UN General Assembly Recognition of “Palestine”: Does It Matter? by Sheri Oz

...Since negotiations for a final settlement between the PA and Israel seem more unlikely than ever, in spite of international support for Palestinian independence, violence has once more become a popular means of applying pressure to Israel. It would be interesting to return to the original participants and see if or how support for violence has changed since 2012. Of course, the ongoing incitement in the PA will have to be accounted for at the same time. Perhaps that is another topic for study: the relationship between international recognition and state sanctioned incitement to violence.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
31 August '17..

I am guilty of trying to convince myself that United Nations General Assembly acceptance of “Palestine” as a nonmember observer state is of no real consequence. And of trying to convince myself that UNESCO determination of our Jewish indigenous sites, the Temple Mount and the Cave of the Patriarchs, as, instead, sites “belonging” to Palestine are also of no real consequence. After all, neither the General Assembly (GA) nor UNESCO have the legal clout of the UN Security Council (SC).

So I applaud those in the UN fighting to protect Israel against delegitimization while calming myself that nothing bad will come of it if they do not succeed. After all, what is the GA going to do?

And then I discover two research articles examining whether or not UNGA recognition of Palestine matters to those living in the Palestinian Authority (PA). And the articles give me pause. They give me something about which to ponder a bit more deeply.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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"Poof! You're a state." Establishing the State of Hamas

Stuart J. Moskovitz..
American Thinker..
03 March '13..

To some degree, it seems unnecessary to write another article depicting the naive foolishness of the United Nations and describing the utter uselessness of this institution. Yet, even when one is convinced that the United Nations cannot fashion another way to prove that it should be headed for the foggy pastures occupied by the League of Nations, this august institution finds yet another means of establishing its irrelevance to world affairs.

Granted, the action by the United Nations we are about to discuss is now several months old. But recent headlines in Palestine emphasize the foolishness of their recent action beyond what was obvious at the time.

The United Nations General Assembly - a body to which the United Nations charter itself grants no international power -- in response to the demand by Mahmoud Abbas, deemed the Palestinian Authority a sovereign state. It is not an exaggeration that this powerless body said, "Poof! You're a state." Its members did so knowing that the ostensible state had no independent culture, no means of financial stability, little commerce, no political or military stability, and no means of sustaining itself except through the largesse of other nations. Indeed, this ostensible nation does not so much as collect taxes, leaving that job to Israel, the nation it seeks to eliminate. Israel collects taxes for this ostensible nation and forwards the collections to this paper nation to enable it to pay its policemen and soldiers, whose principal job appears to be fomenting unrest and terrorism against the very nation that collects its taxes and enables the payment of the salaries of these policemen and soldiers.

The Czechs have apparently understood the realities of Middle East politics

Michael Curtis..
Gatestone Institute..
31 January '13..

A vote in the United Nations General Assembly is often the consequence of a complicated assessment of national interests and a response to international pressures, rather than of actual convictions on a particular issue. The Czech Republic was the only country in the European Union to vote against the resolution that Palestine be granted the status of a non-member observer state at the United Nations on November 29, 2012. Fourteen members of the EU, including France, voted for the resolution, and 12, including Germany, abstained.

The Czech vote at the UNGA reflects both a fresh assessment of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, as well as a bond based on historical and personal factors. The Czech Republic does support the creation of a Palestinian state in a two state solution, but insists that it can only be established as a result of an Israeli-Palestinian negotiated process, as agreed to by both the Palestinians and the Israelis -- not only in both UN Security Council Resolutions 242, 338, and 1850, but also in countless bilateral agreements -- in particular the Oslo II agreements of September 28, 1995, Article 31, that "neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the final status negotiations. The Czech Republic seems to have regarded the Palestinian request to attain non-member status not only as a unilateral act that is detrimental to the peace process, but as a totally illegal one under the UN's own system of jurisprudence.

For Czechs, the memory of their betrayal by the appeasement policy of the Western powers in the 1930s remains potent. At the Munich Conference on September 30, 1938, Britain and France, wishing to avoid confrontation with Germany, allowed Adolf Hitler to control the Czech Sudetenland. The following year, Nazi Germany took control over the whole country. As a result of this Western failure to control Nazi aggression, "appeasement" has become a synonym for weakness and cowardice.

