovereignty or rights other than those seeking to do so at the expense of the globe’s only Jewish state.

The focus of global attention in recent weeks has been the attempt of the Palestinians to get the United Nations to give them statehood without first having to make peace with Israel. This has resulted in an orgy of rhetoric about the right to self-determination of all peoples. But the plight of the Kurds, who have arguably suffered far more than the Palestinians or any other stateless people, doesn’t move the international community. Indeed, the only reason this latest outrage committed against the Kurds in Syria is getting any attention at all has been because it comes in the context of efforts by the Assad clan and its Alawite allies to hang on to power in Damascus.

...

Unlike Turkey and Syria, Israel has repeatedly stated its desire to negotiate a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians. And unlike the situation of Kurds in most of the Middle East, Arab citizens of Israel also have full civil and legal rights. It should also be stated that, whatever crimes have been committed in the name of Kurdish independence, the goal of Kurdish groups is not the eradication of other nations. The same cannot be said of the Palestinians. But no one should hold their breath waiting for the UN or its misnamed Human Rights Council to give the Kurds’ far more grievous wrongs the same hearing they give the Palestinians.

Tobin's just saying it as it is.

Read the rest here.

The U.N. is the "Theatre of the Absurd"

Melanie Phillips:

Some 1941 years ago, the Romans conquered the ancient Jewish kingdom of Judea by force and attempted to expunge all memory of the Jews’ claim to the land by renaming the area Palestine. Two days ago, Mahmoud Abbas attempted to do the same thing by diplomatic force at the UN.

The whole thing was of course a grotesque charade, outdone in its surrealism only by the reaction of the western world. For the UK and US governments and others said that such a unilateral declaration of independence was a setback for peace and a Palestinian state, which could only be achieved through negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel.

Not so. Negotiations do not have to be re-started in order to achieve this. If Abbas really wanted a state of Palestine to live in peace alongside Israel, he could have said a handful of words in New York which would have ended the conflict there and then and brought such a state into actual being.

For all that is needed is for Abbas to say, in Arabic as well as English, that he accepts the right of Israel to exist as the nation state of the Jewish people, and that his own people will no longer wage war against it. If he were to say that, and to match those words by deeds to show he meant them – for example, by ending the incitement in the educational materials and media under his command to hatred and murder of Jews and Israelis – there would be peace and a state of Palestine.

The problem is not the absence of a state of Palestine. The problem is that the Arabs want to get rid of Israel.

But this will never happen. For the dominant assumption in the west, the assumption that underpins virtually every political utterance on the subject and every interview on the BBC and the reporting even in notionally pro-Israel papers such as the Times or Telegraph that a state of Palestine would end the Middle East conflict, is not only wholly mistaken but is to mis-state that conflict.

For peace to be achieved, the belligerent has to stop making war. The Arabs have made war on the Jews in their ancient homeland since Israel became a state and indeed for three decades before that. For a solution to be arrived at, it’s necessary correctly to state the problem. The problem is not the absence of a state of Palestine. The problem is that the Arabs want to get rid of Israel.

For anyone paying attention to the actual words used, the evidence was there in Abbas’s own speech. His people, he declared, had been suffering for 63 years. What happened 63 years ago? The state of Israel came into being. So what Abbas was saying was not that the absence of a state of Palestine was the problem. The problem for him was the very existence of the state of Israel.

He also said:
        ‘...we agreed to establish the State of Palestine on only 22 per cent of the territory of historical Palestine – on all the Palestinian Territory occupied by Israel in 1967.'

But the West Bank and Gaza were not 22 per cent of historical; Palestine; they were far, far less. It was Israel that was established on a fraction of ‘historical Palestine’, having settled for that fraction as better than nothing at all. And if the Palestinians truly had accepted a state merely in the West Bank and Gaza, why then did they refuse the offer of precisely such a state on more than 90 per cent of that territory which was made to them in 2000 and 2008? Why does the very Palestinian logo on their flags and insignia show a map of this state of Palestine to which they aspire as having swallowed up Israel altogether?

In Ramallah on September 16, Abbas made his position even plainer. 'The Palestinian people', he stated, 'have been abused for 63 years, generation after generation, under occupation'.

No, it is not the settlements but the existence of Israel itself that is the problem which Abbas believes UN recognition of a state of Palestine would help resolve. It is Israel itself that Abbas wants to subsume into Palestine. In other words, as he himself has previously said, declaring UDI at the UN was a way of internationalising the conflict with Israel. UN recognition of a state of Palestine is therefore not a move towards peace but a signal for genocidal war.

The truly incredible bone-headedness (or worse) of the western response was encapsulated by a BBC Today programme interview on Friday morning with the UK’s former ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock. Sir Jeremy declared that a state of Palestine was ‘not a threat to Israel’, and that the Palestinians were ‘desperate’ to end the ‘injustice’ done to them and to restart negotiations. Eh? What ‘injustice’? The Palestinians are the ones waging war on Israel, not the other way round. What desperation, when they have repeatedly turned down the offer of a state? What keenness to re-start negotiations, when Israel repeatedly offers them negotiations and they repeatedly refuse?

Even worse, Sir Jeremy also said that what was much more important for Israel than a state of Palestine was not to imperil any further its relationship with other countries in the region such as Egypt, Turkey or Iran. What?? Doesn’t Sir Jeremy realise that the Palestinians are despised by every country in the region? Hasn’t Sir Jeremy noticed that Turkey is now pursuing an Islamist agenda, with appalling implications not just for Israel but for the interests of the UK and the west, and that Egypt may well fall to the Islamists too? And as for Israel not upsetting Iran by its attitude to the Palestinians, hasn’t Sir Jeremy Greenstock understood that Iran is threatening Israel with nuclear extinction because it is a Jewish state? On what planet is Sir Jeremy Greenstock living?

To anyone with a scintilla of knowledge of the nine-decade Arab and Islamic war against the Jews in the Middle East, Abbas’s speech at the UN consisted of lie after lie after lie. He claimed that Israeli settlements in the West Bank were illegal and in breach of international law (untrue); he claimed that the settlements were in breach of the terms of negotiation (untrue; it is Abbas’s own unilateral declaration which tears up successive bilateral treaties); he claimed that Israel was targeting Palestinian civilians in Gaza (untrue; Israeli attacks, which carefully avoid hitting civilians wherever possible, are only in defence of its civilians against Hamas attacks --with which Abbas has now publicly lined himself up, not least by hailing as ‘martyrs’ those in Gaza who murder Israelis).

As for his claim that the settlements were the reason there was no peace, this was demonstrably ridiculous. As Netanyahu said in his own fine speech at the UN:

‘President Abbas ... said that the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the settlements. Well, that's odd. Our conflict has been raging for -- was raging for nearly half a century before there was a single Israeli settlement in the West Bank. So if what President Abbas is saying was true, then the -- I guess that the settlements he's talking about are Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jaffa, Be'er Sheva. Maybe that's what he meant the other day when he said that Israel has been occupying Palestinian land for 63 years. He didn't say from 1967; he said from 1948. I hope somebody will bother to ask him this question because it illustrates a simple truth: The core of the conflict is not the settlements. The settlements are a result of the conflict.’

The Arab response has always been to refuse and instead to attempt to destroy the Jews’ presence in their own ancient homeland.

History records that, from the 1930s onwards, the Jews have never stood in the way of a Palestinian state if that would end the war of annihilation the Arabs have continuously waged against them. A Palestine state has been on repeated offer. The Arab response has always been to refuse and instead to attempt to destroy the Jews’ presence in their own ancient homeland. As certain Palestinian spokesmen themselves have acknowledged, Palestinian identity was itself constructed purely to destroy Israel. The reason for the objection to a state of Palestine is that it would be used to bring about the final destruction of Israel as a Jewish state, an aspiration which Abbas never ceases to proclaim.

