PALESTINE AT THE U.N. TODAY

by Citizen Paul

23 October 2008 — The Palestine quagmire began at the United Nations more than 60 years ago.

That’s when under considerable American pressure the U.N. General Assembly voted to “partition” Palestine between a Jewish State and a Palestinian Arab State.

The entire Arab world voted against it. It was an immensely contentious decision. Secretary of State George Marshall himself personally threatened to resign if Truman approved this plan.

In the end, Marshall gave in and stayed in office, but he warned — and how right he proved to be — that this decision was likely to have very troubling impact on U.S. foreign policies for years to come.

Today at the United Nations in New York, Professor Richard Falk, the newly appointed Special Rapporteur on Israeli Actions in the Palestinian Territories, presents his first report to the U.N. General Assembly Third Committee.

Overall Falk’s conclusions mirror my own. Click here to read Falk’s complete report; and pay special attention to his “Recommendations” on the last page.

The biggest difference is I’m free to state things rather more bluntly, and Falk is constrained by both his U.N. mandate and the legalistic style of these things.

Indeed I do take off the gloves and call it straight in my upcoming publication, SAVING ISRAEL FROM ITSELF and SAVING AMERICA FROM ISRAEL.

This publication contains what I feel the imperative to explain and to advocate. It is the result of my own investigation into the situation a few months ago when I visited Israel and Occupied Palestine with stops in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Bir Zeit University, Bethlehem, Hebron, Beit Jalla, Nazareth, Tiberias, Jericho, as well as an Israeli settlement and a Palestinian Refugee Camp, before brief visits to Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

Furthermore, Falk isn’t in a position as I am to speak up forcefully about the powerful Israel and Jewish Lobby in our own country that has caused so much harm and whose former top officials are now on trial as spies.

Professor Richard Falk

Richard Falk, himself Jewish, is one of our country’s most distinguished scholars and authors. We have featured his excellent writings and statements about Israel and Palestine in the past, and those too I greatly encourage you to read.

His overall conclusion: “Palestinians have been betrayed by the international community.”

And get this: Because Falk has spoken up against their policies and because he has been appointed by the U.N. to this new role, the Israelis have not only barred him from coming to Israel, they refuse to let him go to Jerusalem or to the Palestinian West Bank or Gaza! So much for Israeli Democracy! How outrageous!

I share Falk’s conclusion. But I think it needs an addition.

We Americans have been betrayed as well by many of our own leaders in Washington. It’s time our American democracy policies change to what is right, to what is just, and to what is in keeping with our own American principles and values.

These are indeed my primary concerns and they lie at the heart of SAVING ISRAEL FROM ITSELF and SAVING AMERICA FROM ISRAEL which we are working strenuously to complete.