For the Palestinians,The U.N means Useless Nations

By Alan Hart

I must begin by making it clear that the UN of my headline is the Security Council not other component parts of the world body such as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA), which provides education, health care and social services for more than five million Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip prison camp, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

As a new year dawns I believe that those who are entertaining hope that the cause of justice for the Palestinians will be advanced by another Security Council resolution are guilty of wishful thinking. They may also be unaware of the history of Zionism’s success in corrupting and subverting the decision-making process of the General Assembly as well as the Security Council. (This history, complete and unexpurgated, flows through the three volumes of my book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews).

Early corruption and subversion

The corruption and subversion started in the countdown to the vote on the General Assembly’s Partition Plan resolution of 29 November 1947. The vote was postponed twice because Zionism calculated that there was not a majority in favour of partition. Then, assisted by its assets in President Truman’s White House and 26 of its collaborators in the Senate, Zionism bullied and bribed a number of vulnerable nations to change their “No” votes to “Yes” or abstain. The result was a minimum necessary majority in favour of partition. But when President Truman refused to use force to impose it, the resolution was vitiated (became invalid); and the option Truman approved was sending the question of what to do about Palestine back to the General Assembly for another debate. It was while this debate was underway that Israel, in defiance of the will of the organised international community as it then was, unilaterally declared itself to be in existence.

Zionism has corrupted everything it touched, including this organisation [the UN] in its infancy. (Senior UN official)

When Truman learned how Zionism and its collaborators had rigged the partition vote, he wrote the following in an angry memorandum to Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett. “It is perfectly clear that pressure groups will succeed in putting the United Nations out of business if this sort of thing is continued.”

Many years later a long serving, very senior and universally respected UN official said the following to me in his office on the top floor of the UN’s headquarters in New York. “Zionism has corrupted everything it touched, including this organisation in its infancy.” I knew, really knew, that he was reflecting the deeply held but private view of all the top international civil servants who were responsible for trying to make the world body work in accordance with the ideals and principles enshrined in its Charter and international law.

Zionist corruption of Resolution 242 of 1967

The Security Council’s complete surrender to Zionism happened during the protracted and at times angry behind-closed-doors discussions about the text of Resolution 242 – what it should and should not say. (The full story of this surrender is told in “Goodbye To The Security Council’s Integrity”, Chapter 3 of Volume Three of my book.)

The Johnson administration and all others responsible for drafting and then finalising the resolution’s text were completely aware that the Six Days War of June 1967 was a war of Israeli aggression, not, as Zionism asserted at the time and still asserts today, a war of self-defence.

That being so Resolution 242 of 22 November 1967 ought to have demanded an unconditional Israeli withdrawal and indicated that Israel would be isolated and have sanctions imposed on it if it refused to comply. And for complete clarity of meaning a binding resolution ought to have stated that Israel should not seek to settle or colonise the newly occupied territories, and that if it did the Security Council would enforce international law and take whatever action was necessary to stop the illegal developments.

But President Johnson refused to have Israel branded as the aggressor.

…Resolution 242 of 22 November 1967 ought to have demanded an unconditional Israeli withdrawal and indicated that Israel would be isolated and have sanctions imposed on it if it refused to comply.

This was despite the fact that he was privately furious with the Israelis. He had given them the green light to attack only Egypt, but their attack on Syria to take the Golan Heights for keeping provoked the Soviet Union to the brink of military confrontation with  the US. Johnson was also fully aware that when Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Dayan gave the order for his forces to attack the USS Liberty his intention was to sink the American spy ship and send all on board to a watery grave.

As it happened, on 8 June the Israeli attack on the Liberty with bombs, napalm, torpedoes and machine gun fire killed 34 members of the vessel’s crew and wounded171, 75 of them seriously. The Liberty was attacked to prevent it sending an early warning to the Johnson administration that elements of the Israeli army’s ground forces in Sinai were being turned around to reinforce an attack on Jordan and Syria. The full story is told in The Liberty Affair – “Pure Murder” on a “Great Day“, Chapter 2 of Volume Three of my book. Who described the attack on the Liberty as “pure murder”? Israel’s chief of staff at the time, Yitzhak Rabin. The “great day” comment was made by Dayan in a note to Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol.)

