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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Long Live Palestine (Part 1)

Israel is concerned that upgrading diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority will be but one step closer to full recognition of Palestinian statehood.  In fact UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) should be pre-empted by Israel declaring its full acceptance of one or even two Palestinian states.

Am I perhaps naive, or stupid? I don’t understand why we beat ourselves up at every possible opportunity. Most people understand that some sort of peace will one day be made between Israelis and Palestinians. Of course terms are complicated. They should not be, but we have allowed our enemies to take the centre stage and they are hogging the limelight. There is no counter-attack from the State of Israel to repudiate the lies and the half-truths that are thrown at us.  There is no consensus within the political classes, and therefore only the extremists are heard with anything approaching a coherent, if divisive, agenda.

George Orwell observed that whoever controls the past controls the future, and whoever controls the present controls the past. The Arab world with its buddies at the UN and friendly news media are doing an excellent job of controlling the lot.

So let me suggest a new direction.

Act 1. Bibi goes to the UN General Assembly. He proposes recognition of the State of Palestine and separate recognition of the independent entity ruled by Hamas in Gaza based on minimalist borders for both of the new states.

Act 2. Bibi proposes East Jerusalem be recognized as the capital of Palestine, and West Jerusalem be (finally) recognized as the capital of Israel.

Act 3. Bibi announces that The Old City of Jerusalem is to remain in Israeli hands (see Act 5) and after a reasonable period of peaceful co-existence a plebiscite will be held by all eligible (i.e. resident) citizens of the Old City, overseen by impartial observers in order to decide on its future allegiance.

Act 4. Bibi demands the consulates in West Jerusalem operating under the principle of extra-territoriality and non-recognition of Israel be immediately and permanently closed. [This should have been done years ago]

Act 5. Bibi then provides a principled summary of the history of the Old City of Jerusalem through Jewish eyes; i.e. the control by Christians and Muslims through the ages; Palestinian control between 1948 and 1967; the destruction of Jewish archeology and cultural history, Jewish majority for the last 200 years.

Act 6. Bibi proposes the setting up of a special permanent committee to explain how Islamic cultural colonialism became acceptable in the UN.  This would be explained with reference to the refusal to recognize Jewish rights in any of the Islamic, Arab or Palestinian literature. The rewriting of history by this ‘Tripartite conspiracy’ is important. [Even if no-one is interested, history has shown that the fate of the Jews is a mirror to the fate that lies in wait for others.]

Act 7. Bibi, given his acute sensitivity to history, reminds the UN that historically the term “Judaization” was used by fascist and racist regimes to justify the ethnic cleansing of Jews. Furthermore, after Palestinian forces had ethnically cleansed Jerusalem of its Jews in 1948, and in recognition of the ongoing destruction of Jewish archeology on the Temple Mount, the term as applied to a Jewish return to Jerusalem is morally indefensible. Palestinian policy calls for the death penalty for anyone selling land to Jews in Palestine. This is racist.

The UN is incorrigible. I would not expect it to recognize Jewish sovereignty over West Jerusalem or the Old City. Keeping to an Orwellian theme, I would expect the UN to strike out from the official record all but that part of the speech that did not pertain to Palestinian Recognition.

Why do it then? Because a nation must stake its claim to virtue before it fights for its honor. This is something that Israel has contemptuously ignored in its past dealings with the UN.  This same United Nations Organization is a $40 Billion a year bastion of bigotry and paragon of political prejudice. As an anti-Semitic propaganda machine, the UN is the enemy. To return to George Orwell’s comments: The only way to have a share of the past, present and the future is for the UN to cease to exist.  And Israel cannot win a fight with the UN from within the UN.

Winning the fight will only happen when Israel and its friends allocate time, resources and funds towards the goal of abolishing this most corrupt of organizations.

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