Postscript to the UN

By Sherwin Pomerantz

Well, for those of you who thought you would not hear from me again, I am not finished yet. Friday, September 23rd has come and gone, Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas spoke to the UN General Assembly as did Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and now the “fun” begins.

The Prime Minister gave the speech many of us expected he would give. He told “our” truth to an audience that could, at best, be described as somewhat respectful, at least those people who remained in the room. Of course, the Iranians were absent as were the Syrians and the Palestinians left one sole representative at their station who seemed very busy taking notes. As for the speech itself, some people feel that Netanyahu could have strengthened his remarks regarding the government being in favor of two states for two peoples living side by side in peace and security but, other than that, it was what we needed to tell the world. Our claim to this land is 4,000 years old and anyone denying that claim in any way, shape or form is simply lying for the sake of politics.

As for the Israeli delegation, from my viewpoint seeing a replay of the speech on Saturday night here in Israel, I found the delegation an embarrassment. Foreign Minister Lieberman sat slouching in his chair and the one time during the speech that he felt he had to applaud he put his hands together limply and clapped them once. As far as I am concerned, and many people here agree with me, the best thing the Prime Minister can do for Israel is to sack his Foreign Minister as he is persona non grata in many world capitals and a major embarrassment to the country as well.

Sadly, Lieberman’s right hand man, Deputy Minister Ayalon, who sat next to him with the same sad look on his face, knows the diplomatic business well, having done an excellent job as a former Ambassador to the United States. How he ever got into bed with Lieberman is a mystery to most of us and the hope is that if he were not involved in that manner, he would raise himself up to his former level of competence.

As for Chairman Abbas, while he appeared the picture of diplomacy his remarks contained all of the old lies that have been bandied about for years and he was much more volatile and accusatory than anyone here expected. One of his most disappointing statements was his reference to the Muslim and Christian historical claims to this land, conveniently omitting any acknowledgement of Jewish history here. Akiva Eldar of Ha’aretz in this morning’s editorial praised the speech and said that the only mistake Abbas made was his “inadvertent” omission of the Jewish claim to this land. Can the left be so blind as to think that the omission was inadvertent? Is there no end to their inability to accept the truth, even when the enemy states it so blatantly?

The Chairman reiterated as well his statement that the new State of Palestine, when it is created, will be Judenrein, which does not seem to bother anyone at all in the world community. Quite an amazing fact just 66 years after the end of World War II.

Of course the most amazing thing about the spectacle at the UN and the discussions leading up to it is that those in Israel who questioned every move we made towards accommodation with the Palestinians turned out to be more right than wrong. The criticism over the years whenever the two parties sat down to negotiate was that at whatever point the negotiations stopped, that would be the starting point for the next round of talks. So, to get the Palestinians to the negotiating table Israel would always make some concessions, which the Palestinians would accept and then, after Oslo, or Camp David, or Wye, when they left the negotiations and reverted to their old ways of terrorism and intimidation, in order to get them back to the table Israeli would make more concessions over and above the earlier ones. The critics here of earlier dialogue always warned those of us who believed (and still believe) in the possibility of peace, that this was the Middle Eastern way but our leaders went down that path in any event. Today we are expected to pay the price by making yet more concessions in order to get the parties back to the negotiating table. But that approach has proven worthless in the past and no longer makes sense. Netanyahu’s suggestion that the two parties meet without preconditions is the only sensible platform on which to begin discussions.

Still, Abbas says that if the UN approves statehood then he is ready to sit down and talk with Israel. Netanyahu was right on Friday night, they were both in the same city and in the same building, why couldn’t the negotiations have started there?

Hopefully there will not be a majority in favor of statehood when the item comes up for a vote in the Security Council so that the US will not have to use its promised veto and risk further isolation of itself and Israel. But the present leadership of the Palestinian Authority did not assuage the concerns of those of us in Israel who fear that their real goal is our eviction from this land. And as far as the UN is concerned, we were not comforted either by the fact that so many delegates remained in the room during the Iranian president’s rantings against Israel and the west as well.

The story has many chapters to go and I will continue providing updates and information so that as many people as possible will know that what is written in the New York Times is not the ultimate truth.