Salman Abu-Sitta, former member of the Palestine National Council, defamed Israel by comparing people in the Gaza Strip to the victims of the Nazis: "1.5 million people live in… the new Auschwitz, deprived of food, medicine and fuel and subject to daily slaughter… Those who were silent because they did not know about Nazi atrocities in World War II have no excuse today".
In de gebouwen van de VN is dergelijke taal helaas niet uitzonderlijk, en zijn er evenmin protesten tegen te horen.
In the hall next to the Conference room, organizations, including BADIL, put their anti-Israeli propaganda materials on a table. The main messages were firstly that illegitimate Israel has occupied Palestinian land, secondly drastic pressures have to be put on Israel to "free Palestine", and finally that the Palestinian right of return will lead to such a scale of Palestinian Arab immigration to Israel that the Jewish state will inevitably come to and end.
Niet alle Palestijnse organisaties geven openlijk toe dat dat een doel is van het zogenaamde 'recht op terugkeer'. Waarom protesteert niemand bij de VN tegen een dergelijke oproep tot vernietiging van een VN lidstaat? Op dezelfde conferentie werd ook de VN resolutie die in deling van het mandaatgebied Palestina voorzag betreurd.
Hoe kan een organisatie die zo eenzijdig is, en zich zo laat leiden door de propaganda van de Palestijnen, tegelijkertijd een rol als neutrale bemiddelaar spelen???
RP
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UNESCO Headquarters hosted an anti-Israel United Nations International Conference on Palestine Refugees
By Ray Archeld for Guysen International News
Lundi 16 juin 2008 à 21:51
http://www.guysen.com/articles.php?sid=7383
Lundi 16 juin 2008 à 21:51
http://www.guysen.com/articles.php?sid=7383
The United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People organized a conference on "the present situation of Palestine refugees" at the UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Headquarters in Paris (France) on April 29 and 30, 2008.
It was the second such conference on Palestine refugees held at UNESCO Headquarters under the Committee's auspices following one in April 2000.
On July 12 and 13, 2005, UNESCO also had offered its premises for a "UN International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Middle East Peace" convened by the Committee.
That conference had adopted an "Action Plan" calling for "a global campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end the occupation and to comply with international law".
On July 15, 2005, the outraged Anti-Defamation League (ADL) had called for the abolition of that "anti-Israel UN committee".
The two-day April 2008 meeting's stated purpose was to "examine efforts at finding an agreed, just and fair solution to the refugee issue in keeping with relevant UN resolutions as a prerequisite for resolving the question of Palestine and achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East".
About 180 participants representing States (except Israel), international organizations, pro-Palestinian civil society organizations and a few media attended the Conference.
Its speakers, by and large, vilified and de-legitimized Israel, accusing it of violating international and humanitarian law. The documentary La terre parle arabe (The Land speaks Arabic) by Maryse Gargour focused on "cleansing and spoliation of Palestinian land by Zionists" (1).
In a message, Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General, noted: "This year marks the 60th year of Palestinian dispossession".
A "just compensation for the losses of Palestinian homes and properties and suffering and the fulfilment of right of return, both an individual and collective right" were demanded by speakers.
Various evaluations of the assets lost by the "750 000 Palestinian refugees" in 1948 were cited. Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the UN, considered Palestinian Arabs would not have to prove their ownership of their lost properties in order to reclaim them.
Ban Ki-moon also called for "the end of rocket fire and other attacks against Israeli targets and an end of Israeli incursions and military actions in Gaza". Most participants neglected to mention Hamas or Islamic terrorism.
Paul Badji, Chairman of the Committee, judged "unacceptable and unjust that the entire civilian population of the Gaza Strip is enduring a collective punishment and is subjected to a suffocating blockade for the actions of a few militant groups".
Outside the conference, Badji met French parliamentarians and invited participants of the conference to a cocktail reception.
Marcio N. Barbosa, UNESCO Deputy Director-General, described the Organization's support for the Palestinian Arabs, in particular via the UNESCO/Palestinian Authority Committee and a new program of fellowships to Palestinian students thanks to a contribution from the Saudi Committee for the Relief of the Palestinian People.
Elias Sanbar, Permanent Observer of Palestine to UNESCO and well-known intellectual (2), thanked Adrien Pirelli, the representative of France at the meeting (3), and the Government of France, "a constant and consistent friend of Palestine".
He deplored "the adoption of the [UN] resolution 181 in 1947 which partitioned historic Palestine and led to the injustice and tragedy that the Palestinian people continue to endure today".
Sanbar added in "the Al-Nakba Palestinian [Arabs were] dispersed from their homeland of Palestine by forced expulsion". Like most speakers, he concealed the Arab leaders' call for Palestinian Arabs to flee their home and the Jewish exodus from Arab countries.
Salman Abu-Sitta, former member of the Palestine National Council, defamed Israel by comparing people in the Gaza Strip to the victims of the Nazis: "1.5 million people live in… the new Auschwitz, deprived of food, medicine and fuel and subject to daily slaughter… Those who were silent because they did not know about Nazi atrocities in World War II have no excuse today".
On April 23, 2008, the United States, Britain, France and other states left a UN Security Council meeting when Libya made a similar comparison. On April 29, no country reacted.
Abu-Sitta asserted too that "the Palestinian will always be a majority… unless Israelis commit another Nakba or a "bigger holocaust". That false "demographic bomb"(4) argument has been promoted to induce "painful Israeli territorial concessions"(5).
Susan Akram, Professor at the Boston University School of Law, asserted: "It's extremely difficult to argue that Jews possess a right to 'return' to Palestine after 2,000 years while Palestinians cannot exercise such a right after approximately 60 years".
In order to pressure Israel, Mazen Masri and Terry Rempel, Ph.D. candidates, called for a BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions) campaign, similar to the one against apartheid South Africa.
Terry Rempel was a founding member of BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. According to NGO Monitor, BADIL "is one of the most active NGOs in promoting extremist Palestinian political positions in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict"(6).
As the only Israeli present, Professor Menahem Klein, Senior Lecturer of Political Science at Bar-Ilan University and member of B'etselem, warned the conference attendees that he did not in any way represent the Israeli Government and hence they should not direct their complaints to him. He spoke of an "asymmetrical conflict" and negotiations opposing the "strong Israel" to the "weak" Palestinian Arabs basing their demands on law.
The Non-Aligned Movement and the African Union expressed their support for the Palestinian cause.
The final resolution affirmed support for "the Israeli-Palestinian political process" in view of "concluding an agreement by the end of 2008" and stressed the "inalienable right of return of refugees". It encouraged contributors to support controversial UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) which registered "over 4.5 millions refugees" .
The report of that conference will be issued as a publication of the Division for Palestinian Rights of the UN Secretariat.
In the hall next to the Conference room, organizations, including BADIL, put their anti-Israeli propaganda materials on a table. The main messages were firstly that illegitimate Israel has occupied Palestinian land, secondly drastic pressures have to be put on Israel to "free Palestine", and finally that the Palestinian right of return will lead to such a scale of Palestinian Arab immigration to Israel that the Jewish state will inevitably come to and end.
A television monitor also transmitted in a continuous loop a documentary on "undocumented massacres" of Palestinian Arabs during the "Nakba".
It was the second such conference on Palestine refugees held at UNESCO Headquarters under the Committee's auspices following one in April 2000.
On July 12 and 13, 2005, UNESCO also had offered its premises for a "UN International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Middle East Peace" convened by the Committee.
That conference had adopted an "Action Plan" calling for "a global campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end the occupation and to comply with international law".
On July 15, 2005, the outraged Anti-Defamation League (ADL) had called for the abolition of that "anti-Israel UN committee".
The two-day April 2008 meeting's stated purpose was to "examine efforts at finding an agreed, just and fair solution to the refugee issue in keeping with relevant UN resolutions as a prerequisite for resolving the question of Palestine and achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East".
About 180 participants representing States (except Israel), international organizations, pro-Palestinian civil society organizations and a few media attended the Conference.
Its speakers, by and large, vilified and de-legitimized Israel, accusing it of violating international and humanitarian law. The documentary La terre parle arabe (The Land speaks Arabic) by Maryse Gargour focused on "cleansing and spoliation of Palestinian land by Zionists" (1).
In a message, Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General, noted: "This year marks the 60th year of Palestinian dispossession".
A "just compensation for the losses of Palestinian homes and properties and suffering and the fulfilment of right of return, both an individual and collective right" were demanded by speakers.
Various evaluations of the assets lost by the "750 000 Palestinian refugees" in 1948 were cited. Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the UN, considered Palestinian Arabs would not have to prove their ownership of their lost properties in order to reclaim them.
Ban Ki-moon also called for "the end of rocket fire and other attacks against Israeli targets and an end of Israeli incursions and military actions in Gaza". Most participants neglected to mention Hamas or Islamic terrorism.
Paul Badji, Chairman of the Committee, judged "unacceptable and unjust that the entire civilian population of the Gaza Strip is enduring a collective punishment and is subjected to a suffocating blockade for the actions of a few militant groups".
Outside the conference, Badji met French parliamentarians and invited participants of the conference to a cocktail reception.
