New Zealand's Mercenary Motives for Its UN Vote against Israel

See UPDATING at bottom of page

In the 20th and 21st centuries, Peace is the refuge of scoundrels. It is the excuse for all sorts of aggressive diplomatic moves and sometimes it is even the excuse for military attacks. In September 1939, after Nazi Germany and the Communist Soviet Union, under Hitler and Stalin respectively had invaded Poland and while the ruins were still burning, both of these aggressor powers issued a joint statement that they were engaged in a "struggle for peace." Likewise, after the racist anti-Jewish vote at the Security Council, the White House spokesman, Ben Rhodes claimed that US abstention --effective support for the racist anti-Israel resolution, which he acknowledged-- was meant to help bring peace. Nothing new under the sun.

No doubt New Zealand would make that same claim, perhaps adding a devotion to justice. But maybe there were other motives for New Zealand's bigoted vote at the UN SC. Indeed, a New Zealand foreign policy expert explained the business advantages that New Zealand would receive on account of this mendacious pro-Arab vote. An item on the site of Radio New Zealand on 25 December 2016 tells us: 

New Zealand's role in promoting a UN Security Council resolution against Israel may have some economic payoff, a foreign policy analyst says.

The expert, one Steve Hoadley, reassures his countrymen that New Zealand will not suffer from any Israeli retaliation on account of the vote:

"New Zealand also trades with the Arab states, is about to sign a free trade agreement with the Gulf Co-operation Council. There's huge profits being made to export lamb and other dairy products, other food products to the Arab states. If there was to be a big trade payoff, the calculations would be in favour of going with the Arab and the Muslim countries."  [emphasis added]

So there is big money to be made by New Zealand in trade with Arab and Muslim countries.
OK. Make your money but don't tell us you are acting in the name of peace and justice. Nevertheless, a commentator, also on Radio New Zealand, praises his country as a "peacemaker":

A few years ago, after the successful Bougainville peace talks, New Zealand imagined a role for itself as an international peace broker. It was a nice idea that turned out to be harder than it sounded, but it marked an increased New Zealand confidence to act independently, for good purpose.This week's action is a further brave step from New Zealand. It has no obvious ulterior motives, but instead seems an attempt to simply do the right thing. [emph. added; Phil Smith, Radio New Zealand, 24 December 2016]

It seems that our two commentators contradict each other. Was the vote made for mercenary benefit or for the sake of  ''peace" and the "right thing"? Maybe they would claim for both reasons and say that there is no contradiction. But New Zealand has been selling sheep, both already butchered and live --for certain Muslim festivals that require a sheep be slaughtered on the spot-- to the Arabs for many many years, and after all a country needs a market. Even a country that is the epitome of a European colony founded far away from Europe in a land which Europeans had never seen let alone lived in until a few hundred years ago (unlike Israel, a land where Jewish roots go back thousands of years) and is now settled in its overwhelming majority by European settlers.

They say that New Zealand is very English, maybe more English than England itself is today. One thing that the New Zealanders brought with them from Europe is hypocrisy. A good European should never be without some egregious and saccharine sweet sanctimonious hypocrisy.
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UPDATING
12-28-2016 New Zealand Herald (13 November 2016) reported that Kerry was in the New Zealand capital in mid-November talking with the prime minister and foreign minister. New Zealand is a strong partisan of the Arabs. For those concerned about such things New Zealand is a European, British colony. As I wrote above, it is "a country that is the epitome of a European colony founded far away from Europe in a land which Europeans had never seen let alone lived in until a few hundred years ago (unlike Israel, a land where Jewish roots go back thousands of years) and is now settled in its overwhelming majority by European settlers." The New Zealanders, who belong to a colony, have no shame criticizing Israel for building settlements. Here is what is important in the article from 13 November 2016:

One of the closed-door discussions between United States Secretary of State John Kerry and the New Zealand Government today was a potential resolution by the United Nations Security Council on a two-state solution for the Israel - Palestinian conflict. After the talks, Foreign Minister Murray McCully even raised the possibility of the US or New Zealand sponsoring a resolution.

So Kerry and the NZ foreign minister discussed sponsoring a pro-Arab resolution. This contradicts US government spokesman Mark Toner who shamefully lied when denying any US collusion in the resolution produced in the Security Council the other day.

Will France Betray Decency Again -- After Being Rewarded for Past Betrayals in True Arab/Muslim Manner?

A couple of weeks ago, the French parliament, the Assemblee Nationale, voted in favor of the unjust idea of an Arab state in the Land of Israel to be named "Palestine."  The  resolution was pushed through by the socialists, communists and ecofreaks [les verts].

 A few days later, on  Saturday. a week ago, a jihadist went into a police station in a Paris suburb and stabbed several policemen before being shot dead by another policeman.  The next day, a jihadist ran over a dozen or more people walking on the sidewalks of the city of Dijon in several different places. The day after that, another jihadist ran over people attending an outdoors Christmas fair in the city of Nantes, killing one victim and wounding many others. The jihadist driver knew that he would find Christians, unbelievers, kufar, at the Xmas fair. So we see how France was rewarded for its pro-PLO, pro-Arab, pro-Muslim gesture.

Now, despite the negative rewards France received from Muslim jihadists, French diplomats said before the Security Council vote that they would vote "consistent" with their views. As it turned out France voted for a wild and destructive and arrogant Arab resolution put forth by the Arab states at the behest of the PLO/PA government which siphons off a good share of the massive foreign aid for the PA ["Palestinian Authority"] into the pockets of individuals close to the plate in the PA, including Mahmud Abbas himself.

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Watch-Live-UN-begins-vote-on-Palestinian-demand-for-Israeli-withdrawal-386201

How can we explain France's position? Since the eve of the Six Day War, when De Gaulle clearly stated his pro-Arab stance as Nasser and other Arab leaders openly threatened Israel with mass murder, as a mob of  millions marched through Cairo waving the skull and crossbones flag (the flag of death), France has been pro-Arab and basically anti-Israel. That might explain a pro-Arab, anti-Israel vote. But the present resolution at the Security Council dispenses with real negotiations  and makes demands on Israel of an imbalanced, unilateral nature. France has never gone so far in that direction.

Why has France now gone even further in the pro-Arab direction to the point that France voted with Russia and China?

Think of French President Francois Hollande's domestic situation. During the last presidential election campaign [spring 2012] his socialist party issued a manifesto containing some 58 promises to the French people. He and his party must have known during the election campaign that there was no money for the pie in the sky promises and that they could not be kept. In 2014, we know that the French economic situation is a disaster, even worse now than under Sarkozy. The promises of economic improvement as well as of additional social welfare could not be fulfilled. France does not have the money for more social welfare and cannot make reforms to improve the economy and cannot get sufficient help from other Eurozone states to overcome the German mania for austerity, which has been a very destructive factor for almost all of the Eurozone.  The only promise Hollande kept out of the 58 was to recognize or legalize gay marriage. Most French people are fed up with him. His approval ratings are lower than Obama's, about 15%. France's economic growth rate is about zero or maybe a fraction above zero. He is a failure. So he flails around looking for an issue where he can show how strong and decisive he is.

 

Then he looks at the French population and sees at least 10% Muslims. Indeed, one "thinker" (Pascal Boniface), one of the intellectual leaders of  the Socialist Party, recommended years ago that the  party cultivate the Arab vote and support the "palestinians" since there were more Arabs and more Muslims in France than Jews. That  way  the party was sure to get the Arab vote. The PLO representative in France, one Leila Shahid, supposedly a granddaughter of the Nazi mufti Amin el-Husseini, is popular on TV in France and is given free rein to incite anti-Jewish as well as anti-Israel hatred.

 So Hollande may have decided to vote for the Arab/PLO resolution at the Security Council for domestic reasons: In order to make France and himself look relevant and to ingratiate himself and the socialists with the Arab/Muslim vote in France. Add to what we can expect from Hollande the fact that his father was a Vichyite. 

What we don't know is how the Arabs/Muslims in France will reward Hollande. Now, that France has voted at the Security Council in favor of an outrageous pro-PLO/PA Arab proposed resolution, maybe the days to come will bring more Muslim and Arab rewards for France.

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1-4-2015 Here is an earlier post on Emet m'Tsiyon about an earlier French betrayal of Israel, another betrayal by Hollande's government [here]
1-6-2015 Here is an article on the persecution of Jews in France which became a major threat about 14 years ago. The article seems to have been published  in  2004 [here]

Mahmud Abbas Starts New Anti-Israel Blood Libel

Mahmud Abbas and his "Palestinian Authority" started another blood libel smear against Israel. In the Middle  Ages in Europe Jews were sometimes accused of murdering a Christian, typically a boy before puberty,  to use his blood for ritual purposes. This is the ritual murder libel and such accusations often led to mob violence against Jews. Muslims traditionally didn't need such elaborate accusations to hate Jews --or Christians for that matter-- or to take to violence against them. Non-Muslims in Muslim states, the dhimmis, were not allowed to cast any doubt on the Muslim religion or to defy Muslim rule. The mere charge of blasphemy is enough to incite Muslims to kill kufar [= unbelievers]. We see that still today Muslims in places like Pakistan still strike out at non-Muslims on grounds of blasphemy against Islam, even if the charge is false. Likewise the charge by Abbas that Jews who merely go up on the Temple Mount contaminate that holy place. The charge does not have to be murder or anything close. But Christian bigots needed a false charge of murder.

The "Palestinian Authority" ruled by Abu Mazen [Abbas] has been supplying its population with pretexts for murdering Jews for several months now.  Jews "contaminating" the Temple Mount by going up on it has been enough to incite violence against Jews, even murder of Jews. The Jews' mere presence on the Temple Mount is contaminating, Abbas says. But in order to bring Christians to support the PA/PLO, Abbas is now furnishing them with libels of murder by Jews. That is what happened after the PA official in charge of opposing Israel's anti-terrorist protection wall [a fence for most of its length] and of opposing Jewish settlements in Judea-Samaria flew into a rage in a demonstration against the wall/fence and then had a heart attack. Israeli soldiers were charged with killing him by beating him with a rifle butt or hitting with tear gas cannisters or using tear gas that he inhaled. Even silly Cathy Ashton's silly replacement as foreign affairs commissioner on the European Commission, Signora Federica Mogherini, demanded an investigation of the death of this PA official Ziyad Abu `Ayn.

Who is Ziyad Abu `Ayn? He is a convicted terrorist who back in 1979 placed a bomb in the marketplace in Tiberias, Israel, killing two Jewish children. Now over fifty years old, Abu `Ayn was a PA official in charge up till now the PA official in charge of opposing Jews moving into Judea-Samaria and of opposing the anti-terrorist wall/fence. He was reported in HaArets to have had hypertension, a condition which predisposes people to have heart attacks. And he was seen at one point clutching his chest after collapsing. That too is a sign of heart disease.

Abu `Ayn was not killed by Israeli forces. He was not beaten by Israeli forces, although he was clearly trying to provoke them. And he did not die from tear gas inhalation, which in any case is almost impossible when tear gas is used out of doors.

Here is the testimony of Ro'i Sharon, an Israeli reporter for Channel 10, a station usually favoring the "peace process". The testimony was heard on Channel 10 TV by the blogger at My Right Word:

Abu Ein collapsed some 5 minutes after the incident [when demonstrators and border guards were shoving each other] and after an hour, the hospital announced his death.  He wasn't choked [Sharon was standing next to him at the moment of the tiff] but was pushed and it was over in a few seconds. He even was interviewed for a TV station.  No rifle butts or such were employed. No rocks were thrown. There was a confrontation line, shouting, a few tear gas grenades tossed at the beginning but the incident happened afterwards. Sharon said it was a very low-key demo.

Note that no other demonstrator complained about the gas. [here]
http://myrightword.blogspot.co.il/2014/12/the-blue-glove-and-ziad-abu-ein.html

Here is more testimony, this time from a British TV news reporter:

A British television news reporter has revealed that Palestinian demonstrators near the West Bank village of Turmusaya prevented an Israeli medic from providing aid to a Palestinian Authority official who collapsed after he shoved and verbally abused Israeli officers on the scene.
In a live report for the UK’s Sky News broadcaster, Middle East correspondent Tom Rayner reported that Ziad Abu Ein, a convicted terrorist who was appointed by the PA to organize campaigns against Jewish settlements in the West Bank, was lying on the ground “unconscious” after the clash – although separate footage shot by Kremlin broadcaster RT displayed Abu Ein conscious and sitting up after his altercation with the IDF officers.
“When he’s on the floor, an Israeli medic does come up to him, she tries to clear an area around him, but Palestinians pick him up and take him straight to a vehicle,” Rayner said, in footage viewed by The Algemeiner. The medic was “not able to deliver any first aid,” Rayner continued, and Abu Ein was “declared dead when he got to a hospital in Ramallah.”
As The Algemeiner reported today, Rayner had earlier said on Twitter that “When Abu Ein is unconscious on ground, Israel medic attempts to assist, asks crowd to make space, Palestinians rush him to a vehicle instead.” Rayner also reported that Abu Ein repeatedly asked the Israeli officer he clashed with for his name, calling him a “dog.” [here]

Despite this testimony by journalists running counter to the PA's false narrative, Signora Mogherini of the European Commission chooses to smear Israel by insinuation of malevolently killing, even murdering, Ziyad Abu `Ayn. She called for an investigation of his death, despite the testimony against any foul play on Israel's part.  She described a "deteriorating situation on the ground." But her very expression of statement --which will be seen by Arabs as support for their cause-- is likely to encourage Arab violence, especially since she is echoing Mahmud Abbas, leader of the PA.

The "Arab Spring" Teaches Lessons about the Past

UPDATING 2-9&11&12&14&25-2012 at bottom

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools.

Let's take the "Arab Spring" at face value. It is a struggle for freedom & democracy by peoples long oppressed by their own governments. Let's overlook the cultural pathologies that infect both Arab regimes/dictatorships and Arab peoples. Taking this supposed Arab version of the 1848 "Springtime of the Nations" at face value, we are left with the indisputable fact that Arab regimes have terribly oppressed their peoples. But this was a fact many years ago.

In 1982, Syria's Assad regime, then led by young Bashar's father, Hafiz, slaughtered thousands in the rebel-dominated city of Hama [Muslim Brotherhood rebels]. Estimates of those slaughtered range from 10,000 to 40,000. On June 27, 1980, about 800 political prisoners were released from the Syrian prison at the Palmyra oasis [Tadmor in Hebrew, Tadmur in Arabic]. They were released from the jail and were walking towards a place to catch buses. While walking on the road they were attacked by helicopter gunships and slaughtered, two years before Hama [see another version of the massacre here]. Even Tom Friedman, that notorious apologist for Arab cruelty and ruthlessness, used the Hama incident as a metaphor for all Middle Eastern cruelty and ruthlessness. He calls them: Hama Rules.

So the ruthless cruelty and barbarity, the murderousness of the Assad regime, were known --at least to those who wanted to know-- thirty years ago. The regime was quite capable of slaughtering fellow Arabs. Even the supposed cherished darlings of the Arabs, the Palestinian Arab refugees. Robert Hatem, a militiaman in Lebanon, wrote in a book that Syria was behind the Sabra-Shatila massacre of Palestinian Arabs in Beirut (1982) through the instrumentality of his own leader, Elie Hobeika, a Christian Phalangist militia leader secretly in the service of Hafiz Assad.

In the 1970s, Hafiz Assad had the Lebanese political leader Kamal Jumblatt --father of Walid Jumblatt-- assassinated. These assassinations were repeated in the year 2005 and since in Lebanon, starting with Rafiq Hariri, former Lebanese prime minister. Hariri's murder has been attributed to Hizbullah operatives by the International Tribunal for Lebanon. But the Lebanese know that Hizbullah operates in the service of Syria & Iran. The top terrorist of Hizbullah, `Imad Mughniyyah, lived outside Lebanon in Damascus under Assad regime protection [until his own assassination in February 2008].

Again, Assad regime murderousness has been no secret for 35 years or more. Yet Assad's Syria has been in good odor at the UN "human rights" commission and at its replacement, the "human rights" Council. Western "Leftists" and Western haters of Israel flocked to Damascus to pay homage to Assad Senior and Junior. George Galloway, the British hater of Israel and toady to Arab dictators, openly admired the Assad regime and sought its aid for an alleged "humanitarian" operation to "Free Gaza" and shame Israel in world public opinion through a "Gaza Freedom Flotilla." Likewise, the American Friends Service Committee, the social action arm of the Quaker Church [Society of Friends] and recipient of US Govt funds, was eager to carry out a "Free Gaza Flotilla" against Israel, denouncing Israel's partial blockade of Gaza which was and is ruled by Hamas, an Islamist, jihadist terrorist organization which happens to have its headquarters in --you guessed it-- Syria where the top Hamas leadership enjoyed Assad regime protection and sponsorship. In other words, Westerners who supposedly and avowedly wanted to liberate Arabs collaborated with the butchers of Arabs [and of Jews too, of course]. Michael Rubin points out the AFSC's hypocrisy here. Rubin asks: "Where's the Syria Flotilla?" We have not heard of Galloway or the AFSC or the Free Gaza gang or the "International Solidarity Movement" organizing a Free Syria Flotilla or doing anything to alleviate the suffering of Syrian Arabs, although every day lately brings reports of scores or even hundreds killed in Homs and elsewhere in Syria by those whom Galloway obsequiously called the defenders of Arab dignity.

Not only "human rights" fakers but diplomats and high ranking politicians in the West have been eager to win the favor of the Assads, Senior and Junior both. Several years ago, James Baker, a Bush-family hanger on, secretary of state for the first Prez Bush, got together with Lee Hamilton, a former US congressional representative and mentor to Prez Obama, drawing up a report that envisioned Israel surrendering the Golan Heights --which enjoyed a large Jewish population in Roman times and overlooks Israeli towns and the Sea of Galilee-- to Syria under Junior Assad. Israeli surrender of the Golan to Syria would supposedly do wonders for American interests in the Middle East, including stopping Syrian aid for terrorists attacking American troops in Iraq. In February 2008, Zbigniew Brzezinski, another Obama mentor and Prez Jimmy Carter's national insecurity advisor, went to Damascus to notify the Assad regime that Obama in the White House would mean a friend of theirs in power in Washington. Providentially, while Zbig was in Damascus, arch-terrorist mass murderer `Imad Mughniyyah was assassinated there.

Another Washington well-wisher of the Assads was Martin Indyk, ex-US ambassador to Israel, who tried to arrange a meeting in Damascus in 2009 for high-ranking Americans with Junior Assad and other regime personalities. One of those that Indyk wanted to bring to meet Assad was former US president, Bill Clinton, of "I-did-not-have-sex-with-that-woman fame." Fortunately, for whatever reason, the meeting did not come off.

To be sure, not all of the friends and would-be friends of the Assad regime or its allied Iranian regime are Americans or British, far from it. The Turkish intelligence chief obtained custody of Iranians fighting in Syria to suppress the uprising in behalf of the regime --and captured by rebels. He released them back to Iran after their capture in Syria. He was working in collaboration with the Turkish jihadist organization, IHH, tied to the present Turkish govt and sponsor of the "Free Gaza Flotilla" of 2010, and which in particular had sent the jihadist thugs on the Mavi Marmara --a ship under lease to it-- who attacked Israeli naval commandos who had boarded the ship to enforce the anti-Hamas blockade of Gaza. Michael Rubin commented: "The IHH may describe itself as a humanitarian organization, but in practice, its main goal is to provide aid and comfort to terrorists."

There is no "Free Syria Flotilla" by the usual "human rights" campaigners against Israel. There is no counterpart of the "Goldstone Commission" for Syria, no fact-finding mission to Syria sent by the UN "human rights" Council as was sent to Gaza.

Just in the past week, on February 5, while Syrian civilians were being slaughtered, bombarded with artillery shells in Homs, Human Rights Watch held a press conference in Jerusalem at the usual location for such events --the American Colony Hotel-- to denounce alleged Israeli abuses of Arab human rights. On that same day, this story was the top main item on the HRW homepage. But we see no comparable actions on the part of HRW in favor of Syrian Arab victims of their own government. [UPDATING: on 9 February this neglect of the story of civilians being slaughtered in Homs was finally corrected. On that day the story went up as the top item. However, the agony of Homs under bombardment had been going on for weeks. No urgency on HRW's part, of course]

We see that for decades, Western powers and other great powers, including Washington, were quite willing, indeed eager, to be friends with the Syrian Assad regime. All that time, wild, crude mendacious Judeophobia, implicitly genocidal, was emanating from Damascus against the Jews and Israel, including endorsement of the 1840 ritual murder libel in Damascus against the local Jewish community. This Judeophobia did not deter either the EU or USA from befriending the Assad regime. And some liars and some lunatics in the West believe that Israel controls Western policy.

Furthermore, we see that among those who worked against Israel in the name of humanitarianism and peace and human rights --as in the Gaza Flotilla/Mavi Marmara affair-- there was and still is a cynical disregard of humanitarianism and peace and human rights when Arabs oppress fellow Arabs, slaughter fellow Arabs, deny rights to fellow Arabs, and so on. So the real motive of the "peace," "human rights" and "humanitarian" assaults on Israel in the past was not as advertised. Can we exclude the possibility that humanitarian concern, and so forth, for Palestinian Arabs concealed and conceals rancorous Judeophobia and contempt for the rights and welfare of Arabs --as well as of Jews??

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UPDATING 2-9-2012
Lessons about past indictments and excoriations of Israel on moralistic grounds:
1- The Western press and electronic media have in the past minimized the severity and horror of Arab govt assaults on their own peoples. This can be applied to Iraq, Egypt, Sudan and of course Syria.
2- Western "human rights" and "peace" campaigners have neglected to a great extent Arab govt oppression and brutality against their own peoples. Western governments have done the same for decades, in step with their own "Leftist," "human rights" and "humanitarian" groups, or perhaps the moralistic "civil society" groups in Western lands were in step with their own governments.
3- Therefore, the Western moralizers, whether in govt or in civil society groups cared little for the human rights and welfare of Arabs if this could not be blamed on Israel. Therefore, the moralistic attacks on Israel were pretexts for Judeophobia.

Palmyra prison massacre of June 27, 1980. According to the French press that I read around that time, the prisoners were killed by helicopter gunships. Another version has troops entering the prison and killing the prisoners in their cells.
2-11-2012 Lee Smith uncovers the shameless toadying of Western elites, journalists, & academics to the Assads, father & son & their hangers-on [here]
2-12-2012 The late Franklin H Littell wrote back in 1990 [Jerusalem Post, 10-28] about Syrian slaughter of several hundred prisoners of war by the Syrian army. This was accomplished in October 1989 when the Syrian army --commanded by today's Assad regime-- was crushing [with US State Dept approval] the last remnants of Lebanese independence. The troops slaughtered were Lebanese army troops under General Aoun. These were Lebanese army troops, once again, and they had surrendered to the superior force and armaments of the Syrian invaders. Slaughtering them was clearly a violation of international law, but that did not matter to the "international community." Yet this "community," the UN, the Arab League, EU, the OIC, US, did not complain. International law, which is so often brought up when it seems that violations can be imputed to Israel, was largely disregarded worldwide when Syria clearly violated the international laws of war. The horror of the lack of international response or reprimand at that time is not lessened by the fact that Aoun has since switched sides since returning from France in 2005, apparently seeing no way for Lebanon to free itself from Syrian-Hizbullah domination and choosing joining the enemy as the safest course, that is, he likely saw allying with Syria and its Hizbullah catspaws as the safest course.

Fundamentally, Aoun was acquiescing to the pro-Syrian position throughout the years of the Great Powers, the UN, EU, etc. Franklin Littell points out the pro-Syrian policy of President Bush I which was not much different from that of Obama until embarassment over Assad regime brutality pushed Obama to demanding that Assad leave office several months after he had begun slaughtering his own civilian population. It took Obama and Hilary several months to realize --or to acknowledge-- what was going on. Until Assad's brutality in his own country was obvious to all, Obama and Hilary had always referred to him sympathetically [Assad was "a reformer"], as previous administrations had done for his father. Franklin Littell wrote in 1990 about Syrian completion of the takeover of Lebanon in October 1990:
"For an American, a most wretched aspect is the role the White House and State Department have played. They threw away a stable Lebanon, rescued from terrorist invaders [by Israel] when it was handed to them in 1982 [by Israel]. They apparently gave the signal to Assad that the US would not interfere. Assad [Senior], like Hitler in 1938 at the time of the Austrian Anschluss, had nothing to fear from the world." [Jerusalem Post, 28 October 1990]. Note that the American president at that time was not Obama but his supposed Republican antithesis, George Bush I.
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2-25-2012 Martin Sherman uses current events in Syria & Egypt to show the foolishness of Israeli leaders in the past.

Hizbullah Hiding Weapons under Buildings in South Lebanon

The Hizbullah hides weapons and ammunition underneath homes in south Lebanon. This was one of the reasons for Hizbullah's relative success against Israel in the 2006 Lebanon war. Israel warned residents of south Lebanon to evacuate the area in view of coming Israeli attacks in an effort to win the release of Israeli soldiers taken captive by the Hizb and to destroy as much as possible of the Hizb's weapons stores. Most residents did evacuate and a number of houses were struck by Israel, with resulting secondary explosions indicating the presence of ammunition/weapons stores. However, the evidence of such stores was widely denied, especially by the anti-Israel media in the West and by "leftist" groups --sometimes in the guise of "human rights" & "peace"-- and by a number of Western governments. Neither Israel's assertions of weapons stored in homes illegally according to international law, nor the photos and other evidence provided by Israel could convince those who fanatically wanted to believe in Israel's inherent evil. To be frank, all this international criticism, albeit ignorant, unjust and hypocritical, does have a restraining effect on Israel's exercise of military power, which obviously helped Hizbullah in the 2006 war. Now a report in Il Sole-24 Ore tells us that again today the Hizb is illegally storing weapons in buildings in southern Lebanon.

The UN Security Council assigned the UNIFIL [UN interim Force in Lebanon] to supervise the cease-fire after the Lebanon War of the summer of 2006. This was in addition to previous assignments, in all of which UNIFIL had failed.

Following the July/August 2006 crisis, the Council enhanced the Force and decided that in addition to the original mandate, it would, among other things, monitor the cessation of hostilities; accompany and support the Lebanese armed forces as they deploy throughout the south of Lebanon; and extend its assistance to help ensure humanitarian access to civilian populations and the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons. [here. This official UN site links to Sec. Council res 1701; in it see paragraphs 8, 11,14,15]

UNIFIL was also supposed [paragraphs 11b, 11e, 14] to help the Lebanese army take control of southern Lebanon --an area under Hizbullah control before 2006-- and to help it prevent weapons not authorized by the Lebanese govt from entering the country. In fact, the Lebanese army does not go into south Lebanon [south of the Litani River] without Hizb permission, nor does UNIFIL travel freely in the country. Nor has the Lebanese army or UNIFIL been effective in keeping Hizbullah from bringing weapons into the country. These weapons, including long distance rockets that can strike anywhere in Israel, have been brought in and many of them are stored in southern Lebanon south of the Litani, despite the assurances of SC res 1701. Again, weapons heavy and light have been stored under civilian buildings, as occurred up to and including the 2006 war. The fact that weapons are being stored under buildings now supports Israel's charge of the same during the 2006 war.

. . . in a country in which the police and regular army are in part connected with Hizbullah and Syrian secret services, there is no doubt that --especially in the southern region between the Litani River and the Israeli border (an area where the [UN] blue helmets are stationed) not even the al-Qaeda cells present in a couple of Palestinian refugee camps near Tyre could succeed in carrying out attacks and moving through the territory without the Shiite militias [Hizbullah] and Damascus' agents being informed of it. The relations between UNIFIL and Hizbullah have progressively worsened in recent years due to the numerous weapons and explosives depositories hidden by the militiamen under the buildings, which have sometimes exploded because they were stored in a faulty manner or due to sabotage attributed to the Israelis. The latest episode took place in November in the sector assigned to the Italian contingent, bringing back to the forefront the substantial failure of UNIFIL which --based on Resolution 1701-- was supposed to disarm Hizbullah.

This disarmament was never performed even if the command [of UNIFIL] at Naqoura attributes that task to the Lebanese forces that, in order to perform it, could ask for support from the blue helmets. In practice, no one has ever tried to take away weapons from the Hizbullah which --on the other hand-- has been reinforced [since 2006], restoring its rocket arsenals and even acquiring Iranian missiles capable of striking all Israeli territory, not only the Galilee. Two weeks ago, visiting Beirut, UN secretary-general Ban-Ki Moon, confirmed the need to disarm Hizbullah, asking all militias to give up their arsenals and saying that he was "concerned" by the Lebanese situation. [Il Sole-24 Ore, 28 January 2012, Gianandrea Gaiani]

In the original

. . . in un Paese nel quale polizia ed esercito regolari sono in parte legati a Hezbollah e servizi segreti siriani non c'è dubbio che, soprattutto nella regione meridionale tra il Fiume Litani e il confine israeliano (area di schieramento dei caschi blu) neppure le cellule di al Qaeda presenti in un paio di campi profughi palestinesi vicino a Tiro riuscirebbero a compiere attentati e a muoversi sul territorio senza che i miliziani sciiti e gli agenti di Damasco ne siano informati. I rapporti tra Unifil ed Hezbollah sono peggiorati progressivamente negli ultimi anni a causa dei numerosi depositi di armi ed esplosivi occultati dai miliziani sotto gli edifici, che a volte sono esplosi perché stoccati in modo errato o a causa di sabotaggi attribuiti agli israeliani. L'ultimo episodio è accaduto in novembre nel settore assegnato al contingente italiano riportando alla ribalta il sostanziale fallimento di Unifil che in base alla Risoluzione 1701 avrebbe dovuto disarmare Hezbollah.

