The United Nations and Cognitive Dissonance
The
unholy war against the State of Israel never stops. Most nations in the
world in discussing Israel suffer from mental disorder or discomfort,
from cognitive dissonance, trying to hold two or more contradictory
beliefs, both condemnation of Israel and tolerance or support of
Palestinian violence, along with calls for a peaceful settlement.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the activities and personnel of the United Nations, the world's major international organization, which has been hijacked for purposes contradictory to its declared objectives of promoting and securing international cooperation and maintaining international order.
The exhibition on display in the visitor's lobby in the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City presents images of seventy years of the struggle for Palestinian human rights, lost in the nakba, catastrophe, the creation of Israel. In addition, the UN General Assembly on November 29, 2018, will commemorate, as it has done since 1978, the Annual Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, pursuant to the Resolution of December 2, 1977, A/RES/32/40, marking the adoption of the UNGA Resolution 181 (11) of November 29, 1947, which called for partition of the disputed territory, with Jerusalem having special status. The fundamental irony in all this that the Arabs refused, while Israel accepted, that 1947 Resolution to create a Palestinian state at that time.
In recent days, international attention has been focused on political problems and crises in Israel as a result of differences within the country over government action, and the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire after terrorists in Gaza fired 460 rockets and mortar shells into Israel to which Israel responded with airstrikes. The government also allowed $15 million from Qatar to go to Gaza to fund salaries of Hamas personnel and ease tensions.
Government uncertainty in Israel remains, caused by a number of factors: popular anger, especially in those areas such as Sderot affected by Hamas rockets; the resignation of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the nationalist party, Yisrael Beiteinu, which he withdrew with five seats from the governing coalition; the refusal of the prime minister to appoint Naftali Bennett , education minister and leader of the pro-settlement Jewish Home Party, with eight seats, but to appoint himself to the vacant position. In the multiparty Knesset, the result of the proportional representation system, Netanyahu now has a coalition majority of one, with 61 out of the 120 members. New elections are likely within a year or so, but are not immediate.
However, little attention has been paid in the international media to the continuing political and diplomatic attacks by international organizations, including the misnamed UN Human Rights Council and UNESCO on Israel. The issue goes back to the creation of Israel in May 1948, and the animosity has never relented. On November 22, 1974, UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 (XXIX) affirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, independence, and sovereignty. A year later, the UN set up the UNGA Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, a body which in fact is composed of all 193 UN member states. Since then this issue has been the subject of numerous Resolutions by the UN and its various organs.
On
November 17, 2018, the committee met, with Saudi Arabian Abdullah al
Mouallini as vice-chair, to approve eight resolutions on Palestinians
and a ninth on the Golan Heights. No resolutions, of course, were
directed against any of the other 192 UN member states, none of whom
apparently committed any violations of anything. The committee voted in
favor of four resolutions related to the UN Relief and Works Agency for
Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, and four others critical of Israeli
authorities’ actions in the Occupied Territories.
The committee was also given a briefing by Michael Lynk, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Gaza Strip, about the poor economic conditions in the territory. The lack of neutrality on Israel by UN personnel is manifestly shown by this Canadian professor of law who, among other things, urged BDS economic and travel sanctions against Israel, to force withdrawal from the West Bank, supported Israel Apartheid Week at his university, Western U in London, Ontario, and suggested Israel should have UN membership suspended over violations of international law.
The resolutions call for assistance to and assertion of human rights of Palestinian refugees, concern for the properties and revenues of those refugees, support for UNRWA, condemnation of Israeli settlements," condemnation of Israeli practices affecting the Palestinian people, and application of the Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949 regarding protection of civilian persons in time of war in the territories.
For the U.S., the most significant was the nonbinding resolution condemning Israeli control over the Golan Heights, which passed 15-2 (the U.S. and Israel) and 14 abstentions. Before 1967, Syria shelled Israeli communities from Golan. Israel now controls two-thirds of the area, and in 1981 applied Israeli civil law to the territory. The resolution calls on Israel to desist from changing the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure and legal status of the Occupied Syrian Golan (OSG), and to desist from establishment of settlements. It states that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel that alter the character and legal status of OSG are null and void and constitute a flagrant violation of international law. It calls on Israel to desist from imposing Israeli citizenship and Israeli identity cards on Syrian citizens in OSG, and "from its repressive measures against the population of the OSG."
