The Plot To Succeed

"The bottom line is there's going to be a large hole in UNESCO's budget because of the American law which withdraws funding and people at UNESCO should not look to Canada to fill that budget hole. They'll have to go to the countries who supported this resolution, that caused this budget loophole." Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird

The United States made it abundantly clear that it would halt its funding of UNESCO, worth 22% of its budget, should the Palestinian Authority's entry as a full member be approved by the membership. Enough of the membership did comply with the request by the PA to be welcomed into that world heritage body to both diminish the respect in which it is held, and to render less than legitimate membership to a non-existent country.

"The United States ... remains strongly committed to robust, multilateral engagement across the UN system. However, Palestinian membership as a state in UNESCO triggers long-standing legislative restrictions which will compel the United States to refrain from making contributions to UNESCO." U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

Canada too made it abundantly clear what its position is on the matter. Minister Baird reiterated his government's position which is that formal, legal channels must be followed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to meet and to discuss and to hammer out an agreement between the two that would lead to peace before the Palestinian Authority could be legitimized on the world stage as a recognized country within the United Nations.

That peace agreement would come to fruition once both sides agreed on critical matters that each must seriously decide would finally be addressed and concluded. Borders and boundaries, and assurances of security are uppermost. The recognition of Jerusalem as the heritage, historical capital of a Jewish state, with special provisions for allowing the PA to a representative portion, exclusive of the Old City and Judaism's sacred places.

The new State of Palestine, when it becomes official, must be on track to welcome with open arms all those Palestinians who were dispersed and sheltered in other countries of the Middle East, none of which would give them legal status, just as Israel has welcomed Jews from the diaspora to help build the Jewish state. Israel absorbed the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were expelled from Arab lands; the PA can do no less for their own.

Those Palestinians who live within Israel proper may choose to leave to join their brethren in a new state. Paradoxically, while there are scant few Jews left in any Arab/Muslim countries, and when they were expelled from those countries, their belongings and goods expropriated, they are not welcome to return, though some Libyan Jews would now wish to. On the other hand, Palestinians who live in Israel, who are citizens of Israel with all the rights that implies, have stated their preference.

Which is definitely not to move into a new Palestinian country; they would not even have to physically move themselves, but they are defiant against any potential prospect that Israel could exchange land with the PA, itself retaining land in the West Bank where there are Jewish settlements, and handing over carved-out areas within its borders with majority-Palestinian populations to the PA.

But the Palestinian Authority has no intention of accommodating itself to any arrangements which might be of use to them but which would also be useful to Israel. And so it chooses to encourage opposition to anything that might smack of co-operation. Demanding ever more maximal-difficult-to-achieve prerequisites before it will purportedly deign to consider direct peace talks again.

For the direct purpose of forestalling those talks - forever, if need be, while at the same time achieving its main objective of having recognized statehood through the United Nations. Now it has chosen the incremental option of approaching for membership and being welcomed at the dozen-and-a-half UN member offshoot groups like UNESCO. Steadily, stealthily achieving its goal.

The Palestinian Authority is in the business of appropriating to itself everything and anything that Israel has the legitimate, historical right of ownership to, including Israel's ancient monuments and heritage sites. Islam has a long established habit of extinguishing any vestiges of other religions and destroying their integrity, then building over them, to claim such sites as their own, exclusively.

Having been successful in being welcomed into UNESCO membership with or without nationhood, the PA stands prepared now to appropriate Israel's signal historical and heritage symbols and sites, from the tombs of ancient Israelites to the Temple Mount, to the Dead Sea. This is maliciously iniquitous, but business as usual for Palestinians in their bid to disqualify, slander, delegitimize and demonize a country that it refuses to recognize.

And this is fully consistent with its efforts to dislodge the "occupation"; not the military oversight in self-protection of the West Bank and Gaza, but the entire geography on which sits the State of Israel. The Palestinians are fully engrossed in enlisting world opinion to their 'victimized' side in ongoing efforts to destroy Israel's credibility, and in the process bring world opinion to its support.

Sadly, a good proportion of the world; Asia, Africa, Latin America eagerly respond to that requested support. And Western academics, unions and the far left are right behind them.