Posted By Josh Rogin
Tuesday, August 30, 2011 - 12:52 PM
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House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) introduced a bill today that would effectively slash U.S. contributions to the United Nations and punish any U.N. organization that goes along with the U.N. vote on Palestinian statehood next month.
The Cable has the bill text and a summary of the legislation prepared by Ros-Lehtinen's staff. The summary says the legislation, "[o]pposes efforts by the Palestinian leadership to evade a negotiated settlement with Israel" by seeking recognition at the United Nations and "[w]ithholds U.S. contributions from any U.N. agency or program that upgrades the status of the PLO/Palestinian observer mission."
"The Palestinian leadership's current scheme to attain recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN without even recognizing Israel's right to exist has been tried before, and it was stopped only when the U.S. made clear that it wouldn't fund any UN entity that went along with it," Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement. "My bill similarly seeks to stop this dangerous scheme in its tracks."
Ros-Lehtinen spokesman Brad Goehner told The Cable today that the expected Palestinian statehood drive at the U.N. General Assembly next month was a major factor in the timing of the bill's introduction.
"Chairman Ros-Lehtinen felt it was important to introduce the bill, which includes a title withholding U.S. funding to U.N. entities which upgrade the status of the Palestinian mission, in advance of the Palestinian Authority's statehood push at the U.N.," Goehner said.
The bill would also withhold funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which aids Palestinian refugees, call for the United States to lead a high-level U.N. effort for "the revocation and repudiation" of the Goldstone Report, and pull the United States out of the U.N. Human Rights Council, which commissioned the Goldstone Report and has historically been critical of Israel.
More broadly, the bill would shift U.S. contributions to the United Nations to a "voluntary basis," rather than have them follow the compulsory assessed fees system that is in place now. If the United Nations doesn't get 80 percent of its money from voluntary contributions, the bill would then require the United State to cut its contribution by 50 percent.
The bill would also halt new U.S. contributions to U.N. peacekeeping missions until reforms are implemented, and institute a new regime of reporting requirements and auditing powers for examining U.S. contributions to the United Nations.
Bloomberg was the first news outlet to report on the bill this morning. Interestingly, Bloomberg editors also published an editorial this morning that was supportive of the United Nations, arguing that a "strong relationship between the U.S. and UN is in the interests of both."
The United Nations has been a target of Ros-Lehtinen and the GOP House leadership since they took power early this year. In Ros-Lehtinen's State Department authorization bill, which was debated last month, her committee voted to cut off foreign assistance to any country that did not support U.S. positions at the United Nations. Her Democratic counterpart Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) called the debate over that bill a "series of tantrums."
Peter Yeo, vice president for public policy at the U.N. Foundation, told The Cable today that not only was Ros-Lehtinen's bill unwise and would undermine the U.S. position at the United Nations, but also that it has no chance of ever becoming law.
"It's an extremist bill, and as a result of that is has little chance of getting broad bipartisan support," he said. "[Senate Foreign Relations Committee heads] John Kerry and Richard Lugar have been strong supporters of a sound relationship between the U.S. and the U.N., and we'll continue to have strong Senate and executive branch opposition to this initiative."
Moreover, the ideas Ros-Lehtinen puts forth, such as a system of voluntary contributions, are not shared by other U.N. member states so are unlikely to gain traction, he said.
"There's no consensus for this in New York, so it's not going to happen," said Yeo. "America can't lead if we don't pay our dues." "
A Democratic congressional staffer told The Cable today the bill is destined to die after House passage.
"[Former committee Chairman] Henry Hyde was only able to secure House passage of this bill, and that was with a Republican-controlled House, Senate, and White House. I can't imagine Ros-Lehtinen is thinking her legislation is anything more than a one House bill," the staffer said. "The bill is simply a mechanism to cut off funding for the U.N.; it's as simple as that.… It would make Jesse Helms blush."
UPDATE: Berman issued this statement late Tuesday afternoon:
"At a time when efforts to isolate and delegitimize Israel in the General Assembly and elsewhere are gaining steam, I can't see how a bill that will undoubtedly weaken our influence at the UN and make it harder to counter Palestinian attempts to unilaterally declare statehood is in Jerusalem's interest let alone our own."
