By Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist ——Bio and Archives--October 10, 2011
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“ It’s the beginning of a new time. A time when Palestine, having had its name and its rights recognised and returned, will finally be able to exercise fully, responsibly, independently, freely and as a sovereign state, its activities in every field.”The UNESCO executive committee decided to move ahead on a Palestinian UNESCO membership vote while the issue of full state membership in the entire United Nations organization was still before the United Nations Security Council. That should come as no surprise. The UNESCO executive committee is presently headed by Russia. While the United States and some other true functioning democracies are members of the executive committee, they are surrounded by the likes of Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, China, Cuba, and Venezuela. The Palestinians know they have friends at UNESCO. Its executive board has been complicit in the Palestinians' drive to deny international recognition of the Jewish peoples' unique religious and historic connection to holy sites such as the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem. With a stroke of the pen, UNESCO designated the Jewish holy site of Rachel's Tomb as primarily a mosque. UNESCO also erased from the official record the remarks by Israeli representative Nimrod Barkan criticizing UNESCO's decision. His remarks were deemed “too aggressive.” In the United Nations, telling the truth is considered too aggressive. Allowing the Palestinian entity to become a full member of UNESCO would give them more standing to pressure the UN agency, which is supposedly devoted to culture, science and education, into erasing recognition of Jewish history and culture in extensive areas of the Holy Land. The Palestinians would do so by using UNESCO as their propaganda instrument to interfere with Israel's legitimate archeological activities and to falsely re-brand Jewish historical sites as Muslim sites. Thus, the moment that UNESCO votes the Palestinians into UNESCO, the United States must exit and take its 22 percent funding (about $87 million a year) of UNESCO's total budget with it. As U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen put it, "the Palestinian leadership is shopping around the U.N. system for recognition. This attempt to rig the process needs to be stopped dead in its tracks. Our contributions are our strongest leverage at the U.N., and should be used to stand up for our interests and allies and stop this dangerous Palestinian scheme."
“everybody knows that the greater goal cannot be accomplished in one go...If Israel withdraws from Jerusalem, evacuates the 650,000 settlers, and dismantles the wall, what will become of Israel? It will come to an end. If we say that we want to wipe Israel out... C'mon, it's too difficult. It's not [acceptable] policy to say so. Don't say these things to the world. Keep it to yourself.”On August 10, 2011, the Palestinian Authority broadcasted on the official television station a Palestinian Authority plan to construct Arab housing around the Western Wall “when they [Israelis] disappear from the picture, like a forgotten chapter in the pages of our city’s history.” The Palestinian ambassador to Brazil, Alzeben Ibrahim, was quoted by the Brazilian media as telling a group of students recently that “Israel should disappear.” Abbas himself said to 2,200 Fatah delegates at a conference in Ramallah, "Although peace is our choice, we reserve the right to [armed] resistance." He has repeatedly refused to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state even though his bogus application for full UN membership is based in part on the original UN General Assembly partition resolution 181 that specifically refers to a "Jewish State" more than half a dozen times. Thus, one partner in the prospective "unity" Palestinian government wants to destroy Israel as soon as possible by violent means. The other more "moderate" partner wants to bring about Israel's "end" through deceptive diplomatic means if possible, but would resort to the use of force if their idea of "peace" (i.e., Israeli surrender) is not achieved. Its leader Abbas also completely renounces the "Jewish State" part of the original UN two-state solution resolution upon which he bases his application for Palestinian statehood. All in all, not exactly a good faith commitment to live up to the UN Charter's primary obligation of member states to refrain from threatening the "territorial integrity or political independence" of other member states. Facts, international law, logic and basic morality all point to the outright rejection of the Palestinians' blatant attempt to exploit a UN endorsement of Palestinian statehood to further legitimize the end of the Jewish state of Israel. However, the United Nations operates in a parallel universe where evil is made to look noble. The Palestinian bid for full UN membership will almost certainly fail one way or the other this year in the Security Council. But the Palestinians are setting the table to come back again by picking off individual UN agencies such as UNESCO to join in the meantime. They can also be expected to apply directly to the General Assembly for an interim upgrade to non member state status, which they are certain to achieve. Then the Palestinians will come back to the Security Council to re-apply for full UN membership as often as necessary until they get their way. If Barack Obama is re-elected in 2012 and no longer feels constrained by domestic political pressures, he will almost certainly oblige.
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Joseph A. Klein is the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom.