Israel Matzav

Thank you Poland!

Among the many noxious organizations funded by the United Nations is one with the lengthy name of the "Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People." The 'committee' has twenty-two members, including such bastions of human rights as Belarus, Cuba, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa and Ukraine. Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna sums up the committee's activities thusly:

CEIRPP sponsors an annual “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”. [Some of you may recall that's the day when the map of our region without Israel was presented at the UN. CiJ] It supports “the right of Palestinians to return to their homes and property, from which they had been displaced and uprooted.” That is, it supports the right of anyone who ever lived in what is now Israel, plus their children, grandchildren, and great- grandchildren to move to Israel. Supporting the “right of return” is a way to sanction the destruction of Israel without ever coming out and saying it.

But that’s just business as usual at the UN. Ho-hum. We’re used to it.

Unfortunately, we are. And if you're an American taxpayer, you're paying for 22% of it.

Some of you may recall that several years ago, the committee sponsored a late August Israel-bashing festival in South Africa. This year, they're trying to sponsor another one, but this time it's in connection with the European Parliament, that august body that represents the members of the European Union. There's one country that's refusing to go along, and it may surprise some of you to hear that country is Poland. This comes from a Polish blog called Eurojihad News:

The pro-Palestinian conference is scheduled for the last days of August at European Parliament. The organizer is UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People famous from its ant-Israeli attitude. Members of that group are i.e. Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Tunisia and Turkey.

The topic of the conferece is “Human rights violation by Israel military”. However there are scheduled working groups on “how to increase the resistance against Israel military”. The Israeli Foreign Office has submitted the protest against the conference. President of Kneset Dalia Itzik, sent a letter to the President of EP, Hans-Gert Poettering. There is no official answer yet.

In the meantime the group of Polish MEPs deriving from all main political parties declared to boycott the conference and help to call off the event.

Bronisław Geremek (ALDE): “I will not take part in this conference. I saw the materials prepared by the organizers. Although there is no official statement that Israel must be pushed down to the sea there, the choice of subjects and the attitude towards the problems shows that it will be biased, conflict generating conference. Actually we can call it anti-Israeli.”

Bronisław Sonik (EPP-ED): “There is not the first such initiative. Pro-Palestinian lobby is very active here. If in fact, the conference will become propagandist, Israelis can count on Poles.”

Konrad Szymański (UEN): “Israel’s Objections are fully justified. UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People is a platform for activity of various extremists. According to the most of them Israel should disappear. I am astonished that European Parliament allowed such activity to be placed in its building. If there is any activity against the conference i.e petition signed by MEPs, I will be very glad to support it.”

Also Ryszard Czarnecki said, that this conference could only fuel the conflict, and won't help to ressolve it. He would also be glad to stop this useless and dangerous initiative. Ryszard Czarnecki is member of European Friends of Israel - what was very little known in Poland before.

Over at Gateway Pundit, there are pictures of the three Polish members of the European Parliament quoted above and links to their websites. Two of the websites are in Polish, so I cannot even tell you how to contact them, but the third website is in English, and it would be a worthwhile exercise to contact Bouguslaw Sonik (that's how they have the first name on the website) to thank him and his colleagues for standing with us.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:14 AM