Almost all Israelis were born in Israel
I've read and heard all the garbage about the people of Israel needing to "go back home to Germany and wherever else" (Helen whats-her-face, the white house journalist) for decades. FACT: The vast majority of Israelis were born in Israel, they ARE home, they are natives of that nation! There's been so many countries over the past 30 or 40 years trying to declare them an illegitimate nation, and the US is just about the only nation who stands with them. Israel isn't innocent of wrongdoing, they once attacked one of our ships, but the UN created the nation of Israel after WWII because most Europeans felt it was the least they should do after the Holocaust. They do need a slap upside the head for some of the stupid things they've done, but they don't deserve to have their nation taken away from them.
I've never had anyone give me a good answer for this question... if Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq are so concerned with the plight of the Palastinians, then why haven't any of those nations just given them some land to call their own?
finally someone has the common sense to stop funding
UNRWA, the longest welfare organization in existence.
There are no more Palestinian Refugees! None of these people were born in Israel or fled from Israel. They are third generation Arabs living in Arab lands. Their "refugee camps" are not camps (as we seen in Africa). They are small urban cities that sprawl out.
By the same definition we should call fourth generation Irish Americans refugees from British Policy or third generation Mexicans refugees from Zapatista and Pancho Villa and the Mexican civil war.
It is a little known fact that many of the so-called 1948 refugees weren't actually born in Palestine .The United Nations definition of "Palestinian refugee" is as follows: "Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948 (YES to be a refugee they had to live in Israel only 2 YEARS!), who lost their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict" This definition of a refugee also covers " the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948."
In contrast of the United Nations definition of a “normal” (everybody else) "refugee" which is as follows:” owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country." As you can see the definition a Palestinian refugee is vastly different than a "normal" refugee. Why? Arabs want the conflict to simmer and back then so did the Soviets.
Israel’s juridical birth certificate is the pre-Holocaust League of Nations Mandate for Palestine of 1922 (provisionally operative from 1920) -- not the post-Holocaust United Nations Palestine Partition Plan of 1947. Moreover, the Mandate itself is explicitly based upon the earlier “historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country” (Mandate for Palestine, Preamble, Paragraph 3).
Since the Jewish people’s right to reestablish their nation-state in the biblical Land of Israel became a pillar of international law decades before the advent of the Holocaust, it is a gross misrepresentation of History to claim that the State of Israel instead emerged from the womb of alleged European remorse over that Catastrophe.
Moreover, while the Holocaust did not create the State of Israel, the absence of the State of Israel did create the Holocaust. For, had the Jewish State already existed when Nazi Germany arose from the ashes of World War I, virtually all of those who perished in the Holocaust would, instead, have been forcibly expelled by Nazi Germany to a welcoming Israel; and, consequently, there would have been no Holocaust.
Furthermore, if genuine European remorse over the Holocaust had really existed in 1947, then the United Nations General Assembly would never have issued its niggardly Palestine Partition Plan -- a recommendation of the international community which (following the decades-earlier severing from Mandatory Palestine of all of its lands east of the Jordan River, representing 78% of original Mandatory Palestine, first in 1922, territories which later became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, being 77% of the Land, and then again in 1923, territories which comprised the Golan Heights, being 1% of the Land) left the Jewish people with less than 11% of that which the League of Nations had originally allocated to them under the Mandate for Palestine and deprived them of any sovereignty over Jerusalem. Rather -- especially in light of the uncompromising language of Article 5 of the Mandate for Palestine -- a penitent U.N., acting through its Security Council, would have issued at that time an authoritative resolution under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter (which, unlike Chapter VI of the U.N. Charter, authorizes coercive enforcement measures): (1) affirming the continuing primacy of the Mandate for Palestine as the legal foundation for the establishment of a Jewish state, (2) recognizing full Jewish sovereignty over the entire western portion of Mandatory Palestine, including Jerusalem, constituting the remaining 22% of original Mandatory Palestine and (3) acknowledging that the Jewish people had the right to repatriate to their countries of origin the many hundreds of thousands of Arabs who, from 1920 onward, had been permitted by Great Britain, as Mandatory trustee, to inundate the western portion of Mandatory Palestine in rank violation of its fiduciary obligations to the Jewish people under the Mandate for Palestine.
Clearly, Israel exists neither due to Europe's alleged guilty conscience nor due to the issuance of the meager Palestine Partition Plan, but due only to the fact that the renascent Jewish State militarily defeated the six Arab states which, together with local “Palestinian” Arab militias drawn from villages, towns and cities throughout the western portion of Mandatory Palestine, had sought to annihilate it from the face of the Earth, thereby igniting Israel's War of Independence.
Those who assert that Israel was created, rather than diminished, by the Palestine Partition Plan knowingly reverse Cause and Effect, as U.N. General Assembly Resolution no. 181 was the result -- rather than the determinant -- of Great Britain’s decision to quit the remainder of Mandatory Palestine. This is because, in February 1947, Great Britain had already announced its intention to completely withdraw from the western portion of Mandatory Palestine by August 1948. Since this announcement was made some 9 months prior to -- and, in fact, served as the direct impetus for -- the United Nations’ issuance of its Palestine Partition Plan, it is clear that the subsequent British withdrawal from the western portion of Mandatory Palestine in May 1948, the consequent Arab war of annihilation against the Jewish population centers thereof (in rank violation of the Palestine Partition Plan), and the ensuing emergence of the State of Israel therefrom all would have occurred regardless of the existence of the Palestine Partition Plan.
Conversely, had the Jewish population centers of the western portion of Mandatory Palestine been destroyed by the Arabs, and had Israel thereby lost its War of Independence, then neither United Nations’ resolutions nor supranational remorse would have sufficed to reverse such a catastrophic denouement.
Clearly, there is an enormous difference between endorsement and creation. While the United Nations certainly endorsed the establishment of modern Israel (at least within the tiny Partition Plan lines), that feckless endorsement (which was so brusquely ignored by the entire Arab, and larger Muslim, world) had no operative effect on the creation of the Jewish State.
Nonetheless, that endorsement did bestow upon Israel a unique international legal status, namely, that of being the only nation in the World whose establishment was officially endorsed by both the League of Nations and the United Nations.
However, delving deeper into the realm of Cause and Effect, it may be cogently argued that the State of Israel presently exists in the biblical Land of Israel as a Jewish nation-state within defensible borders is due only to a combination of the belligerence and impatience of the Arabs. This is because approximately 40% of the citizenry to be encompassed within Israel’s 1947 Partition Plan lines would have been Arab.
Now, let us hypothetically assume that neither the Arabs residing within the proposed “Palestinian” Jewish state, nor the Arabs residing within the proposed “Palestinian” Arab state, nor the Arabs residing within the surrounding Arab states had ever initiated a war of annihilation against the Jewish population centers of the western portion of Mandatory Palestine, but that they had instead simply acquiesced to the creation of Israel within the Partition Plan lines recommended by U.N. General Assembly Resolution no. 181.
In these circumstances, a democratic Israel hosting such a substantial law-abiding Arab electorate (which, never having warred against Israel, would have remained in place from the outset) would not have enacted the exclusionist, but morally imperative, Law of Return (which grants automatic residency and citizenship rights to any Jew in the World). For, it is this law, coupled with the exodus of some 600,000 Arab belligerents during Israel’s War of Independence, which has allowed the Jewish population of Israel to maintain, to the present time, its overwhelming demographic dominance over the extant Arab population thereof (at a historical ratio of 4:1), despite the fact that the Arab birthrate has always been, and continues to be, substantially higher than the Jewish birthrate.
Also in these circumstances, an Israel which was never invaded by the Arabs of the proposed “Palestinian” Arab state and those of the surrounding Arab states would not have fought any War of Independence, and consequently would not have expanded from its 1947 Partition Plan lines to its 1949 armistice demarcation lines -- let alone to its present post-1967 defensible borders.
Consequently, it is likely that such an Israel -- faced, at the outset, with such a pacific and patient Arab world and with such an elevated resident Arab birthrate -- would have quietly ceased to exist as a Jewish nation-state several generations ago.
That the belligerent and impatient Arabs are themselves principally responsible for the State of Israel’s present entrenchment in the biblical Land of Israel as a Jewish nation-state within defensible borders is not only ironic but -- more importantly -- also constitutes a grand historic replay of the circumstances under which the Jewish people’s forebears, under the leadership of Joshua, originally conquered the Land. As is related in the Hebrew Bible: “Joshua waged war with all of these [Canaanite] kings for a long time. There was not a city that made peace with the Children of Israel except for the Hivvite inhabitants of Gibeon; they [the Hebrews] took everything in battle. For it was from HaShem, to harden their [the Canaanite nations'] hearts towards battle against Israel, in order to destroy them [the Canaanite nations] -- that they not find favor [with the Hebrews] -- so that they would be extirpated [by the Hebrews], as HaShem had commanded Moses.” (Joshua 11:18-20).