As Netanyahu said in his speech:

‘We believe that the Palestinians should be neither the citizens of Israel nor its subjects. They should live in a free state of their own. But they should be ready, like us, for compromise. And we will know that they’re ready for compromise and for peace when they start taking Israel’s security requirements seriously and when they stop denying our historical connection to our ancient homeland.

I often hear them accuse Israel of Judaizing Jerusalem. That’s like accusing America of Americanizing Washington, or the British of Anglicizing London. You know why we’re called “Jews”? Because we come from Judea.”’

What Israel should be stating explicitly and repeatedly is that it is the Jews who are the indigenous people of what are now Israel and the West Bank – and indeed beyond. Commentators often refer to Judea and Samaria as ‘Biblical’ names as if they can therefore be disregarded today. Not so. Judea and Samara were the true historical names for Israel and the West Bank, used in international treaties and official documents of the Palestine Mandate period, and throughout which land the Jews were given the legal right to settle. Only now as the west mimics the Arab attempt to airbrush the Jews out of their own history have these names become synonymous with Jewish extremism.

What really illustrates the west’s moral bankruptcy over Israel and the Palestinians is that the day before the Abbas charade, the very same UN gave the stage to Iran’s Ahmadinejad from where he spouted his murderous lies and hatred of the west, including his implication that 9/11 was a US conspiracy. This is the leader of a regime which executes teenagers for homosexuality and which is developing nuclear weapons to commit genocide against Israel and hold the western world hostage. Yet far from expressing outrage at this use of the UN by such a man, far from drawing attention indeed to the utter suicidal madness of having the UN as a global policeman when its own Security Council is now chaired by Lebanon, a country in thrall to Iran through Hezbollah, the appearance of Ahmadinejad elicited barely a shrug by western media which instead worked themselves into a frenzy over Abbas and the ‘plight’ of the Palestinians.

Netanyahu again called it right. He said the world was menaced by a malignancy.

‘That malignancy is militant Islam. It cloaks itself in the mantle of a great faith, yet it murders Jews, Christians and Muslims alike with unforgiving impartiality. On September 11th it killed thousands of Americans, and it left the twin towers in smouldering ruins. Last night I laid a wreath on the 9/11 memorial. It was deeply moving. But as I was going there, one thing echoed in my mind: the outrageous words of the president of Iran on this podium yesterday. He implied that 9/11 was an American conspiracy. Some of you left this hall. All of you should have.'

Netanyahu called the UN a ‘theatre of the absurd’ and the ‘house of lies’. The western media mostly didn’t bother to report that, just as they didn’t bother to report much of his speech. What they are really waiting for is for the Palestinians to resume attacking Israelis as a sign of their ‘desperation’. They won’t report those attacks either. But they will report the Israelis’ response and call that ‘aggression’. That’s the prospect over which the western media, sensing a final kill, are now slavering.

True, true, and even more so, true.  Excellent article.

Resolution against Syria fails in the U.N. - More loss of legitimacy

Most people around the world believe that the U.N. had good intentions when it was formed, but quickly became a corrupt organization dominated by Arab, communist, and dictatorship countries, with human rights abusers like Qaddafi on their Human Rights Council.

And now, you can't even get a resolution condemning Syria's brutal massacre of thousands of Syrians to pass in the U.N.  How much more legitimacy much the U.N. reach until major reform occurs?

JPost:

UNITED NATIONS - Russia and China joined forces on Tuesday to veto a European-drafted UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria and hinting that it could face sanctions if it continues its crackdown on protesters.

The resolution received nine votes in favor and four abstentions from Brazil, India, Lebanon and South Africa. Russia and China cast the only votes against the resolution, which was drafted by France with the cooperation of Britain, Germany and Portugal.

"We cannot today doubt the meaning of this veto of this text," French UN Ambassador Gerard Araud told the 15-nation council. "This is not a matter of wording. It is a political choice. It is a refusal of all resolutions of the council against Syria."

"This veto will not stop us," he added. "No veto can give carte blanche to the Syrian authorities."

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the council that Moscow's veto reflected "a conflict of political approaches" between Russia and the European council members.

Churkin said that Moscow was firmly opposed to the threat of sanctions against Damascus, adding that what he described as the confrontational approach of the European delegations was "against the peaceful settlement of the crisis."

He reiterated his concerns that passing the European resolution on Syria could have opened the door to a Libya-style military intervention in the Syrian authorities' six-month crackdown on anti-government demonstrations there.

Churkin added, however, that Moscow would prefer it if Syria was "quicker with implementing the promised changes." He was referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad's promised democratic reforms.

Hmm... Somehow I think that this "peaceful settlement of the crisis" will only emerge after Assad murders all his citizens...

And didn't Russia witness the signing of the Oslo Accord?  How can they vote in favor of a Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence which would violate the Oslo Accords and would destroy the peace process?  One thing in Syria, one thing in Israel...

Chinese Ambassador Li Baodong said that Beijing opposed the idea of "interference in [Syria's] internal affairs."

By that standard, I'd expect them not to be in favor of a Palestinian statehood bid, which also would destroy the peace process and violate the Oslo Accords and not lead to any peace...  After all, they should prefer not to interfere in Israel's internal affairs.  Yet they support a Palestinian statehood bid...

Russia and China's support of a Palestinian statehood bid really isn't that surprising given their political views and past history.

The decision by Russia and China to use their veto power indicates that the Security Council might be stuck in a longer-term deadlock on issues related to the Middle East and the Arab Spring pro-democracy movements in the region, Western diplomats told Reuters.

For months, Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa -- the "BRICS" countries -- have criticized the United States and European council members for allegedly allowing NATO to overstep its Security Council mandate to protect civilians in Libya.

No BRICS country supported the Syria resolution.

The failed resolution, which was drawn up by France in cooperation with Britain, Germany and Portugal, was a watered-down version of previous drafts that had threatened Syria with sanctions if it ignored international demands that it halt its crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

Later drafts removed the word sanctions, though this was not enough to satisfy Russia and China.

The United Nations says Syrian military operations against demonstrators have killed at least 2,700 civilians.

Most death counts raise the number a lot.  But 2,700 civilians to me is more than enough to pass a resolution - which really means utterly nothing in the U.N. - against Syria. 

But of course, a cruel dictator massacring thousands of citizens doesn't get condemnation.  But a steep reduction in suicide bombings against Israel as a result of the security fence (96% fence, 4% wall, as a result of Second Intifada and hundreds of terrorist attacks and Israeli casualties, and can be removed when there is peace and Palestinians reject terrorism) gets condemnation.

Crazy world we live in...

How the Palestinian Leadership is Ignoring History

Alan Dershowitz (a professor of Harvard law school and advocate for Israel; wrote numerous pro-Israel books such as "The Case for Israel"):

The Palestinians are in the process of seeking sovereignty from the United Nations, but in doing so, they are asking for more than what was offered them in any prior negotiation with Israel—including during the talks involving President Clinton and Ehud Barak in 2000 and 2001. Rather than more, it is imperative that the Palestinians get less.

It is imperative to world peace that the Palestinians pay a price—even if it’s only a symbolic price—for rejecting the generous Clinton/Barak offer and responding to it with a second intifada in which 4,000 people were killed. It is also important that Israel not return to the precise armistice lines that existed prior to the 1967 war. If the Palestinians were to achieve a return to the status quo prior to Jordan’s attack on Israel in June of 1967, then military aggression will not have been punished, it will have been rewarded. That’s why Security Council Resolution 242—which was essentially the peace treaty that resulted from the end of the Six Day War—intended for Israel to retain territory necessary to give it secure boundaries (Indeed, in the formal application submitted by Abbas, he sought membership based on UN General Assembly Resolution 1810-11 of November 29, 1947, which would put the borders where they were before the Arab armies invaded the new Jewish state in 1948. This would reward multiple aggressions.)

