32 Days to Go – See What the Other Side Thinks!

By Sherwin Pomerantz

With 32 days before the opening of the UN General Assembly in New York and the vote after that on Palestinian statehood does anyone ever wonder what the Palestinian man and woman on the street is thinking?

Well, if you look at Twitter excerpts from the Palestinian community, they are, to say the least, instructive.

Some examples:

• Araberican: It's enough all the other Arab govs are anti-Palestinian. We don't need an anti-Palestinian Palestinian gov!
• Nnoaf_e: Dissolve the PA so we can start talking about Palestine again rather than negotiating a halt in building settlements and because they're just as much of a barrier for Palestine as that Zionist apartheid Wall is!
• Earthtonadine: Dissolve the PA because Mahmoud Abbas is an idiot. Palestinians and Palestine can do SO much better than him.
• LinahAlsaafin: Dissolve the PA for suppressing freedom of speech and for jailing anyone (journalists) speaking out against them
• Budouroddick: Dissolve the PA so our sons and daughters won't have to hang their heads in shame when asked about Palestinian leaders.

So it seems that the people who make up the population ruled by the Palestinian Arab leadership are not so enamored of their top guns and see them as just as much an obstacle to independence and statehood as their concern about the “occupation” and living side by side with Israel

But the Palestinian Arab leadership, immune to the concerns of their own people, remains intent on going to New York and pressing for the UN vote. And, of course, they continue to spout the “Judenrein” concept of statehood with Chairman Abbas coming out once again today with the statement that the newly designated Palestine will not have any Jews living in it. After which he added that while he is in favor of international forces maintaining security after statehood, those forces cannot have any Israelis in them, whether they live in Israel or abroad. Well, he has tempered that a bit as a few weeks ago he said those forces cannot have any Jews in them. Are there no liberals left in the world who are bothered by these kinds of statements? One wonders!

Of course, when Abbas and his henchmen get to the US they will no doubt be happy to attend the Durban III Conference on Racism scheduled to be held just before the opening of the UN session which will, once again, be a forum for Israel bashing as it was in Durban I and II. At Durban II the President of Iran was one of the keynote speakers and you can bet that his speech was not one of reconciliation with Israel or the west. But a counter-demonstration is planned for Wednesday, September 21st at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza across from the UN headquarters. Hopefully those people who value tolerance and religious freedom will show up in force in a statement of solidarity against the forces of evil in the world.

So, while the world’s attention is focused on the steady stream of news coming out of Israel, little more than lip service is being paid to the more than 1,000 Syrian civilians who have been killed by the Alawite regime or the fact that once again thousands in Somalia seem to be on the verge of starvation. Talk about misplaced priorities.

But I close once again urging my readers to contact the UN delegates so that they can hear from those of us who care that the path to peace in this region is not through the UN but through direct negotiations between the parties concerned. Losing the vote at the UN will, hopefully, force the Palestinian leadership back to the negotiating table whether or not Israel continues to build for the natural growth of the large settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria.