June 22, 2012 at 5:00 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3126/canada-united-church-israel
This hatred has nothing to do with the so-called "occupation," as Palestinian schoolchildren are taught to believe, but is instead fuelled by Israel having a different ideology of true Democracy and Human Rights in a region where most leaders are hostile to both.
The United Church of Canada has released
the 26 page report
of its Working Group on Israel/Palestine Policy, which the church will consider
introducing as policy when the denomination's 41st General Council convenes in
Ottawa August 11-18. The Working Group indicates that its recommendations were
put forth in search of truth, justice and reconciliation when in fact it does
little or nothing of the sort. It refers to Israel as the "thief," the
"occupier," and the "oppressor," and compares Israeli policies to those of South
Africa under apartheid, and more shockingly to Sudan, despite the fact that
people from Africa risk their lives to get to Israel to escape the Islamist
apartheid rampant throughout African countries such as Sudan, South Sudan and
Nigeria, to name but a few.
While acknowledging Israel's right to
exist, this biased and scathing report against Israel calls for "Christian
economic action" against it, and points out that Canada does not recognize
permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967. Nevertheless it
omits that these territories -- under dispute -- were taken by Israel in a
defensive war, the second that united Arab countries had initiated
against it since Israel's founding in 1948. It is difficult to imagine a view
advanced by the United Church working group, along with the automatic majority
of autocracies in the United Nations, that countries which start wars and then
lose them should be rewarded. The Group also omits that Canada is the greatest
friend to Israel and that it opposes anti-Israel labels, as well as attempts to
exterminate Israel economically by means of divestment, boycotts and sanctions
[BDS].
Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister
John
Baird recognized immediately what this working group failed
to recognize: he stated in May that "the world cannot take the words of Hamas,
Hezbollah and Iran as mere rhetoric and risk appeasing these malicious actors in
the same way the world appeased the Nazis.… Under our prime minister, and under
this foreign minister, Canada will stand with the Jewish state and people as
they struggle to protect their very right to exist."
The three-member working group exerts a
feeble attempt to justify the contents of its report by stating that
anti-Semitism does not entail calling Israel into so-called accountability. In
addressing the report's repeated referral to Israel as the "occupier," the
so-called "occupation" must be understood through the lens of the historic 1967
six day war of which an inevitable preventative strike by Israel against the
nations of Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq occurred as these nations were
preparing for a united attack upon the Jewish State.
The Syrian Defense Minister, Hafez Assad,
and President Abdur Rahman Aref of Iraq had both
declared that it was time to wipe out Israel's existence
(reminiscent of Iran today), and Egypt -- preparing for war -- had illegally
closed off the Gulf of Aqaba in preparation for attack. In response, Israel
launched a preventative strike and won the strategic territories of the
Gaza
Strip, the Sinai
Peninsula (Egypt), the West
Bank and East
Jerusalem (from Jordan), and the Golan
Heights (from Syria) – all land which it is accused today
of "occupying," even after giving back to Egypt 100% of its land in exchange for
a peace treaty that as of this writing might be in danger of being abrogated by
Egypt.
Israel's having taken this land in war was
not from greed, but for Israel's strategic survival against mortal enemies that
sought its destruction. With this in mind, it is worth remembering that nearly
every state has achieved its current existence as a result of wars, most from
greed. Our continent is no exception. According to the criteria of the
stone-throwers against Israel, we too are "occupiers" on native lands, which
includes the three-member United Church working group, who, being themselves
"occupiers," have their own Christian "sins" to contend with.
Another historic event alluded to by the
working group is the war that broke out when the British withdrew from the
Palestinian region in 1948. The
British Response to Jewish immigration in fact set a
precedent of appeasing the Arabs – a practice followed for the duration of the
Mandate for Palestine. The British placed restrictions on Jewish immigration
while allowing Arabs freely to enter the country. As the British withdrew from
the region in May 1948, Israel was attacked immediately (the next day) by five
surrounding Arab nations. While acknowledging the attack on Israel, the working
group report nevertheless emphasizes the Palestinian refugees created by this
war, while leaving out the fact that Palestinian Arabs continued to refuse to
recognize Israel, and instead began launching terrorist attacks from the
Palestinian Arab community that became increasingly organized and dangerous
through the course of time with the creation of the Palestinian Liberation
Organization of which Yasser Arafat would eventually become Chairman. The
Palestinian Authority in its revised charter still calls for the elimination of
Israel, by stating that the revised charter incorporates everything in the
previous version.
