U.N. Hosts Jew-Hate Palestinian Forum

The United Nations once again has displayed its anti-Israel bias by hosting what is called the “United Nations Forum to Mark Fifty Years of Occupation.”  The United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People has organized the two-day meeting taking place this week in New York. Representatives affiliated or working with two terrorist organizations - Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) - are taking part. 

Palestinian representative Saeb Erekat told the Israel haters that “Hamas and the PFLP are not terrorist organizations.”  Erekat also said that the way to defeat ISIS is by ending the Israeli “occupation.” He added, “The Israeli government, headed by Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, is trying to replace the two-state solution with one state, two systems, apartheid.”

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon responded to such nonsense, saying, “They have no shame. These are lies and incitement from those who are paying terrorists to kill innocent Israelis.”

Hamas is indeed a terrorist organization, with innocent civilian blood on its hands as it tries to carry out its genocidal campaign against the Jewish state.  As for the PFLP, Ambassador Danon displayed a photograph of Israeli policewoman Hadas Malka who was killed in a terror attack earlier this month. He explained to reporters that one of the groups presenting at the UN forum works with the PFLP terror organization which claimed responsibility for Malka’s murder. Both Hamas and the PFLP are considered foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department.

Nevertheless, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and his Deputy Secretary General Amina J. Mohammed legitimized the hatefest by their participation along with terrorist organization collaborators.

The Secretary General’s message to the forum, delivered by his deputy, lamented “Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Syrian Golan, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Syrians.”

He went on to declare that only the end of Israeli “occupation” would “lay the foundations for enduring peace that meets Israeli security needs and Palestinian aspirations for statehood and sovereignty.” He repeated the canard that “recurring cycles of violence and retribution” were “fueled “by “[F]ifty long years of occupation.”

The Palestinians could have had their own state the same year that Israel was created. Instead, they chose the rejectionist path, vowing with their Arab nation neighbors to destroy the Jewish state at birth. They failed, but would not give up their ambition to drive the Jews into the sea. Cycles of violence against Jews were carried out by Palestinian terrorists before the June 1967 War, while Jordan controlled the West Bank and Egypt controlled Gaza. The Palestinian leadership is not interested in a genuine two-state solution. They want an immediate state on the lands that Israel took over after the June 1967 War, to be followed by the implementation of the so-called “right of return” that would result in the Palestinians’ eventual demographic takeover of pre-1967 Israel. In short, the Palestinians’ version of the two-state solution is two Palestinian states, in addition to Jordan which has a majority Palestinian population.  

Gaza has been in Palestinian hands since Israel’s unilateral withdrawal in 2005. Instead of using the opportunity to build a prototype state living side by side with Israel in peace, the terrorist organization Hamas turned Gaza into a launching pad for rocket attacks against Israeli civilian population centers.

Jerusalem was divided by virtue of Jordan’s illegal occupation of the Old City after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and restored to its undivided, unitary status, open to members of all faiths, by Israel in 1967. The notion of a separate “East Jerusalem” that is “occupied” by Israel is a Palestinian fiction that the so-called international community has cynically bought into.

When Syria controlled the Golan Heights, it took advantage of the high terrain to launch sniping attacks against Israeli civilians, including children, in the Huleh Valley below. The UN Mixed Armistice Commission ignored Israel’s complaints. During the June 1967 Six Days War, Syrian armored units fired on villages in the Huleh Valley. Israel fought back and seized control of the Golan Heights terrain that Syria had used to conduct its lethal attacks on helpless Israeli civilians. Even so, Israel was willing to return the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for a genuine peace agreement. But the offer fell on deaf ears after the passage of the Khartoum Resolution of September 1, 2022 at the conclusion of the 1967 Arab League summit. This resolution declared, “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it, and insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country.”

Israel was willing to be a gracious victor and give back territory that had been used to terrorize its population, but was met with intransigence, a pattern followed by the Palestinians repeatedly over the years. Syria has forfeited any legitimate right to reclaim the Golan Heights, which Israel has every right to retain for defensive reasons.

The Palestinians have only their own leadership to blame for their present plight. No UN forum can change the truth that, to paraphrase the great Israeli statesman Abba Eban, the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has tried, since assuming her post, to move the UN away from its blatant anti-Israel bias. As the “United Nations Forum to Mark Fifty Years of Occupation” shows, she definitely has her work cut out for her.