It is also worth noting that in the committee meeting the Syrian ambassador, Bashar al-Jaafari, declared that Syria will regain the Golan by "peace or by war." He said nothing of the 22,000 Druze in the Golan Heights, who speak Arabic and have families in Syria, let alone the demilitarized buffer zone or the Israeli wineries in the area.
What is important about this resolution are two factors. The U.S. did not abstain, as it has customarily done on similar resolutions, but voted against it, and said it will continue to vote against them. Ambassador Nikki Haley spoke strongly of the anti-Israeli bias in the committee and in the UN organizations. She indicated the militarization by Syria of the Golan border, the lack of fitness of Syria, responsible for killing half a million of its own people, and the killing or expulsion of more than 3,000 Palestinian Arabs, to govern anyone.
She was also critical of a number of other factors: Russia for delivering a S-300 antiaircraft system to Syria; Iran establishing a permanent presence on the Syrian side of the border; the terror tunnels still being built by Hamas; and the Hamas rocket fire and violent activities against Israel. The 155 countries voting for the UN resolutions appear myopic: they cannot recall that Hamas has already launched three wars against Israel, and that its charter calls for control of all the territory.
The Palestinian Permanent Observer to the UN said the international community stands behind and supports the Palestinian cause despite U.S. efforts to change this. The community also defies reality in supporting UNRWA, which claims that the number of Palestinian refugees that began in 1948 is now five million. John Bolton, presently U.S. National Security Adviser, stated that the UNRWA aid program is the only one in history based on the assumption that refugee status is hereditary.
The second factor is an interesting display of cognitive dissonance. The resolution reaffirms that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible under international law, including the Charter of the United Nations. In the resolution, sponsored by Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, Israel's presence in Golan is described as illegal, but no resolution says anything about Russia/Crimea, or other issues.
Israel faces internal and external problems, with its fragile government coalition, Iran's increasing military influence in Syria and Lebanon, and possible another war with Hamas. The UN members might note that the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahta Sinwar, said in future it will target Israel's major towns, including Tel Aviv. There may, at present, be no good solutions to issues in Gaza or Syria. But the beginning of wisdom is that the international community should refrain from one-sided denunciations of Israel and concentrate on Israeli plans for infrastructure projects in the Negev desert, and other projects such as solar power, sewage treatment, clean water, increases in jobs, improved public health, desalination plants, gas pipelines, and the electricity grid.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the activities and personnel of the United Nations, the world's major international organization, which has been hijacked for purposes contradictory to its declared objectives of promoting and securing international cooperation and maintaining international order.
The exhibition on display in the visitor's lobby in the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City presents images of seventy years of the struggle for Palestinian human rights, lost in the nakba, catastrophe, the creation of Israel. In addition, the UN General Assembly on November 29, 2018, will commemorate, as it has done since 1978, the Annual Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, pursuant to the Resolution of December 2, 1977, A/RES/32/40, marking the adoption of the UNGA Resolution 181 (11) of November 29, 1947, which called for partition of the disputed territory, with Jerusalem having special status. The fundamental irony in all this that the Arabs refused, while Israel accepted, that 1947 Resolution to create a Palestinian state at that time.
In recent days, international attention has been focused on political problems and crises in Israel as a result of differences within the country over government action, and the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire after terrorists in Gaza fired 460 rockets and mortar shells into Israel to which Israel responded with airstrikes. The government also allowed $15 million from Qatar to go to Gaza to fund salaries of Hamas personnel and ease tensions.
Government uncertainty in Israel remains, caused by a number of factors: popular anger, especially in those areas such as Sderot affected by Hamas rockets; the resignation of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the nationalist party, Yisrael Beiteinu, which he withdrew with five seats from the governing coalition; the refusal of the prime minister to appoint Naftali Bennett , education minister and leader of the pro-settlement Jewish Home Party, with eight seats, but to appoint himself to the vacant position. In the multiparty Knesset, the result of the proportional representation system, Netanyahu now has a coalition majority of one, with 61 out of the 120 members. New elections are likely within a year or so, but are not immediate.
However, little attention has been paid in the international media to the continuing political and diplomatic attacks by international organizations, including the misnamed UN Human Rights Council and UNESCO on Israel. The issue goes back to the creation of Israel in May 1948, and the animosity has never relented. On November 22, 1974, UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 (XXIX) affirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, independence, and sovereignty. A year later, the UN set up the UNGA Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, a body which in fact is composed of all 193 UN member states. Since then this issue has been the subject of numerous Resolutions by the UN and its various organs.