Harming Israel vs. helping its own people? PA is its own first victim

Evelyn Gordon..
JINSA..
24 January '13..

When the Palestinian Authority (PA) obtained UN recognition as a nonmember observer state in November, many Israelis feared the consequences for Israel: After all, PA President Mahmoud Abbas stated openly that he sought recognition primarily "to pursue claims against Israel" in international forums. Those fears may yet prove justified. But so far, the biggest victim of Abbas's UN bid has been the PA itself.

The PA currently faces the worst financial crisis of its crisis-filled history. According to PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, it's in "extreme jeopardy," and on the "verge of being completely incapacitated." Its 150,000 employees have received only half their November salaries and nothing for December. It "owes local banks more than $1.3 billion and can't get more loans," the Associated Press reported. It "also owes hundreds of millions of dollars to private businesses, including suppliers to hospitals, some of whom have stopped doing business with the government." And it expects the poverty rate to double, to a whopping 50 percent of the total Palestinian population in the territories, if the crisis isn't resolved soon.

So dire is the situation that a mere month after the vote, Abbas was already threatening to dissolve the PA and return full control of the territory to Israel if things didn't improve quickly. If the PA can't even pay salaries, he said, "What's left for us to do?"

In short, far from augmenting Palestinians' independence, the UN vote has endangered even the limited autonomy they currently have. For the financial crisis is a direct consequence of that vote - and, even worse, a totally predictable one.

The first source of the crisis is that Israel stopped transferring roughly $100 million a month in taxes it collects on the PA's behalf. Contrary to Fayyad's disingenuous charge of Israeli "piracy," this merely ended an ongoing Palestinian piracy: For years, the PA hadn't paid its bills to the Israel Electric Corporation, but Israel swallowed the loss, at considerable sacrifice: The IEC's finances are so precarious that it can't raise money without government guarantees. Last year, it sought a 30% rate hike from Israeli consumers to stabilize them. Yet Israel's agreements with the Palestinians entitle the state to cover such debts by withholding money from the monthly transfers. The Israeli government repeatedly warned both the PA and UN member states that if the UN bid went forward, in violation of all Israeli-Palestinian agreements, it would withhold the full NIS 800 million (about $214 million) it was owed to it.

The UN is worthless - Reason #82,654

Elder of Ziyon..
23 January '13..

Mahmoud Abbas will tell anyone who listens to him that the UN General Assembly recognizes the State of Palestine within the "1967 borders."

Just today, his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said "We will deal with any Israeli government that is committed to the decision of the General Assembly of the UN for a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital."

(By the way, the UN did not declare Jerusalem to be the capital of "Palestine" in the relevant, operative part of resolution.)

I looked again at how the resolution referred to borders.

Here is the only part of the operative section that mentions it:

4. Affirms its determination to contribute to the achievement of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and the attainment of a peaceful settlement in the Middle East that ends the occupation that began in 1967 and fulfils the vision of two States: an independent, sovereign, democratic, contiguous and viable State of Palestine living side by side in peace and security with Israel on the basis of the pre-1967 borders

There is only one problem. There are no such things as "pre-1967 borders." The Green Line was never accepted by either the Arabs, Israel or the international community to be the legal borders of Israel.

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In the service of our enemy - European diplomacy

It is prudent to quote Winston Churchill, who castigated the British political leadership with the words, “You had the choice of choosing war or dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you got war.”

Barry Shaw..
Original Thinking/JPost..
10 January '13..

What has Israel experienced from Europe recently as it was assaulted by Palestinian terror and diplomacy? How do we define the attitude, words and deeds of European Union ministers and diplomats? What they have done and said can only be interpreted as closed-mind diplomacy in the service of our enemy.

Look how events unfolded. Although most condemned the Hamas missile attacks against Israel, they failed to follow their condemnation with any punitive measures against a Palestinian terror regime that is guilty of multiple international crimes ranging from terrorism, war crimes, crimes against humanity, incitement to murder and anti-Semitism, to name but a few. In other words, apart from a verbal wrist-slapping, EU ministers let them off the hook, saving their real venom for what was to come.