In sum, modern Israel may credit its legal creation to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, and its de facto existence to the belligerence of its enemies and the consequent resolve of the Jewish people to survive.
Since the US pushed for the creation of the State of Israel and you question as to why the surrounding countries do not give the Arabs land of their own is becasue it is land of their own. In 1948, at the time of the creation of Israel, there were seven thousand- eigth hundred people living in Nevada. There were one and a half million Arabs living in Palestine. How easy it would have been to displace the people in a portion of Nevada to create the new State of Israel. It was afterall Jewish genius that created Las Vegas. We did not create a state for the Jews because it would have been our land we would have given away. We would have benefited greatly if we had incorporated Israel into this country. Israeli Jews are well educated, know were to find Florida on a map as opposed to some American students and can hold dual citizenship. Eventually we could have brought Israel into the fold and made it the fifty-first state of the union. The David Star would make a nice addition to the flag.
Israelis born in Israel? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH
First Ros-Lehtinen is AIPAC through and through and gets her directives from AIPAC. She wants to introduce this ignorant jewish driven bill to try and bully the UN into what the Israelis want? Good. The UN should kick the US out of the UN, Ros-Lehtinen would then have paved the way for the growing international consensus for a state called Palestine. Finally.
Second. Get some education here. Palestine does not belong to the Jews and their right to the land is neither antecedent nor superior to that of the Arabs. Jews may have lived in Palestine 2000 years ago but the Arabs have established over one-and-half thousand years of continuous Arab-Muslim presence, and were only dispossessed of it by superior force and colonial machination which continues to this day.
The Palestinians (as represente¬d by the PLO) formally recognized both the reality of the state of Israel and "its right to live in peace and security" as per the September 9, 1993 letter from Chairman Arafat to Prime Minister Rabin and the subsequent double amendment of the PLO's Charter in 1996 and 1999.
What they cannot be expected to do is to renege on their past, deny their identity, and give up on what they believe is their history. They cannot be expected to become Zionists.
Israel, and you, will need to accept a Palestinian state and start respecting the right of the people who occupied the land before you or you will not have peace. The burden is on you.U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 (which Israel had helped draft) which provided for "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent [1967] conflict" in exchange for peace and security. Those resolutions represented official U.S. and international policy then, and they still do
Your willful ignorance on this subject is astounding. You keep repeating completely debunked myths that smart Zionists don’t dare repeat any more. Palestine was one of the most developed and cultivated countries in the Middle East when Zionists decided to “return” and started spinning their mythology about “a land without people for a people without land”.
Again, get some education; here is a link to images from Palestine in the late 1880s and early 19002. The link uses photos from the famous Matson Collection with running text from the writings of the Zionist writer Ahad Ha’Am to highlight the contrast between propaganda and reality:
http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2009/01/a-land-without-a-people.html
For more pictures and explanation, check out this book by Walid Khalidi:
Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians 1876-1948
http://www.palestine-studies.org/books.aspx?href=subcategory&id=8
Finally, perhaps you should be reading more about this topic, though I don’t expect you to change your mind:
http://inventionofthejewishpeople.com/reviews/
Israel has a choice - be part of the solution or be the problem.
History has indicated it has been a problem and recent history and current events clearly reflects it still wants to remain a problem.
GO PALESTINIANS GO!
1500 years of "Arab-Muslim" rule?
Most of that time, the region was under control of the Turks. You conveniently group them with the Arabs. As far as I know, the Arabs *never* governed themselves until the last century.
In ancient times Israel had sovereignty of the region for as far back as history goes, literally. And Jews have lived in the region continuously since.
It's a shame the Arabs can't celebrate the fact that their brothers have a state in their midst, just as they have since the beginning of history. Israelis would love to celebrate the shared history, and progress together.
But alas, they are egged on by people like yourself, who seem to have a visceral, irrational, hated of Israel, and spend curiously long hours trying to undermine it.
