8 Days to Go – The Time to SHOUT!

By Sherwin Pomerantz

The countdown continues with just 8 days to September 20th when the Palestinian Arab leadership will submit its request to the UN to approve their desire for statehood. One gets the feeling that it is a replay of the final scene from the movie Thelma & Louise, with great numbers of experienced diplomats worldwide saying this is a bad move, while the powers that be continue to the edge of the cliff undaunted by such concerns.

It seems inconceivable that it was just eighteen years ago today, September 13, 1993, that then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, of blessed memory, former President Clinton and then PLO Chairman Arafat with Shimon Peres looking on signed what has become known as the Oslo Accords which many of us thought heralded a new era of peace and understanding in our part of the world. I can remember Rabin’s words even today when he turned to Arafat and said “no more wars.” How we were all misled.

Today, 18 years later, Israel finds itself probably more isolated than it has been since the founding of the state. Some salient points:

Item: Iran threatens Israel and the Jewish people with annihilation, its president denies that the Holocaust existed, and he never misses an opportunity to threaten the US as well. Yet, he is given a visa to enter the US and, according to news reports today, will have a number of meetings while there including a dinner with at least 15 students from Columbia University (and I have no doubt, to our eternal shame, that some of them will be Jewish as well).

Item: The prime minister of Turkey continues his inflammatory rhetoric against Israel which began not, as some would have it, with the Mavi Marmara incident in May 2010 but in Davos on January 29, 2009. Art that time he castigated Shimon Peres, the President of Israel, for Israel’s alleged commission of war crimes and then walked off the stage in a huff saying he would not return to Davos. Today, as he ramps up his anti-Israel tone to new levels he sees himself as the new political leader of the Muslim world who must vilify Israel in order to gain credence with that constituency. It amazes me that anyone is surprised by his behavior and the direction he is trying to take Turkey. No doubt Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, is rolling over in his grave watching this. This, the very same Turkey that openly welcomed the Jews of Iberia to its shores during the inquisition and gave them a safe haven for over 500 years.

Item: Europe, with a history of anti-Semitism of which it should be ashamed for all time, chooses to take sides with the enemies of Israel under the so-called protection of human rights umbrella. Witness this statement made on August 12th by Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the Commission: "It is with deep regret that, once again, I received information of the publicly stated intention of the Israeli government to continue settlement expansion in East Jerusalem. The EU has repeatedly called on Israel to end all settlement activity, including natural growth, and to dismantle outposts erected since March 2001. Settlement activity threatens the viability of an agreed two-state solution and undermines ongoing efforts to resume negotiations." No mention made, of course, that Israel halted all settlement activity for 10 months last year and that still was not sufficient to bring the Palestinian leadership to the table.

Item: Egypt’s new political leadership, in an effort to protect the building which houses the Israeli embassy in Cairo (after protesters took down the Israeli flag a week earlier) builds a wall around the building. But the mob is not satisfied and late last week attacks the wall in an attempt to tear it down. As a result, Israel brought all of its people home as Egypt could not guarantee the safety of the legation. So a cold peace just went into the deep freeze.

The UN General Assembly, when it most likely approves the request of the Palestinian Arab leadership for the recognition of statehood, will create a major problem for the region, as the New York Times said in an editorial a few days ago: “A United Nations vote on Palestinian membership would be ruinous. Yet with little time left before the U.N. General Assembly meets, the United States, Israel and Europe have shown insufficient urgency or boldness in trying to find a compromise solution. The need for action is even more acute after alarming tensions flared in recent days between Israel and two critical regional players — Egypt and Turkey.”

The saddest part of all of this is that the world has not heard much in the way of objections, concern and anger about all of this from the Jewish community. Yes, there are some petitions circulating on the Internet and that is good, but where are the mass demonstrations? Why won’t 350,000 American Jews and their friends demonstrate at the UN next week and show their concern for the future of Israel which is also the key to the long term future of the American Jewish community?

Last weekend I met committed religious Jews who were not even aware of what will be going on over the next weeks at the UN and its potential impact on them as well as those of us who live in Israel. How can we understand that? Is that even possible? Are we to stand by silently once again and watch as the world demonizes us? And does the world really believe that if there was a Palestinian state that there would be peace in the Middle East? Or that the simple act of validating Palestinian statehood will solve the world’s problems?

Let’s hope that what Martin Luther King said during his lifetime remains true, “A lie cannot live.” But the lie needs to be exposed and the way to do it is for First Avenue in New York City to be made impassable next week by the sheer numbers who are prepared to stand there and expose the lie to the world. The lessons of history demand no less than that from us!