Un disarmo mai attuato anche se il comando di Naqoura attribuisce tale compito alle forze libanesi che per espletarlo potrebbero chiedere il supporto ai caschi blu. Nella pratica nessuno ha mai cercato di sottrarre armi agli Hezbollah che invece si sono rafforzati ripristinando gli arsenali di razzi e acquisendo persino missili iraniani in grado di colpire tutto il territorio israeliano e non solo la Galilea. Due settimane or sono, in visita a Beirut, il Segretario generale dell'Onu Banki-moon ha ribadito la necessità di disarmare Hezbollah chiedendo a tutte le milizie di rinunciare al loro arsenale e dicendosi ''preoccupato'' per la situazione libanese.[Il Sole-24 Ore, 28 Gennaio 2012, Gianandrea Gaiani]

This article tells us several things:
1) The Hizbullah hides weapons and explosives in civilian buildings thereby endangering civilians --non-combatants-- and in violation of the laws of war. This supports charges that Israel made against Hizbullah during the 2006 war;
2) the Hizb has rearmed since the 2006 war, in fact with more weapons than before that war. The border with Syria has been porous since the cease fire in August 2006, enabling Iran to ship heavy weapons through Syria to the Hizb;
3) Neither the Lebanese army nor UNIFIL ever tried to disarm Hizbullah, although SC res 1701 called for disarmament of militias in Lebanon.
4) foreign states have shipped weapons, including heavy weapons into Lebanon since 2006, although this violates UN SC res. 1701. These states have principally been Iran and Syria;
5) UN Security Council res. 1701 has failed.
The Lebanese army was obviously not capable of performing such disarmament as called for, nor did it ask for help from UNIFIL for this purpose. Of course you probably knew all this but now it is confirmed by a serious journalist. Moreover, Ban-Ki Moon is "concerned." Sheikh Nasrallah, head of the Hizb, responded sarcastically, "This concern reassures us and pleases us." UN SC res. 1701 failed to stop Hizb rearmament, failed to protect Lebanese sovereignty and independence against Hizbullah and Syria, and failed to keep bring peace or advance peace between Israel and Lebanon.
Moreover, since US diplomacy [through Condoleezza Rice] was a major force in negotiating 1701, this was also a failure for US diplomacy, unless US diplomacy really wanted the results that have eventuated.

One more point. Nasrallah asserts: "We confirm that our choice is the way of resistance and the weapons of resistance." ["Confermiamo che la nostra scelta sono la via della resistenza e le armi della resistenza'']. This begs the question: What is Resistance anyway? Is Nasrallah's resistance, the Hizb's resistance, the same as that of the French Maquis in WW2 and of its leaders, such as Jean Moulin? In fact, Hizbullah opposes the independence of its own country, Lebanon, acting to assert Iranian domination over Lebanon. Furthermore, can anyone imagine Jean Moulin taking pride in murdering German civilians, including children, as Hizbullah [and Fatah and Hamas, etc] take pride in murdering Jews and Jewish children, as the Nazis did? Here we have a case of semantic subversion in which these Arab/Muslim terrorists try to steal the favorable Western view of the anti-Nazi resistance in WW2 in behalf of murderous, well-armed organizations essentially different in character from the WW2 Resistance and for purposes that are kindred to Nazi purposes.
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Quotes from Moon and Nasrallah found in the Il Sole article cited above.

UNESCO Presented Ancient Israeli Mosaics -- Once Upon a Time

UNESCO was not always as hostile to Israel as it is now. This UN body, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was once not as corrupt as it is today. As recently as 1965, UNESCO published --together with the French publisher Flammarion-- the book Israeli Byzantine Mosaics [French title: "Mosaiques Byzantines Israeliennes", by Ernst Kitzinger (Paris: Flammarion 1965). At that time, UNESCO wanted to promote art to the masses. So they published, with Flammarion, a series called Great Art in Pocket Editions [Grand Art en Editions de Poche]. Israeli Byzantine Mosaics was part of that series. I bought it at the UN building in New York in those days. As I understand, books in the series were also published in English and maybe other languages besides French.

The mosaic was a highly developed art form in the Byzantine period preceding the Arab-Muslim conquests. It did not die off in the East --including Israel-- immediately after the conquest but it died out gradually, slowly, as did other features of civilization. Many more mosaics from that period have been found in Israel since Kitzinger's book was put out by UNESCO. Some of the mosaics are Jewish, as at Beyt Alpha and Tsipori [Sepphoris], others are Christian and pagan [early in Byzantine times]. Yet the techniques and workmanship are strikingly similar, indicating that the same workshop or workshops served Jews, Samaritans, Christians and pagans.

Here are two of the Jewish mosaics:

Huldah [location]: Mosaic floor with seven-branched menorah [candelabrum] from the Holy Temple in Jerusalem plus other Jewish ritual objects. These latter are, from right to left, a shofar [ram's horn used on the Rosh haShanah holiday]; an incense shovel as used in the Temple; an etrog [citron in English], a citrus fruit used on the Sukkot holiday; and what appears to be a lulav, a palm frond, also used on the Sukkot holiday. The Greek inscription says "Praise for the People." The mosaic is dated to the 6th century.

Beth Alpha [location -- Beyt Alfa בית אלפא]: Mosaic floor. The Binding of Isaac was a favorite Jewish theme in that historical period, since it is the story of the Jews' forefather being saved from death at the last moment by God. This theme appears in a number of Jewish mosaics from the Byzantine period which followed --as we know-- the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE [Hurban haBayit] by Roman legions and their auxiliary forces [including Arabs], and the exclusion of Jews from Jerusalem by Emperor Hadrian in 135 CE. The names Abraham [אברהם] and Yits'haq [יצחק = Isaac] written in Hebrew appear over the heads of those two persons, along with the Hebrew words Al Tishlahh [אל תשלח]. These words mean: "Do not send", part of the words of God's angel to Abraham in Genesis 22:12 , Biblical reading portion: Vayera. The Biblical verse is: Don't send your hand against the boy and don't do anything to him. A modern Jewish translation gives this as: Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him [The New Jewish Publication Society translation; Philadelphia: JPS 1985]. This mosaic too is dated to the 6th century.

The general importance of the Jewish mosaics is that they refute the present claim of the "Palestine Liberation Organization" and its offshoot, the "Palestinian Authority" that there is no Jewish history in the Land of Israel, the country that they now call "Palestine," the name imposed on the country by the Emperor Hadrian after he had suppressed the Jewish revolt led by Bar Kokhba, 132-135 CE. Note that two languages appear in the inscriptions on these mosaics, Hebrew and Greek. Arabic does not appear. The PLO's denial of Jewish history in the country is made in the PLO charter, Article 20:

The claim of historical or religious ties between the Jews and Palestine does not tally with historical realities nor with the constituents of statehood in their true sense. [PLO Charter, article 20]

The fact that photos of these mosaics were published by UNESCO is doubly important since UNESCO in recent decades has gone along with the lies of the PLO/PA, the Arab states, and the OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference]. The OIC dominates UNESCO as it does the UN "human rights council" and the UN generally, with 56 or so UN member states belonging to it, more than a quarter of all UN member states. Recently, the UNESCO has admitted "palestine" as a member although Arab domination of the country goes back only to the Arab conquest, completed in 640 CE.

The PLO/PA intends to use UNESCO to impose its false version of history and to assert Muslim domination over Jewish holy places and historic sites in the country which have long been controlled by Muslims [such as the Temple Mount and the Tomb of the Patriarchs/Cave of Machpelah in Hebron]. More recently, in the 1990s, the PLO/PA has claimed Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem and Joseph's Tomb in Sh'khem [Nablus] as Muslim holy places, although in the past Rachel's Tomb was seen as a Jewish shrine and Joseph's Tomb was shared by Jews, Samaritans, Christians and Muslims.

