Why the Deafening Silence from Antisemitism Envoy Deborah Lipstadt?
Zionist Organization of America President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:
On Monday, the United Nations General Assembly hosted a “Nakba 75” orgy of lies that demonized Israel’s existence as a “catastrophe” and falsely accused Israeli Jews of every imaginable evil. The scene was reminiscent of the Nazi Germans’ vile anti-Jewish libels and “the Jews are our misfortune” displays. It is sickening and obscene that our U.S. tax dollars are paying for the United Nations to promote extreme anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hate and libels.
At the same time, the UN is elevating the world’s worst sponsors of terrorism, including Iran, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and PA dictator Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas financed the brutal torture and massacre of Israel’s Olympic athletes in Munich, and today continues to pay Arabs huge financial rewards to murder Jews. During his speech at the UN “Nakba” hate-fest, Mahmoud Abbas invented “thousands of years” of (non-existent) Palestinian Arab history; absurdly accused Israel of apartheid (on the very same day when Arab students were freely waving Palestinian Arab flags at Tel Aviv University); falsely accused Israel of violating holy sites and denying Palestinians freedom of worship (when Israel in fact recently facilitated visits by over one million Muslims to the Temple Mount during Ramadan, and while the PA demands no worship rights or visits by Jews to Judaism’s holiest site); absurdly called Israel’s presence in the Jewish homeland an “occupation” of Palestinian land; misstated UN resolutions; and called for Israel to be suspended from the UN. Abbas also despicably compared Israel to arch Nazi propagandist Goebbels.
Abbas also ridiculously claimed that Palestinians really want peace because “they have accepted a State on 22% of its historic land.” Twenty-two percent is all of current Israel (including Judea and Samaria). Israel (including Judea and Samaria) is on only 22% of the Palestine Mandate which was all designated for the Jewish state. (Britain carved off 78% of the land designated for the Jewish state and instead gave it to Transjordan – which became Jordan in 1946.) Thus Abbas is saying that he wants to replace all of Israel with a Palestinian terror state. Notably, Abbas and his predecessors rejected every single peace offer (including the UN’s partition recommendation) throughout the past 80 years and instead went to war and engaged in terror to annihilate Israel.
Why is there a deafening silence from Deborah Lipstadt, U.S. Amb. For fighting antisemitism?! Why has she refused to condemn antisemitic Palestinian leader-terrorist-dictator Mahmoud Abbas and the UN?!
Professor and human rights activist Anne Bayefsky (2013 winner of ZOA’s Ben Hecht Award for Outstanding Journalism), attended the UN “Nakba” event, and reported from the trenches the horrors of this unbridled anti-Jewish hatefest. Unfortunately, UN events with these sorts of hateful libels are an everyday occurrence at the UN. We’ve attended other UN events sponsored by the various UN Palestine committees, and had the same horrified reaction that Professor Bayefsky did to the new Nakba hatefest. Here are Professor Bayefsky’s eye-opening tweets:
- “Still shaking from the spectacle of a modern #Nazi-like rally held in an almost full #UN General Assembly hall tonight. Hosted by UN. Welcomed by UNGA President. And 22% of the costs paid by U.S. taxpayers@kevinomccarthy” (view)
- “#UN General Assemby “Nakba” event to turn back clock & realize 75-year Palestinian dream of violently preventing a #Jewish state ends with recorded statement against image of Palestinian flag referring to Jews as “tyrants” & “invaders.” Crowd stands & cheers to musical finale” (view)
- “#UN General Assembly Hall. Photos. Videos. Palestinians dance, swim, smile, fish, farm, surf, roller skate. Israeli Jews? They kill, beat, & target especially women & children. More music. #Antisemitism is cool at #nakba75” (view)
- “#Nakba75 #UN General Assembly message: destroy the #Jewish State! Millions of Palestinian Arabs must “return”! 75 years of violent rejection of the one Jewish state. And the UN celebrates it. More clapping! Cheering!” (view)
