Why Israel is suspicious of the UN?

national | miscellaneous | news report Sunday July 14, 2002 01:07 by Lenny David - Journalist

What the leftist tactics are in discrediting Israel!

Facts the left choose to ignore

1. Of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.

2. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.

3. The UN was silent when 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.

4. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

5. The UN was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

6. The UN was silent while for 18 months Israel was terrorised by indiscriminate suicide bombing campaign unleashed by PA leadership.

7. There are 22 Arab states in the UN. There are 55 Muslims states in the UN. All of which will always vote against Israel. Plus many other countries around the world that depend on Arab oil for their survival and must therefore also vote against Israel whatever the resolution.

8. Israel is the ONLY MEMBER OF THE UN THAT IS NOT PERMITTED MEMBERSHIP ON THE SECURITY COUNCIL.

9. Israel is the only country excluded from the U.N.'s regional group system… Since Israel does not belong to any group, it is the only country of 190 member states that is not eligible to serve on the numerous U.N. commissions…

10. In recent years, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights has annually passed five resolutions condemning Israel. This year, they passed seven. By contrast, each of the following countries/regions has been the subject of only one resolution: Afghanistan, Burundi, Congo, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Myanmar, Russia/Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Southeast Europe and Sudan…

11. Nov. 29 is the United Nations Day of International Solidarity with the Palestinian People. No other people has a U.N. Day of Solidarity…

12. Israel is the only state to which a special investigator with "an open-ended mandate to inspect its human rights record" is assigned by the U.N.

13. It is the only state targeted by two special committees and special units of the U.N. Secretariat ostensibly devoted to the Palestinians but in reality dedicated to Israel-bashing worldwide, costing millions of dollars a year.

14. UNIFIL, the U.N. force stationed on the Israel-Lebanon border, hid a videotape of Israeli soldiers being abducted by Hezbollah in October 2000. After finally admitting to having the tape, the U.N. would only show an edited version (in which Hezbollah faces were hidden) to the Israeli government.

15. UNESCO, in Paris, began passing resolutions about protection of Jerusalem holy sites and access for Muslims in 1968. No resolutions about protection or Jewish access were passed from 1946 to 1967 when Jordan controlled Jerusalem and barred Jews from entering…

The Facts
Israel was an established state 3000 years ago, 2500 years ago and 2000 years with Jews living in the land. The Roman Empire invaded and eventually destroyed the Jewish Temple in 70CE. They murdered hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Jews and exiled many others. The Roman Empire then re-named "Israel" with the name "Palestinia" in order to root out the biblical name. Palestinia came from the nation or tribe of people known as the "Philistines" who lived in the south of Israel and along the Gaza coast line. Over the years, Palestinia became Palestine but it was NEVER an independent state. In fact the land has been ruled by one invading force to another including the Church, Islam, the Crusaders, the Byzatines, the Ottoman Empire which became the Turkish Empire until the British went in to the land during the first world war to crush the Turks. The British then draw up the Balfour declaration in 1917 which said the British government supports a Jewish state of Israel in not only what is Israel today but also including most of Jordan. But they changed their minds several years later and eventually handed the problem of "Palestine" to the UN which divided the land up into two sections, one Jewish and the other Arab. The Jews accepted and re-established the country of Israel in 1948, the Arabs rejected and attacked. In the war that lasted almost a year, the Arabs led by 6 nations lost land and what is now today as the "West Bank", came under Jordanian control with the Egyptians controlluing Gaza. NO independent Palestinian state.

1. Nationhood and Jerusalem - Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C.E., two thousand years before the rise of Islam.

2. Since 1272 B.C.E. the Jews have had dominion over the land for 1,000 years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

3. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 C.E. lasted no more than 22 years.

4. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.

5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital and Arab leaders did not come to visit.

6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.

7. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray facing Mecca (often with their backs toward Jerusalem).

8. In 1854, according to a report in the New York Tribune, Jews constituted two-thirds of the population of that holy city. (The source: A journalist on assignment in the Middle East that year for the Tribune. His name was Karl Marx. Yes, that Karl Marx.)

9. In 1867, Mark Twain took a tour of Palestine. This is how he described that land: A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. We never saw a human.

10. In 1882, official Ottoman Turk census figures, in the entire Land of Israel, there were only 141 000 Muslims, both Arab and non-Arab.

