In passing Resolution 1850 on December 19, 2008, the United Nations Security Council solemnly noted that “lasting peace can only be based on an enduring commitment to mutual recognition, freedom from violence, incitement and terror and the two-State solution….”
Strangely the Security Council in coming to this considered position made no mention of one of the greatest obstacles to achieving that mutual recognition – the arrogant, racist-driven and offensive provisions contained in the charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
The charter still remains in its 1967 format despite spurious claims by the PLO to have amended or revoked its terms as a condition of the 1993 Oslo Accords.
The charter contains the following Ten Commandments to be followed by Palestinian Arabs in denying Jews any claim to sovereignty in any part of Palestine; in pursuing Arab supremacist claims to all of Palestine; in nullifying international law that recognizes a Jewish right to nationhood similar to that of the Arab nation; and in absolutely precluding the possibility of any “two-State” solution:
1. Palestine is the homeland of the Palestinian Arab people and an integral part of the great Arab homeland and the people of Palestine is a part of the Arab Nation
2. Palestine with its boundaries that existed in the time of the British Mandate is an indivisible territorial unit.
3. The Palestinian Arab people possesses the legal right to its homeland.
4. Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine.
5. The Palestinian Arab people affirm its absolute resolution and abiding determination to exercise its right of self-determination in Palestine and sovereignty over it.
6. The partitioning of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of Israel are fundamentally null and void whatever time has elapsed.
7. The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate Document and everything based upon them are deemed null and void.
8. The claim of historical ties or religious ties between Jews and Palestine does not tally with historical realities or with the constituents of statehood in their true sense.
9. Judaism is not a nationality with an independent existence.
10. The Jews are not one people with an independent identity but citizens of the state to which they belong.
This disturbing mindset needs to be eradicated before any chance of resolving sovereignty in the West Bank between Arabs and Jews becomes even a remote possibility.
Such ideas fuel continuing Arab demands that call for:
● A “one-State solution.”
● Millions of Arabs being allowed to emigrate to Israel
● Israel ceasing to exist as the Jewish state.
● The West Bank being turned into a “No Jews” zone.
● Unrealistic “peace proposals” such as the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.
● Solidarity and enforced silence from many of the states in the Arab/Islamic world that wish to normalize relations with Israel but are afraid to do so.
● Support of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
● Continued indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks on Israel’s civilian population centers.
The United Nations lacks the ability to procure the passage of any resolution – either in the General Assembly or the Security Council – calling on its Arab, Islamic and Third World members to condemn the continued existence of these hate-driven provisions in the PLO charter.
Nor does the United Nations possess the willpower to demand the PLO redraw the charter to remove these offensive provisions and raise some hope of a possible end to 130 years of Arab delusion, paranoia and rejectionism that has prevented any Arab acknowledgement that Jews have any rights to a Jewish state in any part of their biblical and internationally sanctioned homeland.
Resolution 1850 is therefore not worth the paper it is written on. Its call for mutual recognition is merely a bunch of empty words devoid of any legal enforcement or moral persuasion.
The resolution reflects the impotence of the Security Council to do anything but attempt to save face as it realizes time has run out – both for the Bush performance-based road map and the ignominious role played by the UN as a member of the supposedly high-powered Quartet that was going to bring about the lasting peace that had eluded all prior efforts.
Until these Ten Commandments prescribed in the PLO charter are obliterated, any hopes of peacefully resolving the conflicting Arab and Jewish claims to the West Bank and Gaza are doomed to failure.