Kerry Slams Israel For Demanding Recognition as Jewish State

Ministers slammed US Secretary of State John Kerry for saying Thursday that Israel's demand for recognition as a Jewish state by the Palestinian Authority (PA) is a "mistake." The statement, which was announced as rockets fired on Israel from Gaza rocket, has seen Kerry criticized for being disconnected from reality. Deputy Education Minister Avi Wortzman called on Kerry to condemn the rocket barrage from Gaza on Israel's south, in which over 100 rockets have been fired since Wednesday. "In days when citizens of the state of Israel are attacked by rockets, I expect clear statements from Kerry against the terror organizations instead of undermining the basic rights of the Jewish people to their land," stated Wortzman. Noting Kerry's disconnection from realities on the ground, sources in Jewish Home said "from Washington they don't hear the sirens in Ashkelon, and that's unfortunate." Kerry "doesn't understand the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that he pretends to be solving," said Deputy Transportation Minister Tzipi Hotovely to Yisrael Hayom. Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon added "I am certain that Prime Minister (Binyamin) Netanyahu will know to well clarify for our friends in the American administration that we are connected to reality and not to illusions." The criticism comes following PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's adamant refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Further, a senior PA official closely associated with Abbas on PA TV Wednesday called Israelis "an advanced instrument of evil," claiming "Allah will gather them so that we can kill them." 'Recognition of Jewish state is illegitimate' However, not all Israeli politicians saw the need for the Jewish state to be recognized as such. Back in January, President Shimon Peres called the recognition "unnecessary." MK Zehava Galon, Chairperson of the far-left Meretz party, spoke on Friday before her party's national committee, emphasizing Israel's democratic nature over its Jewish nature. "Israel will be a Jewish state not thanks to Palestinian recognition, but only if a majority of citizens living here are interested in it being so," declared Galon. "As long as there is a democratic majority asking for the day of rest to be Shabbat, and for the holidays to be Jewish festivals, for the language to be Hebrew -- as long as Israelis want that, Israel will be a country with a Jewish character." Galon further referenced a recent poll, claiming the demand for recognition as a Jewish state "is not only not legitimate, but also against the will of Israeli citizens. When they asked the Israeli public what it prefers, peace or recognition as a Jewish state, the Israeli public said clearly: we want peace." The poll, conducted by the Washington-based S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, asked participants to select recognition as a Jewish state or “that the entire Arab world sign peace agreements and maintain normal relations with Israel," reports Haaretz. It is noted that on Sunday, the Arab League backed Abbas in refusing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Putting the results into further doubt is a poll from February, by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University. That poll found 77% of Israelis believe recognition of the Jewish state is crucial. In context of polls, a survey released Tuesday by the same organizations found that two-thirds of the Jewish public does not trust Kerry’s framework agreement to take account of Israel’s security as a crucial factor.

No Going Back

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/14519#.Uv8ppmKSx8G

Barry Shaw

You know the one major problem should Israel foolishly agree to surrender territory to a dangerous new aggressive Palestinian state? There is no going back! The world will never allow or agree that Israel can reconquer territory that will fall into the hands of a Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or Al-Qaida influence. So why should Israel give in to international pressure that will not guarantee its right to regain its land if war or terror is fought from there?

Christmas is the Time to Bash Israel

An example of using traditional Christmas themes to bash Israel is a Christmas card circulated by the Canadian NGO Palestine House showing Santa Claus denied entry into Bethlehem by the security barrier.

On the barrier is written the inscription, “This thing was not mentioned on the map. Is there another way to enter Bethlehem?” And Ireland’s Palestinian Solidarity Campaign is selling a Christmas card featuring a drawing of the three wise men denied entry into Bethlehem by the security barrier, while another features a redesign of the Madonna and child wrapped in a Palestinian flag.

Now of course, the Madonna was not a Palestinian Terrorist, and like Jesus, She was a Jew.

