Must see video: UN Ambassador Ron Prosor rips the Europeans some new body parts
This is guaranteed to be the best three minutes you spend today.
Here's Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, telling the Europeans to stuff it where the sun don't shine. This is part of the the UN International day of solidarity with the 'Palestinian People' debate.
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Leah P).
And they consider themselves 'friends.' With 'friends' like this....
The United Nations Security Council condemned Tuesday's 'Palestinian' terror attack in Jerusalem, but called on Israel to show 'restraint.'
In a unanimous statement quoted by the AFP news agency, the
15-member council expressed concern over rising Israeli-Palestinian
tensions and stressed the importance of condemning the violence after
Hamas hailed the attack.
The council "encouraged Israeli and Palestinian leaders and citizens
to work together to lower tension, reject violence, avoid all
provocations and seek a path toward peace."
In a reference apparently directed at Israel over possible reprisals,
the council "reminded states that they must ensure that measures taken
to combat terrorism comply with all their obligations under
international law."
Diplomats said the statement was issued following discussions with
the United States, which consulted with Israel over the wording.
...
Responding to the Security Council’s condemnation of the attack,
Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor said on Wednesday night, "It is too bad
that only after Israelis are massacred during prayer that the Security
Council remembers to break its silence about Palestinian violence,
despite repeated warnings from us.”
"Now that the international community has realized that the
Palestinians have crossed all the red lines and, in order to stop the
bloodshed, it must stop handing out candy to the Palestinians and stop
its support for unilateral actions,” he added.
Don't hold your breath, Ron. The UN stopping support for unilateral actions by the 'Palestinians.' It will never happen.
Prosor to Security Council: 'Don't you have better things to do'?
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor spoke at the UN Security Council emergency session on
Jerusalem and accused the Palestinian Authority of incitement against
Jews in Jerusalem.. and lots more.
Although the United Nations calls for our replacement with a 'state of Palestine' every November, when push comes to shove, they always call on Israel to help. But this time, despite a request from the United Nations and the Obama administration to open IDF field hospitals, Israel said 'no,' it will not send its troops to Africa to fight Ebola. No, not because of the danger of Ebola, but because of the danger to IDF troops' lives.
The Foreign Ministry
recommended the Defense Ministry respond positively to the American's
request, even though it was a complex mission, which runs the risk of
infection for medical crews, who would have been forced to wear full NBC
suits.
The mission was further complicated by the need to provide security for each such encampment.
Despite all these risks, the Foreign Ministry believed that
participation in such a mission would help bolster Israel's
international standing, which suffered a severe blow in the aftermath of Operation Protective Edge.
However, after examining the request and mission details, the
Defense Ministry decided against Israel's participation, saying there
was no feasible way to provide for the safety of the Israeli doctors and
medical crews, which could then return to Israel and further spread the
virus.
Despite the decision –
or maybe because of it – the foreign minister decided to up the level of
Israeli aid to the Ebola effort.
That's just fine with me. If they want our help, they could learn to be nicer to us (just sayin'...).
'Palestinians' to demand that Security Council set 'timetable' for Israel to abandon Judea and Samaria, Israel to rely on OUR friends the Saudis
On September 15, the 'Palestinians' plan to demand from the United States Security Council that it set a 'timetable' for Israel to abandon Judea and Samaria. The United States is to chair the Council in September, with King Barack himself to sit in the chairman's seat on September 24. This is from the first link.
[Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil] Sha'ath said that the PA expected the Security Council to comply with
its demands; if it does not do so, the Authority will seek help from
the International Court of Justice in The Hague. There, the PA will
demand that Israeli officials be charged as “war criminals” for the
damage caused to Gaza, as the IDF responded to incessant rocket attacks
by Hamas on Israeli civilian population centers.
It should be noted that if the PA does take its case to the Court, it
will have to become a full-fledged member of that organization. While
the PA has in the past sought membership in international organizations,
Israeli officials said that they were unlikely to seek membership in
the Court, because it would open them up to being charged with war
crimes.
