The AJDS on the UN Resolution to Recognise Palestine
The Australian Jewish Democratic Society urges the Australian government, which already accepts the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, to support their bid for recognition of the State of Palestine by the UN General Assembly.
The AJDS has issued the following statement:
Australia has been a long-standing friend of Israel ever since its establishment, and strongly supports resolving the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians through a two state solution. There are several good reasons why supporting UN recognition of Palestine is consistent with these positions.
Putting aside the propaganda rhetoric that permeates this debate, Israel and the Palestinians formally recognised each other when the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. But 18 years of on-again, off-again negotiations since then have failed to resolve the conflict.
Palestinians are more strident than ever in asserting their right to return to their original homes in Israel, and Israel is more entrenched than ever in its territorial expansion through settlements in the West Bank.
The current political dynamic has not favoured a resolution of the conflict. But formal UN recognition of Palestine is likely to have a positive effect on both Israelis and Palestinians.
Most importantly it is a clear statement by Palestinians that their goal is a state of their own. Taking this path will require Palestinians to act like a state in dealing with Israel – putting an end to rockets being fired into Israel from Gaza and internally dealing with factions like Hamas who cannot maintain their refusal to recognise the reality of Israel, without damaging the political capital of the Palestinian government.
Palestinians will also be aware that recognition of Palestine carries with it a significant move towards dealing with the Palestinian refugee issue within their state and with compensation, rather than solely through the “right of return”. It diminishes the credibility of a Palestinian government to insist that Palestinians should be able to live in the state next door in preference to their own state.
Formal recognition of Palestine will not of itself resolve the conflict, but it will lead to a more balanced relationship between the two parties and will push both parties towards a resumption of face-to-face negotiations. Australia and the rest of the international community will be in a stronger position to assist this process by applying pressure to both sides.
Formal recognition of Palestine may be confronting for Israel, but is also likely to renew debate within Israel about the brutalising effect of the 44 years of occupation, the resulting damage to its own democratic processes, and the sustainability of the settlement project.
Anyone with an interest in the region will be aware of the difficulty that both Israelis and Palestinians face in confronting and dealing with the issues of territory, Israeli settlements and Palestinian refugees.
The necessary compromises will inevitably be painful. The task of the Israeli government and future Palestinian government will be to guide their citizens towards a resolution they can both live with.
The call for recognition of Palestine by the UN General Assembly is one that has been supported by many leading Israelis, including Israel Prize laureates, former Knesset members, former diplomats and significantly, former senior members of its intelligence and defence community. We urge the Australian government to maintain its strong support for Israel and a negotiated settlement to the conflict through UN recognition of Palestine.
Ahhhh if only it were as simple as the proposal set out by the AJDS. Personally I think there will be much bloodshed and many tears before entente cordiale is achieved between the two states. I pray that there will be an accord reached by 2012 – and that Hamas will stop beating the drum advocating the destruction of Israel. However, Israel will still need to be constantly on guard no matter what decision is reached eventually,.
I found this website when googling to find out which way Australia will vote in the General Assembly. The AJDS statement is a principled and well thought out stand that takes into account the best interests of both Israel and the soon-to-be Palestinian state. As a strong supporter of a two-state solution where both states coexist in peace, I applaud the statement and hope the Australian government takes a similar stance in the UN.
To hasbaracentral
Trouble is the Palestinian Arabs can never say “yes”.
You make no comment on the fact they had 19 years to get their Arab brethren to give them what they now claim – yet they chose to unify the West Bank and East Jerusalem with Transjordan to create Jordan.
You are silent on their rejection of partition in 1937 and 1947.
They were lucky to be offered anything in 2001 and 2008.
Those good old days are not going to come back again. The longer they say “no” the less they are destined to get.
Have you got a fake e mail address to go with your fake name? I hope the editor does insist on persons posting to give their names and real e mail addresses.
The web is a disgrace allowing anonymous comments. The newspapers require identification – why not the internet?
It has been a regular given that those who consider themselves Jewish but belong and propagate the offensive absurdities of AJDS shall always, consistently, regale us with such transparent anti Israel utter rubish that it is inevitable to consider AJDS a genuine Agency for the larger most radical palestinian political propaganda international franchise.
It is not just what AJDS consistently have been disseminating for ages,but their IDENTICAL brainless explanatory structures.
To say that a fully fledged palestinian STATE would ensure a peaceful resolution of the conflict is CLEARLY and DIRECTLY stating the following:
– a fully fledged palestinian state will have the right to posess its own fully armed… army. This entails:
– any policies, statal “philosophy” endorsed”democratically” and demanded by its people, such as the dismantling of the Jewish presence in their palestinian state ( i.e. the Zionist settlers ),will be executed by ultimate means, force, in which the said army will be inveitably involved.But, since those settlers are not the care and consideration of AJDS, their forceful and criminal elimination would be their right deserts !
– should the neighbouring and acepted State of Israel cause any reasons for the palestinian army to retaliate, it should happen as the inaliable right of ANY state to protect itself.
This is the guarantee that the palestinian state, as conceived by the palestinians and their 5th column agency AJDS are giving us !!
From the above clear and realistic assumption one can derive a comprehensive list of realistic and totally unacceptable policies and actions completely consistent with everything we know too well about the peace loving palestinians.
One short corollary is: How could these deeeply deficient people reckon that,once a state, palestinians will turn overnight into decent Australians or Kiwis, Canadians etc. !!??
As about the above list, learn Latin and get this: Barba non facit filosofum.
The editors will not like to see my postings and might delete them. But let us see.
Correct
We need a name and a proper email address
Attempts to email you have resulted in bounced messages
We need to know with whom we are corresponding
Sorry Singer That is a piece of fiction. Barak’s offer at best was to re-name Abu Dis “east Jerusalem” and give it to the Palestinians to form a state without its own military, control over its air space or borders and with sgnificant sections of territory under ‘indefinitea” israeli occupation.
The Palestinian Arabs were offered a state in more than 90% of the West Bank and Gaza in 2000 by Barak and in 2008 by Olmert but knocked back both those offers.
They were offered a state in a larger area than the West Bank and Gaza in 1937 by the Peel Commission and in 1947 by the United Nations and knocked back those offers as well.
They could have had their state in the entire area they now demand at any time between 1948-1967 when not one Jew lived there – but failed to do so preferring to unify the West Bank with Jordan and leave Gaza under Egyptian administration.
When are they going to get serious about peaceful co-existence and not keep plotting to eliminate their Jewish neighbour?
I can only assume the AJDS is unaware of this long running rejectionist approach and have become innocent dupes of a well oiled Arab proaganda machine.
Wow! What a collection of names Stillman posts! What a collection of garbage! Stillman should remember George Orwells comment: “You must be an intellectual. Only an intellectual could say something so stupid”. The very fact that JStreet, an anti-Zionist Soros funded pretend Jewish group funded ads in Israeli papers automatically rules it as much out of the debate as it does Hamas. In case Stillman failed to notice, critical comments above were of AJDS dissembling. The ad to which the elite put their signatures was not shown, so countering criticism of AJDS by referring to a possibly related ad is underhanded and irrelevant. More to the point is that no elite supporting a position outside their expertise is worth listening to. And even more to the point is that Israel’s civilian elite consistently displays contempt for the public who serve in the IDF to protect their right to spout their ideologically based nonsense. And the old time military with an eye on politics distort their perceptions and try to deceive us, like foolish Ashkenazi who advocated a withdrawal from the Golan to separate Syria from Iran. What a pity that Israel’s generals have abandoned the doctrines of Wingate for those of Petain. What a shame that our heroic and humane brothers and sisters in Israel, veritable lions facing sadistic antisemitic rats, are led by jackals. And it is a shame too that AJDS supports enemies of Jewish self-determination and security.
Thats a great list of people but that proves nothing. Any opinion poll in Israel will show that these people are greatly outnumbered. But lets not argue on the basis of who has more people on their side, on that basis the Chinese win every argument. Lets argue on the facts as we know them and what history has instructed us. On that basis I note that Larry has not tried to refute even one point raised by myself, Paul or Ronit.
Neither of the commentators above seems to have paid attention to what a highly significant group of Israelis have now publicly advocated —
On May 18th, Jstreet ran unprecedented ads in Israeli papers supporting a Palestinian state, signed by 18 generals and 27 winners of the prestigious Israel Prize, among others.
