RUTHFULLY YOURS

The misnamed “State” of Palestine is preparing another assault on Israel at the Palestinians’ favorite “international” venue, the United Nations. The Palestinian Authority circulated a completely one-sided draft Security Council resolution to UN diplomats earlier this month.

The Palestinian draft resolution demanded that Israel “cease all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem.” While condemning “all acts of terror” and expressing “serious concern over continuing violence against civilians,” the draft resolution blames specifically only Israeli settlers for “acts of terror, violence, destruction, harassment and provocation.”  There is not a single word about the constant violence committed by Palestinians against Israeli civilians.

The draft reportedly has the support of enough members of the Security Council to be adopted, absent a veto by the United States. In an effort to forestall such a veto, the Palestinian drafters focused the resolution on Israeli settlements, which the Obama administration has routinely condemned.

In addition, the Palestinian drafters incorporated some sweeteners in their proposed resolution, no doubt intended to persuade the Obama administration to at least abstain. For example, the draft refers positively to the Middle East Quartet, of which the United States is a member. It calls on “all parties to exert collective efforts to launch credible negotiations on all final status issues in the Middle East peace process” according to terms endorsed by the Quartet. The draft calls upon both parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “to act on the basis of international law, including international humanitarian law,” and to “refrain from provocative actions, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric.” The draft encourages “a genuine commitment to the two-State solution,” referencing in particular the Arab Peace Initiative. The Arab Peace Initiative, which President Obama has praised, offered Israel normalization of relations with its neighbors in return for Israel’s complete withdrawal from the “occupied territories” (“including East Jerusalem”) to essentially the pre-1967 lines and a “just settlement” of the Palestinian refugee problem based on UN General Assembly Resolution 194.  Resolution 194 stated that any refugees “wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.”

There is a real chance this time that the Palestinians will succeed in having their draft resolution adopted by the Security Council. The Obama administration may decide to abstain, if not actually vote yes in concert with the prevailing sentiment among other Security Council members. In lieu of the Palestinian draft that focuses currently on the settlements issue, the Obama administration may back another course, reportedly being developed by France. The French are said to favor putting the Security Council on record as endorsing parameters of a two-state solution along the lines of what the Palestinians have been seeking with the support of the Arab states, to be accomplished within a set timeframe.

Alternatively, in a pique of frustration that he did not get his way in pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make significant concessions for “peace,” Obama may decide that the United States should sponsor its own resolution. Such a resolution may lay out Obama’s proposal for a two state solution that is largely the same as the Palestinian approach, freezing all settlements and pushing Israel virtually all the way back to the insecure pre-1967 lines.

If President Obama takes any of these courses of action, he would in essence be endorsing the position of the Palestinian Authority, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Its leaders have been responsible for inciting acts of violence by Palestinians against Israeli civilians. It rebrands murderers as martyrs. Its schools have taught Palestinian children to hate Jews. Its idea of “a genuine commitment to the two-State solution” would establish the pre-1967 lines, with minor adjustments, as the new Palestinian state’s permanent border with Israel, but Israel would not be left alone to remain a Jewish state even then. The Palestinians want to allow potentially millions of Palestinian “refugees” to exercise their so-called “right of return” into the land of Israel as it existed before 1967. The two state solution, as the Palestinian leadership defines it, is one state ethnically cleansed of Jews that is controlled entirely by the Palestinians, and a second state in which Palestinians can become the majority over time and destroy the Jewish character of the state of Israel.

A senior member of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party central committee, Tawfik Tirawi, revealed the Palestinian leadership’s true intentions when he declared last January during an interview, “Palestine stretches from the river to the sea… a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital, is just a phase, as far as I am concerned.”

At least Tirawi made sure to explain that he was willing to live with Jews in an expanded Palestinian state: “This does not mean that I want to throw the Jews into the sea. No, I want to live together with them… We want the people who are in Palestine to live in Palestine in its historical borders.”

Hamas, over whom Abbas has no control, remains committed to ridding Israel of all Jews – by genocide, if that becomes the most expedient method. Indeed, Hamas’s founding charter is a call to kill as many Jews as possible, citing Prophet Muhammad:

“The Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realization of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The day of judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jews will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say ‘O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

The Obama administration refuses to commit to vetoing any UN Security Council resolution that supports the Palestinian position at the expense of Israel. 394 members of the 435-member House of Representatives wrote President Obama a letter last week urging Obama to direct a veto of any such “one-sided United Nations Security Council resolutions.”

President Obama can for once live up to his frequent calls for bipartisanship by heeding Congress’s overwhelming bipartisan support for Israel and do the right thing at the United Nations. The question is whether he will instead give in to his bent for petty politics and seek to settle his score with Prime Minister Netanyahu.