Yet, however important it is that aggressive and unjustified violence not be rewarded, the international community seems bent on doing just that. If the end result of Jordan’s 1967 attack on Israel—an attack supported by the Palestinian leadership and participated in by Palestinian soldiers—is that the Palestinians get back everything Jordan lost, there will be no disincentive to comparable military attacks around the world. If the Palestinians get more than, or even as much as, they rejected in 2000 and 2001 (and did not accept in 2007), then further intifadas with mass casualties will be encouraged. A price must be paid for violence. That’s how the laws of war are supposed to work and there is no reason to make an exception in the case of the Palestinians.

I support a two-state solution based on negotiation and mutual compromise. But the negotiations must not begin where previous offers, which were not accepted, left off. They must take into account how we got to the present situation: The Arab rejection of the UN partition plan and the attack on the new Jewish state that resulted in the death of one percent of Israel’s population; the attack by Jordan and its Palestinian soldiers against Israel in 1967, which resulted in Israel’s capture of the West Bank; Israel’s offer to trade captured land for peace that was rejected at Khartoum with the three infamous “no’s”—no peace, no recognition, no negotiation; Israel’s generous offer of statehood in 2000-2001 that was answered by violence; and Olmert’s subsequent, even more generous, offer that was not accepted by President Abbas.

Efforts to achieve peace must look forward but they must not forget the past. A balance must be struck between not rewarding past violence and not creating unreasonable barriers to a future peace. But the Palestinians made it clear last week that they reject such balance.

I was at the United Nations on Friday when President Abbas made his speech demanding full recognition of Palestine as a state with the borders as they existed just before the Jordanians and Palestinians attacked Israel. In other words he wants a “do over.” He wants the nations that attacked Israel to suffer no consequences for their attempt to destroy the Jewish State. He wants to get back The Western Wall, The Jewish Quarter, and the access road to Hebrew University. Only then will he begin negotiations from this position of strength.

But why then negotiate if the UN gives him more than he can possibly get through negotiation? Will he be in a position to seek less from Israel than what the UN gave him? Will he survive if he is seen as less Palestinian than the UN? Abbas blamed Israel for the self-inflicted wound the Palestinians cynically call the Nakba (the catastrophe). He denied the Jewish history of the land of Israel and he quoted with approval his terrorist predecessor Arafat. He refused to acknowledge Israel’s legitimate security needs. Abbas’s message, in sum, left little or no room for further compromise.

I also sat in the General Assembly as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered to begin negotiations with Abbas, with absolutely no preconditions, in New York, at the United Nations, that very day. He said he would come to Ramallah to negotiate with him or keep the door of his Jerusalem office open. He did not even require as a precondition to negotiations that the Palestinians acknowledge what the UN recognized in 1947—namely, that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Although many in the international communities and on the editorial pages of newspapers claim that Abbas wants to negotiate a two-state solution, while Netanyahu has refused to do so, the truth was on full and open display at the General Assembly on Friday: Netanyahu wants to negotiate a peace now, whereas Abbas wants to win recognition from the United Nations before any negotiations begin. As Netanyahu put it: “Let’s stop negotiating about negotiating and let’s just start negotiating right now.”

If the Palestinians accept Netanyahu’s offer to negotiate a peaceful two-state solution, it will get a real state on the ground—a state that Israel, the United States, and the rest of the international community will recognize. It will not be on the pre-1967 borders because the Palestinians are not entitled to such borders and because such borders are not conducive to peace, but it will be close. The Palestinians will get a viable state and Israel will get a secure state.

If, on the other hand, the UN were to reward nearly a century of Palestinian rejectionism and violence by simply turning the clock back to 1967 (or 1947), it will be encouraging more cost-free rejectionism and violence. The Palestinians must pay a price for the thousands of lives their rejectionism and violence have caused. The price must not be so heavy as to preclude peace, but it must be heavy enough to deter war.

Why did Abbas go to the U.N.?

Charles Krauthammer:

While diplomatically inconvenient for the Western powers, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s attempt to get the United Nations to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state has elicited widespread sympathy. After all, what choice did he have? According to the accepted narrative, Middle East peace is made impossible by a hard-line Likud-led Israel that refuses to accept a Palestinian state and continues to build settlements.