Just days after showing the world the face of terror, Palestinians had the gall to go to the United Nations to apply for and receive the ill-deserved award of non-member state status. This move was a breach of signed agreement with Israel that they would refrain from such unilateral steps. It should have been roundly rejected by the parties that acted as witnesses to the signing of the Oslo Interim Agreement on the White House lawn in 2003. This contract was to be the cornerstone of the road map instigated and executed by the Quartet made up of the US, Russia, United Nations and European Union.

Article 31 stated, “Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.”

Staggeringly, only one European state, Czechoslovakia, did the honorable and correct thing by voting at the UN against the Palestinian breach of contract. The Czech vote against the motion may have been a minority action but it was the right and moral stance to take. It should remind their European colleagues of the meaning of standing by signed international commitments.

The Czech Understanding - Against grandiose ideas & miraculous solutions

“We don’t believe in miracles, and we don’t believe in political miracles and the solutions of ideologies that [posit that] something can be easily implemented and solved. It is not only either war or peace… Even some interim solutions are sometimes better than crumbled expectations because of grandiose ideas.”

Adam Levick..
CiF Watch..
04 January '13..

Following the annexation of Austria into the Third Reich in March 1938, Hitler assumed the role of advocate for ethnic Germans living in Czechoslovakia, triggering the “Sudeten Crisis”. In April, Sudeten Nazis demanded autonomy.

In September that same year, French Prime Minster Édouard Daladier and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain agreed to Hitler’s demand on the immediate occupation of the Sudetenland.

The Sudetenland was relegated to Germany between October 1 and October 10, 1938. However, the Nazis weren’t appeased for long.

The Czech part of Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Nazis in March 1939.

There was not to be “peace in our time”.

The question of why the Czech Republic, alone among the 27 EU countries, voted with Israel and only seven other countries at the UN on November 29 against upgrading the Palestinian status at the UN is likely related to Czech history, but is also informed by a broader understanding of the world – one quite at odds with the modern political zeitgeist,

In an interview following the recent Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference in Herzliya, Czech Ambassador Tomas Pojar responded to the suggestion that there are historical parallels between Czechoslovakia in 1938 and the pressure exerted on Israel today to agree to partition Israel and create a Palestinian Arab state.

He cautioned on imputing too great of a political parallel with the situation in 1938 in Central Europe, but still, he said, there are similarities.

“There are certain parallels in that Czechoslovakia was the only democratic country in the entire region at the time…There are parallels about how much guarantees you can get from outside, and how much you should rely on them.”

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A “state of Palestine.” Whatever happened with that?

David Frum..
National Post..
05 January '13..

Perhaps you’ve forgotten already — the holiday season is such a busy time of year — but a little over a month ago, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to recognize a “state of Palestine.” As we enter 2013, I find myself wondering: Whatever happened with that?

On Friday, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree that henceforward the PA would be known as the “State of Palestine.” Henceforward, all signs, stamps and official documents will bear the new letterhead.

Yet here’s what’s puzzling: Only a few days before issuing his proclamation, President Abbas had publicly speculated about dissolving his new state and summoning Israel to reoccupy the whole West Bank. Meanwhile, Palestinian social-service recipients are protesting cuts — and directing their ire not against their own government, but against the United Nations.

From the Ma’an news agency, datelined Dec. 17, 2012, in Ramallah: “The heads of popular committees in refugee camps across the West Bank met Monday in Ramallah and agreed to escalate protests against UNRWA [The United Nations Relief and Works Agency]. Demonstrators will shut down all UNRWA offices on Tuesday to protest the dismissal of over 100 staff at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the committee chairman said.”

The most insidious aspect of the UN circus

LOTL..
January '13..





From Jonathan Tobin's The End of the Peace Process, Commentary Magazine January '13:

The Palestinian victory at the United Nations on November 29 was timed to bring the world body full circle from its vote on that same date in 1947 that had called for the creation of Jewish and Arab states in what was then the Mandate for Palestine. But in voting to upgrade the Palestinian Authority to a nonvoting observer, the UN put its seal of approval on an effort to evade peace negotiations and allowed the Palestinians to act as if they had won an independent state in all of the territory Israel captured during the Six-Day War in 1967. The Oslo Accords of 1993 specifically forbid the parties to go outside the framework of talks to change the status of the dispute—but that is exactly what the Palestinians have done by going to the UN. The measure (which only eight nations joined Israel in opposing) put a semi-official end to the “peace process.”