On Wednesday, Israel's ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, submitted a
list of Hamas war crimes that took place during Operation Protective
Edge to the UN Security Council. In a message accompanying the list,
Prosor wrote that “despite the fact that the Council recognizes that
Hamas has committed war crimes, nothing has been done yet about them.”
Prosor submitted a lengthy, detailed list of all the rockets fired by
Hamas – their targets and the damage they caused – with nearly all of
them fired at civilian targets, which in itself is a war crime, as well
as many examples of Hamas using the Gaza civilian population as human
shields, launching attacks from homes, schools, and hospitals. “I expect
the Security Council to loudly condemn Hamas' activities. The Council
cannot remain silent over the use by Hamas of Gaza civilians as human
shields.”
Good luck with that list. The world doesn't give a damn when Muslims kill other Muslims or get them killed. Ask the Syrians about that. And as to them shooting at the Jews... hey... that was 'self-defense' because Israel didn't give them Iron Dome.
JPost reports that the 'Palestinian Authority' also hopes to play a role in reconstructing Gaza, after Prime Minister Netanyahu's 'great victory.'
The Palestinians also intend to form a permanent unity government that has the complete backing of Hamas in hopes that such a government would expedite the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip.
“In cease-fire discussions, Israel was forced to give up on its demand that Hamas decommission its weapons, and this was due to American pressure,” Shaath told Ma’an.
And guess who Israel will rely on to ensure that money doesn't go to waste.... OUR friends, Saudis.
The PA will lead coordination of the reconstruction effort in Gaza with international donors, including the European Union, Qatar, Turkey and Norway. Saudi Arabia is also likely to be a major donor, with the expectation in Jerusalem being that unlike Qatar, it will take pains to ensure that its funds will not be directed to Hamas, but rather to build up the PA.
In the New York Times, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, refers to Doha, Qatar as 'Club Med for terrorists.'
Since Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005, Hamas has dragged us into
three rounds of major assaults, and more than 14,800 rockets have been
fired into Israel by the group or its proxies. The discovery of dozens
of tunnels packed with explosives, tranquilizers and handcuffs that end
at the doorsteps of Israeli communities should be enough to convince
anyone that Hamas has no interest in bringing quiet to Gaza or residing
alongside Israel in peace.
It says a great deal that Hamas’s
former Arab backers, which historically have included Egypt, Syria and
Saudi Arabia, long ago abandoned the terrorist group. Only a few nations
still stand by Hamas. Among the most prominent is the tiny Persian Gulf
emirate Qatar.
In recent years, the sheikhs of Doha, Qatar’s capital, have
funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Gaza. Every one of Hamas’s
tunnels and rockets might as well have had a sign that read “Made
possible through a kind donation from the emir of Qatar.”
Mr.
Meshal’s uncompromising stance — he has vowed never to recognize Israel
— has long been an obstacle to reaching a peace deal. But behind Hamas,
Qatar is pulling the strings. According to a report last week in the
pan-Arab daily newspaper Al Hayat, Qatar even threatened to expel Mr.
Meshal if Hamas accepted Egyptian proposals for a long-term cease-fire
in Gaza. All because Doha wants a starring role in any cease-fire
agreement between Hamas and Israel.
It is time for the
world to wake up and smell the gas fumes. Qatar has spared no cost to
dress up its country as a liberal, progressive society, yet at its core,
the micro monarchy is aggressively financing radical Islamist
movements. In light of the emirate’s unabashed support for terrorism,
one has to question FIFA’s decision to reward Qatar with the 2022 World
Cup.
Qatar’s continued sponsorship of Hamas all but guarantees that, whatever
happens in this round of hostilities, the terrorist group will rearm
and renew hostilities with Israel. The only way forward is to isolate
Hamas’s last major backer. Given Qatar’s considerable affluence and
influence, this is an uncomfortable prospect for many Western nations,
yet they must recognize that Qatar is not a part of the solution but a
significant part of the problem. To bring about a sustained calm, the
message to Qatar should be clear: Stop financing Hamas.
Israel's UN ambassador hits back at Ban Ki-Moon's 'war crimes' allegation
After UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon accused Israel of 'war crimes' in Gaza, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations hit back hard.
