UN Special Coordinator for Middle East Peace Process Excoriates Israel for ‘Illegal’ Settlements

Tor Wennesland is the new UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. We noted here how quick he was to blame Israel for not supplying the PA with vaccines, calling it a “violation of international law.” He apparently failed to read Article 17 of Annex III to the 1995 Oslo Accords, where the responsibility for the Palestinians’ health care, including vaccinations, is assigned exclusively to the Palestinians themselves.

And no report to the U.N. about Israel would be complete without mention of those “illegal Jewish settlements” in the West Bank. Tor Wennesland did not disappoint, according to this report.

Wennesland also addressed a wide range of issues relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He slammed Israeli settlement activity, stating that “settlements are illegal under international law and are a major obstacle to peace.”

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Here we go again, with those settlements he “slammed” because he claims they are “illegal under international law.” No matter how often that is claimed, it isn’t true. Israel has a perfect right, under the Mandate for Palestine, Article 6, to engage in “close settlement by Jews on the land.” Which land? The land which was assigned to the Mandate. According to the Mandate maps, this territory extended from the Golan in the north to the Red Sea in the south, and from the Jordan River in the east to the Mediterranean in the west. That includes all of what we today call the “West Bank” (a/k/a Judea and Samaria). By Article 80 of the U.N. Charter, often called the “Jewish people’s article,” the Palestine Mandate’s continuing validity was implicitly recognized, and the Jewish rights to Palestine were not to be altered in any way. Jordan seized and, from 1949 to 1967, held the land that in 1950 it renamed the “West Bank,” but its only right was that of “military occupier.” In 1967, when Israel took possession of “Judea and Samaria” (a/k/a the West Bank), it was at last able to enforce its pre-existing right, under the Mandate, to that land.

He also took Israel to task for its continued demolition of illegal Palestinian structures, explaining that 71 Palestinian-own structures, of which 19 were residential, were confiscated or destroyed in the last month.

A continuous war over land is going on in the West Bank. The Palestinians keep trying to build structures, including houses, in Area C. According to the Oslo Accords, Israel has complete authority over Area C, just as the Palestine Authority does over Area A. In Area B, Israel and the PA share authority. When Israel demolishes “illegal” Palestinian structures — that is, those for which a permit to build has not been issued — it is only trying to prevent a stealth appropriation of land by the PA. And it has a perfect right to do so.

Israel, he said, had also destroyed 2,000 Palestinian owned trees which it said were planted on state land.

If Wennesland had read the Mandate for Palestine, he would have noted that Jewish settlements are to be encouraged “on state and waste lands.” In planting their trees on “state land,” the Palestinians are trying to create a situation of de-facto ownership. And they know that if the Israelis try to enforce their rights by destroying those trees, the ill-informed everywhere will be appalled not at the Palestinians for deliberately violating their commitment to leave Area C in Israel’s sole control, which includes the issuing of building permits, but at the cruel Israelis, who for some reason uproot trees planted by inoffensive and innocent Palestinian farmers.

“I urge Israel to cease demolitions and seizures of Palestinian property,” Wennesland said.

Wennesland doesn’t understand. The “demolitions and seizures” are not acts of wanton cruelty. They are only intended to prevent the Palestinians from wrongly laying claim, in a kind of adverse possession, to land to which they have neither right nor title. Imagine someone who decides to build his house in one of our national parks, and to treat the land he builds on as his by right, and tries to keep visitors from what he calls “my land.” How long would the government tolerate such a move? The Palestinians in Area C are building their structures on “state and waste lands” to which they have no legitimate claim.

He called for a return to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and promised to continue the work done by Mladenov, particularly his efforts to “speak openly and frankly with all sides.”

He can speak “openly and frankly,” but even more. essential is that he also must speak knowledgeably. In his report to the Security Council, he commits two grievous errors. First, Wennesland insists that Israel has violated “international law” by not providing the Palestinians with vaccines. He ignores the fact that the Palestinian Authority bears full responsibility for vaccinating its people. Second, he claims that Israel “violates international law” by building settlements in the West Bank. He ignores the express provisions – the Preamble, Article 4 and, especially, Article 6 of the Palestine Mandate, that encourage “close settlement by Jews on the land” – that very land which, according to the Mandate maps, includes all of the West Bank, and where, we are now being told by Wennesland, Jewish settlements “violate international law.”