Though it did pay lip service to “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”, the final text of Resolution 242 (less than 300 words in all) gave the Israelis the scope to interpret it as they wished. It did so by stating that the establishment of a just and lasting peace should include the application of two principles:

(i) Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.

(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries free from threats or acts of force.

This wording enabled Zionism to assert that withdrawal was conditional on the Arab states recognising and legitimising Israel.

In addition, Resolution 242 gave Israel the freedom to determine the extent of any withdrawals it might make. This freedom was secured by immense pressure from Israel and the Zionist lobby in all its manifestations, which caused those responsible for the final wording of the resolution to drop the definite article “the” in (i) above. The wording of the draft text was (my emphasis added) “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from the territories occupied in the recent conflict.” The meaning of that draft text was clear. Israel had to withdraw from all the Arab territory it grabbed in the Six Days War. But when Israel’s leaders and the Zionist lobby said that was unacceptable, those responsible for the final version of 242 replied in effect: “Okay. We’ll do it your way.”

So the question without an answer in the final text of 242 was: which Israel were the Arab states required to recognise? An Israel withdrawn to its borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war or a Greater Israel – an Israel in permanent occupation of at least some Arab territory grabbed in that war?

Mentioning the Palestinians by name was unacceptable to Israel’s leaders and the Zionist lobby because it would have implied that they, the occupied and oppressed Palestinians, were a people with rights – rights far greater than what might be called the begging bowl rights normally associated in the public mind with refugees.

Incredible though it may seem today, Resolution 242 did not mention the Palestinians by name. It affirmed only the necessity for “achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem.” Mentioning the Palestinians by name was unacceptable to Israel’s leaders and the Zionist lobby because it would have implied that they, the occupied and oppressed Palestinians, were a people with rights – rights far greater than what might be called the begging bowl rights normally associated in the public mind with refugees.

But there was more to it than that. At the time the Security Council was agonising over the text of 242, the three major Western powers, the US, Britain and France, were united on one thing: the view that the Palestine file was not to be reopened because, if it was, they might one day have to confront Zionism.

Put another way, in November 1967 the major Western powers were hoping that re-emerging Palestinian nationalism could be snuffed out by a combination of Arab-and-Israeli military action (it was the security forces of Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon which made the first attempt to liquidate the authentic Palestine liberation movement led by Arafat) and compensation for refugees as necessary.

A disaster for peace and justice

Security Council Resolution 242 was a disaster for all who were seriously committed to working for a just and lasting peace because, effectively, it put Zionism into the diplomatic driving seat.

Some years after 242 was passed I had a private conversation with a very senior British diplomat who participated in the drafting and finalising of it. At the end of our conversation I summarised my understanding of what he told me. He said my summary as follows was correct.

Like it or not, and whatever it might mean for the fate of mankind, the world was going to have to live with the fact that there are two sets of rules for the behaviour of nations – one rule for Israel and one for all other nations.

Those responsible for framing Resolution 242 were very much aware that Israel’s hawks were going to proceed with their colonial venture come what may – in determined defiance of international law and no matter what the organised international community said or wanted. So some, if not all, of those responsible for framing 242 were resigned to the fact that, because of the history of the Jews (persecution on and off down the centuries) and Zionism’s use of the Nazi holocaust as a brainwashing tool, Israel was not and never could be a normal state. As a consequence, there was no point in the Security Council seeking to oblige it to behave like a normal state – i.e. in accordance with international law and its obligations as a member of the UN. Like it or not, and whatever it might mean for the fate of mankind, the world was going to have to live with the fact that there are two sets of rules for the behaviour of nations – one rule for Israel and one for all other nations. In that light Resolution 242 was confirmation that the Security Council had a double standard built into it, and because the political will to confront Zionism did not exist, there was nothing anybody could do to change that reality.

At the time of writing an effort by the Palestine Authority is underway to get a new Security Council resolution calling on Israel to end its occupation within two or three years. But even if such a resolution was introduced and passed (not vetoed by President Obama) it would be meaningless unless it contained a commitment to Security Council enforcement action if Israel refused to comply.

What are the chances in the foreseeable future of a new Security Council resolution containing such a commitment?

In my view there is not a snowball’s chance in hell.

What President Truman feared could happen did happen. On dealing with the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel the Security Council was put out of business by Zionism.

