UN Human Rights Council Fights to Lower Its Credibility

Apparently believing its credibility isn't already about as low as it could possibly be, the discredited United Nations Human Rights Council is holding another kangaroo court session next week. The following Associated Press article, with bracketed comments added, was published by the Jerusalem Post.

UNHRC calls emergency talks on Israel

The UN Human Rights Council will hold an emergency meeting next week to examine whether Israel is committing abuses in the Palestinian territories, officials said Friday.

[The Human Rights Council apparently believes it is an abuse for Israel to discourage the wanton murder of its people by Arab terrorists.]

The special session of the 47-member council was called after a petition was submitted by Syria and Pakistan, on behalf of Arab and Islamic countries, according to a UN memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The move, which was supported by 20 other countries, came as Israel blocked vital supplies from entering the Gaza Strip and launched air strikes against Hamas positions and other institutions, killing one operative and two civilians.

[For twenty years, Egypt and Jordan blocked "vital supplies" from entering Israel not only from the Gaza Strip, but also from the West Bank, from Jordan and from Egypt. Lebanon and Syria continue to block "vital supplies" from entering Israel. There is no record of the Human Rights Council holding any emergency meetings to examine whether those countries committed, and are continuing to commit, abuses in the Israeli territories.]

Palestinian Kassam rockets continued to be fired into southern Israel, including one that damaged a day care center Friday.

[For the Human Rights Council, it is not an abuse to try to murder Israeli pre-schoolers.]

The council session, scheduled for Wednesday, will "consider and take action on human rights violations emanating from Israeli military incursions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including the recent ones in occupied Gaza and the West Bank town of Nablus," the memo said.

[The Human Rights Council is apparently unaware that Israel pulled completely out of Gaza more than two years ago. It is also apparently unaware that Nablus is under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.]

Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva expressed disappointment.

"I don't think that this is very helpful now for the peace process in the Middle East," Itzhak Levanon said.

The council, which lacks enforcement powers, was created in March 2006 to replace the widely discredited and highly politicized Human Rights Commission. The new body has suffered from similar criticism, including that it spends an excessive amount of time focusing on Israel, which it has denounced in a series of resolutions.

The US Senate voted in September to cut off funding to the council, accusing it of bias.

[The Human Rights Council is fast surpassing the dismal record of the Human Rights Commission and has become one of the world's leading proponents of the abuse of human rights.]

Israel-PLO agreements contain no prohibition whatsoever on the building or expansion of settlements

This comes from the Israeli Israel Ministry of Foreign Affair. It's a reminder there's nothing illegal about Jews living in the disputed territories and the issue of "illegal settlements" is really an internal, Israeli affair, since they are only illegal in the sense of not being formally authorized by the government.

Whether or not Jews, like Arabs, are building homes in the disputed territories is not a legitimate issue for discussion. Protests by the Palestinian Authority and appeasement of those protests by the American government only sidetract everyone from the core issues, primarily the continued unwillingness of the Palestinian Arabs to accept the reality of Israel.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are legal both under international law and the agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. Claims to the contrary are mere attempts to distort the law for political purposes. Yet whatever the status of the settlements, their existence should never be used to justify terrorism.

The Palestinians often claim that settlement activity is illegal and call on Israel to dismantle every settlement. In effect, they are demanding that every Jew leave the West Bank, a form of ethnic cleansing. By contrast, within Israel, Arabs and Jews live side-by-side; indeed, Israeli Arabs, who account for approximately 20% of Israel's population, are citizens of Israel with equal rights.

The Palestinian call to remove all Jewish presence from the disputed territories is not only discriminatory and morally reprehensible; it has no basis either in law or in the agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.

The various agreements reached between Israel and the Palestinians since 1993 contain no prohibitions on the building or expansion of settlements. On the contrary, they specifically provide that the issue of settlements is reserved for permanent status negotiations, which are to take place in the concluding stage of the peace talks. The parties expressly agreed that the Palestinian Authority has no jurisdiction or control over settlements or Israelis, pending the conclusion of a permanent status agreement.

It has been charged that the provision contained in the Israel-Palestinian Interim Agreement prohibiting unilateral steps that alter the status of the West Bank implies a ban on settlement activity. This position is disingenuous. The prohibition on unilateral measures was designed to ensure that neither side take steps that would change the legal status of this territory (such as by annexation or a unilateral declaration of statehood), pending the outcome of permanent status talks. The building of homes has no effect on the final permanent status of the area as a whole. Were this prohibition to be applied to building, it would lead to the unreasonable interpretation that neither side is permitted to build houses to accommodate the needs of their respective communities.

As the Israeli claim to these territories is legally valid, it is just as legitimate for Israelis to build their communities as it is for the Palestinians to build theirs. Yet in the spirit of compromise, successive Israeli governments have indicated their willingness to negotiate the issue and have adopted a voluntary freeze on the building of new settlements as a confidence-building measure.

What They Really Want

As If We Didn't Know

This is something posted on the "End Israel Apartheid" web site. It again demonstrates the anti-Israel forces aren't interested in peace but are motivated by a desire to eliminate Israel. The bracketed annotations are not from their web site but have been added for this blog entry.

Israel Apartheid Week 2008

February 3 – 10
60 Years of Nakba: End Israeli Apartheid

[For the Israel-haters, the real source of their passion is the re-establishment of Israel.]

Dear Friends:

We invite you to take part in the global week of activities, Israeli Apartheid Week, to be held on campuses across the world from 3 - 10 February 2008. Israeli Apartheid Week will be taking place for the fourth consecutive year. It will be a week-long series of events held concurrently in Canada, the U.S, U.K, South Africa, and Palestine.

The past few years have seen an explosion of literature and analysis that has placed Israel alongside other settler-colonial states like South Africa, arguing that Israel is in fact an apartheid state, not just a belligerent occupying power.

[Israel, of course, is neither, having been re-established by descendants of people who were there far before the Palestinian Arabs came there. Israel is the only state in the region that gives all its citizens equal rights. The equality it affords its citizens stands in sharp contrast to the Palestinian Authority, for which selling land to Jews is a capital crime.

The Palestinian Authority aspires to something even worse than an apartheid state; it aspires to being a state totally judenrein.

Making false accusations against Israel, indeed, falsely accusing Israel of sins of which the Palestinian Arabs themselves are guilty, is standard operating procedure for the Israel-haters.]

Prominent Palestinians, Israeli anti-Zionists, and South Africans have been at the forefront of these efforts. At the same time, an international divestment campaign has gained momentum in response to a statement issued in July 2005 by over 170 Palestinian grassroots and civil society organizations calling for boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel. Important gains have recently been made in this global campaign.

The aim of Israeli Apartheid Week is to push forward the analysis of Israel as an apartheid state and to bolster support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign in accordance with the demands outlined in the July 2005 Statement: full equality for Arab citizens of Israel, an end to the occupation and colonization of the West Bank and Gaza, and the implementation of the right of return and compensation for Palestinian refugees pursuant to UN resolution 194.

[Israel's Arab citizens already have full legal rights.

There is no "colonization" of the disputed territories and the end to any so-called "occupation" awaits the willingness of the Palestinian Arabs to agree to a division of the disputed territories. Israel cannot determine their disposition by itself.

There is no "right of return" and the compensation for refugees, Jewish and Arab, must be agreed upon as part of a peace agreement, something Israel's Arab enemies continue to refuse.]

Israeli Apartheid Week began with these objectives in Toronto almost 4 years ago. It was a big success that received the attention of media worldwide. Last year, several other university campuses across Canada and the UK joined together and organized a coordinated Israeli Apartheid Week. This year, still more campuses have pledged to participate.

The analysis of apartheid put forward during Israeli Apartheid Week in previous years has played an important role in raising awareness and disseminating information about Zionism, the Palestinian liberation struggle, and its similarities and differences with the indigenous sovereignty struggle in North America and the South African anti-Apartheid movement.

Our events are united by an analysis of Israel as an apartheid state, commitment to the Palestinian right of return, opposition to all forms of racism, and solidarity with oppressed people across the globe. In North America (Turtle Island), we have attempted to highlight the central importance of solidarity with indigenous people of the continent. The simultaneous events across the globe make a powerful statement against Israeli apartheid.