“I will support and encourage Israelis and Palestinians in pursuit of peace, urge them to refrain from damaging unilateral steps, and help to create an environment conducive to dialogue,” Wennesland said.

In short, the usual pieties, divorced from reality. What “peace”? What “dialogue”? The Palestinians praise and reward terrorists. They inculcate murderous hatred of Israelis and of Jews. They deny the Jews any connection to their ancestral homeland. Many, possibly most, of them continue to claim all of Palestine “from the river to the sea.

We all know that by “damaging unilateral steps,” Wennesland means those Israeli settlements built legally in the West Bank, and not those Palestinian structures built illegally in Area C. As for creating an “environment conducive to dialogue,” he might have mentioned how Palestinian schoolbooks and children’s television shows inculcate murderous hatred of Israelis. He might have mentioned the PA policy of naming streets and squares after terrorists, glorifying them as heroes to be emulated. He might, above all, have mentioned the PA’s Pay-For-Slay program. But there is no mention of any of that in his report to the Security Council. .

He might have mentioned, too (had he done his homework on the 1995 Oslo Accords) that the Palestinians have — outrageously –been blaming Israel for not supplying it with vaccines, vaccines that Israel has no obligation to supply. That charge hardly “creates an environment conducive to dialogue.”

Tor Wennesland, the new UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, is off to a very rocky start. Instead of trying to fit right into that anti-Israel atmosphere, he should do something remarkable at the UN. He should try to tell the truth.

The Truth Must be Told

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Annie Oakley

3 years ago

You can’t make this stuff up by the U.N., the united nations of IDIOTS. THERE IS NO PALESTINIAN NATION. THEY ARE ARABS WHO cames up with their own CHARTER in 1964 without any LEGAL standing.

Some of the modern-day Palestinians are also likely descendants of Lot (one of Abraham’s relatives whose two daughters gave birth to the peoples of Moab and Ammon) and Esau (one of Isaac’s sons and brother of Jacob).

Although the Palestinians are in Abraham’s lineage, they were not given the same blessings and inheritance as Isaac. Although Isaac was Abraham’s second son through him, he was the only son produced between himself and his wife Sarah.

God himself declared that Isaac would inherit the birthright blessings which included Canaan (Genesis 21:10 – 13, 17:6 – 9, 15:16 – 21 and so on). The Lord still blessed Ishmael, the father of the Palestinians, but not to the degree as Isaac (Genesis 16:10 – 12).

SO, PALESTINE ACTUALLY BELONGS TO ISRAEL.

Jewish settlers bought land in Palestine during the British Mandate period and after the Balfour Declaration (which said that the British government was in favor of creating a homeland for the Jews) came into existence in late 1917. This was long before the Palestinians and their rights became a global issue. It was only after these settlers began to improve the land they bought that many Arabs from other locations moved into Israel as well.

The nation of Israel occupied, in 1967, areas known as the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip after its decisive victory in the Six-Day War. Although the Palestinians argue these areas belong to them, and wish to use them to form a future state of Palestine, Israel maintains control of them to this day.

THE CONFLICT

Here is something interesting to consider regarding the Palestinians and their conflict with others. If the existing Arab regimes in the area took in their fellow Arabs and Muslims after 1948, and let them assimilate and immigrate among them, granting them full citizenship, a good portion of the mess we see today in the Middle East would not exist.

Put another way, if the Arab world really treated the Palestinians as their brothers, they would have let them resettle among them. This type of merciful act has occurred in recent history. It happened when India took in Hindus from Pakistan as well as when the nation of Israel took in Jews from the rest of the Middle East.

In summary, the modern-day Palestinians are the Arabs who used to live or who live today in the modern State of Israel, including the occupied territories such as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They are primarily the descendants of Ishmael, Abraham’s oldest son. Although some have been in the Holy Land for generations, many have not.“

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