With the General Assembly of the United Nations holding its annual opening ceremonies, we are once more likely to have Israel condemned in any number of resolutions between now and the start of 2020. These condemnations will be voted on in the General Assembly during their opening ceremonies, as they have done almost every year, then again on November 29th as the day that the United Nations proposed in the General Assembly to divide the lands left west of the Jordan River between Arabs and Jews evenly with the United Nations retaining the regions around Jerusalem. This day has become a festive period celebrating the Palestinian Arabs in their efforts to destroy Israel. This should strike anybody who knows history as quite absurd as the Zionist Jews accepted this division and it was the Arabs who refused. Their reason was simple, they intended to invade Israel at her birth and destroy the country and kill as many Jews as they were able. There was one flaw in the Arab plans by which more than six Arab nation’s forces made that attack on the morning of May 15, 1948, but failed to destroy the Jewish State. Instead they took control of Gaza and the Shomron, what Jordan renamed the West Bank. These two areas have been used by Arab forces ever since to launch terror attacks and wars against Israel. During this period leading up to the next year, the United Nations will also denounce some of the Arab and Islamic nations but in total, less than the number of articles leveled against Israel. This includes nations such as Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the many others who have abhorrent civil liberties and human rights.
But there are reasons that Israel, and also the United States, are also chosen for the locations for large and extensive protests and so many other places are left as untouchable. For example, there are often gay pride parades in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the capital and largest cities in Israel but one has never heard of gay pride parades in Damascus or Aleppo in Syria, Bagdad or Mosul in Iraq, Tehran or Qom in Iran, Riyadh or Mecca or Medina in Saudi Arabia, Cairo or Alexandria in Egypt or any capital or largest city in any of the Arab and Islamic states in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Going one step further, in Israel there are the beaches of Tel Aviv, the coffee bistros, fine dining, great night life, five-star hotels, personal freedoms, security from crime and all the amenities which make the liberal and modern life more enjoyable. In Israel there are no dress codes as long as you actually are dressed and all the modern civilities first world protesters have become so comfortable enjoying. These things are not so easily, if even attainable at all, found throughout the MENA world. There is one thing these leftist protesters demand for the privilege of being made to appear evil, restrictive and closeminded regardless of how open and accommodating the society is in reality; that they have all their creature social comforts. Further, for the European leftists, Israel is relatively close by and can be reached on a Mediterranean cruise.
When it comes to protesting of and often in Israel, it often appears that all the stops are taken out. According to United Nations Watch through their Executive Director Hillel Neuer in his reported Tweet, Israel will be condemned twenty times against the remainder of the world amassing a mere six (see tweet pictured below). For a deeper look into the biases against Israel in the United Nations, the European Union and the world, there is this article by the JCPA*. Many pro-Israel and Zionists have met the all too common accusation that the facts do not bear out their complaints about the specifying Israel for scorn and condemnation above and beyond all others by these agencies while they never produce any actual data. The claim remains resting on the old canard that the Jews are whiny liars who play on other people’s emotions to excuse their criminal behavior. This was a principle argument against Jews who were relegated to being money changers, the ones who made trade and economic growth throughout much of Europe, Jewish merchants accused of placing a thumb on the scale and overcharging the non-Jews while treating their fellow Jews honestly and numerous other items and libels. Take all the mistreatment the Jews have suffered over the millennia and one can now see how Israel has become the Jew amongst the nations and must practice all the horrid things which the Jews were accused.
United Nations Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer Tweet
There is another reason why such misrepresentations continue and is also contingent to Israel for not going forward with a strong counter propaganda campaign based on the truths about the Jewish state. This is a common complaint coming from many sources including numerous confounded and confused Jews over this lack of national gumption. The problem is easily explained, though many refuse to accept such reasoning. The anti-Israel conglomerate of various agencies, NGO’s, international agencies, United Nations and their agencies and far too many nations and individuals spend hundreds of millions if not billions annually financing their propaganda and directed efforts against Israel. Israel does not have the financing to counter such an insurmountable effort backed by such financing. Israel had made efforts against these defamations attempting to get more of the truth out before the world, but much of the world does not wish to even hear the reality that is Israel. Then there are the efforts of numerous personal efforts, such as many of our articles tracing the basis for international law, another bit of reality being ignored by all the anti-Israel condemnations and demands of Israel to surrender lands west of the Jordan River as they do not belong to Israel. We advise those believing this read the San Remo Conference reports and the League of Nations Mandate System and all the rest of the supporting treaties and agreements through the Anglo-American Treaty and Article 80 of the United Nations Charter (we wrote about much of this here). These efforts against Israel will eventually fail and potentially damage the nations taking positions within the anti-Israel condemnations and other efforts with them. There is one thing about Israel which will eventually erode and quell the condemnations against her through her efforts to better the planet and her work in Africa and often Israeli help being amongst the first to arrive and the last to leave after disasters almost anywhere around the world, from Haiti to the Philippines and elsewhere in-between. Also, much of the world has benefitted and seek out Israeli innovations, inventions, medical cures, agricultural developments and expertise in almost every field imaginable. The good that Israel performs often without receiving even the slightest amount of thanks while other times rave reviews come from the oddest places such as the below from a report by CNN. The Israeli efforts in Haiti was not the exception, it is the rule when it comes to assisting in the recovery and rebuilding anywhere in the world where they are permitted to do their best for any nation absorbing the costs herself.
The reality of Israel is one of charity and humanitarian efforts leading such work in so many efforts and locations where a need exists. We have written about some of these efforts, and nowhere near even a majority of such efforts, numerous times such as here, here and here. Another achievement for which Israel received more criticism than accolades was a private effort to place a lander on the moon named Beresheet. Israel was the fourth nation to place their spacecraft on the lunar surface even if the final engine firing failed and she crashed, it still hit the moon and this was on the first try by an Israeli company. There are efforts underway for a second attempt and we fully expect that Israel will not need a third try to be the charm, we believe the next launch will succeed. What many people miss about Israel are the number of inventions for which much of the technology and research was and is attributable to Israeli efforts, both public and private. Cell phones, instant messengers, security software, drip irrigation, desalination and other water purification systems, special arid climate crops and so many other advances, techniques, procedures, programs, medical miracles etcetera, etcetera, etcetera (if we may quote Yul Brenner from the movie The King and I). The problem is it is chic to be critical of Israel and numerous college campuses are churning out more and more anti-Israel graduates as they kowtow to Arab petro-dollars receiving endowments and entire departments build with oil monies all with the intent of turning the next generation of American and European leaders against Israel, as if things were not an up-hill battle already. We have seen these efforts pay dividends with the likes of AOC in the House of Representatives along with Omar and Tlaib, though only Tlaib and AOC received her education at western universities. This trend will very probably escalate unless things take an unexpected turn, but for the time being, Israel is here and plans on remaining as one of the most viable democracies in the world representing its people, though currently we find our public very evenly split. The political problems Israel faces are a direct result of her being a democracy with equal rights for Jews and non-Jews alike as well as for Arabs, Druze, Christians, Muslims and Bedouins, and we will together determine the future of Israel, not some dictator or religious fanatic as with too many in our neighborhood. Israel is the country you have heard so much about and still likely know next to nothing of the reality. Come and visit and take in a gay pride parade and see exactly how tolerant Israel actually can be and is. To our Jewish readers, Shana Tova, have a happy new year and may your year be as sweet as the honey we dip our apple slices into.
Beyond the Cusp
*JCPA = Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Beyond the Cusp 