[Their entire project is an exercise in racism.]

The 2008 Israeli Apartheid Week takes place on the 60th Anniversary of Al Nakba; 60 years of ethnic cleansing and exile for Palestinians.

[They don't refer to forty years, but sixty years; it's not anything Israel has done which they oppose, but the fact that Israel exists.]

For the first time IAW will also be occurring at universities in the West Bank. Activities vary from campus to campus, consisting of guest lectures, demonstrations, cultural events and film nights.

We would like to invite your organization to participate in IAW by organizing an event or series of activities for IAW 2008. It can be as little as one lecture or as much as a full week's activities. The events will be listed on the IAW website, endisraeliapartheid.net Please contact us at.. if you would like to be part of these activities, tell us a little bit about your organization and what type of event(s) you might organize between 3 February - 10 February.

Join us in making 2008 a year of resistance to Israeli apartheid.
The refugees will return!

[There are today perhaps a few thousand refugees left from those who left Israel when it was invaded by the surrounding Arab states. The youngest of them are sixty years old and have no recollection of ever living in Israel.

I suspect Israel would readily agree to the immigration any of the remaining refugees, provided they were willing to become loyal citizens of Israel.

The writer, however, is not referring only to refugees, but is referring to descendants of refugees and no state is going to the immigration of millions of hostile strangers.]

Contact: saia@riseup.net.

[I wouldn't bother. This was posted just as a reminder of with whom and what Israel and its supporters have to deal.]

Blaming Israel for the Consequences of Arab Aggression and Terrorism

This was distributed by the Palestinian (Mis)information Center and was taken from The People's Voice.

It's an excellent example of a general strategy used by haters of Israel — falesly accusing Israel of the sins of which the Palestinian Arabs and their supporters are guilty.

Comments have been interspersed within brackets.

Christians, too, suffer the evilness of the occupation

From Khalid Amayreh in Bethlehem

Christmas is a season of good will. However, for Israel and its notoriously mendacious propaganda machine, Christmas is also a hasbara opportunity for spreading lies and disseminating disinformation and half truths about Christians in the Holy Land.

[He starts right out by accusing Israel of doing precisely what he is doing with this very article.]

The usual seasonal dosage of lies includes such claims that Christians in the Holy Land suffer more from Muslim persecution than from the Israeli and apartheid, and that Christian emigration is not really attributed to Israel’s Nazi-like repression of the Palestinian people but rather to Palestinian “Muslim” intolerance and violence.

[What a mouthful! He manages, in a single paragraph, to lump Israel with both South Africa and Nazi Germany. Goebbels would be proud of him.

Of course, it is the Palestinian Authority which has something worse than apartheid as one of its demands: the complete ethnic cleansing of the Jews from all of the disputed territories.]

Well, such lies are not new. Israel itself is a state based on lies and lying has always been and continues to be Israel’s policy and modus operandi. In fact, it is very hard for one to be Zionist and not to be a liar. In truth, Zionism and mendacity are two sides of the same coin.

[One of the benefits advocates for Israel have over the Israel-haters is that we do not have to lie and distort to make our case.]

Didn’t Zionism claim that Palestine was a land without a people for a people without a land?

[No. Although Eretz Yisrael was sparsely populated, nobody claimed it was empty.]

Didn’t Zionism claim that Palestinian refugees fled their homes and towns willingly and that Israel was in no way responsible for their flight?

[Most of the refugees, who at that time insisted they were not Palestinians, left either because they were encouraged to leave by the invading Arab armies or because of the natural violent chaos of the war. Most of those who are now called refugees aren't really refugees; rather, they are the descendants of refugees who should have been resettled more than a half-century ago.]

Didn’t Israel tell the world that the Israeli occupation army was the most moral army in the world, and that Israeli soldiers didn’t knowingly and deliberately kill Palestinian children and civilians, &hellips;

[Of course.]

&hellips; and that the numerous acts of murder and maiming by the Israeli army were merely regrettable accidents?

[As with all armies, not everyone who has served in the Israeli army has been an angel, but the adjective "numerous" is a gross exaggeration.]

