Dear Mssrs. Obama, Cameron and Harper:
I am writing about some serious developments recently reported in the news media that both seem to seriously undermine U.S. and Western foreign policy and pose a serious existential threat to Israel. In a New York Times article dated April 2, 2011 and published in print April 3, 2011, entitled Israel, Time for Peace Offer May Run Out (link to article) the following appeared:
Clearly, the U.N. is totally and utterly flouting U.S. and Western interests. It is virtually inevitable that such a resolution, if introduced, will be passed by the General Assembly. The General Assembly, not the Security Council over which whose actions the U.S. holds a veto, determines admissions. It is crucial that the United States, and all other Western democracies, rethink their contributions to and membership in the United Nations.
The U.N. was originally established by the “Allied Powers” who were close to victory in World War II. Its initial and praiseworthy purpose was to seek to prevent both the persecution of minorities and the incredible destruction of war. The Nazi Holocaust, the Shoah, was still in full swing at the time. Its existence was slowly becoming generally known. Having gone through the exercise of fighting Germany and other totalitarian powers not once, but twice in a generation, the decent people of the world were eager to prevent a repetition.
One of the first actions of the U.N. was to ratify the struggle of the Israeli independence fighters in recognizing the State of Israel. The U.N. did not create the State of Israel, however. That recognition of Israel served the two beneficent purposes: 1) validating the national aspirations of the Jewish people, who had been a cohesive, largely unified political, ethnic and religious group for thousands of years; and 2) providing a place for the displaced persons still penned up in European concentration camps, and Jews stuck in increasingly hostile Arab countries to which to emigrate.
The U.N. was also supposed to ease the transition of the numerous suddenly independent countries to self-sufficiency, self-government and prosperity.
Things, of course, have not worked out that way. While the U.N. budget has swelled, it has become largely an unproductive debating society, at best. Typical of the U.N.’s “work product” is a recent report by Richard A. Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Office of the United Nations. Richard A. Falk is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University. This is an excerpt of his “work” (link):
This kind of activity is anti-Western for the fundamental reason that it is solely taking aim at pro-Western democracies. When Israel defends itself against Arab attacks the civilian casualties are collateral, light and accidental. These are not Moamar Qadafi’s strafing of peaceful demonstrators with helicopter gunships.
This activity is colossally expensive. And it is being largely funded by the U.S., U.K., Canada, Japan and other Western democracies. The proposal to now admit “Palestine” as a U.N. member is thus a frontal attack on the West.
The danger of this activity to the State of Israel is obvious. First of all, at least part, if not all, of Jerusalem is being unilaterally added by the U.N. to what would be another country. This sets an alarming precedent. What if the U.N. decided that Mexico “deserved” a restoration of the “occupied Republic of Texas”, the Gadsden Purchase, and California? Should the U.N. be able to undo European settlement of North America in favor of supposedly “indigenous” peoples?
This U.N. activity is a continuation of ancient hatred of Jews and Judaism under a modern, left-wing, progressive label. It is time for AIPAC to take this issue up. The worst that could happen is if Obama, alarmed by the risk to his own re-election prospects, quietly asks the U.N. to defer this issue to session-opening for 2013. What then?
To sum up, the West has no reason to finance its own destruction or suicide. It is time for use to return to a pre-Viet Nam faith in our values, and in Western democracy.
Very truly yours,
JBG
I am writing about some serious developments recently reported in the news media that both seem to seriously undermine U.S. and Western foreign policy and pose a serious existential threat to Israel. In a New York Times article dated April 2, 2011 and published in print April 3, 2011, entitled Israel, Time for Peace Offer May Run Out (link to article) the following appeared:
JERUSALEM — With revolutionary fervor sweeping the Middle East, Israel is under mounting pressure to make a far-reaching offer to the Palestinians or face a United Nations vote welcoming the State of Palestine as a member whose territory includes all of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority has been steadily building support for such a resolution in September, a move that could place Israel into a diplomatic vise. Israel would be occupying land belonging to a fellow United Nations member, land it has controlled and settled for more than four decades and some of which it expects to keep in any two-state solution.