Mahmud Abbas' Comrades Set Up Oriana Fallaci to Be Blown Apart -- Give Them a State!!

The Euro Thugs are collaborating with the fake "moderates" led by Mahmud Abbas to upgrade the PLO/PA's status against Israel.

France and Spain, along with the European Union's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Catherine Ashton, are in advanced stages of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority over a "package deal" that will enable the 27 member states of the EU to vote at the United Nations General Assembly in favor of upgrading the PA to the status of a non-permanent member of the UN.

The Europeans are also trying to gain the United States' agreement to abstain from the vote and continue its financial aid to the Palestinians, in return for a promise by PA President Mahmoud Abbas not to take Israel to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Three senior European diplomats involved in the negotiations told Haaretz that the PA president had informed the EU of his decision not to turn to the UN Security Council on September 20 and request that Palestine be accepted as a full member of the organization.

Abbas, who realizes that the United States will exercise its veto power at the Security Council, has decided to turn to the UN General Assembly, whose resolutions are less binding, in order to seek the support of the European Union member states in the vote.

Abbas is expected to meet in Cairo today with Ashton, who is in charge of the EU's foreign policy, and with the foreign ministers of the Arab League Monitoring Committee. During both meetings the diplomatic deal being worked out will be discussed. [HaArets, 9-12-2011]

But who does Mahmud Abbas represent? He was one of the top leaders of Fatah for years under arafat's overall leadership. And what is Fatah? What do they represent? Do they represent hope for a better world perhaps? Or hope for barbarism perhaps? The late Oriana Fallaci, the noted Italian journalist, had good reason to hate and despise Fatah:

. . . come stroll with me along the Street of Contempt that Muslims harbor for women. A contempt that I experienced even in circumstances when it would have been justified to expect at least a little humanity. In 1973, I experienced it in a unit of Palestinian fedayin who were being hosted at that time in Jordan by King Hussein. The only civilized, simpatico leader that I met in the Islamic world of today, aside from Ali Bhutto. (. . .)
And here is the story of my experience with the Palestinian fedayin. One night the secret base of that unit was struck by a violent aerial raid by the Israelis. When the first bombs fell, everybody started to run towards the solid refuge offered by a cave across a field, and I did the same. But in front of the entrance the commander stopped me. He grunted that to allow a woman to be elbow to elbow with his men would be an obscenity, an insult to Allah. He then ordered two deputy commanders to install me somewhere else. And guess where those evildoers locked me up? In an isolated shack, a wooden shed used to store explosives. I only realized this when I lit a match in order to understand where I was. The flame illuminated dozens of boxes with the inscription: "Explosives-Dynamite-Explosives." But the worst was not even in this detail. It was in the fact that they had not locked me up there out of stupidity or haste or by mistake. They locked me up there on purpose. In order to enjoy themselves. Almost that the chance of seeing me blown into the air because of the explosion of a bomb was the funniest thing in the world. In fact, after the raid, they all split their sides laughing, scornfully laughing with pleasure: "We never had such fun. We never had such a good time." [Oriana Fallaci, La Rabbia e l'Orgoglio (Milano 2004), pp 111-112; English title: The Rage and the Pride; in הזעם והגאווה, the Hebrew edition, pp 87-88]

But doesn't the EU know what the Fatah really stands for? That the Fatah has not changed its stripes since they obtained a mini-state in Judea-Samaria in 1974? I'm sure that the EU does know all of these things. But their hatred for Jews leads them to pretend that Fatah is ready to live at peace with Israel. It is not only the Fatah/PLO/PA that has not changed, the major EU states, UK, France, Germany have not changed their basic hatred for Jews since Hitler was forced to abandon Auschwitz.

Moreover, the EU support for Fatah [= PLO/PA] tells us that the EU does not honor agreements with Israel. Just as European states did not honor the rights of their own Jewish citizens before and during the Holocaust --when Hitler told them that Jews have no rights that Europe is bound to honor-- the EU spits on international law that supports Israel's rights, allies with Israel's bloodthirsty Arab enemies, and does not care that Arabs honor the accords that they made with Israel, such as the Oslo accords, the Israel-Egypt treaty, etc. The Arabs are tools for satisfying the genocidal urges towards Jews of leading EU member states.

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Previous links on the PLO/PA UDI on Emet m'Tsiyon [here & here]
Raison Garder has issued an important statement [in French] on the PLO/PA UDI. Here is the title:

UNE DECLARATION DE GUERRE TRAVESTIE

EN DEMANDE DE RECONNAISSANCE

Nous sommes à la veille d’une intense campagne de propagande qui vise à pousser les opinions et les gouvernements européens à soutenir la demande unilatérale de reconnaissance d’un Etat de Palestine à l’O.N.U.

Nous sommes inquiets devant la décision à venir de la France et de l’Union Européenne.

This statement correctly identifies the PLO/PA UDI as a declaration of war disguised as a request for recognition.

Do the West & the Arabs Have the Right to Set Up a State to Be Called "palestine"?

The people of Israel, later called Jews, have lived in and been connected to the Land of Israel for about 3450 years since the going out from Egypt. From the time of Alexander of Macedon [died 323 CE] till Roman Emperor Hadrian, Greeks and Romans called the country Judea, that is, the Jewish land, the land of the Jews. The name is also spelled Judaea and IVDAEA in Latin. The name is confirmed in the Greek and Latin writings of that long period. It was not a land inhabited by Arabs, although there were some there and in the vicinity, no doubt. It was Hadrian who changed the country's name to Syria Palaestina [in 135 CE]. This was an act of hostility to the Jews who had rebelled against the Empire three times. Changing the name was meant as a punishment for the Jews and a way of obliterating the Jewish identity of their country. The Jews also suffered in that many were sold as slaves and otherwise driven off their lands, although Jews remained the predominant population in the country. Today, in a way not far different from Hadrian's, world empires use the name "palestine" in order to deny the Jews rights in their own homeland. The empires and much or most of the West, as well as the Arab and Muslim world, demand that Israel, the national state of the Jews, allow establishment of an Arab state to be called "palestine" in the heart of the ancient Jewish homeland. They follow in the footsteps of Emperor Hadrian.

Yet there never was a "palestinian people" in all history. Such a people is a modern invention of psychological/cognitive warfare, probably by British psywar experts. The notion that Israel was fighting not Arabs but a "palestinian people" came to world attention in 1964 with foundation of the Palestine Liberation Organization. At that time, the PLO declared to the king of Jordan, Hussein, that the land that they wanted for a state was NOT any land under his rule, not the "West Bank" of Jordan, but the part of the ancient Land of Israel under Jewish control, that is, the State of Israel within its 1949 armistice lines, since Israel had no land borders at that time. But if we examine this newly minted people, "the palestinians," we may ask how they differ in essential ways from the Arabs east of the Jordan? Or from the Arabs in Syria? Do they speak a different language? The PLO's declaration of a state of Palestine in November 1988 in Algiers expressed loyalty to the general Arab culture and cultural legacy. Indeed, the PLO has long been a member of the Arab League, another Arab state waiting to take power, as it were.

