Friday, April 22, 2011

The Vote Recognizing A Palestinian State

Rabbi Kaufman

It was reported Tuesday that the United States and other members of the Quartet could be “forced” to recognize a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital if PM Netanyahu does not present a new peace initiative.

Some suggest that PM Netanyahu needs to preempt President Obama by offering a new peace plan first with the idea that Pres. Obama would not then simply offer a contradictory proposal. It is reasonably likely however that the President would offer a new proposal if either Netanyahu does not offer one or if Obama does not like the one that Netanyahu presents. Nabil Shaath said recently that he expects the majority of UN Nations to support Palestinian Statehood with the 1967 border. This is like saying, “Tomorrow, I expect that time will continue to pass.” The UN is overwhelmingly opposed to Israel. Were it put to a vote, Israel would be voted out of existence by the majority of nations. Is it a surprise that the majority of UN nations would support a Palestinian state? No. Is it a surprise that the majority of UN nations would support the Palestinian side in negotiations? No.

In fact, the reason that the Palestinian Authority is trying to pass recognition through the UN General Assembly is precisely because America will stand up for Israel in the Security Council.

What will likely happen, however, and what may be surprising to some people, is that some nations in Europe with a history of treating the Jews badly [not a small number] will join the Palestinian side, so as to maintain or improve relations with the Arab world, and that will harm Israel’s relations with Europe even if there is no Security Council vote. A UNGA vote is a popularity contest.

In the past, the United States has been the one saying that the popular girl who berates the nerds and geeks, who verbally abuses those who are different, much less of a different faith, and who spends much of her time excluding others, should probably not be the prom queen. The friends of the haters do not appreciate this and it has not made the US popular.

There are those who ask, “Would it not be better to join in with the opposing side and gain popularity???” They ask this as if the obvious answer is, “Yes,” but it is not. If it were so, what nation could depend upon the United States to stand up for it against popular opinion?

How many of America’s friends would say:

Look! America is even willing to abandon its best friend, Israel, because popular opinion is against it!!! How quickly would it abandon us????

Put in the context of upheavals in the Arab world that threaten many a leader who is friendly to the United States, this could force them to find other friends and to question the reliability of America as an ally. This is the real life foreign policy implication of the United States treatment of Israel.

What needs to happen now is not that the United States needs to threaten Israel to give in so as to appease those who hate it, but that the United States needs to stand up for Israel more strongly! The US needs to say that it will not allow the United Nations to be the home of legalized Jew-hatred!

Let us not pretend that a UN General Assembly vote simply granting to the Palestinians all of their demands would be at its heart anything other than yet another example of bias and hatred against the Jews occurring on the floor of the United Nations.

What may be bothering this administration more than anything is the fact that it may face a stark choice between supporting the United Nations, a major value for this President, and doing the right thing. Doing both may not be an option.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Doc, for an idiot, you sure seem to be open-minded.

GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givon said...

Anonymous-what a valuable comment, this is the best you have I suspect as you cannot debate the logic with anything other than name calling-appreciate your demonstration of "brilliance".