Israel Matzav

Catharsis, but nothing more

Israel's cabinet unanimously passed a resolution on Sunday rejecting Thursday's events at the United Nations and the declaration of a 'state' of 'Palestine.'

"The Jewish people have natural, historical and legal rights to its homeland with its eternal capital Jerusalem," the resolution stated. "The State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people has rights and claims to areas are under dispute in the land of Israel."

The cabinet decision says that the UN resolution does not change the status of disputed areas and does not detract in any way from Israel and the Jewish people's right to those areas.

Furthermore the resolution said that the UN resolution will not be a basis for future negotiations.

There's been a lot of surprise in the media, especially abroad at the vehemence of the Israeli reaction to the General Assembly decision on Thursday. For the last couple of weeks, we've been seeing stories that Israel would not go ballistic over the resolution passing and that it would not take what the 'international community' sees as 'drastic' steps against the 'Palestinians.' Now, we're seeing that Israel is taking - or at least saying that it will take - some pretty harsh steps.

The answer to that lies in the Europeans. It was a foregone conclusion that the resolution would pass because the 'Palestinians' have an automatic majority in the United Nations. What was unexpected was that the only country in Europe to vote with us would be the Czech Republic. If England, Germany, Italy and France had voted with us (and not just abstained as the first three did), I don't think we'd be seeing quite as strong a reaction. At this point, the government is trying to make sure that there will never ever be another vote like this.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, England, European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, United Nations General Assembly

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:38 PM