11. A travel guide to Palestine and Syria, published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker; The book estimates the total population of the city at 60,000, of whom 7,000 were Muslims, 13,000 were Christians and 40,000 were Jews.

12. As the Jews came and drained the swamps and made the deserts Arabs followed. They came for jobs, for prosperity, for freedom. And, they came in large numbers.

13. In 1922, with the illegal separation of Transjordan, the Jews were forbidden to settle on almost 77% of the disputed territory, while Arab settlement went unrestricted by British.

14. Prior to the Second World War Mojli Amin, a member of the Arab Defense Committee for Palestine, proposed the idea "that all the Arabs of Palestine will leave and be divided up amongst the neighboring Arab countries. In exchange for this, all the Jews living in Arab countries will leave and come to Palestine."

15. Did you know that Saudi Arabia was not created until 1913, Lebanon until 1920? Iraq did not exist as a nation until 1932, Syria until 1941; the borders of Jordan were established in 1946 and Kuwait in 1961. Any of these nations that would say Israel is only a recent arrival would have to deny their own rights as recent arrivals as well. They did not exist as countries. They were all under the control of the Turks. Over 80% of the original British Mandate land was given to Arabs without population transfer.

16. In 1947, the Jewish state huddled on 18% of the original British Mandate land. The Jews accepted it gratefully. The Arabs rejected it with a vengeance and seven Arab states immediately declared war against Israel.

17. In 1948, the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Most of them left in fear of being killed by their own Arab brothers as traitors.

18. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab countries due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.

19. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is claimed to be around 630,000 (where did they get this number?). The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.

20. >From 1948 till 1967 Arabs made no attempt to create the Palestinian state. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews and Christians were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.

21. Arab refugees began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967 only, after Israel captured Judea, Samaria and Gaza,

22. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, Arab-Palestinians is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel.

23. Arab refugees INTENTIONALLY were not absorbed or integrated by the rich Arab oil states that control 99.9 percent of the Middle East landmass. They are kept as virtual prisoners by the Arab power brokers with misplaced hatred for Jews and Western democracy.

24. There is only one Jewish state. There are 55 Muslim countries. There are 22 Arab nations.

25. The PLO.'s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.

26. Pan-Arabism or idea of Arab Caliphate declares that all land that used to belong to Arabs must be returned to Arabs.

Reading Between the Lines

Next time you read about Israel in the newspaper, be sure you know how to read between the lines. For now, the bias appears to have had little impact on American public opinion regarding Israel. In Europe, the stronger, more strident anti-Israel tone of much of the media may be having a different impact.

Following are eight new "rules" for reporters covering the Middle East, as distilled from hundreds of articles covering the recent violence:

Rule 1. Sensationalize the intensity and scope of Israeli military actions.

Call the Israeli actions "aggressive," "devastating" or "intensive." [CNN, April 16] Refer to Israeli incursions into Palestinian territory as "deep" even when they involve only 300 yards. [The New York Times, April 14] On the other hand, refer to Palestinian mortar attacks as "ineffective" or "falling harmlessly" even though the intent of the mortar teams is malevolent.

Rule 2. Whitewash Palestinian acts of violence.

No longer label Palestinian bombings and shootings of Jewish civilians as "terrorism" nor the perpetrators as "terrorists." Label the perpetrators as "militants" or "activists." [Associated Press, BBC; CNN, The Guardian, etc, March 27]. Even bombs planted in the middle of Israeli marketplaces are not classified as "terrorism." Reporters may make exceptions to the rule when their own "ox is being gored." For example in referring to Irish bombers as "terrorists," the BBC's News Online declares: "It has long been the policy of the domestic service to refer to terrorists in Northern Ireland... but the policy of the World Service is not to refer to anyone in those terms." According to BBC Newshour duty editor Maya Fish, "In BBC World Service reporting the word 'terrorist' is not used, no matter who plants bombs, kills or murders."

Rule 3. Blame it on the settlements.

Mitigate Palestinian aggression and attacks by labeling Israeli victims as "settlers" and the locations of the attacks as "settlements" or "occupied territories." Label the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Gilo and French Hill as "settlements" and "settler enclaves" -- even though they have been part of Jerusalem for 30 years and house tens of thousands of middle class Jewish families. [CNN, Reuters, AP, and others]. When possible, call Israeli towns within the Green Line, such as Sderot, "settlements," as well. [Guardian, April 17]. Further, refer to all Jewish victims in the territories as "settlers" -- whether a 14-year-old boy or a 10-month-old baby. Label Israeli residents in areas of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza as some new non-civilian entity, as in The New York Times' reference to Israeli "soldiers, settlers and civilians."