First, here's Ban Ki-Moon. Let's go to the videotape.
Ron Prosor, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, hit back.
"If the UN assembly had invested a tenth of the energy invested in
investigating Israel, it would reveal horrific war crimes on the part of
Hamas," Prosor fired.
"The international community has lost its way," he continued. "This organization was founded to promote morality, truth and justice. Unfortunately, that is not its mission now."
Israel’s envoy to the UN told reporters that Israel would not support a
cease-fire agreement, despite calls for one by both the UN
Secretary-General and the Palestinian ambassador in their speeches. “Our
clear goal is to dismantle the infrastructure that Hamas has amassed,”
Prosor said. “They [Hamas] have turned this whole place [Gaza] into a
launching pad of terror.
“Hamas dragged us into this conflict,” Prosor told the Council,
citing the abduction and murder of Eyal Yifrah, Gil-ad Shaer and
Naftali Fraenkel. Prosor also accused Hamas of using civilians as human
shields, an accusation the Palestinian envoy roundly rejected.
Prosor
called, again, for the UN to denounce the Palestinian unity government.
"Since when does a terrorist organization get a seat and a voice at the
UN?" he asked.
“Some in this Chamber have criticized Israel for
finally responding to these provocations. They have accused us of
reacting disproportionately,” he said. “Asking Israel to show restraint
while our cities are under constant attack is like asking the fire
brigade to battle an inferno with nothing more than buckets of water.”
In
the Security Council chamber, Prosor took out his phone and played the
sound of an air-raid siren. “Fifteen seconds,” he told the diplomats.
“That’s how much time you have to run for your life.”
...
When asked by reporters at a press conference after the meeting if
the Palestinian Authority accepted responsibility for the rockets fired
by Hamas at Gaza, Mansour responded, “The Palestinian people are one.
The government is one. The president is president Abbas. We are
defending ourselves against this aggression toward our people.”
“The
immediate thing that we want is for the Security Council to shoulder
its responsibility and stop this aggression against our people,” Mansour
said on Wednesday. He also repeatedly denounced what he called Israel’s
attempts to “discredit” the unity government. On Thursday, flanked by
representatives from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Mansour struck out
directly at Prosor for Israel’s calls on the UN to denounce the new
government. “This is an exercise in futility,” Mansour said, calling the
Israeli government racist.
“I am proud that I represent the
Palestinian people, who are respected in every corner of the globe,”
Mansour said. “I am not a representative of a government that is totally
isolated and disrespected in the international community.”
“We
did not start this round of attacks. It is the Israeli government,”
Mansour said. “After the killing of the three settlers [Eyal, Gilad and
Naftali], they started this attack against our people. The rockets came
after that.”
That last bit is nonsense. The rockets were flying the entire time the three kidnapped teens weren't found.
But here's the amazing part:
Amidst the back and forth between the Arab nations and Israel,
Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon appealed for calm and restraint on all
sides. Appearing before reporters on Wednesday — a rare occurrence —
specifically to address the Gaza situation, Ban said, “Gaza is on a
knife-edge…This is a time for justice, not for revenge. It is a time
for statesmanship and wisdom.”
Ban told reporters and the
Security Council on Thursday that he had been in intense discussions
with world leaders, including US secretary of state John Kerry, over how
to handle the situation, and said the UN was stepping up its
humanitarian activities in the area.
In his speech to the council,
Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said his paramount concern was for the
civilians, who are “once again… caught between Hamas's irresponsibility
and Israel's tough response.”
He called both parties back to the
table to renew talks for the two-state solution. “We face the risk of an
all-out escalation in Israel and Gaza, with the threat of a ground
offensive still palpable -- and preventable only if Hamas stops rocket
firing,” he said. “Gaza, and the region as a whole, cannot afford
another full-blown war and another fault line.”
He called Hamas irresponsible? Unbelievable. But no, there will be no negotiations with Hamas and there won't be any with a Hamas-Fatah unity government either.
