NOTE: The server hosting the site had some unforeseen issues that forced my web host to restore the site from the most recent backup. Anyone who commented on either this post or yesterday’s, I apologize. Your comments were wiped. If you have the energy to do so, please rewrite and publish them.
Yesterday, I reported on a “deal” struck among the US, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, which averted a US veto of an anti-settlement UN Security Council resolution. I wrote about the empty promises of the agreement, which also highlighted the emptiness of US policy toward Israel-Palestine.
Today, the UNSC approved a “substitute” “presidential statement“which criticized both Israeli settlements and Palestinian resistance (what the UN statement calls “terrorism”):
“The Security Council: reaffirms its unwavering commitment to the two-state solution…
Expresses deep concern and dismay with Israel’s announcement…[of] further…expansion of settlements and the legalization of settlemen outposts;
Reiterate that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperiling the viability of the two-state solution based on the 1967 lines,” the council said.
Strongly opposes…Israeli construction and expansion of settlemnts, confiscation of Palestinian land, and “legalization of settlement outposts, demolition of Palesitnian homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians.
The new statement deleted this emphatic demand that Israel stop settlements altogether:
The resolution would have demanded Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory”.
Reading this reminds me of the John Lennon lyric: “All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth.” The original statement was “some truth.” The revised compromise statement is slightly more than nothing.
The US ambassador to the UN also released a milquetoast statement repeating what has been US (ineffectual) policy for years: opposing settlements and supporting a two-state solution.
But even these statements drained of any real content were too much for Netanyahu. Because he is in the struggle of his political life against fierce opposition to his fascist government, he has come out swinging against the UN statement. It will be like throwing his right-wing supporters red meat (kosher, of course).
Though Netanyahu lies like he breathes, and it’s almost superfluous to analyze these particular ones, they seem more outrageous than usual.
First, the Palestinian Authority does not “subsidize the murder of Jews.” In fact, its security forces are an auxiliary of Israel’s and do its dirty work in discovering resistance cells and arresting suspects. The PA doesn’t even have enough funds to pay its employees (thanks to Israeli theft of its tax revenues), let alone pay for attacks against Israel.
Palestinian resistance fighters don’t need anyone’s subsidies to undertake their operations. In fact, in almost all recent attacks the perpetrators have been lone wolves with no affiliation to any militia movement. And no financial support from anyone.
Israel, however does subsidize Jewish terror attacks against Palestinians. Terror supporters like Honenu and other groups receive government funding, which they in turn shower on terrorists and their families. Also, US donors give funding to these groups. Donors at home and abroad all get tax deductions, meaning that US and Israeli taxpayers are subsidizing Israel’s version of “pay-for-slay.” In this, Netanyahu and Israeli apologists adopt the infamous Nazi propaganda model: whatever the enemy accuses you of, you accuse them of. And make your lie bigger and bolder than their truth.
The Israeli PM also lies when he claims that denouncing the building of 9,000 new settlement housing units “denies the rights of Jews to live in their historic homeland.” In fact, nearly 700,000 Israeli Jews live on occupied Palestinian land (what he calls the “historic Jewish homeland”). However much it may have been a homeland for ancient Israelites a millennium ago, it is now the homeland of Palestinians. Those 700,000 Israelis were shipped to that so-called “historic homeland” only in the past fifty years.
The nonsense about historic homelands is a smokescreen to conceal the theft of the actual indigenous residents of Palestine, who have a far stronger claim than the Israeli interlopers.
Perhaps the most egregious lie of all is that Palestinian acts of resistance are rooted in “anti-Semitism and the slaughter of millions.” In fact, Israeli Jews are far more racist than Palestinians are anti-Semitic, as numerous polls have shown.
Palestinians, in fact, resist Israeli aggression and mass violence. They do so not because their enemy is Jewish, but because he is Israeli. And to the extent that a slim minority of Palestinians do voice anti-Semitic views by confusing Jews with Israelis, that is due to Israel’s own deliberate conflations of the two.
As I’ve written here more times than I can remember, Jews aren’t necessarily Israeli and Israelis aren’t necessarily Jews. Judaism is a religion, not a state or political ideology. Zionism is not a religion, but a nationalist ideology. They are not the same and must not be the same.
Palestinians have every right to resist Israeli crimes by any means necessary. Nor do they have to defend their resistance. And anyone who seeks to divert attention from Israel’s war crimes and violations of international law with such claims, is a duplicitous liar. Looking at you, Bibi.
“First, the Palestinian Authority does not “subsidize the murder of Jews.”
Opinions differ, Richard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Authority_Martyrs_Fund
@ Punch: As I wrote: financial support for families of martyrs is no different than financial support for Jewish terrorists and their families. That’s Honenu’d state funded modus operandi. And those terrorists aren’t dead like most of the Palestinian martyrs. Palestinians honor their resistance martyrs just as Israelis honor their fallen soldiers. No difference.
The ‘terrorists’ are Jewish, but the ‘resistance martyrs’ are Palestinian.
That’s quite a difference, Richard. No?
@ Pamela: Nope. Not at all. The Palestinians are massive underdogs. They are the victims in the vast majority of death and destruction. Deaths are 20 to 1, Palestinian vs Israeli victims. Israel has nuclear weapons. Palestinians have homemade Carlos carbines.
As I’ve said, Palestinians have every right to resist this mass murder. And if this were the Holocaust I would say the same thing about Jewish resistance.
Being an underdog doesn’t necessarily make your cause just nor give you license to commit acts of terror. The Nazis were underdogs at one point. Did the Stern Gang have ‘resistance martyrs’?
@ Jay Goldblatt: Being a regional power as Israel is gives it even less license to commit acts of terror, since it has a vast aresenala of weapons at its disposal, while Palestinians have errant rockets which hardly ever cause any damage and Carlo handmade guns.
As for “resistance martyrs.” Surely you jest. Who was it named after? The biggest resistance martyr of them all, Avraham Stern, murdered by the British.