And even now, and despite Israel’s nakedness before the peoples of the world, this shameless state and its professional liars and spin doctors continue to claim ad nauseam that Israel is a democratic state where the rule of law is supreme.

[It's hard for Amayreh to accept the truth.]

Well, do democratic states act and behave the way Israel is acting and behaving? Do democratic states classify citizens and subjects into Ubermensch and untermensch?

[Yes and no. When did Amayreh stop beating his wife?]

I know for sure that our Christian-Palestinian brothers and sisters shall never allow Israel to use them as hasbara pawns in the service of oppression, racism and ethnic cleansing.

The Christians of Palestine, who have received their share of suffering and oppression at the hands of Zionism know more than anybody else that the wickedness of the occupation doesn’t distinguish between them and their Muslim compatriots.

[The so-called occupation ended more than a decade ago, when the Palestinian Authority took over the administration of the areas in which almost all the Palestinian Arabs resided. Unfortunately, when Yassir Arafat rejected peace and launched a terrorist war, he forced Israel to defend itself. The consequences for the Palestinian Arabs haven't been pleasant, but their the result of their own terrorist war, not occupation.]

In November, 1948, the Hagana terrorists overran the two Christian villages of Ikrit and Birim in the upper Galilee, expelling inhabitants at gunpoint. The pogrom-like expulsion was carried out without the Israeli government approval. However, the democratic Israeli state never allowed the Christian inhabitants to return, despite several rulings to the contrary by the Israeli High Court.

Since 1967, Israel, has been trying to play all kinds of dirty tactics to tamper with Palestinian national unity, especially by playing Muslim against Christian and vice versa.

[In Gaza, where Israel has no presence and no control, the Muslim rulers seem to have no trouble harassing and even murdering Christians without any help from Israel.]

A few years ago, the Israeli Intelligence instructed its agents to throw stones and Molotov cocktails on several churches in the northern and central parts of the West Bank, apparently in order to use the incidents as hasbara ammunition in North America where public opinion was already overcharged against anything Arab or Islamic.

[Anti-Israel propagandists constantly fabricate nonsensical charges, which by their very nature are difficult to un-categorically deny. This sounds like one of them.]

Meanwhile, the Israeli media, especially right-wing newspapers such as the Jerusalem Post, was concocting and inventing stories about Christian girls being raped and murdered by Palestinians in Bethlehem.

Such fabrications would be readily inflated, spun out of proportions and then widely disseminated especially among evangelical fundamentalists. Eventually, this would be translated into political support for Israeli colonialism and ethnic cleansing against both Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land.

Of course, many innocent and often naïve Americans and Canadians have no idea what kind of treatment is being meted out to Christians in the West Bank at the hands of Israeli occupiers.

[Actually, the sad fact is that many have no idea of the kind of harassment Christians in the disputed territories are suffering from at the hands of Muslim fanatics.]

They don’t know that Israel is systematically stealing, at gunpoint, Church property and real estate in Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahur and Jerusalem.

[Of course they don't know this, since it's a fabrication.]

They don’t know that Israel routinely bars Christians, laymen and clergy, from accessing their holy places in Jerusalem, e.g. the Church of the Sepulcher.

[During nineteen years of Jordanian occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem, Jews were totally barred from their holy places, including the Western Wall and Temple Mount. When Israel came into possession of Jerusalem, people of all faiths finally had free and easy access.

Arab terrorism has forced Israel to undertake security measures, but any difficulties anyone is having is a consequence of Arab terrorism, not any Israeli effort to deny access.]

They don’t know that Israeli Jewish youths routinely harass, even spit on clergymen in the streets of Jerusalem, often in full view of policemen who in most cases remain passive.

[There are some fanatical, generally anti-Zionist Jews who act in vulgar ways. They also spit on Jews who desecrate the Sabbath. It's obnoxious, but I don't find it as bad as Palestinian Arabs who get their thrills from murdering Israelis.]

They don’t know that Christian commuters are routinely humiliated at roadblocks manned by trigger-happy soldiers, which make their daily lives an unending nightmare?

[End the terror and the roadblocks will be removed. Most soldiers try to minimize the inconvenience caused. As with all armies, there are some soldiers who don't act appropriately.]

They don’t know that Israel has already morphed Bethlehem into a ghetto thanks to this Wall of Shame which Israel calls “separation wall” when in reality it is designed to grab and steal as much Palestinian land as possible.

[If Israel was trying to use the anti-terror barrier to grab land, it would have built it to bring far more land on the Israeli side.]

Well, just come to Bethlehem and see for yourself. It is a nightmare, it is hell on earth, and it is done by a people who claim to be a light upon the nations.

[It's done by the Arab terrorists, not Israel.]

If Christians in North America knew how Israel is acting and behaving toward their fellow Christian coreligionists and, of course, toward other Palestinians, they probably would start to change their views.

[They certainly won't find out how Israel is acting from the lies and distortions in Amayreh's writing.]

That is why it is imperative that Christians, especially in North America, make some serious efforts to know the truth about Israel and its crimes.

[See above.]

This can be done through third-party sources such as human rights organizations and western groups operating in the West Bank such as the Christian Peace Making Team and the International Solidarity Movement.

In short, Israeli and pro-Israeli media wouldn’t tell the truth about Israeli crimes against Palestinians, Muslim and Christian alike. So try to find alternative sources of news to know the truth about what is really happening in the Holy Land.

Don’t allow yourself to be duped and enslaved by Zionist lies.

[As I said at the beginning, one of the general strategies of the anti-Israel activists is to accuse Israel and its supporters of the sins for which they themselves are guilty.

Certainly, it is to be hoped intelligent people won't be swayed by the lies spread by the Palestinian (Mis)information Center and Amayreh.]

Why Keep Releasing Terrorists When They Turn Around and Kill Again?

The article following these comments appeared online at YNet News.

If there had been a one-time release of prisoners as part of a general agreement, it could be understood. Unfortunately, it's been done time-and-time again, with the same negative results each time: a significant portion of the released prisoners return to terrorism and people die.

Is sounds and it feels cold-blooded, but getting freedom for a hostage this way is just too high a price. Not only do the released terrorists kill again, but it encourages further hostage-takings.

The Israeli government must insist Gilad, Ehud and Eldad be released unconditionally. Their release should be the subject of all discussions with the Palestinian Authority and no concessions of any type should be made until they are free.

Bereaved parents oppose release of prisoners with 'blood on their hands'

Several families send letter to Prime Minister Olmert in which they express their opposition to relaxing constraints on prisoner release policies
Roni Lifshitz

Representatives of parents who have lost loved ones in terror attacks sent Prime Minister Ehud Olmert a letter on Monday expressing their opposition to any change in prisoner release policies which would enable murderers to be set free.

The bereaved were assisted by Almagor, an organization that represents victims of terrorism.

The ministerial committee which took up the issue of relaxing constraints on prisoner release procedures to allow terrorists with "blood on their hands" to be freed, will meet to discuss this issue again on
Wednesday.

Shmuel Landau, whose son Ronen was murdered in a shooting in a northern Jerusalem neighborhood in 2001, told Ynet on Monday: "The public is very opposed to the release of terrorists.

"I think that there should not be any freeing of terrorists at all, but we would be satisfied if only terrorists with blood on their hands were not released – especially (jailed Fatah leader Marwan) Barghouti."He was tried and imprisoned and he should sit in prison all of his life. He's not just a terrorist but a terrorist leader.

"The public also needs to know that there is opposition to setting terrorists free, they need to know those that are released return to their evil ways."

Moshe Har-Melech, whose son Shuli was also killed in a shooting four-and-a-half year ago, added: "I am making a fuss for the people that will, heaven forbid, be killed by the same terrorists that are about to be released. "Why am I making a fuss in the place of others? Because others don't feel what I feel.

"My son was killed four years ago during the hudna. He was killed by weapons that (former Prime Minister Shimon) Peres and (former Prime Minister Yitzhak) Rabin gave out during those criminals' time (in office) and then they said that it was so (the Palestinians) could take care of their criminals themselves.

It turns out that they turned the weapons towards us and killed us."

Let's Talk About What's Really Unhelpful

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have ganged up on Israel for having the audacity to build housing for its citizens in its capital, with both falsely calling it "unhelpful."

According to a Reuters article Rice chides Israel on new home-building plan:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Israel on Friday its plan to build 300 housing units in east Jerusalem threatened US-backed efforts to reach peace with Palestinians.

"We are in a time when the goal is to build maximum confidence with the parties and this doesn't help to build confidence," she said in rare US criticism of Israel.

"There should not be anything which might prejudge final-status negotiations," Rice said after talks with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on the sidelines of a NATO meeting.

In an Agence France-Presse story UN chief: Israel's settlement expansion plan 'not helpful', the UN Secretary General further piled it on the Middle East's only democracy.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday said Israel's decision to expand a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem was "not helpful" and he would discuss the matter with his partners in the diplomatic Quartet for Middle East peace.

"The UN position on the illegality of settlements is well known," he told reporters.

"This new tender for 300 new homes in east Jerusalem so soon after this Annapolis Middle East peace conference, I think, is not helpful," he added, referring to a recent US-hosted peace summit.

"I will be discussing this matter with my Quartet partners."

But the Palestine Liberation Organization's powerful executive committee issued a statement in which it blasted the expansion project as a "serious violation" and called on the United States and the UN Security Council to put pressure on Israel.

I'd like to mention a few things that really are unhelpful.

• Pandering to Arab extremism is unhelpful.
  
  Criticizing Israel for building homes in its capital is pandering to Arab extremism and is most unhelpful.
  
  There is clearly zero probability that Har Homa and other Jewish neighborhoods would be given to the Palestinian Arabs. Pretending otherwise only feeds absurdly unrealistic hopes to the contrary and lowers the probability of the Arabs accepting the existence of Israel, which is the major requirement needed for peace.
• The showering of Israeli towns, particularly Sderot, with thousands of Kassam missiles is unhelpful.
  
  If the interlocutors which to be truly helpful, they might work on civilizing Hamas, although they might have a slightly easier job starting with Fatah.
• Pressuring one side to freeze construction in the disputed territories while turning a blind eye to the other side carrying on massive construction is unhelpful.
  
  Connected to this is:
• Ignoring the seminal United Nations Resolutions and agreements between the parties.
  
  The Armistice Agreements signed in 1949 specifically stated the Green Line was not to prejudice negotiations over permanent borders. United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 call for negotiations to determine secure borders.
  
  Acting as if the Green Line should be the basis of any negotiations subverts both the letter and intent of both. If nothing else, it lessens confidence that any future agreements will be honored. (Of course, since the Palestinian Arabs have yet to honor any of their agreements, that confidence can't get much lower anyway.)
• Pretending Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, is a moderate interested in peace is not helpful.
  
  He may wear a suit, but the Holocaust denier who serves as leader of the Palestinian Authority has shown no inclination to compromise, a prerequisite for peace. Both the PLO and Fatah, Abu Mazen's PLO faction, continue to call for the destruction of Israel is their charters.

The list could go on and on.

The major point is everyone is pressuring the wrong side.

The Palestinian Arabs don't need their confidence raised; they need it to be lowered. They already know that they'll get their own independent state in most of the disputed territory whenever they choose to join the civilized world; the need is to get them to finally believe continuing their quest to destroy Israel will be counterproductive.

On the other hand, Israel has no basis for confidence in the Palestinian Arabs adhering to any agreement they make. It is also the Palestinian Arabs who continue with unhelpful actions, of which terrorism is just the beginning. The various interlocutors ought to start pressuring the Palestinian Arabs to make some confidence building gestures.

Who Should Own the Golan?

The only legitimate argument for transferring large portions of the disputed territories in Judea, Samaria and Gaza to the Palestinian Arabs is the fact that they are largely populated by people who don't want to live in Israel but want to be part of an Arab state.

If one accepts that argument and favors the transfer of disputed territories to the Palestinian Arabs, then unless one applies a double standard one must accept the reality that much or all of the Golan Heights, depending on the preferences of the Druze and Muslims living there, should remain with Israel.

