By Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist ——Bio and Archives--September 21, 2011
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"One year ago, Egypt had known one President for nearly 30 years. But for 18 days, the eyes of the world were glued to Tahrir Square, where Egyptians from all walks of life -- men and women, young and old, Muslim and Christian -- demanded their universal rights. We saw in those protesters the moral force of non-violence that has lit the world from Delhi to Warsaw, from Selma to South Africa -- and we knew that change had come to Egypt and to the Arab world."
"Let us be honest with ourselves: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. Israel’s children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, look out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile and persecution, and fresh memories of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they are. Those are facts. They cannot be denied. The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland. Israel deserves recognition. It deserves normal relations with its neighbors."These are comforting words, but President Obama would have done well to specifically condemn Hamas, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction. He should have spoken directly to the Palestinian officials sitting in the General Assembly hall, telling them that they will only be ready for statehood when they assume the responsibility of firmly rejecting Hamas as partners in a new Palestinian government as long as it persists on its violent path towards Israel. Instead of just referring back to his May 2011 proposal that would have Israel revert to the pre-1967 lines with unspecified mutual land swaps, Obama should have used this occasion to tell the Palestinians once and for all that any such concessions from Israel are a non-starter while the Palestinians persist with their bogus right of return claims that would end up turning pre-1967 Israel into yet another Palestinian state. He also should have repeated the reference he made two years ago to Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. His failure to do so in this speech was a bow to Palestinian President Abbas, who refuses to recognize Israel's right to retain its Jewish character. President Obama closed his speech by affirming the United States' dedication to partnering with the United Nations to continue finding new paths to peace. But he said not a single word about holding the United Nations accountable for sponsoring anti-Semitic, anti-Western hatefests like the Durban conferences that purport to oppose racism. He said not a word about the need for serious reform at the UN, which American taxpayers are subsidizing to the tune of several billion dollars a year. French President Nicolas Sarkozy laid out what he described as intermediate steps towards a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians in his speech to the General Assembly. Just as he had taken over leadership in dealing with the Libyan crisis from President Obama, Sarkozy was moving to do the same with respect to restarting the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. In a slap against American diplomatic efforts to date, Sarkozy said that "we must stop believing that a single country, even the largest, or a small group of countries can resolve so complex a problem. Too many crucial players have been sidelined for our efforts to succeed." Sarkozy proposed that France host a donors’ conference this fall so that the Palestinians can complete the construction of their future state. To avoid a U.S. veto at the Security Council of a resolution to grant the Palestinians full UN membership rights - a veto that Sarkozy predicted would spark violence - the French president proposed the intermediate step of granting the Palestinians observer state status through the General Assembly. He envisions that such status would give the Palestinian people more hope while negotiations of a final peace agreement proceed along the pre-1967 territorial lines with mutual land swaps that President Obama had proposed last May. "My dear colleagues," Sarkozy said, "we have no other choice: inaction and deadlock, or an intermediate solution that would help restore hope to the Palestinians, with the status of observer state. At the same time, Israel must observe the same restraint—it must refrain from any actions that would jeopardize the final status. The ultimate goal is of course the mutual recognition of two nation states for two peoples, established on the basis of the 1967 borders, with agreed on and equivalent exchanges of land." Sarkozy proposed the following timetable to reach the end state:
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Joseph A. Klein is the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom.