Chillingly Emblematic Iceland by Sarah Honig

...It speaks volumes that a far-flung mini-country like Iceland would feel impelled to gang up on the Jewish state in concert with European powers – those driven by realpolitik cynicism and subliminal needs to ostensibly clean up their blood-stained history of persecution and genocide. Hate spreads to where plausibly we wouldn’t expect it to sink roots and all for the sake of basking in the supposed aura of enlightenment.

This lone windswept island – astride
the juncture-point of the Atlantic
and Arctic oceans as well as the
North American and European tectonic
 plates – is as far-removed from the Jewish
people, the Jewish state and the entire
Mideast as can be.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
24 September '15..

The boycott which the Reykjavik municipal council declared on all Israeli products (and then clumsily backpedalled therefrom, to include only “occupied-territory” goods) was always meaningless in practical terms. But its meaning was mega-distressing on the moral plane.

Iceland is chillingly emblematic of phenomena greater than its own minuscule role in world affairs.

This lone windswept island – astride the juncture-point of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans as well as the North American and European tectonic plates – is as far-removed from the Jewish people, the Jewish state and the entire Mideast as can be.

Our Israeli travails aren’t only history-steeped but are unimaginably complex. Even savvy observers find it difficult not to generalize and oversimplify. It’s more than doubtful that the remote Icelanders have amassed any outstanding expertise in the annals and twists of our struggle for survival. Odds are they know even less about us than the average smug European.

Not only are Icelanders in all certainty clueless about our complex history, but they’re probably abysmally ignorant about our unique geography. It would be surprising if they can spot our tiny country on the map. It would be altogether ultra-astonishing if they knew that at direct proximity to our densest population centers – at the heart of our tortuous and narrow territory – Israel’s waistline is terrifyingly a mere nine-miles-wide.

Abrams - Palestine Melts Iceland

Elliott Abrams
weeklystandard.com
16 December '11

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/palestine-melts-iceland_613435.html

On November 29th the Icelandic parliament voted to recognize Palestine as a state. Yesterday, a ceremony was held in Reykjavik in the presence of the Icelandic and PLO foreign ministers.

Here is the text of the resolution adopted by Althingi, the Icelandic parliament:

Althingi resolves to entrust the government to recognize Palestine as an independent and sovereign state within the pre-1967 Six Day War borders. Also, Althingi urges Israelis and Palestinians to reconcile through the means of peace agreements on the basis of international law and resolutions of the United Nations, including the mutual recognition of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine.

Althingi reaffirms that the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, is the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and also recalls the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their former homes in accordance with resolutions reaffirmed by the United Nations.

Althingi demands that the conflicting parties in the Arab-Israeli Conflict cease warfare and acts of violence forthwith and respect human rights and humanitarian law.

As Iceland is the first European state that has given Palestine full recognition, the Palestinians are of course celebrating; and one can expect that Icelanders are also celebrating their own enlightenment and progressive thinking. "Iceland didn't only talk the talk, we walked the walk. We stood by our word, we have supported the Palestinian cause and today will not be the end of that, we will continue to do so," said the Icelandic foreign minister. He continued: "They have had setbacks in the Security Council and that is why we thought it would be right not to wait, but to go ahead now and I hope it will put some wind in their sails...it is very symbolic for them that a western European nation, which is also in NATO, should at this moment step forward and recognise the sovereignty of Palestine."

In this context it is worth noting precisely what Iceland recognized, and it was Palestine within the "1967 borders." That means that according to Iceland, Palestinian sovereignty includes 100 percent of the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. Palestine, as Icelanders see it, includes the Western Wall of the Second Temple, Judaism's holiest site. The judenrein policy enforced by Jordan during the years it ruled Jerusalem, would thus be reinstated. And Israel in any recognizable form would anyway disappear, for the Allthingi resolution calls for all Palestinian refugees--of whom according to the U.N. there are five million--to "return" to Israel. Finally, lest there be any of this nonsense about moral distinctions between U.N. member states and terrorist organizations, the resolution treats Israel and Hamas as equals by demanding that the "conflicting parties cease warfare and acts of violence forthwith."

There is a tragic irony here, for Iceland actually played a central role at the United Nations in 1949 during the debate over the partition resolution that Arab states were so doggedly fighting. Abba Eban told the story in his autobiography:

Fresnozionism - Hot springs, heavy drinkers, failed banks — and Palestine

Fresnozionism.org
30 November '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/11/hot-springs-heavy-drinkers-failed-banks-and-palestine/




You may have noticed a news item in your local paper today about the parliament of Iceland passing a resolution recognizing the state of ‘Palestine’ according to pre-1967 lines.

Apart from the fact that Iceland is the first European country to do this impossible feat — that is, recognize a ‘country’ with borders that make a hostile claim on the territory of another country, one with no economy except the international dole, no single government (despite claims, Hamas and the PLO are not ‘unified’), and whose essence is to deny self-determination to another nation — there is another interesting fact about it.

You will not read this interesting fact in your paper, because it won’t mention it. It took Evelyn Gordon, writing in the so-called ‘neo-con’ Commentary magazine to notice it. Let me quote the resolution in full, which your newspaper or radio/TV newscaster won’t do:

“Alþingi [the Icelandic parliament] resolves to entrust the government to recognize Palestine as an independent and sovereign state within the pre-1967 Six Day War borders.

Also, Alþingi urges Israelis and Palestinians to reconcile through the means of peace agreements on the basis of international law and resolutions of the United Nations, including the mutual recognition of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine.

Alþingi reaffirms that the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, is the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and also recalls the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their former homes in accordance with resolutions reaffirmed by the United Nations.

Alþingi demands that the conflicting parties in the Arab-Israeli Conflict cease warfare and acts of violence forthwith and respect human rights and humanitarian law.” [my emphasis]