Israeli Ad for Peace Signatories
Larry Abramson | Artist and Prof. of the arts Maj Gen (Ret.) Avraham Adan (“Bren”) | former Commander of the Armored Corps Prof. Chaim Adler | Israel Prize laureate Prof. Joseph Agassi Gila Almagor-Agmon | Israel Prize laureate Brig Gen (Ret.) Dr. Yitzhak Arad | former Chairman of Yad Vashem Col (Ret.) As’ad As’ad | former Member of Knesset, Likud Brig Gen (Ret.) Menachem Aviram | former Commander of Paratroopers Brigade and of the IDF Command and Staff College Collette Avital | former Consul in New York Avne Azulai | former senior Mossad official Prof. Elie Barnavi | former Ambassador to France Brig Gen (Ret.) Mordechai Bar-On | former Chief Education Officer Ilan Baruch | former Ambassador to South Africa Prof. Yehuda Bauer | former Director of the International Center for Holocaust Studies of Yad Vashem and Israel Prize laureate Prof. Haim Ben-Shahar | former President of Tel Aviv University, founder of the Israel Democracy Institute Adv. Michael Ben Yair | former Attorney General Prof. Menachem Brinker | Israel Prize laureate Prof. Judith Buber Agassi Prof. Naomi Chazan| former Member of Knesset Col (Ret.) Ran Cohen | former Minister of Trade and Industry Maj Gen (Ret) Nehemiah Dagan | former Chief Education Officer Dr. Yossi Dahan Yael Dayan | former Member of Knesset Brig Gen (Ret.) Prof. Eran Dolev Prof. Yehuda Elkana | former President of the Central European University Brig Gen (Ret.) Yitzchak Elron Prof. Yaron Ezrahi | winner of the Political Science Society Award Yona Fischer | Israel Prize laureate Ari Folman | Golden Globe laureate Prof. Yitzhak Galnoor | former Civil Service Commissioner Prof. Haim Ganz Maj Gen (Ret.) Shlomo Gazit | former Head of Military Intelligence, Chairman of the Jewish Agency and President of Ben Gurion University Yair Garbuz | Emet Prize laureate Moshe Gershuni | Israel Prize laureate Maj Gen (Ret.) Yosef Geva | former OC Central Command Prof. Galia Golan Prof. Amiram Goldblum Prof. Hanoch Gutfreund | former President of the Hebrew University Adv. Shlomo Gur | former foreign serviceman and Director General of the Justice Ministry Prof. David Harel | Israel Prize and Emet laureate Dr. Shmuel Harlap | Chairman of Colmobil Limited Yoram Kaniuk | Sapir Prize laureate Dani Karavan | Israel Prize laureate Prof. Elihu Katz | Israel Prize laureate Col (Ret.) Paul Kedar | former Consul in New York Prof. Yehoshua Kolodny | Israel Prize laureate Maj Gen (Ret.) Amos Lapidot | former Commander of Israeli Air Force Alex Levac | Israel Prize laureate Dr. Alon Liel | former Director General of Foreign Ministry Brig Gen (Ret.) Asher Levy Maj Gen (Ret) Zeev Livneh | established the Home Front Command Ram Loevy | Israel Prize laureate Prof. Avishai Margalit | Israel and Emet Prize laureate Hanna Maron | Israel Prize laureate Maj Gen (Ret.) Menachem Meron (Mendy) | former Commander of Military Colleges Sami Michael | Emet Prize laureate Ohad Naharin | Israel and Emet Prize laureate Nachik Navot | former Deputy Head of Mossad Prof. Jad Ne’eman | Israel Prize laureate Amoz Oz | Israel Prize laureate Brig Gen (Ret.) Ilan Paz Prof. Dov Pekelman Maj Gen (Ret.) Dr. Elad Peled | former Commander of National Security College and Director General of the Ministry of Education Prof. Itamar Procaccia | Israel Prize laureate Sefi Rachlevsky | author and expert on Jewish theology Prof. Eliezer Rafaeli | first President of Haifa University Prof. Seizaf Rafaeli | Dean of the School of Management, Haifa University Brig Gen (Ret.) Giora Ram | former Deputy Commander of the Israeli Air Force Prof. Gabi Salomon | Israel Prize laureate Adv. Talia Sasson | former senior State Advocacy official Dr. Aliza Savir | Deputy Director of Peres Center for Peace Prof. Hillel Schocken Prof. Alice Shalvi | Israel Prize laureate Maj Gen (Ret.) Nathan Sharoni | President of Council of Peace and Security Prof. Aliza Shenhar | President of Yezreel Valley College Prof. David Shulman | Emet Prize laureate Joshua Sobol | Theater Award laureate Prof. Zeev Sternhell | Israel Prize laureate Prof. Carlo Strenger Prof. Zeev Tadmor | former President of Technion, Emet Prize laureate David Tartakover | Israel Prize laureate Dan Tsur | Israel Prize laureate Pof. Zeev Tzahor | President of Sapir College Micha Ullman | Israel Prize laureate Lia van Leer | Israel Prize laureate Prof. Menahem Yaari | Israel Prize laureate, President (Emeritus) of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities Maj Gen (Ret.) Aviezer Yaari | former Commander of MilitaryColleges Dalia Yairi Prof. Yossi Yonah Prof. Yirmiyahu Yovel | Israel Prize laureate
It is reassuring to read that the AJDS remains steadfast in its hostility to Jewish self-determination ane that it has not strayed from its role as self-appointed propagandists for the politically concocted “Palestinians”. Every paragraph of its statement is false and misleading.