UN refuses to disclose details of investigation into employee who posted incendiary false tweet
You will recall that in March 2012, a UN employee posted the photo above on her twitter account as if it had just happened, when in fact it happened in 2006.
Subsequently, at the urging of Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor, the UN opened an investigation into the tweet. In February, we were told that the employee had been 'de facto' fired.
Ambassador Prosor asked for details about the investigation and the 'firing' and the UN has now refused to give them.
In his letter last month, Prosor wrote that on March 13, 2012, he had
written to Amos demanding Badawi’s firing, only to be told that OCHA
had “begun an inquiry” into her actions.
“Since then l have sent
several letters – on 20 March, 11 June, and 14 August – requesting
information about the status of this investigation. One did not need the
detective skills of Agatha Christie to realize that something is amiss
here. A case like Ms. Badawi’s does not exactly require the assistance
of an NYPD forensics team,” he wrote.
“A year has passed since my
initial complaint,” Prosor continued, “and my government still has yet
to receive any substantive answers from USG Amos’s office. OCHA’s
constant evasiveness in responding to my letters has forced me to
question the seriousness with which they undertook Ms. Badawi’s inquiry. OCHA’s behavior casts doubt on its ability to conduct an honest, professional, and transparent investigation.”
Amos’s
response came a week later. In her letter she reiterated what she wrote
soon after the affair first broke, that Badawi’s personal Twitter
account did not reflect OCHA’s views.
“I remain concerned about
the negative impact her actions have had on the relationship between
OCHA and the Government of Israel,” she wrote.
Amos said that an official inquiry was conducted by the UN Development Program’s audit and investigations office.
She said that due process was ensured for everyone involved, and that the investigation was concluded.
But,
she added, since this is “an internal personnel issue, the United
Nations is bound by rules of confidentiality and cannot disclose the
results of the investigation or other related information regarding Ms.
Badawi, who is no longer a UN staff member.”
She closed by saying
that the UN “remains committed to ensuring and safeguarding the
neutrality and impartiality of the Organization.”
National Security Council chief v. Israeli diplomatic corps
National Security Council chief Yaacov Amidror snapped at Israeli diplomats over the timing of the announcement to build at E-1 during a briefing on Monday, and the Israeli diplomats snapped back.
Amidror then began to answer, stopped, and chastised the envoys.
"I
don't think that in the British Foreign Office they would clap at a
question that hinted at criticism of the government's policy," he said.
"You would not have a situation where there would be applause in the
State Department at a question that hinted at criticism of President
Obama's policies."
This exchange led Ran Curiel, a ministry
deputy director general, to clarify that the applause was not against
the government's policies, but rather because the question was one that
was on the mind of many in the room. "It is possible this reflected a
degree of frustration because we want to explain the government's
policies, but are not always given the tools to do so," he said.
To
this Amidror replied, "Gentlemen, don't get confused. You are
representatives of the government. If this does not suit you, either go
into politics or resign. I am a government functionary; the chief of
general staff is a government functionary. Our job is to give advice and
at the end the leaders make the decisions. If you think there is a
problem with the policy, you can express that in closed forums."
One
diplomatic official explained afterward that many of the envoys feel
they were not properly briefed on the reason for the E1 decision, the
timing of it, and what the objectives were of the government's
settlement policy
The government's decision to respond to the
Palestinian Authority's move at the UN by announcing plans for new
building and planning in the settlements was taken against the foreign
ministry's advice, which was that such a move would be counterproductive
since it would deflect the world's attention away from the Palestinian
abrogation of the Oslo accord, and onto the settlement issue.
The
Prime Minister's Office had no response to the Amidror incident. Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is scheduled to address the envoys on
Thursday.
Although this article makes an attempt to make it appear that this was not a factor in this case, I have mentioned many times that the Foreign Ministry rank and file is crawling with Leftists. It's going to take a long time to get the rot out of the foreign ministry....
Israeli UN envoy walked out of Ahmadinejad's UN speech, but the US stayed
If you want an indication of how far under the bus the Obama administration has thrown Israel, consider this. When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got up to speak at the UN on Monday, Israeli Ambassador Ron Prossor stormed out. Disgracefully, the American delegation stayed in its seats.