As the Working Group zeroes in on
Palestinian victimhood, the exponentially growing number of Palestinian refugees
each year is, in fact, a
calculated scam -- one that is costing Western nations tens
of billions of dollars per year in mandatory "donations." The number of refugees
is projected to balloon to 20 million in the next 50 years, and would, at that
time, include something like the great-great-great-great grandchildren of the
original refugees, who by then would long since have died. By that token, is
everyone in Greece now a refugee from the Peleponnesian
War?
Although there are indeed poverty stricken
areas in the Palestinian territories -- and often shocking discrimination
against the Palestinians in (and by) their Arab host countries -- according to
the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, GDP growth in the Palestinian
Territory of the West Bank was astronomically high at 9.9% in 2011, and the Gaza
strip a staggering 23%. Ironically, the Palestinian Territories are, at this
moment, enjoying greater growth than the North American taxpayers who are
funding them.
The most basic problem at the root of the
Palestinian-Israeli issue is not the so-called "occupation," as stipulated by
this working group, but the refusal by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to
recognize Israel's right to exist, and the murderous
hatred expressed by these leaders against the state of
Israel and the Jewish people.
Even as Egypt was preparing itself for a
runoff election, Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad said a win by Muslim Brotherhood
candidate Mohammed Morsi would be a boon to Palestinians, ending the frosty
relationship between Hamas and Egypt. Hamad
added that no one in Hamas supports recognizing Israel as a
nation.
While the United Church Working Group
acknowledges Israel's right to exist, it does so only in lip service, without
taking into consideration Israel's need to protect itself. Israel has long faced
threats of suicide
bombers seeking to inflict as much injury as possible on
victims, as well as trying unsuccessfully to cripple them with fear. The Working
Group's objectives do not even take into account the Jihadist call to war
against Israel , and children being taught in Palestinian
schools to hate and kill Jews. This hatred has nothing to
do with the so-called "occupation," as Palestinian children are indoctrinated to
believe, but is instead fuelled by Israel having a different ideology of true
Democracy and Human Rights in a region where most leaders are hostile to both.
Israel is not an Islamic caliphate and herein lies the problem. The the
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, worked hand
in hand with Hitler during World War II and during the Holocaust to destroy the
Jewish people simply because they were Jewish. Al-Husseini blocked attempts to
rescue thousands of Jewish children from several countries under German control,
effectively sentencing them to death. Few know that Yasser Arafat was a blood
relative of the Grand Mufti; and that Arafat's his real name was Mohammed Yasser
Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa Al-Husseini. Few also know that Arafat,
whose mother was a cousin of the Grand Mufti, was a great admirer of this
work.
As this working group attacks Israel,
there are those Christians in abundance who support
Israel, understand the struggles it faces, and also
recognize the plight of the Palestinians as they are used as pawns by their own
leadership to feed an agenda of hatred against the Jews and against the West in
an effort to distract their people from the true source of their misery: the
corrupt and wretched governance at home. Israeli Prime
Minister Netanyahu has lauded such Christian support, which
even includes Mosab Yousef, the eldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding
member of Hamas.
Mosab Yousef, who converted to
Christianity, now exposes what is truly behind the "peace process." And speaking
of conversions, an admirable moderate Muslim in Canada refers to what happened
to a Christian convert in a Muslim regime as he discusses the
brutality in Muslim societies where a " young man is pinned
to the ground, his head is twisted and a knife held against his throat. In a few
minutes the head is severed and held up for display to the public, who are
loudly chanting, "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is Greatest!"]. In the video of this
gruesome public execution of an apostate, the victim had converted to
Christianity from Islam."
This brutality seen in Muslim societies
brings us to a critical point outlined by the United Church working group:
"holding Israel, like any other modern democratic state, accountable for
its actions is one way civil society strengthens democracy and justice;" and,
further, that Israel should be held to a higher standard than the surrounding
non-democratic countries. This is nothing short of a highly racist statement,
implying that the surrounding "barbarians" are capable of nothing more than
savagery, so why expect anything of them or hold them accountable? In other
words, they are the brown people from whom we should expect little more than
violence and brutality. "Those Muslims" are quite capable of being civilized and
should be called to the same -- admittedly flawed but higher -- standard as any
other Western nation -- as many Muslim Reformists are trying to do today in
efforts to protect the rights of women and human rights overall.