The Lie That Broke Israel's Back (at the UN)

Steve Apfel..
American Thinker..
09 December '12..





Israel now has a quasi-state to contend with. "A victory for the values of truth," exclaimed Sudan's U.N. diplomat after the General Assembly voted to admit Palestine as a non-member observer.

It's a victory for the Palestinian camp, perhaps, but in truth it was a defeat -- of historic proportions. Recalling one thing and reaffirming another, the resolution the GA voted on was packed with lies. Most were blatant. One lie -- you could say the catchphrase of the Palestinian perpetual show -- enjoyed the sanctity of accepted wisdom.

"The Palestinian territory occupied since 1967" appeared, in one form or another, some dozen times in the U.N. resolution. This whopper of an old lie, told so often and for so long as to merge fantasy with reality, made Israel's defeat at the U.N. a long time coming. One might say that it made Israel's defeat historically inevitable.

"Occupied Palestinian Territory" (OPT) is a thing of smoke and mirrors.

Historically, it never happened; legally, there never was Palestinian territory for Israel to occupy. Israel took the territories from Egypt and Jordan in 1967, and there's no getting away from that. So today Israel has more right than Jordan to be occupying the West Bank, and more right than Egypt to be occupying Gaza (if Israel's blockade may be called occupation). "Palestine" never enters the equation. Turn Middle East wars and laws upside-down and any way you like, but if the territories belong to any U.N. member, or quasi-member, they belong to Israel.

The UK - A double-standard abstention

Melanie Phillips..
melaniephillips.com..
09 December '12..

The double standard was breathtaking. The UN vote to give the Palestinians the status of a non-member, observer state has smashed the Middle East peace process to bits.

In bringing this to the General Assembly, Mahmoud Abbas was in unilateral breach of his obligation under the Oslo Accords to proceed by way of bilateral negotiations with Israel.

In response, Israel made a very sharp point of its own by announcing it would now build 3,000 homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. It also said it would approve planning and zoning for a more sensitive area called E1 between Jerusalem and the settlement bloc of Ma’ale Adumim.

Israel was thus showing its fury not just with the Palestinians but also with the world. For the UN move not only legitimised an entity that has no legitimacy, thus substituting politics for law, but also punished the permanent victim of its murderous aggression.

The proper response to Palestinian aggression, racism and contempt for international agreements is to cut their funding.

Yet the UK, which merely abstained after Abbas refused to meet its conditions for supporting him, responded with outrage — not at the Palestinians but at Israel.

The theatrical aspect of Palestinian statehood – all paraphernalia, no state.

Emanuele Ottolenghi..
The Commentator..
08 December '12..

The UN vote upgrading the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to a non-member state with observer status has done nothing to move the cause of Palestinian statehood forward. Instead, it repeats the old adage of Palestinian history: rather than seeking compromise with Israel, Palestinian leaders have again put the fate of their cause into the hands of others, foolishly believing that others will deliver what they themselves are not capable of obtaining.

When nations gathered at the United Nations in 1947 to vote on the UN plan to establish two states – one Jewish, one Arab – in Mandatory Palestine, Palestinian leaders trusted the Arab League. They opposed compromise, since they hoped Arab armies would win the entire country by force. They did not.

Once Palestine was lost, for nearly two decades Palestinian leaders trusted the standard bearers of Arab nationalism to restore them to power and destroy Israel. Instead of asking Jordan – who occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem – and Egypt – who conquered Gaza – to turn those areas into a Palestinian state, Palestinian leaders trusted their Arab patrons to arm for a second victorious round.

Irredentism produced the opposite though: in 1967, Israel repelled the combined onslaught of the Arab world and took over what remained of the Old Mandate.

Half a century of lost battles taught mightier powers to change their mindset – think of Germany after two world wars!

Not so with Palestinian leaders – they embraced the Arab League’s decision, in the summer of 1967, to reject any opening to Israel and continued to wage war. Terrorism was a natural consequence of such an attitude – beneath the murderous acts that followed for nearly two decades rested the foolish belief that Israel could be done with by killing innocents abroad – thereby swaying public opinion in favour of Palestinian grievances.

The peace process. Who killed it?

Fresnozionism.org..
04 December '12..

The so-called ‘peace process’ was based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, and the most serious attempt to implement them on the ground was the Oslo Accords, agreements signed in 1993-95.

Although both sides complained about violations of the Oslo Accords — Israel complained about continued incitement and terrorism, which increased sharply after Arafat’s return from exile in Tunis, and the Palestinians complained that Israel was not withdrawing fast enough — the final nail of Oslo’s coffin was hammered in by Mahmoud Abbas, when he asked the UN to declare ‘Palestine’ a state.

Art. XXXI.7 of the 1995 Interim Agreement says “Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations”). This is exactly what Abbas did, and he can’t blame it on unaccountable terrorist factions, as Arafat liked to do after his assassins murdered Jews.

Israelis always understood Oslo as a compromise — that neither side would get everything that it wanted. But the PLO always saw it as a surrender agreement, and became ‘frustrated’ (and everyone knows how Palestinians behave when that happens) when Israel didn’t simply withdraw from all of the territories in return for nothing.

The father of all peace processes was UN Security Council Resolution 242, which called for Israel to withdraw from territories conquered in 1967, and for

Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.

Land for peace and secure borders. At first the Arabs wouldn’t even consider an agreement that promised peace (see the “Three No’s“). But more recently, they proposed the “Arab Initiative,” which calls for complete Israeli withdrawal, assumption of guilt, and right of return for Arab refugees (what a deal!).

The decision of the UN General Assembly to grant Palestine non-member state status in all of the territories conquered in 1967 directly contradicts resolution 242 because it gives all of the territories to Palestine, without guaranteeing Israel secure boundaries or peace.

The historical fantasies and fabrications of Mahmoud Abbas

Fresnozionism.org..
03 December '12..

In my post yesterday, I mentioned Mahmoud Abbas’ ugly speech to the UN. Of course the votes of all the representatives were predetermined, but the juxtaposition of Abbas’ remarks to the affirmative votes points up the international hypocrisy surrounding Israel and the Palestinians, as well as a striking ignorance of history.

Abbas began by describing the recent operation in Gaza, whose purpose was to end the missile bombardment of southern Israel and which was carried out with care and precision unprecedented in military history — certainly with far more care than has been employed by NATO in its operations in Libya and elsewhere — as “Israeli aggression,” and refers to “men, women and children murdered along with their dreams, their hopes, their future and their longing to live an ordinary life and to live in freedom and peace.”

He does not, of course, mention the hundreds of short and long-range missiles aimed at the civilian population of Israel before and during the war, a war crime which would have become a bloody atrocity as well had it not been for Israel’s ability to protect its people (albeit at great expense). Later he even suggests that the operation was in response to his UN initiative, and not to the rockets falling on Israeli towns!

He refers several times to Palestinian children, while he well knows that rockets were launched at Israel from residential locations in Gaza and near to schools, thus making human shields out of them.

Then he turns to the primal source of Palestinian resentment, the nakba, in full historical revisionist mode:

Europe Shows Once Again that Palestinian Violence Pays

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary/Contentions..
03 December '12..

Just in case there were any doubts, last week provided conclusive proof: Yes, Palestinian violence pays. And the so-called “enlightened” countries–those Western states who claim to deplore violence and favor the peaceful resolution of conflicts–are the very ones who will reward violence the most. That’s precisely what happened with the Palestinians’ successful bid for UN recognition as a nonmember observer state.

Most European countries understood that this move would at best not advance the peace process, and at worst hinder it. So some had planned to vote no, while others planned to abstain. But then Hamas dramatically escalated its rocket fire on Israel, forcing Israel to respond; Hamas thus became the center of world attention while the Palestinian Authority was sidelined. So in an effort to give the PA a boost, European governments switched their votes at the last minute: Those who had planned to vote no abstained, and those who had planned to abstain voted yes. In other words, they agreed to support something they had previously considered “unhelpful” just because Hamas fired lots of rockets at Israel.