None of this, of course, is new.
And there will always be those who have their minds made up.
Israel however, is the only free nation in the Middle East...

God bless Israel!

Jimmy Carter, anti-Jew

by Lee Green

Jimmy Carter Distorts Facts, Demonizes Israel in Book

Former President Jimmy Carter has written an egregiously biased book called Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid and is currently doing numerous interviews to sell the book and its ideas. Carter is attempting to rewrite history, and in his alternate universe, Arabs parties are blameless and Israel is at fault for almost all the conflicts in the world. One gets the feeling after reading just a few pages that if he could have blamed Hurricane Katrina on Israel, he would have. His main messages are that Israel is badly mistreating the Palestinians and that the cause of the conflict is Israel's refusal to return to what he calls its "legal borders" (sic), the pre-67 armistice lines.

Because the Palestinian Arabs have been offered a viable state of their own numerous times, including with the same borders that Carter desires, but turned it down since it meant recognizing Israel's legitimacy and permanence and ending the conflict, Carter either ignores or mischaracterizes the offers. He never lets the facts get in the way of his "must blame Israel" theories. In Carter's twisted universe, it is the Arabs who have always been eager for peace, with Israel opposing it at every turn.

Almost every page of Carter's book contains errors, distortions or glaring omissions. The following list is just a small portion of the many problems in the book:

• Carter claims Israel has been the primary obstacle to peace, that Arab leaders have long sought peace while Israel preferred holding on to "Palestinian land" over peace, and that if only Israel would "[withdraw] to the 1967 border as specified in the U.N. Resolution 242...", there would be peace.

Aside from his obviously questionable opinions, Carter is factually wrong when he asserts that U.N. Resolution 242 requires Israel to withdraw to the 1949 armistice line that was in place until 1967. He has repeated this serious falsehood in many interviews, such as on the November 28 PBS NewsHour:

"The demand is for them to give back all the land. The United Nations resolutions that apply, the agreements that have been made at Camp David under me and later at Oslo for which the Israeli leaders received the Nobel Peace Prizes, was [sic] based on Israel's withdrawal from occupied territories."

He mischaracterizes UN resolutions and apparently has forgotten what he himself signed as a witness to the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, which states in Section A1c: "The negotiations [concerning the West Bank and Gaza] shall be based on all the provisions and principles of UN Security Council Resolution 242. The negotiations will resolve, among other matters, the location of the boundaries and the nature of the security arrangements."

To claim now that the very agreement he witnessed and signed specifies withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines is outrageous. [While the 1979 Camp David document again mentions UN Resolution 242, it makes no further mention of the West Bank or Gaza Strip. It instead deals with Israeli-Egyptian relations, and includes a map of the Israel-Egypt International Boundary (Annex II). Tellingly, no maps demarcating any boundary between Israel and the Palestinians are appended to the Camp David documents, Resolution 242, the Oslo Accords, or the "road map".]

UN Resolution 242 does not require Israel to withdraw from all the land to the "1967 border", since there is no such border. The "green line" is merely the 1949 armistice line and the drafters of 242 explicitly stated that this line was not a "secure border" -- which 242 calls for.

The British UN Ambassador at the time, Lord Caradon, who introduced the resolution to the Council, has stated that, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial."

The American UN Ambassador at the time, former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, has stated that, "The notable omissions - which were not accidental - in regard to withdrawal are the words 'the' or 'all' and the 'June 5, 1967 lines' ... the resolution speaks of withdrawal from occupied territories without defining the extent of withdrawal." This would encompass "less than a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territory, inasmuch as Israel's prior frontiers had proved to be notably insecure."

The reasoning of the United States and its allies at the time was clear: Any resolution which, in the face of the aggressive war launched in 1967 against Israel, required complete Israeli withdrawal, would have been seen as a reward for aggression and an invitation to future aggression. This is assuredly not what the UN voted for, or had in mind, when it passed Resolution 242.

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