Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
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Prior to Israels entry into the territories in the 1967 war, the Arab states made
every effort to attack and weaken Israel militarily and diplomatically.
The Arab and Iranian attempts today to challenge Jewish history in the Biblical
land of Israel and in Jerusalem and the legitimacy of the State of Israel as a
Jewish state still resonate in the international community, most recently in
UNESCO.
The Palestinians are committed to eventually establishing their state over all of
mandatory Palestine and they indoctrinate their children this way.
From Israels establishment in 1948 and up to present day, Israel has been, and
continues to be the only UN member state denied its UN Charter-guaranteed
right of sovereign equality.
Clearly, withdrawal from the territories now under these conditions would
threaten Israels security.
Israel entered the territories in 1967 after being attacked by all its neighbors,
acting in self-defence against an offensive and aggressive war.
Israel has committed itself to abide by the international humanitarian and legal
norms for the administration of such territories. Israels administration of the
territories is under strict judicial supervision by Israels Supreme Court.
The territory was never under Palestinian rule or sovereignty, and when it was
under Jordanian control there was no intention by Jordan to turn it into a
Palestinian state.
It is an accepted fact that the issue of the future of the territories is in dispute.
Israel entertains valid, widely acknowledged and long-held historic and legal
claims regarding the territories.
This situation undermines any confidence in a viable and united governance and
representation of the Palestinians. It neutralizes any capacity to enter into and to
implement any international commitment or obligation.
The Palestinian leadership, is far from moderate, by any standard. Even without
Hamas incitement, it engages in an officially-sanctioned policy of denormalization vis--vis Israel. The leadership often praises, memorializes, and
encourages Palestinian terrorists.
While Israel has expressed its willingness for the principle of two states for two
peoples, the Palestinian leadership consistently refuses to accept the concept of
Israel as the democratic nation state of the Jewish People.
The prohibition on the transfer of population into territory occupied during war,
set out in the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, was specifically drafted in order
to prevent a recurrence of the mass forcible population transfers that occurred
during the Second World War. In the case of Israels settlement policy, there are
no forced expulsions or coerced settling.
This has no bearing on, or relevance to Israels settlement policy, which enables
the legitimate utilization of non-privately-owned land pending the permanent
settlement of the dispute. Use of non-privately-owned public land for settlement
or for agriculture is fully consistent with accepted international norms as long as
the status of the land is not changed pending its final negotiated outcome.
The claim that the settlements are the source of the conflict holds no logic. The
Arab-Israel conflict existed long before the establishment of any settlement, with
efforts by the Arab states in 1948 to prevent the establishment of the state of
Israel and their ongoing efforts since then to bring about its demise.
The Palestinian leadership manipulates history and denies Jewish history and
heritage in Jewish holy sites in its presentations to international organizations
such as UNESCO. They cannot alter the historic fact that Jerusalem has, from
time immemorial, been the epicenter of the Jewish religion and heritage. It also
plays a major role in the history of Christianity. This is acknowledged in the
Quran, the Old and New Testaments and in the writings of historians.
Any assumption or expectation that the Israeli public may be pressured into
supporting demands for a unilateral withdrawal from Arab areas of east
Jerusalem outside of a negotiated and agreed-upon framework is misplaced and
has no basis in fact.
This comes at the expense of genuine objective, historic, legal and factual
analysis.
Well-meaning and sincere European and American politicians, communityleaders and organizations together with international and regional organizations
appear to feel that they are better-able and equipped, more-so than Israels
elected leaders and the Israeli public, to know what is in the better interests of
Israel.
The Israeli public, whose voters and their elected officials face the threats of
hostility and terror on a daily basis, have deep political awareness and are fully
capable of determining the fate of Israel.
The assumption that international pressure will bring about the downfall of
Israels democratically-elected government belies the strength of Israels
democracy and undermines the Wests democratic principles.
The present situation of political stalemate between the Palestinians and Israel is
not the result of Israeli defiance, as claimed by some Western leaders,
governments, and commentators.
Israel has repeatedly expressed its willingness to resume the negotiation process
immediately. Israel is committed in the Oslo Accords and has made it very clear
that it has no intention of carrying out any unilateral action aimed at changing
the status of the territories.
The present status quo is determined by the fact that the Palestinian
leadership consistently refuses to return to a negotiating table. It prefers to
indulge the international community with its victimhood and to generate
negative initiatives aimed at denying Israels character as the Jewish State, and
delegitimizing Israel.
In the absence of a viable diplomatic process today, the current status quo is
sustainable.
Anti-Semitism has been a tragic phenomenon conducted solely against Jews for
thousands of years, causing massacres, pogroms, expulsions, public torture and
executions, lynching, forced conversion, destruction of synagogues,
enslavement, confiscation of belongings, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust.
Anti-Semitic themes are a staple of Palestinian and Arab media, school curricula,
cartoons, and sermons.
Palestinian cartoon after the murder of five rabbis in a Jerusalem synagogue, November 2014.
The aim of anti-Semitism has been to exterminate and bring about the total
genocide of the Jewish People as a race.
The comparison of Israel to South Africa under white supremacist rule has been
utterly rejected by those with intimate understanding of the old Apartheid
system, especially South Africans. The aim of such propaganda, in addition to
delegitimizing the very basis of existence of the State of Israel, is to cynically
manipulate the international community and to encourage imposition of an
international sanctions regime against Israel modeled on the actions against the
former apartheid regime in South Africa.
Israel is a multi-racial and multi-colored society, and the Israeli Arab population
actively participates in the political process. Israeli Arabs enjoy complete equality
and freedom of expression. They elect their own Knesset members and Arab
judges serve in the Supreme Court. Israeli Arabs serve as heads of hospital
departments, university professors, diplomats, and senior police and army
officers.
Each religious community has its own religious court system, applying Sharia,
Canon, and Jewish law respectively.
Unlike those Arab and other states in which one religion is declared the state
religion, or Western countries where Christianity is the predominant religion, or
Moslem countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia where certain areas, towns, and
roads are restricted to Moslems only, and where women are treated as
second-class citizens and gay people as criminals, Israeli law regards Judaism,
Islam, and Christianity as official religions and constitutionally ensures complete
freedom and equality to all.
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Israel Miss Universe pageant 2013 and the winner, second from the left, Yityish Aynaw, an Ethiopian
Israeli (African Sun Times)
Whether in day-to-day political and social discourse, or whether in the international and
local media, the above canards appear repeatedly and consistently.
Communities, especially Jewish communities throughout the world, Christian
congregations, students and academic staff, parliamentarians, publicists, as well as all
well-meaning people in general, are being cynically targeted and manipulated in order
to generate artificial narratives through repetition of lies and through distortion and
perversion of truth.
It is to be hoped that this manipulation will be seen in its true light and will be rejected.
***
Amb. Alan Baker is Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem
Center and the head of the Global Law Forum. He participated in the negotiation and
drafting of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, as well as agreements and peace
treaties with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. He served as legal adviser and deputy
director-general of Israels Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as Israels ambassador to
Canada.
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