Today, now that Israel won in 1967 --in the face of Arab genocidal threats-- the lands of Judea-Samaria, formerly under Jordanian rule, and now that the PLO collaborates diplomatically with major world powers supposedly with the aim of setting up an Arab state in Judea-Samaria to be called "palestine," the Powers, the UN, the EU, and just about everybody overlook the basic refusal of the PLO/PA to make peace with Israel in any boundaries. Abu Mazen published an op ed [ghost written] in the NYTimes the other day in which he said that if the UN would recognize a PLO/PA state, the PLO/PA would use this status to prosecute Israel, to delegitimize Israel in world legal forums, such as the World Court at the Hague, the Int'l Criminal Court, the misnamed UN "Human Rights Council," etc. So no peace can come out of concessions made to the PLO/PA or out of negotiations with the PLO/PA. Actually, Abu Mazen has refused to negotiate with Israel for more than 2 1/2 years, since September 2008 when olmert was still prime minister. Further, the PLO/PA has made a pact with the Hamas for a joint govt of the territories already ceded by Israel to the racist, anti-Jewish PLO/PA. And the Hamas is brutally frank in its aim of genocide against the Jews. This aim appears in Article 7 of the Hamas charter. Obviously, Israel should not negotiate with a Nazi-like body such as Hamas. Hitler, to be sure, was never as frank in his genocidal purposes as the Hamas now is. But Obama may demand in today's speech that Israel negotiate with the Hamas Nazis nevertheless. He is part of the problem today.

Now let us return to the Jews' ties to the Land of Israel. Jews were a substantial part of Israel's population until the Crusader conquest. Between the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 and 1112 or 1113, a dozen years later, the Crusaders massacred the bulk of the Jews in the country [according to historian Moshe Gil & others]. The Jews were ground down between two millstones, Islam and militant Christendom. Even after the Crusader massacres had subsided, the Jews were still a noticeable part of the population. After the Crusades, of course, the Jews returned to their pre-Crusades status of subjects of the Islamic state, dhimmis. And the Mamluk Empire, succeeding the Crusaders probably treated the worse Jews than they had been treated before, if that were possible. The flow of Jews to the Diaspora continued. Those who want to deny that Jews in the Dispersion were of Judaic descent, should bear in mind that the pagan Roman Empire had begun to forbid conversion of non-Jews to Judaism and this prohibition was made more severe under the subsequent Christianized empire. The prohibition served to preserve the original Jewish stock over the centuries. The genetic ties between Jews in the Diaspora from Minsk to Marrakesh and from Berlin to Baghdad have been confirmed by modern DNA studies, which even show a genetic affinity to some of the Arabs and other Mediterranean peoples, albeit there is not much affinity in cultural or moral terms between Jews and Arabs.

In recognition of --among other things-- the preservation of Jewish ethnicity since Roman times, the international community at the San Remo Conference [1920] and in the League of Nations [1922] recognized the Land of Israel --which they unfortunately called "palestine"-- as the Jewish National Home. Britain accepted the League's mandate to foster development of the National Home, including fostering "close settlement" of Jews on the land [Article 6 of the Mandate]. Needless to say, Britain betrayed its commitment to the Mandate, and in fact prevented Jews from finding refuge in the Jewish National Home when the Jews most needed a home, that is, during the Holocaust. Today, the National Home as a legal entity binding on the international community is largely forgotten, certainly at the UN, and by Britain in particular. This teaches us that Jews cannot trust Britain or the international community in general. Unfortunately, the United States is now following the anti-Jewish, anti-Israel path earlier trod by the United Kingdom. The Powers cannot be considered morally competent to judge Israel or to determine its future. The Jews cannot rely on the promises of the Powers.

Obama's speech can only be awaited with suspicion at best.

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Jackson Diehl explains why suspicion is justified [here]

The UN Descends Deeper into Barbarism -- Universal Human Rights Go in the Trash

UPDATING 12-12&19&21-2010; 1-28-2011 see at bottom

The UN. . . has now become a permanent locus of the denial of human rights.

L’Onu . . . ormai è diventata sede permanente di negazione dei diritti umani.
Fiamma Nirenstein, Il Giornale, 9 December 2010

The UN never ceases to amaze. When will decent people realize that the UN now works against all the lofty and noble purposes set forth in its charter? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights promulgated by the UN 62 years ago has long been a dead letter. Yet the stinking zombie corpse of the UN's human rights pretensions, the so-called UN "Human Rights Council", struts and preens in its lair in Geneva, undermining human rights in fact throughout the world. It is dominated by the OIC [organization of the Islamic conference] which in turn denies the very principle of human rights, and instead promotes the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam.

Long ago, Gaglione and Yeselson pointed out that the UN was a "dangerous place" [in their book of that name] where agitation and incitement for war were given free rein. They wrote that the UN had as much to do with peace as a battleship or an atomic bomb. Nothing has changed in the nearly 40 years since they published their book. Let us clearly assert and affirm that the UN and its dominant member states are enemies of peace. Since the "log-rolling" effect of even a large, determined minority in any assembly where votes are counted can be dominant, the UN General Assembly is an enemy of peace. Hence, judging by its opposition to its own stated goals and purposes, peace, human rights, and so on, the UN is not a legitimate body. Only those who are fond of its monumental Orwellian hypocrisy, its turning all its judgments inside out and upside down, could deny that assertion.

The latest UN offense, pointed out by Fiamma Nirenstein, is that the UN removed homosexuality from a list of personal traits for which member states should protect persons from extra-judicial, arbitrary and summary executions on a discriminatory basis. Such traits were ethnic, religious and linguistic belonging, homeless children, homosexuals, etc. The resolution called on member states to protect the right to life of all human beings by investigating these wrongful killings, especially those of the groups just mentioned. Now, a recent amendment to the relevant resolution removes homosexuals from the class of persons who should be protected from such killings by member states. Now since Islam mandates killing homosexuals by Islamic law, and such Muslim states as Saudi Arabia legally practice such executions, etc., this amendment comes as an encouragement for more murder. It is a kind of authorization.

I am aware of course that homosexuality is more prevalent in Islamic lands than in most other places. This is in part because of the degraded and segregated state of women in most Islamic lands. Moreover, some forms of homosexual activity are not recognized as such and are indeed practiced by powerful persons in society and govt. But a charge of homosexuality constitutes one of the weapons that repressive govts in those countries can use against their opposition, whether or not a person accused of homosexuality does in fact practice it.

More important is that the UN is now an enemy of humanity and should be recognized as such, as Fiamma Nirenstein does.
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UPDATING 12-12-2009 A Washington Post editorial of 1 April 2009 exposes the hypocrisy of Arab League demands that Israel be held accountable for alleged violations of international law. The Arab League session in Doha, Qatar, in March 2009 featured praise and defense of Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, already indicted by the ICC [international criminal court] for war crimes in Darfur, western Sudan. The UN connection is that UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon was present at the Arab League meeting, together with al-Bashir, and did not object to al-Bashir's presence or have anything to say by way of urging the Arab League to urge al-Bashir to turn himself over to the ICC [at least not in public as far as I know]. So it seems that the UN sec'y general shows public contempt for another international body purporting to represent international law. Ban seems to have indirectly referred to the Sudan situation, pleading that "Relief efforts should not become politicized," which was interpreted as a plea to al-Bashir to allow relief agencies to come back to Darfur. This is hardly the same as frankly demanding compliance with the ICC indictment. But no doubt that the Arab League let Ban know ahead of time that he must not support or even mention the ICC indictment, even by insinuation. By appearing at the League's meeting in such an abject manner, Ban lent support to the League's backing for al-Bashir's war crimes.
12-19-2010 Bat Yeor talks about the OIC which has a strong grip on the UN [ici in French]. She argues that Islam as a religion wants to impose Muslim law, shari`ah, worldwide and a universal caliphate, and that those are the goals of the OIC [in French OCI].
. . .l’islam vise à appliquer la sharîa et à établir le califat, la gouvernance islamique mondiale à la fois politique, religieuse et législative. Tel est le dessein de l’Organisation de la conférence islamique (OCI). . .
12-21-2010 Omar al-Bashir, wanted for war crimes by the ICC [international criminal court], is defended by the OIC, & by Arab League. Al-Bashir, "innocent" protege of the UN sec'y general Ban Ki-Moon, of the Arab League & the OIC, promises more shari`ah in Sudan if the South breaks away [here].
1-28-2011 How UNRWA collaborates with Hamas -- they staff UNRWA [here]