It is remarkable how this gross inversion of the truth has become conventional wisdom. In fact, Benjamin Netanyahu brought his Likud-led coalition to open recognition of a Palestinian state, thereby creating Israel’s first national consensus for a two-state solution. He is also the only prime minister to agree to a settlement freeze — 10 months — something no Labor or Kadima government has ever done.

 

To which Abbas responded by boycotting the talks for nine months, showing up in the 10th, then walking out when the freeze expired. Last week he reiterated that he will continue to boycott peace talks unless Israel gives up — in advance — claim to any territory beyond the 1967 lines. Meaning, for example, that the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem is Palestinian territory. This is not just absurd. It violates every prior peace agreement. They all stipulate that such demands are to be the subject of negotiations, not their precondition.

Abbas unwaveringly insists on the so-called “right of return,” which would demographically destroy Israel by swamping it with millions of Arabs, thereby turning the world’s only Jewish state into the world’s 23rd Arab state. And he has repeatedly declared, as recently as last week in New York: “We shall not recognize a Jewish state.”

Nor is this new. It is perfectly consistent with the long history of Palestinian rejectionism. Consider:

●Camp David, 2000. At a U.S.-sponsored summit, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offers Yasser Arafat a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza — and, astonishingly, the previously inconceivable division of Jerusalem. Arafat refuses. And makes no counteroffer, thereby demonstrating his unseriousness about making any deal. Instead, within two months, he launches a savage terror war that kills a thousand Israelis.

●Taba, 2001. An even sweeter deal — the Clinton Parameters — is offered. Arafat walks away again.

●Israel, 2008. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert makes the ultimate capitulation to Palestinian demands — 100 percent of the West Bank (with land swaps), Palestinian statehood, the division of Jerusalem with the Muslim parts becoming the capital of the new Palestine. And incredibly, he offers to turn over the city’s holy places, including the Western Wall — Judaism’s most sacred site, its Kaaba — to an international body on which sit Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Did Abbas accept? Of course not. If he had, the conflict would be over and Palestine would already be a member of the United Nations.

This is not ancient history. All three peace talks occurred over the past decade. And every one completely contradicts the current mindless narrative of Israeli “intransigence” as the obstacle to peace.

Settlements? Every settlement remaining within the new Palestine would be destroyed and emptied, precisely as happened in Gaza.

So why did the Palestinians say no? Because saying yes would have required them to sign a final peace agreement that accepted a Jewish state on what they consider the Muslim patrimony.

The key word here is “final.” The Palestinians are quite prepared to sign interim agreements, like Oslo. Framework agreements, like Annapolis. Cease-fires, like the 1949 armistice. Anything but a final deal. Anything but a final peace. Anything but a treaty that ends the conflict once and for all — while leaving a Jewish state still standing.

After all, why did Abbas go to the United Nations last week? For nearly half a century, the United States has pursued a Middle East settlement on the basis of the formula of land for peace. Land for peace produced the Israel-Egypt peace of 1979 and the Israel-Jordan peace of 1994. Israel has offered the Palestinians land for peace three times since. And been refused every time.

Why? For exactly the same reason Abbas went to the United Nations last week: to get land without peace. Sovereignty with no reciprocal recognition of a Jewish state. Statehood without negotiations. An independent Palestine in a continued state of war with Israel.

Israel gave up land without peace in south Lebanon in 2000 and, in return, received war (the Lebanon war of 2006) and 50,000 Hezbollah missiles now targeted on the Israeli homeland. In 2005, Israel gave up land without peace in Gaza, and again was rewarded with war — and constant rocket attack from an openly genocidal Palestinian mini-state.

Israel is prepared to give up land, but never again without peace. A final peace. Which is exactly what every Palestinian leader from Haj Amin al-Husseini to Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas has refused to accept. Which is why, regardless of who is governing Israel, there has never been peace. Territorial disputes are solvable; existential conflicts are not.

Land for peace, yes. Land without peace is nothing but an invitation to national suicide.