Israel's UN envoy Ron Prosor demonstratively walked out of a UN session
Monday on the rule of law when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
took the podium to speak.
"There is no justice and no judge," Prosor said, after leaving the hall with one of his aides.
"The
leader of an outlaw country that is a serial violator of the
fundamental principles of the rule of law has no place in this hall" he
said. "It is a shame and disgrace to give someone like him the
opportunity to speak on such an important topic."
Prosor said
that letting Ahmadinejad address the UN on the issue of the rule of law
was like "appointing a pyromaniac as fire chief."
Ahmadinejad is
scheduled to address the General Assembly on Wednesday, but there will
be no Israeli delegates in the hall to storm out when he begins to speak
because it is Yom Kippur.
...
Ahmadinejad's
UN address on Monday came after he stated earlier in the day that Israel has "no
roots" in the history of the Middle East and represents a disturbance
for Iran which will be "eliminated."
Here's a report from Fox News, which clearly shows the US delegation staying in their seats.
Sorry folks, but this is not the sort of thing that makes me proud to hold American citizenship. I'm disgusted. Hussein Obama should be ashamed. Ashamed of his government. Ashamed of his 'leadership.' Ashamed of his warped and distorted values.
And where are the American people? How can the American people support a President who chooses a terror regime over a democracy?
“This week, Israel’s children started their school year with the all-too-familiar sounds of sirens and explosions, as terrorists in Gaza fired six more rockets into their communities, Prosor wrote.
“While Israel’s schoolchildren were taking cover in bomb shelters, the UN released yet another biased report about Gaza. Apparently, the roar of rockets flying out of Gaza has not reached the deaf ears of the UN agencies that produced this report.”
...
Prosor said the officials who wrote the document “conveniently failed to mention that Hamas has brutally hijacked Gaza and deliberately targets Israeli civilians in relentless rocket attacks.”
The truth, he wrote, was “plain and simple: Hamas is responsible for the suffering in Gaza.”
Prosor said it was “high time” for the Security Council and other UN bodies to speak out loudly and clearly “against the violence that Hamas and other terrorists in Gaza continue to unleash on the children of our region, Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
Well, don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
The dork diva, the useful idiot and why Israeli officialdom panders to their agenda
The Investigative Project on Terrorism has a piece that discusses why Chelsea Clinton (known in the television industry as the dork diva) would make a great promoter for 'Islamophobia.' The jump-off point for the post is Clinton's 'moderating' a March 14 event at the JCC of Manhattan, which featured useful idiot Marc Schneier and his good friend Imam Muhammad Shamsi Ali. Here's part of that post.
One weapon that has proven useful to the Industry is so-called "interfaith dialogue" involving Jewish and Islamic leaders. The Muslim participants tend to be Islamists, while their Jewish counterparts tend to be well-meaning "useful idiots" like Rabbi Marc Schneier, who has tried to establish a partnership with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which is rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood. All too often, the result is a debacle in which the liberal Jews pine for dialogue while the Islamists stonewall and repeat anti-Semitic slanders.
And when Schneier (who heads a group called the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, or FFEU) and Imam Muhammad Shamsi Ali joined Chelsea Clinton at the JCC March 14, things didn't go a whole lot better. Although it talks a lot about the virtues of diversity, the Islamophobia Industry portrays Muslim life in America in a bleak, one-dimensional way: as if Muslims here are little more than innocent victims of thuggish, bigoted non-Muslim gangs determined to punish them for 9/11 and subsequent jihadist actions.
I was taught a long time ago in Journalism 101 that the job of a journalist is to report on the news – not to act as an advocate or partisan. NBC's special correspondent views things a lot differently, declaring it is "the responsibility of the media to help ameliorate Islamophobia."
And that's precisely what Chelsea tried to do, tossing one softball after another to Ali and Schneier, parroting misinformation of her own and failing to question whoppers from the imam and the rabbi. Schneier, for example, bragged about his collaboration with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons at FEU, but didn't get a single question from the moderator about Simmons' long history of sycophantic praise for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a notorious anti-Semite.