Rule 4. Deprecate Israeli leaders; sympathize with Arafat.

Always refer to Ariel Sharon as "hard-line," "war criminal," "vilified by Arabs," or "The Bulldozer." Never refer to Yasser Arafat as "the former terrorist" or bellicose, corrupt, or despotic. Whenever possible, solicit sympathy by referring to Arafat's old age or as "Parkinson's-haunted" [The Independent, UK, April 17, 2001]

Rule 5. Blame Israel for all Palestinian casualties.

Blame Israel, whether for "work accidents" in Palestinian bomb factories, Palestinian demonstrators hit by Palestinian snipers aiming at Israeli soldiers, or Arabs injured in Israeli crowds during a suicide bomb or bus bombing. Arab auto accidents may also be blamed on Israel. In early October 2000, several stories blamed Israelis for the beating death of Issam Judeh Mustafa Hamed. On November 2, pathologists brought in by the Palestinian Authority, concluded that Issam Judeh died in a traffic accident. It is unknown how many of the Palestinian "martyrs" died of natural causes, accidents, or intra-Palestinian fighting. In addition, refer frequently to Palestinian children as traumatized, orphaned, killed or severely injured by Palestinian bombs and bullets. Make no mention of Israeli children experiencing the same.

Rule 6. Active and passive verb usage.

Use active verbs to describe Palestinian casualties -- i.e. Palestinians are "shot dead" or "gunned down" by Israeli soldiers. On the other hand, use passive verbs to avoid blaming Palestinians for Israeli casualties. Say that shooting " broke out." The headline reporting 10-month old Shalhevet Pass shot and killed by a Palestinian sniper read: "Jewish Toddler Dies in West Bank." [Associated Press, March 26] When possible, juxtapose two deaths, blaming the Israeli's for one death, and leaving the Palestinian blame unstated. For example: "During clashes near the West Bank village of Dura, an 11-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead by Israeli troops. One report said the boy had been watching Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunman exchange fire when he was hit in the chest. On Monday, a 10-month-old Israeli baby was killed by gunfire in nearby Hebron." (BBC)

Rule 7. Offset an Israeli death by mentioning some unrelated Palestinian death.

Offset a Palestinian atrocity such as a bus bombing, by reporting on the tragic Palestinian death of an elderly woman or child, even if the Palestinian death occurred long before. In reporting on the shocking discovery of two butchered Israeli teens near Tekoa, the CNN article entitled "Two Israeli teenagers found dead" carried a photo underneath the headline of a Palestinian baby shot and buried earlier in the week. [May 9] On May 1, CNN reported: "An Israeli was killed and another injured in shooting attacks on West Bank roads Tuesday. The attacks followed explosions and clashes in Gaza and the West Bank which claimed seven Palestinian lives." This was reported even though the fatal explosions in Gaza were a "work accident' in a Palestinian bomb factory.

Rule 8. Invoke Arabic terms for holy sites.

Use Arabic terms for holy sites, even if the Jewish term is standard reference in any encyclopedia, university textbook, diplomatic document, or other acceptable Western source. Avoid referring to the Temple Mount as "Judaism's holiest site," or "as the Jewish capital for 3,000 years." References to the Temple Mount should be qualified as mere claims, e.g.: "which Israel claims to have been the site of the First and Second Temple." [New York Times] Preferably refer to the Temple Mount as "Haram al Sharif, the third holiest Moslem site," or "the holiest Moslem site in Jerusalem." By contrast, never refer to Hebron as "Judaism's second-holiest site," nor to the Tomb of Rachel as "Judaism's third-holiest site." When necessary, drudge up obscure Arabic terms, such as referring to Jaffa Gate, the main western entrance to Jerusalem's Old City, as "Bab al-Khalil." [CNN, January 8, 2001] Conclusion. While not a "conspiracy," an anti-Israel press "convention" has emerged, and clear biases are evident. What will this stylebook look like in another six months? It all depends on the outcome of this ongoing battle of the media war. Excerpted from remarks made before the American Jewish Committee's Annual Meeting in Washington D.C., May 1, 2001.