Quite frankly, I find you a pitiable man.
most Jews converted to early Christianism
after the destruction of the Temple and during the Greco-Roman period, which lasted nearly 500 years. Even if it is true that some went into diaspora (and proselitized others), the remnants of the LOCAL population, still of Jewish religion and culture, were to be counted at maximum some thousands (some hundreds in Jerusalem) during the Crusades, the Christians having be converted to Muslims.
It is true that the locals were "arabized" but that doesn't change their claim to land. If the zionist claim should be applied to Britain, the only true Brits of today would be some descendants from obscure celtic tribes but not the ones descending from Franks, Anglo-Saxons and Norsemen. And only the pagan ones.
Israel was founded by a revisionist zionist movement considered at that time to be terrorists (Irgun, Stern, Lehi) inspired by a national-messianic ideology, using the British weakness after WWII and expulsing the locals of another religion. Contrary to the Exodus movie mythology, the majority of the new dwellers (except for the ruling group) were not European Jews (most of them stayed in Europe) but Middle-Eastern Jews. Israeli immigration statistics show it clearly. The second big immigration wave came after the fall of the Berlin wall, mostly in form of Russian Jews. Today the Askhenazi group (non-oriental) is completely dominating. So the correlation between "descendents of David" and todays Jewish population is probably near zero (besides the fact that David was probably as real as King Arthur).
Recent statements show that the EU will probably vote for an independent Palestinian State, because it's only fair. Since the EU and other countries are not brainwashed by the Bible-thumpers memes, the US will probably veto (I doubt that Obama has the balls to propose a mere abstention). And suffer a tremendous backlash among a mostly secular and democratic "Arab Spring", while other countries will enjoy the support of the same movement.
That what happens when you let religion and "beliefs" rule over youur strategic interests.
We are the government of Palestine, the army of Palestine and the refugees of Palestine." Prime Minister of Jordan, Hazza' al-Majali, 23 August 1959
"Palestine and Transjordan are one." King Abdullah, Arab League meeting in Cairo, 12 April 1948
"Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine; there is one people and one land, with one history and one and the same fate." Prince Hassan, brother of King Hussein, addressing the Jordanian National Assembly, 2 February 1970
"Jordan is not just another Arab state with regard to Palestine, but rather, Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan in terms of territory, national identity, sufferings, hopes and aspirations." Jordanian Minister of Agriculture, 24 September 1980
"The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan." King Hussein 1981
Its also the home of Plestinians too
There are also a lot of Palestinians who were born in what is now Israel. Arabs have been inhabiting that land for many generations. I agree that Jews need a place where they can live free from persecution, but so do Palestinians. When the Balfour Declaration was issued, there was an existing Arab population already living there. Its not realistic to tell a population to scram because Europeans gave the land they live on to someone else. The two-state solution is the only solution that would allow Israel remain Jewish and democratic. It allows Israel to wash its hands of the Palestinian problem and allows Palestinians to shape their own future.
I don't believe they were told to leave in 1948
What I remember reading, watching documentaries, etc. on the 1948 war and founding of modern Israel, the Palestinians weren't told to leave. A large number of them, nearly all civilians, fled the area when the surrounding nations attacked, in order to avoid the fighting. One of the 'stupid moves' I mentioned in my original posting was this... after the fighting ended the Israelis wouldn't let those civilians back in. If they had these past 62 years would be much different. No reason for the wars in '67 or '72 (I think, I always forget if it was '72 or '73. It was the war when Israel shot up a US naval signal intercept ship that was listening to the radio traffic to hear what was going on. It was about 13 miles out to sea, and a helicopter was sent out to view the ship 10 minutes before the jets came in. The chopper crew and ship's crew waved to each other well before the shooting started. Another stupid move on Israel's part. Cost them $30 million in reparations to the dead and wounded sailors' families.)
Anyway, I got called in to work last night and have been up about 27 hours.. I'm going to bed.
the Palestinians declared war and lost. now they want to come back and pretend like it didn't happen? So sorry.
You mean how the Jews were kicked out of Israel by the Romans and a thousand years later claim ownership of that land? Using your line of reasoning, Jews lost the right to that land after the Bar Kokhba revolt failed. Jews appealed to the international community for a homeland and the same tactics that Zionist leaders used to get their state are now being used by Palestinians to get theirs.
