UN Secretary General Starts New Year Rationalizing Palestinian Violence

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon began his January 26th briefing to the Security Council regarding the situation in the Middle East by declaring: “Sadly, 2016 has begun much like 2015 ended – with unacceptable levels of violence and a polarized public discourse across the spectrum in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.” True enough, but he left out the fact that 2016 has also begun, much like 2015 ended, with one-sided UN denunciations of Israel and excuses for Palestinian acts of terror. Ban Ki-moon’s first remarks to the Security Council this year on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are no exception.

As Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon commented in response to the Secretary General’s remarks, “The Secretary General forgot what the UN’s role is – terror must not be encouraged for any reason whatsoever.” Only one sentence, totaling about 10 seconds out of the Secretary General’s 12 minute long briefing to the Security Council, specifically condemned the “stabbings, vehicle attacks, and shootings by Palestinians targeting Israeli civilians.” His only other condemnation of Palestinian actions was one sentence long: “I condemn the continuing rocket fire into Israel from militant groups in Gaza.” Even these very limited condemnations were accompanied by extensive attempts to rationalize the Palestinians’ violence. “Palestinian frustration is growing under the weight of a half century of occupation and the paralysis of the peace process,” Ban Ki-moon said. “Some have taken me to task for pointing out this indisputable truth. Yet, as oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism.”

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UN Secretary General is making excuses for terrorism

This is utter nonsense in this case. The Palestinians have inculcated a culture of hate against Jews for many generations, starting way before there was even a state of Israel, much less any occupation. In 1929, for example, 67 Jews, including students and a rabbi, were massacred by rampaging Arab rioters. Egged on by the mufti in Jerusalem, who would later associate himself with Adolf Hitler, Arabs spread false rumors about Jews at the Temple Mount. As happened again last year when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas incited religious sectarian hatred with false statements regarding Jews at the Temple Mount, violence ensued. The UN Secretary General is making excuses for terrorism – for example, the Israeli West Bank settlements. “Continued settlement activities are an affront to the Palestinian people and to the international community,” Ban Ki-moon said. “They rightly raise fundamental questions about Israel’s commitment to a two-state solution.” This too is utter nonsense. The real “indisputable truth” is that the Palestinians have time and again, starting with their rejection of the UN’s original two-state partition solution in 1947, squandered opportunities to have their own independent state. There were no Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza prior to the 1967 Six Day War. Why didn’t Jordan, Egypt and other neighboring Arab states help the Palestinians build a state of their own on those territories when Jordan and Egypt were in charge? During those years, when Jews were not living on the West Bank, why did the Palestinians and their fellow Arab supporters refuse to make peace with Israel? Why didn’t the Palestinians in Gaza, after Israel’s complete unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, build at least a peaceful proto-state and demonstrate their good faith, rather than use Gaza as a launching pad for terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians? The answer to all these questions is that the Palestinian leadership and their supporters have never been able to accept the notion of a state led by Jews existing side by side with their own separate Palestinian state. That is why they have not negotiated in good faith. They have chosen instead to walk away from peace talks rather than make any meaningful concessions in return for major Israeli concessions. And that is why the Palestinian leadership refuses to this day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unconditional offer to enter into face-to-face negotiations. Hamas continues to openly call for the destruction of the state of Israel on religious grounds. They have not only refused to renounce their founding charter, which calls for the murder of Jews and states that “[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement.” They continue to embrace it. The Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Abbas is also uninterested in real peace. For example, Fatah Central Committee member and former Palestinian Authority intelligence chief Tawfiq Al-Tirawi told the Maan News Agency during a January 19, 2016 interview that "Palestine stretches from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea." He added that "a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital, is just a phase. I challenge any Palestinian to say that the map of Palestine is limited to the West Bank and Gaza." [As translated by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)] At least Tawfiq Al-Tirawi claimed that he was not interested in throwing the Jews into the sea. What a relief! “No,” he said, “I want to live together with them..." But he imposed one huge condition. “We want the people who are in Palestine to live in Palestine in its historical borders, and we want all the Palestinian refugees will return to their country.” In other words, a separate Jewish state would disappear and the Palestinians would be fully in charge of Jews living in dhimmitude. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council that “[A] lasting agreement will require difficult compromises by both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.” The Israelis have shown their willingness to make difficult compromises time and again. The Palestinians play the victimhood card and offer nothing of substance to reach a genuine peaceful and secure two-state solution. Too bad the UN Secretary General cannot tell the difference.