But the hypocrisy doesn't end there. These same European countries are now furious at Israel’s response: They thought they had an understanding with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel would let the UN vote pass quietly. And in fact, they did. The only minor detail they’re overlooking is that Netanyahu agreed not to retaliate for the UN vote in exchange for what he thought was a European commitment to either vote against or abstain. In short, the Europeans reneged on their side of the unwritten deal, but are furious that Israel isn't upholding its side anyway.

The Classic Thug Extortion Trick - Abbas and the Palestinians

Douglas Murray..
Gatestone Institute..
03 December '12..

Watching Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas make his speech to the UN General Assembly, I suspect the same jolting thought passed through my head as it did for a lot of the viewers': "Isn't this guy meant to be the moderate?"

Coming so soon after the latest Hamas rocket-barrage against Israel, the almost physical need to hold onto that dead paradigm can still occasionally override most of the facts. On one side are the Palestinian rocket-launching squads about whom nothing apparently can be done. Then on the other side are the other Palestinians, led by moderates, who just want to sit down and negotiate if they could only find time out of their busy schedules.

Even those of us who know and follow the Palestinian Authority can find ourselves slipping into this narrative: These are the moderates and those are the extremists, and we have to choose between the two.

Except that then you get another golden opportunity to hear Mahmoud Abbas in full moderate flight mode, and you have to rethink it all over again.

When Abbas stood up to take the floor in front of the UN and the world last Thursday, he might have started with a concession. He might have started with a bid for peace or a reaching out to the Israelis. But no, he started once again, in time-honored fashion, with an attack on Israel. And the usual array of hilarious untruths and half-truths.

"Palestine comes today to the United Nations General Assembly…"

Not even a full sentence in and already the "Wrong" buzzer sounds. "Palestine" comes today? Which Palestine? Gaza? West Bank? "Palestine" is not a single entity. It is hopelessly divided. It makes the average boxing tournament look like a meeting of minds.

After all – and as he must surely know – Abbas himself has not even been to the Gaza since 2007. And not because the wicked Zionists have stopped him from doing so, but because his Palestinian brothers in Hamas have such a bad track record for shooting and hurling from high buildings most of Mr. Abbas's erstwhile Fatah colleagues in Gaza, as during the 2007 Hamas coup.

With attention focused on the UN, Gaza remains true to core values.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
30 November '12..

It's a sunny and pleasant Friday here in Jerusalem. But in the south of Israel, it has been considerably less pleasant.

Perhaps intending to show just how broadly the Palestinian Arabs view their own national aspirations and how very flexible their leadership, their terrorist rocket-men fired a missile into Israel's Sha'ar Hanegev region around midnight this past night (between Thursday and Friday) and then again around 6:25 this morning. Yes, there is a ceasefire, but such matters are not always taken as seriously on the ground as they are in the air (the airwaves, that is).

In the words of the BBC, today was the day when

The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to recognise Palestine as a non-member observer state - a move strongly opposed by Israel and the US. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said this was the "last chance to save the two-state solution" with Israel. Israel's UN envoy said the bid pushed the peace process "backwards", while the US said the move was "unfortunate". The Palestinians can now take part in UN debates and potentially join bodies like the International Criminal Court. The assembly voted 138-9 in favour, with 41 nations abstaining. Hundreds of Palestinians celebrated on the streets of Ramallah, in the West Bank after the result was announced.

Other voices, as well as other activities - witness the rocket-men's unsuccessful efforts to yet again try to kill them some Israelis this morning - are part of today's events. Times of Israel covered a different aspect of the voices from Ramallah that somehow are not being so well observed from outside this area:

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.
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Arlene Kushner From Israel - The Season of Our Gladness

Arlene Kushner..
30 September '12..

That gladness does not, in any way, refer to the current political situation (it should only be). It is, rather, a reference to the holiday of Sukkot, which begins tomorrow night and lasts for a week. It is, truly, a joyous time, with gathering of family and friends to eat within the temporary walls of the festively decorated sukkah, and, most properly, sleeping there as well. (More easily done in Israel than in colder climes, I know.)

A time, as well, for blessings said daily over the lulav and etrog, which are rich in symbolism and meaning.

Credit: nnhs65

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Sukkot is my very favorite holiday, and I will be posting, at most, intermittently, in the week ahead.

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I pick up here with an apology (and thanks to Buddy): in my rush to post about Prime Minister's speech at the UN last week, immediately after he spoke, I inadvertently picked up a URL for an old speech of his and not the one he had just given.

Here you have the proper link: http://imra.org.il/story.php3?id=58416

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I will mention here, as well, that, for reasons not clear, transmission of my last post failed to just a handful of my recipients. If you did not receive my posting about the speeches at the UN, you can find it here:.
http://arlenefromisrael.squarespace.com/current-postings/2012/9/27/september-27-2012-the-speeches.html

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Now I would like to return to that speech by Netanyahu. First, to restate my original response, that it was an excellent speech.

I am seeing criticism that it was too simplistic, that the chart was silly, etc. And I most respectfully disagree. A clear and straightforward message has been delivered and this is what the world needed to hear. There has been too much double talk on the issue.

Consensus has it that the single most important point the prime minister made was with regard to the US position that waiting until components of a bomb were about to be assembled would be acceptable, because US Intelligence would pick this up. Netanyahu, I believe, demolished the credibility of such a position -- and this is critical. The Iranians have been operating under the assumption that they had a free hand to proceed.

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It is important to be clear, conceptually, as to what Netanyahu was requesting with that "red line." He was not asking the US to commit to bombing Iran once the Iranians had proceeded in their nuclear development past that line (although ultimately that might be what happens).

Netanyahu's position is, rather, that once the Iranians understand that they would be bombed if they crossed that line -- that is, it finally becomes clear that the US is serious and will not let them get to the point of assembly -- then they will stop before reaching that point. His intention in having the US state the red line is to prevent and not provoke war.

How Irrelevant is the Palestinian Authority? Very.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
27 September '12..

The key phrase in Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly today didn't mention Israel. He had promised Jewish leaders he would recognize Jewish rights to the land that is disputed by Israelis and Palestinians. He moved a little closer to such recognition with his mention of the ties of the three monotheistic religions to the country and did say he didn’t want to delegitimize Israel–though much of his speech was clearly aiming at just such a goal. But the most important sentence was the one where he complained about the Palestinians being moved “to the bottom of the global agenda.” He then went on to claim that the PA alone was the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians and that there could not be two such bodies.

It was those sentences, in which he vainly banged his head against the wall of world indifference to his cause, that were telling. The fact is the Palestinians are at the bottom of the world agenda. That’s because, contrary to his boast, the PA is a corrupt, ineffective state which doesn’t control all of the territory it claims since Gaza is ruled by Hamas. Thus, while much of the world applauds Abbas’s imprecation of Israel as a racist, colonialist state and his outright lies about the fomenting of hatred that his government promotes, they have no interest in supporting him. It was for that reason that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu gave Abbas’s speech barely a mention as he went on to concentrate on his country’s real problem: a nuclear Iran.

PM Netanyahu's Red Line

P. David Hornik..
frontpagemag.com..
28 September '12..

At the start of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to the UN General Assembly on Thursday, he seemed less than fully focused, at times a little creaky in his delivery.

The content of his words was unobjectionable. It had not been the easiest week for the Israeli Jewish people. The UN had picked Wednesday—Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year on the Jewish calendar—to schedule yet another address by Iran’s Holocaust-denying, genocide-inciting president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with only Israel itself, and the United States and Canada, seeing fit to have their delegates absent themselves from the harangue.

And just before Netanyahu’s speech, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas had taken the podium for yet another anti-Israeli screed, saying Palestinians were “facing relentless waves of attacks against our people, our mosques, churches and monasteries, and our homes and schools; they are unleashing their venom against our trees, fields, crops and properties, and our people have become fixed targets for acts of killing and abuse with the complete collusion of the occupying forces and the Israeli government”—and much more of the same.

In Abbas’s case, the irony is that the target of his vituperation, Israel, is now the main force keeping his Palestinian Authority from financial collapse. Israel continues to see the PA as the lesser evil compared to a breakdown resulting in chaos, riots, attacks on Israeli security forces and civilians, and a further strengthening of Hamas. Abbas, despite the indispensable helping hand from Jerusalem, keeps pushing the standard, decades-old Fatah line of across-the-board demonization of the Jewish state—while seeking a nonmember status in the UN that flouts all the Israeli-Palestinian agreements so diligently produced with the help of earnest American peace processors.