Marcio N. Barbosa, UNESCO Deputy Director-General, described the Organization's support for the Palestinian Arabs, in particular via the UNESCO/Palestinian Authority Committee and a new program of fellowships to Palestinian students thanks to a contribution from the Saudi Committee for the Relief of the Palestinian People.
Elias Sanbar, Permanent Observer of Palestine to UNESCO and well-known intellectual (2), thanked Adrien Pirelli, the representative of France at the meeting (3), and the Government of France, "a constant and consistent friend of Palestine".
He deplored "the adoption of the [UN] resolution 181 in 1947 which partitioned historic Palestine and led to the injustice and tragedy that the Palestinian people continue to endure today".
Sanbar added in "the Al-Nakba Palestinian [Arabs were] dispersed from their homeland of Palestine by forced expulsion". Like most speakers, he concealed the Arab leaders' call for Palestinian Arabs to flee their home and the Jewish exodus from Arab countries.
Salman Abu-Sitta, former member of the Palestine National Council, defamed Israel by comparing people in the Gaza Strip to the victims of the Nazis: "1.5 million people live in… the new Auschwitz, deprived of food, medicine and fuel and subject to daily slaughter… Those who were silent because they did not know about Nazi atrocities in World War II have no excuse today".
On April 23, 2008, the United States, Britain, France and other states left a UN Security Council meeting when Libya made a similar comparison. On April 29, no country reacted.
Abu-Sitta asserted too that "the Palestinian will always be a majority… unless Israelis commit another Nakba or a "bigger holocaust". That false "demographic bomb"(4) argument has been promoted to induce "painful Israeli territorial concessions"(5).
Susan Akram, Professor at the Boston University School of Law, asserted: "It's extremely difficult to argue that Jews possess a right to 'return' to Palestine after 2,000 years while Palestinians cannot exercise such a right after approximately 60 years".
In order to pressure Israel, Mazen Masri and Terry Rempel, Ph.D. candidates, called for a BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions) campaign, similar to the one against apartheid South Africa.
Terry Rempel was a founding member of BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. According to NGO Monitor, BADIL "is one of the most active NGOs in promoting extremist Palestinian political positions in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict"(6).
As the only Israeli present, Professor Menahem Klein, Senior Lecturer of Political Science at Bar-Ilan University and member of B'etselem, warned the conference attendees that he did not in any way represent the Israeli Government and hence they should not direct their complaints to him. He spoke of an "asymmetrical conflict" and negotiations opposing the "strong Israel" to the "weak" Palestinian Arabs basing their demands on law.
The Non-Aligned Movement and the African Union expressed their support for the Palestinian cause.
The final resolution affirmed support for "the Israeli-Palestinian political process" in view of "concluding an agreement by the end of 2008" and stressed the "inalienable right of return of refugees". It encouraged contributors to support controversial UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) which registered "over 4.5 millions refugees" .
The report of that conference will be issued as a publication of the Division for Palestinian Rights of the UN Secretariat.
In the hall next to the Conference room, organizations, including BADIL, put their anti-Israeli propaganda materials on a table. The main messages were firstly that illegitimate Israel has occupied Palestinian land, secondly drastic pressures have to be put on Israel to "free Palestine", and finally that the Palestinian right of return will lead to such a scale of Palestinian Arab immigration to Israel that the Jewish state will inevitably come to and end.
A television monitor also transmitted in a continuous loop a documentary on "undocumented massacres" of Palestinian Arabs during the "Nakba".
The documentation and television were strategically located at a UNESCO entrance to catch the eye of passers-by.
The Committee will convene two other conferences in Europe, on Jerusalem and settlements mistranslated in French as "colonies".
On May 15, 2008, Ambassador of Israel to UNESCO David Kornbluth commented: "UNESCO hosted that Conference after the UN New York headquarters had asked for it. Unfortunately, the ideas expressed during that conference do not contribute to peace. Israel didn't participate".
It might seem contradictory that UNESCO hosts an anti-Israeli conference while it has taken recent steps to improve its frequently biased relations with Israel by supporting a high-level visit to the country and adopted a resolution on Holocaust Remembrance in November 2007.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) That film was screened at the Arab World Institute (IMA) in Paris, on May 15, 2008 - http://www.imarabe.org/temp/rencontres/jeudis20080515.html -, during Palestine in Paris (May-July 2008) - http://www.paris.fr/portail/viewmultimediadocument?multimediadocument-id=54256 - which is a "cultural event" organized by the City of Paris, whose Mayor is Mr Bertrand Delanoë, with Mrs Hind Khoury's support. Mrs Hind Khoury is the General Delegate for the Palestinian Authority in France. The IMA is "a foundation aiming at making known the Arab culture with public French and Europeans". It is "the fruit of a partnership between France and 22 Arabic States".
(2) Intellectual Elias Sanbar is also the editor in chief of quarterly French magazine Revue d'études palestiniennes he founded in 1981, in Paris, with the support of philosopher Gilles Deleuze and famous Jewish French publisher Jérôme Lindon of the prestigious Editions de Minuit.
(3) Adrien Pinelli serves as a counsellor at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs: he is in charge of Palestinian Territories, Jerusalem and the Peace Process in the Egypt-Levant-Peace Process Division (ANMO/EL). He also teaches Foreign Relations at the prestigious Institute of Political Studies of Paris (Sciences Po).
(4) In an article published in inFocus (Spring 2008), Bennett Zimmerman and Michael L. Wise wrote 2.7 million Palestinians live in the disputed territories, and not 3.71 million as the 2007 Palestinian Census stated. They stressed Israel benefits from a "strategic demographic advantage". Bennett Zimmerman et Michael Wise, Defusing the Demographic Time Bomb, inFocus, Spring 2008, volume II: n° 1, http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/article/111
(5) The Israelis are indeed concerned by the false "demographic time bomb". That argument influenced the "land for peace" negotiations, in particular the "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip.
(6) http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/badil Badil's Radical Motto – European Tax Dollars at Work, October11, 2007, http://blog.ngo-monitor.org/boycottdivestment/badils-radical-motto-european-tax-dollars-at-work/
(7) http://www.un.org/unrwa/ Barry Rubin, Asaf Romirowsky et Jonathan Spyer, UNRWA: Refuge Of Rejectionism, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, May 8, 2008, http://www.gloriacenter.org/index.asp?pname=submenus/articles/2008/rubin/5_8.asp
Asaf Romirowsky, Defund UNRWA, May19, 2008, http://www.meforum.org/article/1896
The Committee will convene two other conferences in Europe, on Jerusalem and settlements mistranslated in French as "colonies".
On May 15, 2008, Ambassador of Israel to UNESCO David Kornbluth commented: "UNESCO hosted that Conference after the UN New York headquarters had asked for it. Unfortunately, the ideas expressed during that conference do not contribute to peace. Israel didn't participate".
It might seem contradictory that UNESCO hosts an anti-Israeli conference while it has taken recent steps to improve its frequently biased relations with Israel by supporting a high-level visit to the country and adopted a resolution on Holocaust Remembrance in November 2007.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) That film was screened at the Arab World Institute (IMA) in Paris, on May 15, 2008 - http://www.imarabe.org/temp/rencontres/jeudis20080515.html -, during Palestine in Paris (May-July 2008) - http://www.paris.fr/portail/viewmultimediadocument?multimediadocument-id=54256 - which is a "cultural event" organized by the City of Paris, whose Mayor is Mr Bertrand Delanoë, with Mrs Hind Khoury's support. Mrs Hind Khoury is the General Delegate for the Palestinian Authority in France. The IMA is "a foundation aiming at making known the Arab culture with public French and Europeans". It is "the fruit of a partnership between France and 22 Arabic States".
(2) Intellectual Elias Sanbar is also the editor in chief of quarterly French magazine Revue d'études palestiniennes he founded in 1981, in Paris, with the support of philosopher Gilles Deleuze and famous Jewish French publisher Jérôme Lindon of the prestigious Editions de Minuit.
(3) Adrien Pinelli serves as a counsellor at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs: he is in charge of Palestinian Territories, Jerusalem and the Peace Process in the Egypt-Levant-Peace Process Division (ANMO/EL). He also teaches Foreign Relations at the prestigious Institute of Political Studies of Paris (Sciences Po).
(4) In an article published in inFocus (Spring 2008), Bennett Zimmerman and Michael L. Wise wrote 2.7 million Palestinians live in the disputed territories, and not 3.71 million as the 2007 Palestinian Census stated. They stressed Israel benefits from a "strategic demographic advantage". Bennett Zimmerman et Michael Wise, Defusing the Demographic Time Bomb, inFocus, Spring 2008, volume II: n° 1, http://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/article/111
(5) The Israelis are indeed concerned by the false "demographic time bomb". That argument influenced the "land for peace" negotiations, in particular the "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip.
(6) http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/badil Badil's Radical Motto – European Tax Dollars at Work, October11, 2007, http://blog.ngo-monitor.org/boycottdivestment/badils-radical-motto-european-tax-dollars-at-work/
(7) http://www.un.org/unrwa/ Barry Rubin, Asaf Romirowsky et Jonathan Spyer, UNRWA: Refuge Of Rejectionism, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, May 8, 2008, http://www.gloriacenter.org/index.asp?pname=submenus/articles/2008/rubin/5_8.asp
Asaf Romirowsky, Defund UNRWA, May19, 2008, http://www.meforum.org/article/1896
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