On
November 17, 2018, the committee met, with Saudi Arabian Abdullah al
Mouallini as vice-chair, to approve eight resolutions on Palestinians
and a ninth on the Golan Heights. No resolutions, of course, were
directed against any of the other 192 UN member states, none of whom
apparently committed any violations of anything. The committee voted in
favor of four resolutions related to the UN Relief and Works Agency for
Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, and four others critical of Israeli
authorities’ actions in the Occupied Territories. The committee was also given a briefing by Michael Lynk, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Gaza Strip, about the poor economic conditions in the territory. The lack of neutrality on Israel by UN personnel is manifestly shown by this Canadian professor of law who, among other things, urged BDS economic and travel sanctions against Israel, to force withdrawal from the West Bank, supported Israel Apartheid Week at his university, Western U in London, Ontario, and suggested Israel should have UN membership suspended over violations of international law.
The resolutions call for assistance to and assertion of human rights of Palestinian refugees, concern for the properties and revenues of those refugees, support for UNRWA, condemnation of Israeli settlements," condemnation of Israeli practices affecting the Palestinian people, and application of the Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949 regarding protection of civilian persons in time of war in the territories.
For the U.S., the most significant was the nonbinding resolution condemning Israeli control over the Golan Heights, which passed 15-2 (the U.S. and Israel) and 14 abstentions. Before 1967, Syria shelled Israeli communities from Golan. Israel now controls two-thirds of the area, and in 1981 applied Israeli civil law to the territory. The resolution calls on Israel to desist from changing the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure and legal status of the Occupied Syrian Golan (OSG), and to desist from establishment of settlements. It states that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel that alter the character and legal status of OSG are null and void and constitute a flagrant violation of international law. It calls on Israel to desist from imposing Israeli citizenship and Israeli identity cards on Syrian citizens in OSG, and "from its repressive measures against the population of the OSG."
It is also worth noting that in the committee meeting the Syrian ambassador, Bashar al-Jaafari, declared that Syria will regain the Golan by "peace or by war." He said nothing of the 22,000 Druze in the Golan Heights, who speak Arabic and have families in Syria, let alone the demilitarized buffer zone or the Israeli wineries in the area.
What is important about this resolution are two factors. The U.S. did not abstain, as it has customarily done on similar resolutions, but voted against it, and said it will continue to vote against them. Ambassador Nikki Haley spoke strongly of the anti-Israeli bias in the committee and in the UN organizations. She indicated the militarization by Syria of the Golan border, the lack of fitness of Syria, responsible for killing half a million of its own people, and the killing or expulsion of more than 3,000 Palestinian Arabs, to govern anyone.
She was also critical of a number of other factors: Russia for delivering a S-300 antiaircraft system to Syria; Iran establishing a permanent presence on the Syrian side of the border; the terror tunnels still being built by Hamas; and the Hamas rocket fire and violent activities against Israel. The 155 countries voting for the UN resolutions appear myopic: they cannot recall that Hamas has already launched three wars against Israel, and that its charter calls for control of all the territory.
The Palestinian Permanent Observer to the UN said the international community stands behind and supports the Palestinian cause despite U.S. efforts to change this. The community also defies reality in supporting UNRWA, which claims that the number of Palestinian refugees that began in 1948 is now five million. John Bolton, presently U.S. National Security Adviser, stated that the UNRWA aid program is the only one in history based on the assumption that refugee status is hereditary.
The second factor is an interesting display of cognitive dissonance. The resolution reaffirms that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible under international law, including the Charter of the United Nations. In the resolution, sponsored by Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, Israel's presence in Golan is described as illegal, but no resolution says anything about Russia/Crimea, or other issues.
Israel faces internal and external problems, with its fragile government coalition, Iran's increasing military influence in Syria and Lebanon, and possible another war with Hamas. The UN members might note that the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahta Sinwar, said in future it will target Israel's major towns, including Tel Aviv. There may, at present, be no good solutions to issues in Gaza or Syria. But the beginning of wisdom is that the international community should refrain from one-sided denunciations of Israel and concentrate on Israeli plans for infrastructure projects in the Negev desert, and other projects such as solar power, sewage treatment, clean water, increases in jobs, improved public health, desalination plants, gas pipelines, and the electricity grid.
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