By contrast, in Israel, which is branded
apartheid, Arabs are allowed full voting rights; positions in Knesset;
employment rights, and for that matter, the freedom to be homosexual – the last,
in their own countries, grounds to be murdered.
While all evidence attests to Christians
having been driven out of Bethlehem by Muslims, the Working
Group asserts, in yet another misinformed allegation, that it was the
"occupation" that has driven out the Christians. The Hamas and the Palestinian
Authority in fact violated – and continue to violate -- the human rights of
Christians through beatings, intimidation, fire-bombings of their institutions,
torture, kidnapping, and sexual harassment, thus leading to their exodus from
Bethlehem: the very place honored as the birthplace of Christ.
In conclusion, the United Church working
group needs to do its homework along with some other Church groups that
condemn Israel. Israel is increasingly bullied by the
OIC-dominated United Nations, as well as surrounding enemies that have
historically sought its destruction. There are still many maps that exclude
Israel, including one which was displayed
at the U.N. and which was used to mark the commemoration of
"International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" on November 29,
2005. "The working group takes seriously questions about why Israel is
currently the only country in the world being challenged by a global boycott,
divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS)." In asserting this, the United Church
would do well to observe its own faith by remembering that Christ, too, was
ganged up against; so it is a moot argument to inquire why Israel is being
challenged by a global BDS movement -- that is unjust and reprehensible -- as
this small nation continues to fight for its existence.
6 comments:
"Israel's having taken this land in war" Against the law according to an agreement signed and ratified by Israel. The world did not force Israel to sign. Security? Why not stay behind the partitioned borders and put up the biggest wall manned by hundred's of thousands of soldiers using all weaponry available to protect Israel? Security? Why send settlers - another violation of law endorsed by Israel - deep into the heart of what Israel considers hostile territory? Your arguments are bogus. The only way you can pull this off is to declare the world as Jew haters and Israel as feeble victim. Which is what this article attempts.
Gerry thank you for taking time to read and reply to this argument. I note that you do not identify the "agreement" you refer to in your response-thus I am unable to directly comment. However, it is incorrect to say that Israel has signed any agreement re:land we took illegally. Exactly what "partitioned borders" do you mean? If you refer to the "1967 borders" than once again you are incorrect-there are no such "borders"-I can assume you do not know this or you do know this and are simply repeating "talking points". No, the Israeli citizens who choose to live in the disputed territories of Judea or Samaria are not illegal. Of course your arguments are based upon inaccurate and incorrect information.
"The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
Geneva Convention signed by Israel August 12, 1949, ratified by Israel June 7, 1951.
UN Charter:"All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter."
Israel is admitted as a member of the UN: "Noting furthermore the declaration by the State of Israel that it ‘unreservedly accepts the obligations of the United Nations Charter and undertakes to honour them from the day when it becomes a Member of the United Nations"
Borders: Res. 181 created the State of Israel by partitioning the territory. These borders were distinct. (ironically it was a unilateral ruling without negotiations with the people living on the land - exactly the complaint in regards to the Palestinian bid for UN membership).
The 1967 borders are distinct as well.
These agreements are not complicated. If Israel is faithful to its legal commitments she should abide by them.
Arguing the Occupied Territories belong to Israel based on possession thousands of years ago is a different story. The world would be quite a mess if everyone demanded land their ancestors lived on at some point during ancient history. If Israel relies on a Biblical claim she must realize such claims are selective. Almost anything can be justified by the Bible if one chooses some text and ignores others.
Israel does exist and should exist. If Israel claims the adherence to democratic principles she must accept the rule of law and treaties necessary for any democracy to be valid and not a cover for aggressive land grabs.
The law or the Bible? Choose one. Israel can't have it both ways.
