With friends like these…writes Michael Kuttner
“A doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy “(Aesop) This quote came to me as soon as I heard the latest pronouncements emanating forth from the US Secretary of State, John Kerry.
Michael Kuttner
It is highly unlikely that he makes decisions or statements without first making sure that his master’s voice in the White House has approved them. Therefore whenever some pearls of wisdom trip forth from his lips you can be confident that Barak Hussein Obama has given his seal of approval.
Mr. Kerry has just expressed his intense annoyance at those unnamed persons who keep insisting that Israel be recognized as the Jewish State. He obviously knows that this is likely to scuttle any further progress (not that any has been made) in the farcical peace talks. Therefore like the true genius and friend that he purports to be, rather than telling the rejectionist Arabs that recognizing the Jewish homeland as the State of the Jews which would mark the end of further claims and delegitimization, the easiest tactic is to pretend that they already acknowledge that Israel is the Jewish State and ignore the reality of the situation. In one fell swoop he has sabotaged any chance of Arab compromise and set the scene for blaming Israel when it all falls to pieces.
Let’s look at this a bit more closely.
Kerry asserts that in 1947 the UN recognized there was to be a Jewish State at the end of the British Mandate. This is the only statement which he has managed to get right because all his subsequent claims are plain drivel and wishful thinking. He goes on to claim that Arafat on two occasions accepted this fact and therefore it is not necessary for Abbas to make another commitment or acknowledgement of the validity that Israel is the State of the Jewish People.
There are some salient facts the US Secretary of State and his master in the White House have conveniently forgotten, overlooked, misconstrued and deliberately distorted, all in the vain hope that Jews will not know the difference and the PA plus Arab League will be so grateful at this piece of contortionist appeasement they will suddenly blossom into bosom buddies.
I should also point out at this stage that apart from his master’s voice there have been others who have whispered in Kerry’s ear. The head of the Israel Labor Party, other left wing politicians and a multitude of enlightened Jewish liberals in the media, academia and the performing arts, have all espoused the belief that it is not really necessary for those who deny the legal, moral and historical right of the Jews to the Land of Israel to actually recognize its Jewish raison d’etre. Therefore these individuals, some of whom would never dream of living here and suffering the consequences of their advice, have been bombarding the American Administration and telling them to ignore the democratically elected Government and rubbishing the demand for the Arabs to put in writing something they do not want to do. It seems to have escaped these people that unless those who demonize us are made to finally accept our right to being the Jewish State, there can never be an end to the conflict. This is the core of the problem and has been for 65 years. Kerry’s latest pontifications will do nothing to correct this and indeed will only aggravate the situation.
The facts which the OK team ignores, deliberately or through plain ignorance, are these:
The 1947 UN resolution was accepted by the Jewish Agency as the representative of the still unborn Jewish State while all the Arab countries (the fake Palestinian State had not yet been invented), rejected the very idea of two States. The beloved two State solution was still born, condemned and made illegitimate by the entire Arab world that preferred to strangle the new Jewish State in 1948 instead. Kerry and Obama are strangely silent on this historical fact and they also lapse into silence about the subsequent denial and refusal to recognize this UN resolution. The Jewish State came into existence and the Arabs threw away the chance to create another Arab State. It was only after 1967 seeing they could not destroy Israel physically that they suddenly rediscovered the resolution they had rejected back in 1947.
Kerry ignores this simple fact. He seems to think that just because the rest of the world voted in favor of a Jewish State there is now no need to insist that those who have been and still try to eliminate us, do the same. Foolish, plain dumb or a symptom of insincere friendship? You decide.
Then there is his claim that Arafat twice accepted the fact that Israel is the Jewish State. This is rubbish. Arafat did no such thing and I challenge Kerry or anyone else to come up with a document signed by Arafat which proves this. Arafat and his successors knew only too well that for them it would be suicide literally to acknowledge the validity of a Jewish State. It runs counter to their stated aims of flooding Israel with Arab refugees who have multiplied from 600,000 to 6 million or more and of renouncing a final end to the conflict. An end to the conflict in the eyes of Hamas who are potential partners with the PA, plus the other assorted terrorist groups, is the disappearance of Israel not the acknowledgement of a Jewish State.