Nor did Chelsea seem well-informed about the Ground Zero Mosque controversy that heated up in 2010. She askedSchneier how "you think about trying to use the media to in many ways combat the media?" Chelsea suggested that Schneier might need to gear up for battle because "we saw such vitriolic statements covered widely in the media" with commentators using "terms that at best were insensitive to somewhere in the middle, or derogatory, and at worst were really dehumanizing." (She neglected to provide an example).
After Chelsea asked what the pair was doing to stop this, Schneier talked about his opposition to hearings on Islamist radicalization in the United States by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., and bragged about working with Islamist Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., in an effort to win the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Schneier received thunderous applause from the audience when he described such work as an example of "the genuine authenticity that is needed for this Muslim/Jewish reconciliation."
Read the whole thing. Until now, I have largely ignored Schneier. He's been mentioned about six times previously on this blog. I didn't believe that anyone outside the Jewish community in the United States and those who follow it had ever heard of him, and like Mikey Lerner and Wacky Waskow, Schneier wasn't worth the time or the bandwidth to attack. Then Sunlight sent me these, which apparently come from the Hampton Synagogue's website. It is clear to me, as I am sure it is to all of you, that hotshot politicos and the like show up at Bar Mitzva's to honor the father and not the 13-year old boy (I'm making a Bar Mitzva this summer, God willing, and if you're a hotshot politico and want to come, send me an email and I'll consider letting you know where it is). I'm looking at these blurbs and I am wondering what the heck is wrong with Israeli officialdom? Why do Ron Prosor and Ido Aharoni (what - Michael Oren couldn't make it?) have to show up for this Bar Mitzva? Why does Rabbi Metzger, like a schnorrer, fly halfway around the world hours after landing in Israel to honor someone who is thousands of miles away from his own worldview?
What's clear to me is that all these Israelis are being sucked in by the American Jewish community. They're smart enough to avoid J Street, because J Street was started by former Israelis, and by not embracing it they have ensured that any embrace of J Street by the American Jewish community is tentative at best. But they see Schneier - a four-time loser who probably has more adherents in Al Sharpton's crowd than in Rabbi Metzger's - as someone to whom we have to pander.
Straight talk about the UN from Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor
Here's Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, giving some straight talk about the United Nations to a group in Westport, Connecticut last week. The video is about 27 minutes long (of which the last 11 minutes are a question and answer session), and I urge you all to watch it. But for those of you who don't have the time or patience to watch it, there is a summary by Ambassador Prosor here (Hat Tip: Stephen D).
US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice forgot on Tuesday that there's an election in nine and a half months and led the charge against Israel in the UN Security Council. This is a preview to what things will look like if God forbid Obama is reelected, and it had a lot in common with a vacuum cleaner, with Tom Brady's performance in the AFC Championship game and with Kevin Paul DuPont. This is from the first link.
During a Security Council session, US Ambassador Susan Rice urged Israel to halt all settlement construction in the West Bank and work to quell settler violence against Palestinians. She also expressed concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
And with Rice slamming Israel, it was food fight time. The UK and Germany piled on. This is from the first link.
British Ambassador to the UN Mark Grant accused Israel of employing violence in the territories and called on the Jewish state to halt all settlement construction, including in east Jerusalem.
Germany's UN ambassador, Peter Wittig, said Israel was attempting to detach east Jerusalem from the West Bank, a move he claimed would make the establishment of a Palestinian state impossible.
And Ron Prosor, Israel's ambassador to the UN, slammed right back.
In his response to the criticism, Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor told the Security Council, "The primary obstacle to peace is not settlements. The primary obstacle to peace is the so-called 'claim (right) of return.' Let me repeat that: the major hurdle to peace is the Palestinian’s insistence on the so-called 'claim of return.'"
"You will never hear Palestinian leaders say 'two states for two peoples'. If you ever hear them say 'two states for two peoples', please phone my office immediately. Call me 'collect' in the event of such an unprecedented occurrence," he said.
