What You Need to Know About Anti-Israel UN Resolution 2334
1. Israel's UN Ambassador: Anti-Settlement Resolution of Height of Hypocrisy by Danny Danon
While thousands are being massacred in Syria, the Security Council wastes valuable time and efforts condemning the democratic State of Israel for building homes in the historic Jewish homeland.
We presented the truth time and again to the Council and implored them not to believe the lies presented in Palestinian resolution. By voting “yes” in favor of this resolution, they in fact voted “no.” They voted “no” to negotiations. They voted “no” to progress and a chance for better lives for Israelis and Palestinians. And they voted “no” to the possibility of peace. Instead of charting a course forward, the UN sent a message to the Palestinians: that they should continue on the path of terrorism and incitement; they should continue to hold their own people hostage; they should continue to seek meaningless statements from the international community.
I ask each and every member of the Security Council who voted for this resolution: who gave you the right to issue such a decree denying our eternal rights in Jerusalem? Would this Council have had the nerve to condemn the French from building in Paris? Would it condemn the Russians from building in Moscow? Would it condemn the Chinese from building in Beijing? Would it condemn the British from building in London? Would it condemn the Americans from building in Washington? We overcame those decrees during the time of the Maccabees and we will overcome this evil decree today. We have full confidence in the justice of our cause and in the righteousness of our path.
We will continue to be a democratic state based on the rule of law and full civil and human rights for all our citizens. At the same time, we will continue to be a Jewish state proudly reclaiming the land of our forefathers where the Maccabees fought their oppressors and King David ruled from Jerusalem.
Our holy book, the Bible, contains thousands of years of history of the Jewish people in the land of Israel. No one can change or rewrite this history.
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2. What UN Vote on Israeli Settlements Means -- and What’s Next by Jonathan Ferziger and Michael Arnold
United Nations Security Council 2334, which passed Dec. 23 by a vote of 14-0 with the U.S. abstaining, describes Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as illegal and an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. It was the first time U.S. President Barack Obama declined to block a Security Council resolution that Israel considered hostile, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused him of staging a “shameless ambush” against his country. Netanyahu warned countries that backed the measure they would pay a diplomatic and economic price.
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3. The Dangers of Resolution 2334 by Ambassador Alan Baker
The December 23, 2016, resolution adopted by the UN Security Council regarding Israel’s settlement policy has been received with mixed and even extreme reactions. [Click to read the text of UN Security Council Resolution 2334]
The Palestinian leadership, having initiated the resolution, is celebrating its adoption as an affirmation by the international community, including the United States, of its claims against Israel.
Israel sees this resolution as a major impediment to continued peace negotiations in light of the fact that it by-passes the negotiation process in an attempt to prejudge central issues that are on the negotiating table. As such, it seriously prejudices any possible return to the negotiating process.
Israel considers that the resolution provides political incentives to those in the international community hostile to Israel. It advances boycotts and sanctions and could even be used to support possible litigation against Israeli leaders.
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4. The UN vs. History: This is Not 'Palestinian Territory' by Stephen M. Flatow
It may be unfashionable to talk about the Jewish claim to the Land of Israel when the whole world is so determined to give that land a different name and award it someone else. But the truth is the truth, whether the rest of the world likes it or not.
The truth is that according to the Bible, the historical record, and international law, Judea-Samaria and Jerusalem belong to the Jews, not the Palestinian Arabs.
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5. The poetry of UN politics by Annika Hernroth-Rothstein
This resolution was passed to delegitimize the State of Israel, but chances are it will lead to the delegitimization of the United Nations. They overplayed their hand and will ultimately end up losing. The only question is what we as Jews choose to do, and what choices we make when it comes to our survival.
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6. If Israel is a land thief, how can it negotiate? by David Suissa
U.N. Security Council. Photo from Flickr
Have you ever wondered why Palestinian leaders always appear so reluctant to make any concessions? It’s because they really do believe Israel is a thief. Thanks to bodies hostile to Israel like the United Nations, and the empowering of a world that coddles them, this belief has only gotten stronger through the years. Now, with Resolution 2334, and with the endorsement of President Obama, the Israel-as-thief narrative has taken on the force of an international legal judgment.
It gets worse. The resolution makes no distinction whatsoever between settlement blocs next to Jerusalem, isolated outposts in the West Bank and Jewish neighborhoods in the Old City. As far as the resolution goes, it’s all “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” Never mind that there was no such thing as “Palestinian territory” prior to 1967. Never mind that past negotiations always endorsed the idea that the main settlement blocs would remain part of Israel. And never mind that there’s a compelling legal case to make that the land in question is “disputed” rather than belonging to any one party.