Gerry, I welcome your reply.The UN was asked in 1947 to help resolve issues in the ME. The result was UN 181 [known as the 1947 Partition Plan], a non- binding recommendation to partition Palestine, whose implementation hinged
on acceptance by both parties – Arabs and Jews. The resolution was adopted on November 29, 1947 in the General Assembly by a vote of 33-12, with 10
abstentions. Among the supporters were the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as other nations including France and Australia. The Arab nations, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia denounced the plan on the General Assembly floor and voted as a bloc against Resolution 181 promising to defy its implementation by force.
The resolution recognized the need for immediate Jewish statehood (and a parallel Arab state), but the ‘blueprint’ for peace became a moot issue when the Arabs refused to accept it. Subsequently, de facto [In Latin: realities] on the ground in the wake of Arab aggression (and Israel’s survival) became the basis for UN efforts to bring peace. Resolution 181 then lost its validity and relevance.
Aware of Arabs’ past aggression, Resolution 181, in paragraph C, calls on the Security Council to:
“... determine as a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression, in accordance with Article 39 of the Charter, any attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution.” [italics by author]
The ones who sought to alter by force the settlement envisioned in Resolution 181 were the Arabs who threatened bloodshed if the United Nations was to adopt the Resolution.
You know of course that the Geneva Convention applies to cooperating sovereign nations. Your continued used of "Occupied Territories" is legally inaccurate but certainly the mantra of our enemies. By this acknowledgment you have also determined that this area is not property of a sovereign nation (no such country of Palestine) and thus the Geneva Conventions are not applicable-legally.
Finally, you repeat the "1967 borders" lie-you know it is an armistice line, if not I am happy to direct to the source. You mix UN 181 language with "talking points" language of our enemies, equate the two as the same-disingenuous at best. As you must know UN 181 is a non-binding resolution, it has no authority, legal or otherwise. Your last sentence demonstrates your ignorance of history and culture in this region.
I am ignorant of many things but not all things.
Resolution 181 stands. I know I won't change your mind because you can never accept the Partition Plan. But you can change mine mind.
Very simply. Show me the exact text, anywhere in any UN resolution or ruling that 181 has been withdrawn, rescinded, or revoked.
Show me anywhere in a UN ruling or resolution the resolution was contingent on both parties acceptance.
Show me anywhere in UN records that Palestinians were a participant in deciding 181.
The passage you quote from 181 does not render 181 null and void. "any attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution" will be dealt with by the Security Council. Force was used to try to alter it by someone but that doesn't alter the resolution.
The use of the term Occupied Territories is a term used by the UN. It's not a fabricated term invented by someone simply to slander Israel - unless you consider subsequent legal rulings and international law as slanderous - which you probably do.
Now, it's a different story if you consider 181 to have "lost its validity and relevance." That's ok, that's your opinion. Reject the Partition Plan and its ramifications but don't suggest it's position taken by the UN.
If the UN's rulings and resolutions are completely repugnant to you then don't bother using your time and energy interpreting the resolutions.
the 1967 Armistice line is a border, a demarcation separating one territory from another. It's a border but nothing you accept I'm sure. If there are no borders from 1948 or 1967 the territory is wide open.
I was wrong in the last sentence of my previous post. Zionists already use both ways. The land between the Nile and the Euphrates (I think that's the span) is Israel's according to their god. It seems like an absurd claim to me. But whatever.
Israel's attempts to claim ownership of the land using the law doesn't seem to work that well. Ancient text is in the wings ready to recite whenever necessary.
I admitted I'm ignorant in many things but I'm willing to learn. Show me in simple, clear and concise terms I'm wrong on 181. If you can't do be honest and simply admit the UN resolutions mean nothing to Israel.
I don't know much about "history and culture" but I do know what the difference is between right and wrong. Something very wrong is happening in a place that was clearly labeled on the map "Palestine." I don't see any place called Palestine on the map today.
First of all I appreciate the tone of our discussion -it is refreshing to not having the other side shout and deny-thank you. I acknowledge that UN 181 was and is known as the Partition Plan. Here is the legal distinction. This resolution originated in the General assembly and all resolutions emanating from this body are considered as only recommendations-the only "legal" resolutions emanate from the Security council. Now, our enemies know this and yet began a strategy decades ago to misrepresent this and so many other resolutions. They knew that their "arguments" would be reinforced by their carefully planned PR program as well as an ignorant (unknowing) Western population. Therefore, there is no legal basis for UN 181's positions. Thank you for being willing to learn-all the best-doc
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