"You won’t hear them say 'two states for two peoples' because today the Palestinian leadership is calling for an independent Palestinian state, but insists that its people return to the Jewish state. This would mean the destruction of Israel.
Prosor continued to say that "the idea that Israel will be flooded with millions of Palestinians will never be accepted. The international community knows it. The Palestinian leadership knows it. But the Palestinian people aren’t hearing it. In a poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion last November, 90% of Palestinians said that they would not give up the 'claim of return.' This gap between their perception and reality is – and will remain – the major obstacle to peace.
"Since the Palestinian leadership refuses to tell the Palestinian people the truth, the international community has the responsibility to tell them the truth. You have a responsibility to stand up and say that the so-called 'claim of return' is a non-starter. Yet, many around this table who never miss an opportunity to tell Israel what it has to do for peace – mumble, stutter and conveniently lose their voices when it comes time to tell the Palestinian people about the basic compromises they will have to make for peace," the Israeli envoy said.
He added: "The Palestinians' refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state goes hand-in-hand with a culture of incitement in mosques, schools and media. Day after day, children are taught to pursue violence – and to hate, vilify, and dehumanize Israelis and Jews.
"Let me be clear. I am not only talking about Hamas in Gaza— but also about the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, where you can’t turn a corner without seeing terrorists and terrorism glorified," said Prosor.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, has a great piece in Friday's Chicago Tribune decrying the World's silence on the rockets falling being shot by 'Palestinian' terrorists at southern Israel (Hat Tip: Lance K). This is from the first link.
So if it is natural to be outraged and support the defense against terrorists who attack Texas, or England or Russia or China, why is it not natural to support the same for Israel? Since the beginning of October, more than 70 rockets and missiles have rained down on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, which remains under the control of the Hamas terrorist organization. Last week, Israel's densely populated northern towns were hit by rockets fired from Lebanon.
Hamas deliberately fires rockets into the heart of Israel's major cities, which have exploded on playgrounds, near kindergarten classrooms and homes. Last month, a man was killed when a rocket struck his car on his evening commute home. Many more people have been injured. In the last month alone, more than a million Israelis had to stay home from work and more than 200,000 students were unable to attend school. You don't read about this because if it's covered at all, it's buried in the back pages of newspapers.
Although these horrific attacks should appall good people everywhere, not one word of condemnation has come from the Security Council in the United Nations. Peace activists that regularly criticize my country are silent on this one as well.
Underlying the violence that continues to emanate from Gaza is a deeply rooted culture of incitement. Last month, would-be Palestinian suicide bomber Wafa al-Biss was released from prison as part of an exchange for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. Al-Biss offered a breathtaking challenge to cheering schoolchildren at her Hamas welcome-home rally. She said, "I hope you will walk the same path that we took and God willing, we will see some of you as martyrs." Her crime? She tried to kill doctors, nurses and patients by blowing herself up in an Israeli hospital. Luckily, she failed to detonate.
These are the poisonous values that are being fed to the next generation of children in Gaza. When Israel looks at children, it sees the future. When Hamas looks at children, it sees suicide bombers and human shields. If only incitement were confined to Gaza. It also pervades the official institutions of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — and many other corners of our region. In schools, mosques and media, generation after generation of children across the Middle East have been taught to hate, vilify and dehumanize Israelis and Jews.
The intolerance all too common in the Middle East finds its way around the world, even entering the halls of the U.N. Today the U.N. is home to a triple standard: one standard for democracies, a different standard for dictatorships and a special, unobtainable standard for Israel. So I pose this ethical question, not from a philosophy course at a great university but based very much in the real world: If it is not OK to fire deadly rockets at the citizens of any of the other 193 member states that make up the United Nations, why is the world silent when the victims are Israelis?
Why? Dare we say it? Anti-Semitism....
P.S. I'm not sure the Obama administration would react as quickly as Prosor thinks, although previous administrations clearly would have.
This is a must see. This is the speech given in the UN General Assembly on Tuesday by Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor. The occasion was the General Assembly's annual bash Israel fest, which takes place every year on the anniversary of the UN resolution approving the partition of Britain's Palestine Mandate in 1947.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