Ahmadinejad's Visit to Lebanon -- Trumpeting War Hysteria against Israel

UPDATING 10-7&8-2010

The "peace" in the "peace process"
refers to peace of mind for antisemites

"Southern Lebanon is Iran's border with Israel," quoth the bloodthirsty Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the loudest of the Iranian warmongers. Like the academic big liar, Edward Said, A-jad is not only coming to Lebanon [on 13 October] but will come to the Israeli border at the Fatima Gate and will throw a stone or stones at Israel. Could his intentions toward Israel be made clearer than through this symbolic gesture?? Of course, stoning Jews is a customary practice in Arab-Muslim lands, usually left, however, to schoolboys and urchins. A-jad well knows that stoning Israeli territory from Lebanon is a symbolic act of war. Carlo Panella has already explained that for most purposes Lebanon is now dominated by Hizbullah, backed by Syria and Iran. Hizbullah head Nasrollah proclaims that he is the delegate in Lebanon of the Guide of the [Islamic] Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It is this pro-Iranian hegemony in Lebanon that makes possible the A-jad visit.

JEDyer reports that A-jad will be greeted by Iranian flags and other happy news -- for him.

Hezbollah has flown Iranian flags in southern Lebanon for some time. The terrorists operate an Iran-sponsored fiefdom there; UNIFIL has been unable for months to conduct patrols in towns denied to it by Hezbollah, a pattern repeated this past weekend when the UN force sought to investigate a Hezbollah weapons cache in its patrol zone.

Carlo Panella points out that, thanks to the Hizb, southern Lebanon has become a Mediterranean province of Iran, like Gaza thanks to Hamas, another hungry and ill-treated band of misunderstood progressives. He says that Western fantasies of "detaching" Syria from Iran have proven illusory, which does not mean that Europe or the US will give them up. France, Italy & other Western states sent troops to UNIFIL in southern Lebanon ostensibly in order, among other things, to enforce UN Security Council res. 1701, which --also ostensibly-- calls for the disarmament of the Hizbullah militia. But Lebanon's govt and army want to build up the army, rather than disarm the Hizbullah militia, which happens to be the strongest armed force in the country. So if the Euros and the US wanted to disarm the Hizb, they have failed, their resolution 1701 has failed, and they can go back to blaming Israel for all problems in the Middle East, in the larger Muslim world, and worldwide, as Bill Clinton did in so many words the other day.

On Assad's recent visit to Teheran, he was awarded a "medal of honor" for aiding the "resistance" against "the threats of the Zionist regime" [here Khamenei was projecting. He is more liberal with threats than Israel is]. He also asserted:

"The United States has failed in its attempts to break the Iran-Syria axis of resistance in the Middle East." [Il Foglio, 5 October 2010]

“Gli Stati Uniti falliranno nei loro tentativi di rompere l’asse della resistenza in medio oriente tra Iran e Siria”. [Il Foglio, 5 Ottobre 2010]

So Khamenei and his govt spit in Obama's face and Obama's says that it's rain. "We are going to keep on working to have a dialogue with Teheran," Obama says in so many words over and over, whenever the Iranians rebuff him and make him out to be a fool.

In the ever so chummy relationship between the two tyrannies, Iran & Syria, and with the permissive signals from Washington, Assad took advantage of the warm climate to issue arrest warrants for 33 persons for allegedly giving "false" testimony as to the major Syrian role in the assassination of Rafiq Hariri [February 2005]. He also attacked the first chief investigator of the International Tribunal to investigate the Hariri murder, Detlev Mehlis. Assad can get away with those sorts of provocations but Israel cannot.

JEDyer helpfully adds that the international media neglect of southern Lebanon [to be sure, a military zone controlled by Hizbullah aided by the Lebanese army] allows the Hizb to build up its forces quietly without interference, although the A-jad visit to the zone may indicate that the work is basically finished and may herald many more provocations against Israel from the Hizb from now on. Dyer also points out that a British diplomat in UN garb, one "Michael Williams, met with an Iranian envoy last week to discuss the visit by Ahmadinejad and approved it as a 'significant event.' He went on to hail 'Tehran’s balanced approach and inclusive relations with all political and religious parties in' "[Lebanon]. The British do have a flair for warmongering by means of all sorts of ooey-gooey, sticky sweet words.

Lee Smith describes Hizbullah as an Iranian propaganda tool [here]
J E Dyer basically concurs with Panella [here]. See Panella [qui] and our summary of Panella's previous article on Lebanon [here]
UPDATING 10-7-2010 Max Boot supplies some data on Hizbullah weaponry [quoted from the NYTimes]. Boot wonders why the Obambi adminstration is more concerned about Jews building houses where Obama & Co. don't want them to be built than about the threat of war from Hizbullah [here].
UPDATING 10-8-2010 Caroline Glick lists US Govt actions or failures to act that delivered Lebanon into Hizbullah-Syrian-Iranian hands [here]

Bad News from Lebanon -- Thanx to You, Ehud Barak & Barack Obama

UPDATING 10-6-2010

The peace in the "peace process"
means peace of mind for antisemites.

More bad news from Lebanon. Thanx mucho to Ehud Barak, who gave up Israel's security zone in Lebanon in 2000, betraying Israel's Lebanese friends, leaving the ground free for the taking to the Hizbullah, and encouraging yasser arafat to start another terrorism war against us, called the Oslo War or the Second Intifada. Also thanx mucho to Barack Hussein Obama whose shameful pro-Assad diplomacy regarding Syria, amounted to toadying to mass murderers, Judeophobes, thugs, and big liars. The Hizbullah basically completed its takeover of Lebanon early last summer when the elected majority, belonging to the anti-Syrian hegemony March 14 movement, did not get backing from Washington for resisting the Hizbullah's takeover drive.

Now, Carlo Panella reports that the violent verbal attack by Lebanon's president, Michel Suleiman on the pro-Hizbullah UNIFIL [UN interim force in Lebanon] as being pro-Israel & on the international tribunal investigating the Hariri murder indicate that Hizbullah now "exercises full political hegemony over Lebanon's armed forces and institutions," that Lebanon is now aligned with the extremist positions of Teheran & Damascus, and that war with Israel may be imminent. He adds that these developments "confirm the total failure of the opening to Syria by the USA, France & the EU. . . " [qui -- in Il Foglio, 9-30-2010]. Panella concludes that the way is now open for more attacks and provocations against Israel from Lebanese territory. [qui]
Another victory for 21st century cruelty and barbarism thanx to The One, the Apostle of Hope & Change.

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Jennifer Rubin thinks that Obama's Syria policy is "in shambles" [here]. Isn't she being too polite to Obama?? Maybe he has obtained the results that he and his advisors wanted. She points out that Syria has facilitated Hizbullah's rearmament -- which has gone beyond what the Hizb had before the 2006 war-- and that Syria and Iran are "chummier than ever." Maybe Obama has done the job that he was assigned to accomplish. Don't forget that Zbig B is Obama's mentor.
J E Dyer on Ahmadinejad's upcoming visit to Lebanon as an announcement of war against Israel [here].