It was not the Palistinians who declared war. It was the surrounding countries. Israel used it as an excuse to grab the land that belonged to Palestinian farmers. These people brought their families to safety when the war started. Google Deir Yassin. Israel did not allow the farmers to return to their lands. A few months later Israel passed the 'Absentee Landlord' and ' Abandoned Property' Acts and confiscated (stole) the land. These farmers were unarmed civilians and there were roving bands of heavily armed Jewish terrorist roaming the country. The UN in its haste to create Israel failed to set borders and the invading jews took advantage of it. Israel had a standing army established before there was a vote in the UN.
While I don't see this going through
Wouldn't it be funny if it did, and then the UN and the rest of the world went on and did what it wanted to do and essentially ignored the US. That in itself would be a glaring example of just how much the world is moving on while the US struggles to keep its world leader position by force rather than negotiation.
I'm dissapointed that people like this with these ideas can actually be leaders in any country, but glad that it's already generally considered a dead bill, and yet still shaking my head because people believe it will pass the House. How can even 200 and something people who, as leaders, should have better knowledge about things like this, possibly believe this is a good thing?
This will never pass the Senate
And it sure as hell won't be signed into law by the POTUS.
I support Israel, but I think this republican is going way too far.
Without International Law, we are all living in a jungle.
Well, yeah, this is all pretty simple
If the USA passes this bill then the United Nations is defunct; its chances of lasting out this decade would be less than zero.
Think about that.
Think loooooong and hard about that.
Because if the United Nations is defunct then we all return to the world as it existed pre-UN i.e. to the law of the jungle, without any institutional checks and balances against the strong devouring the weak.
To a world where wars start and nobody - but nobody - can think of a way to end those wars short of the total destruction of one country by another.
This is a stupid bill promoted by a tunnel-visioned dimwit.
And that is probably being way too generous to Ros-Lehtinen (Dimwit-FL).
...and suggest that without a United Nations, another world war is all but inevitable.
House members are dumb, and always have been. They were created to reflect the winds of public opinion, which I think most on here would agree is pretty dumb on average.
Yeah, I guess I'm just stoopid for not knowing every last bit of stuff about the "Zionist" movement or "jewish lapdogs" or whatever, and probably could have spent 2 hours typing about what I do know about the situation... then again, I already saw enough hate-speech about "Zionists" and "ignorant jewish-driven bill" garbage from at least one other poster here.
Where do I start?
"I challenge anyone to present evidence of a Palestinian people prior to 150 years ago."
Denial of the existence of Palestinian people is plain silly. OK, you could argue that since there was never a country called 'Palestine' then they are no Palestinians.
Let's define Palestinians are the non-Jewish population of the area currently controlled by Israel (Israel + WB + Gaza). Check out any of many old censuses. There were loads of them. Denying the existence of muslim or christian arabs who lived on that same plot of land for centuries before 1948 is daft.
As for the Pals UN gambit, it is hardly unilateral. After 20ys of fruitless bilateral negotiations, the Pals have realised that negotiations between a powerful state and a powerless non-state can not result in a just outcome. Bilaterally, the two can't even agree on the starting point for negotiations. Israel even threw a hissy fit about the terms of reference for negotiations this year about whether negotiations should be based on pre-67 armistace lines. That has been the UN/EU/US consensus for decades, yet Bibi and supporters still managed to pretend that somehow Obama had unfairly shifted the goalposts. Thus the Pals invite the world to sort it out with Israel for them. But to call such a plan 'evil' is not just hyperbole but hysterical. Israel reserves the right to make unilateral changes on the ground in the WB but objects when the Pals make an appeal to a multilateral body for help to solve a dispute that it feels unable to do on its own. Bizarre!
What is truely needed to resolve the I-P conflict is for both sides to recognise the other's narrative. People like you who reject the Pals narrative are as guilty as Hamas in sustained the conflict when they deny any Jewish attachment to the land.