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7. Why This Resolution Was Different by Jonathan S. Tobin
AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov
There is a fundamental difference between this and other anti-Israel resolution that previous administrations allowed to be passed. The United States has always opposed the settlements and never recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. But while other resolutions unfairly criticized the Jewish state, none of them specifically labeled the Jewish presence in territory Israel took control of in the 1967 Six Day War as illegal. This is significant because it means that hundreds of thousands of Jews living in decades-old Jewish neighborhoods in the city of Jerusalem or in settlement blocs that even Obama has conceded would remain inside Israel in the event of a peace treaty are now international outlaws. It will also mean that Jews living in the disputed territories or Israeli officials may be hauled into the International Criminal Court. It will put air in the sails of an anti-Semitic BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) movement that had seemed to be losing ground in recent years. Now, for the first time, it can claim to have the backing of the UN.
Nor was the resolution balanced as Obama’s apologists claim. While it condemned attacks on civilians and incitement to violence, it also did not specify that the Palestinian Authority was guilty of fomenting and financing terror even as it did not hesitate to indict the state of Israel on false charges of damaging peace.
Just as important, it removes any incentive for the Palestinian Authority to budge from its refusal to negotiate peace with Israel. In effect, Obama, who has claimed to be a champion of the peace process, has effectively killed it. By colluding with the Palestinians in this UN gambit, Obama has endorsed their end-run around direct negotiations sponsored by the United States and has ensured they won’t be revived, no matter how many times Netanyahu reiterates his offer of talks. Jonathan Tobin
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8. OP-ED: A Soldier Pens a Powerful Letter to Obama Over UN Resolution by Sgt. Leibel Mangel
You may deny our right to our homeland. You may try to rewrite our history. Just know that we are the most resilient people this world has ever seen. Our lighting of the menorah is living proof of that fact. Proof of our strength and perseverance. Many have tried to destroy us, and they have ALL failed. This time will be no different. Not yourself, not the UN, not the terror that you have given legitimacy to. No one will defeat us. Jews light the menorah to celebrate restoration of Jewish control over Jerusalem and the Temple Mount – thousands of years ago. We were small and vastly outnumbered, but that did not stop us. We came together and we returned to our our capital. Our home. I have no doubt that the lights of our menorah, will dispel all darkness. It will lighten the path to overcoming the endless Israel and Jew hatred. It will inspire us, and inspire our Jewish pride. It will strengthen the brave men and women of the Israel Defense Forces. It will bring us together once again, and we will return to our capital. Our home.
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9. The UN Declares War on Judeo-Christian Civilization by Giulio Meotti
How is it that Western jurisprudence, created after the Second World War to prevent more crimes against humanity, is now being used to perpetuate more crimes and against democracies?
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10. We are not occupiers in our own land by Nadav Shragai
As Simon the Hasmonean put it some 2,200 years ago: "We have not taken foreign territory or any alien property, but have occupied our ancestral heritage, for some time unjustly wrested from us by our enemies; now that we have a favorable opportunity, we are merely recovering our ancestral heritage" (Maccabees 1, 15:33-34).
Our real and imagined friends in the United States and all over the world must finally hear that the historical, religious, legal and emotional links the nation of Israel has to Hebron, Beit-el, Shiloh and of course, Jerusalem, is no less than that of the Palestinians.
They must hear that we are not occupiers in our own land, and that we are connected to it with bonds of love, the Bible, heritage and nature; that the settlements in Judea and Samaria, as elsewhere in the Land of Israel, are the realization of justice and natural rights.
This basic truth relating to the Land of Israel in its entirety will not change due to a U.N. resolution made on the Sabbath.
We are not occupiers of our own land. Our justice and our natural rights are not based on security needs, nor on international law. They may not be considered to be "realpolitik" today, but they are explicitly a part of the discourse on rights, whose content, essence and language must once again be laid on the table.
What Simon the Hasmonean understood more than 2,000 years ago, and what our sage Rashi understood in his interpretation of the first verse in Genesis some 1,000 years ago, followed by Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and later Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and certainly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is that we exist here by way of force and of diplomacy, but, above all, we exist here by right.
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11. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Response For Our Jewish People
Citizens of Israel, I would like to reassure you. The resolution that was adopted yesterday at the United Nations is distorted and shameful but we will overcome it. The resolution determines that the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem is 'occupied territory'. This is delusional.
The resolution determines that the Western Wall is 'occupied territory'. This too is delusional. There is nothing more absurd than calling the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter occupied territory. There is also an attempt here, which will not succeed, to impose permanent settlement terms on Israel. You might recall that the last one who tried to do this was Carter, an extremely hostile president to Israel, and who just recently said that Hamas is not a terrorist organization. Carter passed sweeping decisions against us at the UN of a similar kind, and this was also unsuccessful. We opposed this and nothing happened.
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MAKE YOUR DECLARATION ON OUR LEGAL ANCESTRAL RIGHTS TO THE LAND OF ISRAEL!
