Christmas US/Judas Betrayal of Israel

"To understand the severity of [what] the situation is, let us recall that in the 1950s about 86% of the population of the Bethlehem area was Christian. Today, we are only 12%. In Israel, by contrast, we have 133,000 Christians and the figure is stable. Of course, I am worried about the future of Christians here. Looking at the facts on the ground, you can see that there is no future for the Christians here. We are melting; we are disappearing. I fear the day will come when our churches will become museums. That is my nightmare."
Samir Qumsieh, Christian Palestinian, Bet Sahour, near Bethlehem

"Israel’s borders and territorial scope are a source of seemingly endless debate. Remarkably, despite the intensity of the debates, little attention has been paid to the relevance of the doctrine of uti possidetis juris to resolving legal aspects of the border dispute. Uti possidetis juris is widely acknowledged as the doctrine of customary international law that is central to determining territorial sovereignty in the era of decolonization. The doctrine provides that emerging states presumptively inherit their pre-independence administrative boundaries."
"Applied to the case of Israel, uti possidetis juris would dictate that Israel inherit the boundaries of the Mandate of Palestine as they existed in May, 1948. The doctrine would thus support Israeli claims to any or all of the currently hotly disputed areas of Jerusalem (including East Jerusalem), the West Bank, and even potentially the Gaza Strip (though not the Golan Heights)."

Palestine, Uti Possidetis Juris, and the Borders of Israel  -- 58 Ariz. L. Rev. 633 (2016)  Abraham Bell & Eugene Kontorovic, Professor of International Law, Northwestern University

The Security Council votes on resolution reiterating its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem. The vote was 14 in favour, with one abstention (United States). UN Photo/Manuel Elias

Palestinian law prohibits Palestinians renting property to Jews. President Mahmoud Abbas has stated categorically that no Jews may live among Arabs in a new Palestinian State; the presence of Jews will be strictly prohibited. A Palestinian State will be restricted from Jewish habitation entirely. A Palestinian State will be prepared to offer itself to Arabs only. Sounds like Apartheid. Good grief, it is apartheid, is it not? Will the world's supporters of the Palestinian 'cause' do a 180-degree pivot and urge boycott-divestment-sanction against a Palestinian state?

Yesterday, at the United Nations, that increasingly dysfunctional, morally-absent world body a resolution condemning Israel for building settlements in the West Bank passed unanimously. The one permanent member of the Security Council that could have halted that resolution from becoming official UN policy decided to abstain, which in the circumstances acts as a vote for the resolution.
Countries that sit on the revolving Security Council are often the world's most blighted human rights abusers.

The permanent members of the UN Security Council include both Russia and China, both of which are well known for their lack of concern over human rights, each of which is known to engage in unofficial extrajudicial murder. The revolving membership this year includes Angola, Egypt, Japan, Spain, Malaysia, Ukraine, New Zealand, Senegal, Uruguay and Venezuela. Angola, known for torture, beatings, police action, arbitrary arrest and detention. Egypt lacks freedom of assembly, expression and rights and liberties.

Reporters Without Borders has ranked Malaysia 147 out of 180 nations for press freedom. Ukraine rates for violation of of the rights of vulnerable groups and police abuse and violence. Senegal: state corruption, rape, discrimination against women, security forces violence, child abuse, infanticide etc.  Uruguay's human rights abuse includes the use of torture, police violence, and sexual discrimination.Venezuela: attacks and intimidation against human rights proponents and journalists, arbitrary detention, corruption.

Those living in glass houses don't hesitate to cast stones upon those whose glass houses pass muster as human rights' exemplars. Where public relations-mandated abuses against Palestinians are charged against Israel, when Gazans suffer serious abuses at the hands of Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority is well known to amass foreign investment meant to support PA citizens but which are placed in personal bank accounts. In both territories children are abused by authorities who groom them for violent 'resistance' against 'occupation'.

That the 'occupation' is a desperate effort at defence from people whose leaders have incited them from childhood to adulthood to hate Jews and view the existence of the State of Israel as an assault against Arab rights and Islamic honour, within which the tiny state which harbours among its Jewish population of six million, several million Arab Muslims and Christians, Kurds and Bedouin, among others with equal status as citizens -- is deliberately overlooked.

With President Obama's decision to exercise a vituperative last-minute administrative spite to cap his animosity toward his Israeli counterpart whom he has always detested and acted toward with a grim-mouthed lack of diplomacy, to slam the Jewish state for appropriating land the international community enjoys claiming is the Palestinians' right to claim for themselves, represents the height of rank hypocrisy. American government 'occupation' of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba rates as a prime example of sanctimonious territoriality.

But the U.S. is not alone among those who grasp at any opportunity to slander Israel for its 'occupation' of 'Palestinian' land. There is Great Britain, with its grasp of the Falkland Islands which is really Argentina's Islas Malvinas, a grim enough  territorial imperative that rated a deadly conflict far from Britain's shores but next door to Argentina's. Russia, yet another stalwart critic of Israel and supporter of the Arab cause of land consecrated to Islam has nothing to explain about Georgia, Ukraine and Kornengsberg, an ancient German city.

And nor has China whose occupation of Tibet is widely and universally rejected to no avail, yet no condemnation in the United Nations would make the effort to shame China on the world stage for China has the power and the veto to prevent it. Turkey, another fan of Israel's presence in the Middle East, has much to answer for in Cyprus, but will not deign to, now will it be held accountable for its lethal treatment of the Kurds whose ancestral land Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria occupy in part, and deny to the Kurds as their rightful homeland.

This betrayal of Israel by the United States has been a long time brewing. Israel knew full well what was in the offing, but as hope springs eternal, the anticipation was that perhaps, just perhaps, a moral twinge of responsibility would turn the tide at the last possible moment. Israel, however, had no reason to hope that justice and truth would prevail in the grand salons of the United Nations, nor that President Obama whose antipathy toward Benjamin Netanyahu ran deep and rank, would nonetheless choose to be fair and decent.

Four different areas of the world, Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal and Venezuela, representing for the most part, some of the most indecent human rights violators in their geographic areas, chose to sit in judgement of a nation exceptionally superior to their own. East Jerusalem, the biblical homeland and heritage of Israel, to be commandeered once again by forces indignant that Jews might feel entitled to reclaim that which was historically theirs and currently open to all religions under Israeli auspices.

And yesterday, outgoing UN director-general Ban Ki-moon, who only a week earlier, commented on the unfairness of the UN's continual resolutions against one tiny state when egregious human rights violations conducted by countless members of the United Nations went unnoticed with studied oblivion, commented the following in a display of utter hypocrisy:
"The resolution is a significant step, demonstrating the Council’s much needed leadership and the international community’s collective efforts to reconfirm that the vision of two States is still achievable. The Secretary-General takes this opportunity to encourage Israeli and Palestinian leaders to work with the international community to create a conducive environment for a return to meaningful negotiations. The United Nations stands ready to support all concerned parties in achieving this goal."

 That damning resolution, demonstrating the collusion between the American administration and the Palestinian Authority will go far to ensure that the PA will continue evading its responsibility to engage in direct talks with Israeli negotiators to arrive at an agreement that is fair and just for both parties. The PA will now feel entitled to continue the path it has been engaged on, because it works for them; direct engagement with the UN to do the work for the PA that the PA refuses to do for itself, and as is usual with arbitrators, their decision-making is in favour of those whom they favour.