The fact that Kerry and his boss deliberately fudge and ignore these simple facts speaks volumes about their true intentions. Posing as friends and pontificating on how they have our best interests at heart, cheered on by the EU and a motley collection of dubious associates, those of us who have not been seduced by mirages and myths can only stand in wonder at how plain stupidity and duplicitous policies are hurled in our direction.
It does not take a genius to realize that Israel is being set up as the fall guy. Preparing the ground by appeasing those whose track record is abysmal and whose intentions are so patently transparent is not the action of a true and genuine friend.
The following was broadcast this week on official PA TV: Abbas Zaki, a close associate of “President” Abbas called Israel “ an advanced instrument of evil and anticipates their extermination. Allah will gather them so that we can kill them”.
What is it that Kerry & Obama plus assorted politicians (including our own home grown ones) don’t understand? Continued incitement against the very idea of any sort of Jewish State pours forth every week without an eye being batted. Despite these manifestations of hate, the international community led by a President who was awarded a Nobel peace prize and a Secretary of State who aspires to get one, blithely and deliberately continue to ignore facts.
Obama states that he has our back.
Here is a quote which sums up the real situation: “True friends stab you in the front” (Oscar Wilde).
Michael Kuttner is a Jewish New Zealander who for many years was actively involved with various communal organisations connected to Judaism and Israel. He now lives in Israel and is J-Wire’s correspondent in the region.
Unless I am mistaken, Arafat did state that HE recognised Israel, but what he failed to do was to have that recognition ratified by the Palestinian National Assembly i.e. as usual, Arafat lied.
Begin told Pres Carter that Israel did not need the recognition of the Arabs. In a sense he was right in times before the PLO was recognised and the PA became the representative of the newly minted ancient indigenous natives of “Palestine”. But now, if the PA refuses to recognise Israel by acknowledging it as the nation state of the Jewish people, then as Netanyahu has correctly seen, they have not given up their self-proclaimed right of return, nor have they given up their option to resume war on a polity toward which they express their enmity.
If the local Arabs will not accept statehood if it means that Jews also exercise self-determination, they have forfeited all claims to autonomy and nationhood. The only remaining options are integration and severe law enforcement of very limited self-government within the population centres were 95% of them live. Either of those with encouragement to emigrate should be implemented as soon as possible combined with land development by Israeli citizens.
Why do we bother? Anti-Judaism is at the heart of the refusal to acknowledge Israel as ‘the’ Jewish State. Eurostan has made repeated claims in the past to be ‘the’ Christian continent but that’s obviously no longer true even to make such a claim but being ‘Jewish’ is not just a second-hand way of expanding Israeli citizen population totals even though under the Law of Return all Jews can, and are encouraged to, live in the State of Israel.
‘Jewish’ is culture; it is a law system based on religious tenets and what we would now regard as basic humanity; it is the attempt to live and create a socirty that respects all; that is Judaism and few States can lay claim to such lofty ideals but the point is that Israel is succeeding, As Jews we may think that our ‘Jewish’ society is not moving fast enough in attaining our ‘Jewish’ goals but we are on the right track and just as Israel was recently voted the best place to be a woman in the whole Middle-East so it is in many other spheres of society and culture.
I, and I think many others have given up on even trying to explain ourselves to a world at large that is still very Judaphobic. Both Christianity and Islam has hatred of Jews at the heart of their theologies and societal philosophies, whether they admit to such or not
So let them drown in their own ignorance and stupidity and we Jews will just get on with the business of being Jews and not worry what anyone, individual or nation thinks of us. Check out Israel, as my Granny would say “The proof is in the pudding.”
…..or should be wiped off the face of the earth depending on the interpretation threatened off and for the last 20 years if records are correct.
Now doubt it will be on the agenda with the Vatican when the president meets the pope later this month…….
Retired Harvard schooled international lawyer Jerry Slevin has added his views on the upcoming US elections; Pope Francis, Cardinal Magony, Pesident Obama and and US elections.
Why the appeasement I want to know, their own country, city, or soversign state whichever it is for expediency, is in such disarray fighting corruption yet everyone wants their nod of approval.