The UNGA cannot recognise a state and the Hamastan Fatahland duo fail to meet the criteria needed for statehood. It is a lie to state that the Arabs have accepted Israel’s right to exist; Arafat promised to recognise Israel, the PLO stated recognition, but the Palestinian National Congress never ratified that recognition and the PLO and Hamas charters still call for the destruction of Israel. And the AJDS knows this but prefers to mislead Australians.
It is pure nonsense to claim that if a Palestinian state came into existence, more pressure could be applied to it and Israel to negotiate face to face. Why should the Arabs negotiate if the international community ignores its own rulings, agreements and laws and creates a state. It also means that if such a state is created and is made equal to Israel, Israel’s security needs would be completely ignored. AJDS wants the Arabs to dictate to Israel from a position of strength provided by the international community. And what chutzpah to claim that the international community knows better that democratic Israel what is best for it. They certainly do not need the advise of Islamist appeasing EU, Obama’s perfidious USA, Iran collaborating Russia or the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. The AJDS proposes that Israel surrender to nations for whom Israel is a burden in its thirst for oil and quest for quiet if all it takes is sacrificing Jewish self-determination.
The AJDS continues the lie that “settlement”expansion it the root cause of the conflict. No new towns have been legally built since 1993 and to say that Jews cannot build within their towns which take up no more than 1.7% of Judea and Samaria is to advocate that those towns wither and die.
AJDS dissembles in claiming that with statehood will come reconciliation between Arab factions and a responsible government. AJDS wants us to believe that power struggles in mohammedan realms will disappear, rather than the time honoured trend in those societies to try to out-do each other in extermism. AJDS also wants us to forget the failure of the Gaza experiment.
The AJDS is disingenuous in hinting that statehood would be a way of dealing with the Arab invented “right of return”. No mohammedan will ever give up that baseless claim and AJDS only suggests that Palistan would be another option to that “right”, along with, of course, compensation. Compansation for what is not made clear, but one must assume for the displacement of those who became ancient natives of Palestine after two years of residence before 1948, the UNWRA definition of a Palestinian perpetual “refugee”. And of course, forget about compensating Jews from Arab lands
AJDS lists a long series of Israeli groupings that have called for the establishment of a state for the Palestinian Arabs. The one group that they fail to mention – deliberately – is the Israeli electorate which has rejected the appeasers and the defeatists. The Jews of Israel wants to live in a society where jihadis and antisemites do not murder them in their insane bloodlust to re-establish the caliphate and impose the 7th century morality where Jews are a tolerated humiliated minority.
The AJDS is but one of many organisations that pretend to be Jewish only to better harm Israel, continuing the Stalinist aim of destroying the Great Satan by first destroying Little Satan. And to build their idea of the worker’s utopia, they collaborate with the heirs of Nazi collaborators and with islamofascists. But why not, after all Stalin sold out the left in the Spanish Civil War, so the AJDS and its ilk is more than happy to support mohammedans against Jews.
You are bloody joking! What on earth have the Palestinians demonstrated which would come anywhere near to proving their readiness for statehood!??? Have they demonstrated their ability to run a civil society? What is their human rights record? Have they built an infrastructure (except of terror!!!)to support and protect their population. They are a corrupt, welfare supported, terror loving people who wish only to destroy Israel and take it over (in order to create more chaos…witness Gaza???) So no, AJDS try to understand something…you are living in lala land and it’s just not that funny any more!
It’s interesting that the AJD can conclude that UN recognition of a Palestinian State will have the effect of the Palestinian leadership accepting the two state solution, one Jewish one Palestinian. It is very difficult to see where this conclusion has come from especially as EVERY Palestinian spokesperson has said the opposite. They even say this in English.
They then state that “Formal recognition of Palestine will not of itself resolve the conflict, but it will lead to a more balanced relationship between the two parties and will push both parties towards a resumption of face-to-face negotiations”. I would argue that the exact opposite will be the result. My reasoning is that the Palestinian leadership will recognise that they do not have to negotiate to get results and will continue to refuse to negotiate but will just put more pressure on Israel to meet all their demands, including those that even the AJD find unacceptable like the right of return.
I would argue that if you accept the two state solution as the best of a bad set of answers, the only way for this to happen is to put pressure on the Palestinian Leadership by refusing them membership of the UN and stating that if you want it negotiate with Israel, create your infrastructure and then come to the UN.
A brave , principled and welcopme stand by AJDS. Now for the calumny, slander and abuse by the Zionists against AJDS. Israel is still building exclusive colonies,linked by exclusive roads, in the West Bank while making empty talk about a non-existant “peace process”. The problem for Zionists is that the UN vote will expose this colonisation and isolate Israel further.