“We are facing a diplomatic-political tsunami that the majority of the public is unaware of and that will peak in September,” said Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, at a conference in Tel Aviv last month. “It is a very dangerous situation, one that requires action.” He added, “Paralysis, rhetoric, inaction will deepen the isolation of Israel.”
With aides to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thrashing out proposals to the Palestinians, President Shimon Peres is due at the White House on Tuesday to meet with President Obama and explore ways out of the bind. The United States is still uncertain how to move the process forward, according to diplomats here.
The Palestinian Authority has been steadily building support for such a resolution in September, a move that could place Israel into a diplomatic vise. Israel would be occupying land belonging to a fellow United Nations member, land it has controlled and settled for more than four decades and some of which it expects to keep in any two-state solution.
“We are facing a diplomatic-political tsunami that the majority of the public is unaware of and that will peak in September,” said Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, at a conference in Tel Aviv last month. “It is a very dangerous situation, one that requires action.” He added, “Paralysis, rhetoric, inaction will deepen the isolation of Israel.”
With aides to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thrashing out proposals to the Palestinians, President Shimon Peres is due at the White House on Tuesday to meet with President Obama and explore ways out of the bind. The United States is still uncertain how to move the process forward, according to diplomats here.
The U.N. was originally established by the “Allied Powers” who were close to victory in World War II. Its initial and praiseworthy purpose was to seek to prevent both the persecution of minorities and the incredible destruction of war. The Nazi Holocaust, the Shoah, was still in full swing at the time. Its existence was slowly becoming generally known. Having gone through the exercise of fighting Germany and other totalitarian powers not once, but twice in a generation, the decent people of the world were eager to prevent a repetition.
One of the first actions of the U.N. was to ratify the struggle of the Israeli independence fighters in recognizing the State of Israel. The U.N. did not create the State of Israel, however. That recognition of Israel served the two beneficent purposes: 1) validating the national aspirations of the Jewish people, who had been a cohesive, largely unified political, ethnic and religious group for thousands of years; and 2) providing a place for the displaced persons still penned up in European concentration camps, and Jews stuck in increasingly hostile Arab countries to which to emigrate.
The U.N. was also supposed to ease the transition of the numerous suddenly independent countries to self-sufficiency, self-government and prosperity.
Things, of course, have not worked out that way. While the U.N. budget has swelled, it has become largely an unproductive debating society, at best. Typical of the U.N.’s “work product” is a recent report by Richard A. Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Office of the United Nations. Richard A. Falk is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University. This is an excerpt of his “work” (link):
Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York
Press Conference by Special Rapporteur on Situation of Human Rights in Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967
The enormous cumulative effect of prolonged Israeli occupation, accelerated settlement expansion in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and related policies to destroy homes and revoke residency permits made the vision of an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on a two-State consensus a “political impossibility”, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, said today.
Special Rapporteur Richard Falk said, at a Headquarters press conference, that the intergovernmental peace process was premised on an “illusion” that talks would result in an independent, sovereign Palestinian State. He was discussing his latest report, which he recently presented to the General Assembly’s Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural). (See Press Release GA/SHC/3984)
First and foremost, the report underscored the persistence of a very serious humanitarian situation in Gaza, he said. While the Israeli blockade had been eased in some respects, it had been maintained in others, placing Gazans under great psychological and physical stress. Israel forbade the export of goods produced in Gaza, substantially destroying the local economy. Further, young people were forbidden from visiting their families in the West Bank or East Jerusalem and from studying at universities in other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
************
He said the BDS movement reflected the fact that Israel no longer held the moral high ground, which now belonged to the Palestinian struggle. That shift had resulted from the way in which Israel had conducted its 2006 war with Lebanon, attacked Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009, and handled the flotilla incident. The cumulative effect of those three developments had deprived Israel of the moral high ground in global public opinion, he reiterated, saying that whichever side gained that ground, even if militarily weaker, often prevailed in the political struggle. “It’s certainly my view, yes,” Mr. Falk replied when asked whether that was his opinion as well.