The Golan Heights has, for all practical purposes, been part of Israel for longer than it was ever part of Syria. It was, at the time of the Balfour Declaration, considered to be part of Palestine and then intended as part of the future Jewish state. It was only because of a territorial trade between colonial powers Britain and France that the Golan Heights was temporarily attached to the territory that became Syria.

In effect, Syria took the Golan Heights from Israel before Israel took it back in 1967.

Additionally, just as the fact that Judea, Samaria and Gaza were supposed to be part of Israel doesn't trump the reality that the Palestinian Arabs living there don't want to be part of Israel - nor the reality that the Jews living there certainly don't want to be part of a Palestinian Arab state, the fact that the Golan Heights were part of Syria for a short time doesn't trump the reality that the Jews living there don't want to be part of Syria.

The residents of the Golan Heights should decide what state should have sovereignty. If they are fairly evenly split, then the Golan should be divided between Israel and Syria; if they overwhelmingly prefer to be part of Israel, then they and the bulk of the Golan Heights should remain with Israel.

Anything else would amount to a double standard and a denial and justice.

Settling Sovereignty

Most people take it for granted that most of the disputed territories must ultimately end up under control of the Palestinian Arabs. For many Israelis, the determining factor is the need to maintain the character of their state as the homeland of the Jewish people while simultaneously maintaining Israel as a democracy.

This may explain why Israelis want to rid themselves of parts of the disputed territories, but it doesn't explain why anyone else would, with the exception of those enemies who really just want Israel to disappear completely.

Historically, Israel certainly has a greater connection to those territories than anyone else.

Legally, those territories were part of the British Mandate over Palestine, intended by the League of Nations to be the Jewish Homeland. Since the Arabs rejected the United Nations Partition Plan, making that proposal null and void, the Palestinian Arabs can't make a claim based on the Partition Plan.

The only legitimate basis for a claim for any of that territory by the Palestinian Arabs is the purely practical one that, for whatever reason, many of them now live there and should have the right to choose their own government and should not be forced to move.

By the same logic, the Israelis living in portions of those territories, for whatever reason, should have the right to choose their own government and should not be forced to move.

In other words, the logic behind any legitimate territorial claims by the Palestinian Arabs also further legitimizes territorial claims by Israelis, leading to a division of the disputed territories.

It's worth emphasizing that's a division, not a swap. There's no legal, historical or moral reason for "compensating" the Palestinian Arabs for not giving them all the disputed territories by also giving them parts of what has been part of Israel since 1948 -- unless Jordan was going to compensate Israel for the portions of the disputed territories given to the Palestinian Arabs by giving Israel parts of what has been part of Jordan during the same period.

Much of the same reasoning applies to the Golan Heights; more on that another day.

Palestinian Arab Hypocrisy

According to the New York Times, with the release of funds to the Palestinian Authority now that it has been separated from Hamas, "more than 150,000 Palestinian Authority civil servants and security force members loyal to the new emergency government appointed by President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah will receive a full monthly salary on Wednesday from Palestinian money for the first time in 17 months."

On the other hand, "about 20,000 public sector employees allied with the Hamas-led government of Ismail Haniya, whom Mr. Abbas fired as prime minister, will not be paid from the authority coffers."

When Israel refused to give the Palestinian Authority money with which it would have paid Hamas terrorists, Abbas was harshly critical, as he was of others in the international community who refused to directly fund a Hamas-led government. Now Abbas is essentially doing the same thing.

This hypocrisy is not really surprising; Israel's enemies have never been shy about accusing Israel of actions they themselves are guilty of.

The Answer is Blowin' in the Wind

With Hamas capturing weapons we've (foolishly) supplied to Fatah, we're now effectively arming both sides in the uncivil war going on between those terrorist groups.

We can expect at least some of those weapons to wind up being used against civilians in Israel.

We seem to get things backwards. In 1967, when Israel was facing well-armed Arab enemies on all fronts, we embargoed arms to both sides, effectively letting others arm the Arabs while Israel faced a world-wide embargo.

Now, when we should be embargoing arms to all the Arab terror groups, we're effectively arming all of them.

When will we ever learn?