- “Now at #UN General Assembly. Videos of unidentified Hebrew-speaking “witnesses” laughing about #Jews raping & killing Arabs to create #Israel. Followed by another musical interlude. (& the violence this frenzy of obscene hate will spawn.)” (view)
- “#Nakba75 #UN General Assembly hall. Clapping, cheering, whistling while Jews accused of “ethnic cleansing”, “massacres”, “systematic” “Zionist plan” for death and “de-Arabization.”.” (view)
- “#UN #Nakba75 event shocking series of lies. Israeli Jews are murderers, thieves, target children, wanton destroyers. #Palestinians? Just “love.” Pure incitement to more Palestinian hate & violence. (view)
- “#UN General Assembly – now broadcasting #Palestinian musical interludes between Palestinian accusations of “blood” thirsty #Israeli Jews. Entertainment UN-style.” (view)
- “#UNGA now webcasting images of #Jews as brutal killers of the innocent. Child victims of #Israeli monsters. Raw antisemitism. Invented narrative of hate.” (view)
Regarding Iran, human rights activist Hillel Neuer reported that a few days ago, the murderous, criminal, human rights-violating Iranian regime was appointed Chair of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Social Forum and elected to the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.
It’s thus time for the U.S. to defund the United Nations! The Biden administration should also finally reverse its terrible decision to rejoin the corrupt, Israel-bashing UNHRC. The Biden administration’s rationale for rejoining the UNHRC, that this will enable the U.S. to fix the UNHRC, has again been proven false, in light of the recent elections of Iran to UNHRC leadership posts.
ZOA is also extremely disappointed that Abraham Accords signers joined in the anti-Israel UN Nakba hate-fest. See, e.g. tweet and statement by Bahrain’s UN Mission and tweet by UAE’s UN Mission. The Accords are supposed to put an end to support for antisemitic and anti-Israel incitement.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/rashida-tlaib-says-she-struggles-with-prospect-of-uprooting-west-bank-settlements/
Western Palestine or CIS-Jordan is perhaps HALF of historic Jewish Biblical land which for most of the Biblical period did NOT include the South beyond Beer Sheva BUT did include the East Bank: TRANS-Jordan as far East as the Modern Damascus – Medina railway trace along the border of the desert and the sown (cf D.Baly “Geography of the Holy Land”). The British collected the rest of Eastern Jordan under the Sykes -Picot carve up with France and the post 1918 treaties so as to have the pipeline and air route to Iraq and India.
Ironically Balfour’s letter and the promise of a national home were the product of fevered gentile imaginations about Jewish national power and cohesion precisely at a time of major internal Jewish weakness and self doubts about priorities had most hunkering down fo rthe storm to pass. Balfour was issued on the assumption that large numbers of Jews would immediately arise and go – besides British imperial interests. When it became clear very quickly that Jews were NOT turning up en masse to rebuild a national home the pragmatic British re-assessed and as all competent imperialists do, made arrangements with the locals actually on the ground.
Of this there is a funny story in my late Father’s life. He came from Hungarian Transylvania and was not impressed by being transferred by the peace to Romania – equally Antisemitic, and corrupt with it. So he consulted a rabbi about leaving and was told to lie low as the wave of Antisemitism would subside. Being a good Jewish boy he took a second opinion and was given the same advice but he left anyway and after five years in Palestine went to France to complete an architectural degree. There he was caught by the Depression but in 1940 his Palestine passport enabled him to escape to London.
By and large the rabbiinate have been a 20th century wash out unable to lead the Jewish people to the Land of Israel when the door was open nor able to make being Jewish pertinent to the millions who have consequently walked out whether in the Diaspora or abstained from the ritualist obsessions of nationally impractical religious party politicians in the State of Israel.
The UN is not fit for purpose and should be defunded immediately. And Biden should withdraw from the UNHRC as soon as possible. The UN might have worked once, but now that it is full of poisonous anti-semites and despots, it does nothing but harm.