We are the government of Palestine, the army of Palestine and the refugees of Palestine." Prime Minister of Jordan, Hazza' al-Majali, 23 August 1959
"Palestine and Transjordan are one." King Abdullah, Arab League meeting in Cairo, 12 April 1948
"Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine; there is one people and one land, with one history and one and the same fate." Prince Hassan, brother of King Hussein, addressing the Jordanian National Assembly, 2 February 1970
"Jordan is not just another Arab state with regard to Palestine, but rather, Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan in terms of territory, national identity, sufferings, hopes and aspirations." Jordanian Minister of Agriculture, 24 September 1980
"The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan." King Hussein 1981
There is no reason to address this bill at all. It is completely symbolic and an attempt to stir up the conservative base to remind them of the vote that is coming up next month. However, there is good reason to say why the Palestinians feel like they need to go to the UN.
Most opponents of the vote believe that this is a unilateral move by the Palestinians in order to bypass peace talks. Since 1967 there have four (?) attempts at some type of peace and every time that peace fails. So the argument that the Palestinians haven't tried peace is just silly. They've tried and had their hopes dashed each time.
Now, this whole talk about unilateral moves is the craziest of them all. Let's go back to 1948, the year Israel came into being. How did this happen? Ben-Gurion and Co. went to the UN and got them to vote the Israeli state into being with little to no input from the population already living there. It is true that the Palestinians were given a seat at the table. But to them, the whole idea that their land could be partitioned, because it was their land. How could some random international body decide what happens to their land?
Let's fast foward to the 1970s when settlements first started to form. After the Six Day War, the boundaries of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were established to lines similar to the ones we see today. Between the 1970s and the early 90s, Israel slowly annexed land from the Palestinian Territories. After the Oslo Accords, which splintered the West Bank into three pieces, the speed at which this process occurred skyrocketed. We all know this story very well. These settlements are what stand out in my mind as the main reason why this vote is even happening. They see their land disappearing by the day and imagine that eventually, if nothing happens, almost the entire West Bank will be settled by the Israelis.
So what are they supposed to do? Try to have peace talks with the Netanyahu government? Is there anyone around here that actually believes peace talks could succeed with that government? Or that in those peace talks, the Palestinians would some how convince the Israelis to abandon the settlements that were placed on stolen land? This vote will happen because they have no where else to go. And it is a sad state of affairs when Congressmen try to threaten the UN budget in order to get the vote to swing against the Palestinians.
To be a World Leader takes courage and long-term vision
I always took pride in knowing the US influenced a great deal of the world's social development through the drafting of key international human rights instruments and providing financial, intellectual and political support for the formation of the many important world bodies.
The current movement to bully these institutions because they take into account a wider set of interests and concerns beyond just doing the bidding of the ruling partry is short-sighted and wrong-headed.
It is characteristic of weak institutions and people to shout down others and threaten them with "starvation". It is a sad turn of events when dialogue is undervalued and flexing muscles is the option of first resort..
The world has grown in many was and in different dimensions that I strongly believe the US and the UN need one another, now more than ever. Mutlilateral systems and the process of dialogue can do what a country's military can never achieve: peaceful and equitable outcomes. But leaders must be willing to listen, event they don;t like what they hear.
It would be far better to provide support to improving organizations by providing them with the resources and leadership that are necessary. If ODA is made up of surplus and leftovers (food aid which often impoverishes local farmers in the country's that are meant to be helping) or the transfer of expensive equipment (whereas hiring local people to generate economic development as well as address myriad problems and disasters resulting in more sustainable outcomes) then we haven't learned the most obvious lessons of economic, social and political development. The UN represents the voices of all people (nearly 7 billion strong), not just a few thousand people of a small homogenous constituency.
I hope that this current raft of political leaders who seem to be focused on short-sighted, "my-way-or-the-highway" school of thought wake-up and realise that a globalised world presents new challenges that we must face and address together. Otherwise, we all lose.
"We are the government of Palestine, the army of Palestine and the refugees of Palestine." Prime Minister of Jordan, Hazza' al-Majali, 23 August 1959
"Palestine and Transjordan are one." King Abdullah, Arab League meeting in Cairo, 12 April 1948
"Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine; there is one people and one land, with one history and one and the same fate." Prince Hassan, brother of King Hussein, addressing the Jordanian National Assembly, 2 February 1970
"Jordan is not just another Arab state with regard to Palestine, but rather, Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan in terms of territory, national identity, sufferings, hopes and aspirations." Jordanian Minister of Agriculture, 24 September 1980
"The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan." King Hussein 1981
The US will never pull out of the UN
Even if the Palestinians get their state, the US will never pull out of the UN despite all the jewish whineing.
The US is the only country that consistantly vetoes all the UN Resolutions against Israel. AIPAC will never let their puppets leave the UN.
U.N.-bashing bill ahead of Palestinian statehood vote
This bill has been introduced to ensure US support Israel cause and nothing more than this. Such will continue so long Israel continue to be riding on the shoulders of the US Administration and on every ministry including the congress and Senate.
It is because of the Israel that decline of US in all respect has started and if Israel is not shrugged of the shoulders of US then Israel would for sure one of these days take US to the final war of Doom of self destruction. Israel has become the cause of disagreement for Survival of US.
Adolf Hitler's greatest mistake was the holocaust but not kicking the community out of the country. World community of nations is now reassessing Adolf Hitler on the basis of his action on case by case. Adolf Hitler was a Nationalist and hated the hypocrites and back stabbers from the core of his heart. And that was the under lining factor of all his actions except the war.
Only recently most of the countries those, which criticized and hated him started to value his many decisions with much praise. Had Adolf Hitler not Kicked out the bad omen out of the house those countries would not have seen the day light of advancement even to day.
All Americans except the AIPAC concerns and members of all professional within Jew community with dual allegiance have realized and confirmed the source of the social cancer only recently which Adolf Hitler detected over sixty/seventy years back
In drawing the conclusion, I would say as the principle goes on that, as there is a rise there is a fall to be sure. So too as there was a rise of Israel there will be a fall of Israel soon agree with it good if not does not matter
Ros-Lehtinen introduces U.N.-bashing bill ahead of Palestinian s
Thanks FP for reporting on this issue with the aptly named article title. It is more than transparent of AIPAC-champion Ros-Lehtinen's intentions with this mis-titled bill "United Nations Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act of 2011." More accurately, it would be titled, the "UN-bashing, AIPAC act of 2011. One telling clarification/correction. The bill wasn't "introduced" yet, as Congress is not back in session until next week. This just merely shows the Congresswoman is using the bill as fodder to bash the UN and Palestine in advance of expected vote later this month.
As many comments have alrady noted, members in Congress like Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen, beholden to AIPAC are really NOT doing the Middle East peace process any favors. The continual use of linking the Palestinian people's desire for statehood to "evading a negotiated settlement" is such BS. Gee, could the contiued and increasing illegal settlements in the West Bank have anything to do with the Palestinian governents reluctance to negotiate in good faith. As one who had the fortune to see firsthand last year, what apartheid looks like today, including a wall reminiscent of one not too long ago in Berlin, is a true travesty -- destroying the lives of so many in that land who merely want to provide for their families, but have a wall and endless checkpoints to treat them like criminals in their own land. I was heartened to see Israeli groups, like the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICHAD) in the West Bank, and from an Israeli soldier himself about the problems of occupation in the area and desire for a peace between Isrealis and Palestinians.
To show how one-sided this bill truely is, one only has to look at provisions like "Anti-Semitism" section, directing the President of the United States to direct our UN rep to "require all empolyees of the United Nations to officially and publically condemn anti-Semitic statements made at any session of the United Nations." Of course, anti-Semetic statements are deplorable. But who is to define what constitutes an anti-Semitic statement, much less there is of course NOTHING in this bill to make the same requirement for anti-Muslim statements.
Oh yea, and my favorite part of the bill, the findings. The author of the bill actually has a finding calling attention to the "United Nations system suffers from unacceptably high levels of waste, fraud, and abuse.. amidst the continuing financial corruption and sexual abuse scandals of the past several years..." Wait, is she talking about the UN or Congress? Waste, fraud, and abuse... lets see, ever heard of the Congressionally-funded "Blackwater" efforts?
And even better, the findings in the bill actually raise the issue of approval level of the UN: "American public disapproval of United Nations has reached all-time highs... 62 percent of Americans believe that the United Nations is doing a poor job." Well, the author of the bill, might want to look at her own line of work. Sixty-two percent dissaproving of the UN is a hell of a lot lower than the 82% dissaproval rating of Congress by the American public!
Thankfully, this misguided bill, while it may pass the House, will go nowhere and do nothing, other than to hurt the Untied States global image and hinder the Middle East peace process.
John Hudson reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable.
May/June 2013
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