Asked to comment on Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s proposal to put off intergovernmental negotiations and simply redraw the borders, he said that was the direction in which the parties were going, but he did not think that was where they should go. Such a redrawing amounted to de facto annexation under the banner of temporary occupation. It was a subversion of the regime of occupation, which underpinned the Security Council consensus reached in 1967 that Israel was obliged to withdraw from the lands occupied since that year’s six-day war. It was an important reality that must be exposed, but the media had not done a good job of clarifying such a fundamental change in the negotiability of a viable Palestinian State, he said.
Press Conference by Special Rapporteur on Situation of Human Rights in Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967
The enormous cumulative effect of prolonged Israeli occupation, accelerated settlement expansion in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and related policies to destroy homes and revoke residency permits made the vision of an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on a two-State consensus a “political impossibility”, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, said today.
Special Rapporteur Richard Falk said, at a Headquarters press conference, that the intergovernmental peace process was premised on an “illusion” that talks would result in an independent, sovereign Palestinian State. He was discussing his latest report, which he recently presented to the General Assembly’s Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural). (See Press Release GA/SHC/3984)
First and foremost, the report underscored the persistence of a very serious humanitarian situation in Gaza, he said. While the Israeli blockade had been eased in some respects, it had been maintained in others, placing Gazans under great psychological and physical stress. Israel forbade the export of goods produced in Gaza, substantially destroying the local economy. Further, young people were forbidden from visiting their families in the West Bank or East Jerusalem and from studying at universities in other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
************
He said the BDS movement reflected the fact that Israel no longer held the moral high ground, which now belonged to the Palestinian struggle. That shift had resulted from the way in which Israel had conducted its 2006 war with Lebanon, attacked Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009, and handled the flotilla incident. The cumulative effect of those three developments had deprived Israel of the moral high ground in global public opinion, he reiterated, saying that whichever side gained that ground, even if militarily weaker, often prevailed in the political struggle. “It’s certainly my view, yes,” Mr. Falk replied when asked whether that was his opinion as well.
Asked to comment on Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s proposal to put off intergovernmental negotiations and simply redraw the borders, he said that was the direction in which the parties were going, but he did not think that was where they should go. Such a redrawing amounted to de facto annexation under the banner of temporary occupation. It was a subversion of the regime of occupation, which underpinned the Security Council consensus reached in 1967 that Israel was obliged to withdraw from the lands occupied since that year’s six-day war. It was an important reality that must be exposed, but the media had not done a good job of clarifying such a fundamental change in the negotiability of a viable Palestinian State, he said.
This activity is colossally expensive. And it is being largely funded by the U.S., U.K., Canada, Japan and other Western democracies. The proposal to now admit “Palestine” as a U.N. member is thus a frontal attack on the West.
The danger of this activity to the State of Israel is obvious. First of all, at least part, if not all, of Jerusalem is being unilaterally added by the U.N. to what would be another country. This sets an alarming precedent. What if the U.N. decided that Mexico “deserved” a restoration of the “occupied Republic of Texas”, the Gadsden Purchase, and California? Should the U.N. be able to undo European settlement of North America in favor of supposedly “indigenous” peoples?
This U.N. activity is a continuation of ancient hatred of Jews and Judaism under a modern, left-wing, progressive label. It is time for AIPAC to take this issue up. The worst that could happen is if Obama, alarmed by the risk to his own re-election prospects, quietly asks the U.N. to defer this issue to session-opening for 2013. What then?
To sum up, the West has no reason to finance its own destruction or suicide. It is time for use to return to a pre-Viet Nam faith in our values, and in Western democracy.
Very truly yours,
JBG