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American complicity in Israel’s war crimes

By Alan Hart

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was right when, after saying that “All the evidence points to Israeli artillery as the cause” (of the attack on the UN school in the Jabaliya refugee camp where more than 3,000 Palestinians were taking shelter from Israeli bombs and shells), he added the following. “Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children.” But there is, I say, something as shameful: the complicity of America’s corrupt political system in Israel’s war crimes.

Half-hearted condemnation

Initially, the mainstream media attached great significance to the fact that the US had “condemned” the attack, the implication of the first reports being that it had condemned Israel. It did not. US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said only that America “condemned the shelling of the school.” She did not name Israel. Body language is all important and when I watched and listened to her speaking I thought she delivered the condemnation as a dismissive, throwaway line. What I mean is that her body language said to me something like, “What I’m saying is not really important but I have to say it.”

From President Obama himself there were just more empty words  – another call for an immediate ceasefire. I imagine the unspoken response of Israel’s leaders was something like: “We know you had to make that call, Mr President, and you know that we are going to ignore it.”

Hypocrisy

Obama’s hypocrisy was on display again when he announced new sanctions on Russia. He said, “We stand up for rights and freedoms around the world.” What he didn’t add was “with the exception of the rights and freedom of occupied and oppressed Palestinians.”

I thought Chris Gunness, the spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), hit most of the right notes when he said:

It is beyond belief that in the 21st century children, women and civilian men should be subjected to this kind of outrage. It [Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip] is an abomination, a barbarity that needs to end… The world should hang its head in shame.

My own thought is that it is President Obama and other so-called leaders, not the world, who should be hanging their heads in shame.

That said, I still believe (perhaps naively) that Obama himself would like to use the leverage America has to try to cause Israel to be serious about peace on terms the Palestinians could accept, but he cannot because policy for the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel is controlled by a Congress that is answerable not to the American people but the Zionist lobby and its mad Christian fundamentalist allies.

“What America needs most of all is some real democracy”

In my analysis no president will ever be free to put America’s own best interests first by confronting the Zionist monster (a terrorist state) unless and until lobby funding is taken out of American politics. What America needs most of all is some real democracy.

On BBC Radio 4′s “Today” programme Britain’s new foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said this. “I have explained to Israeli ministers, not only Netanyahu, that the world is rapidly turning against Israel.”

That made me wonder what would happen if all of Israel’s Jews and all members of Congress could be compelled to watch a lengthy compilation of film and video footage of the death and destruction Israel has delivered to the Gaza Strip. Would it make them understand why the world is turning against Israel and cause a change of hearts and minds in Israel and Congress?

Probably, almost certainly, not.

Note

Dan Gillerman, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN, has let a cat slip out of the bag. In an Al-Jazeera programme he said that Israel was enjoying “unprecedented” support from around the world. Why unprecedented? Because, he stated, Egypt and Saudi Arabia were fully supporting Israel’s efforts to destroy Hamas. He also said that during his period at the UN (from 2003 to 2008) he couldn’t count the number of times Arab ambassadors and other Arab dignitaries had said to him: “Go, go. Don’t stop.”

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Wanted: new strategy for Palestinian resistance

By Alan Hart

As Jonathan Cook put it, “In the face of the enduring violence of Israel’s occupation, and the license it provides soldiers to humiliate and oppress, ordinary Palestinians have a stark choice: to submit or resist.”

They are not going to submit but there is, it seems to me, an urgent need for the Palestinian David to rethink his strategy for resisting the nuclear-armed Zionist Goliath if hope for an acceptable amount of justice for his people is to be kept alive.

Despite the fact that it was provoked by Israel (a fact Western governments and the mainstream media don’t want to acknowledge), I have to say that I think the resort to rocket attacks by Hamas and other groups was stupid in the extreme because it gave Israel’s leaders exactly what they wanted: a pretext not only for a major military offensive against Hamas and punishing the entire population of the besieged Gaza Strip, but also the opportunity to advance their utterly false and ludicrous claim that Israel has the moral right on its side. (As Rashid Khalidi has pointed out, Israel’s latest war on the Gaza Strip has also obscured the core issues: Israeli “racism, occupation and colonization”.)

By way of deception

The best account I have read of how Israel provoked Hamas was written by Max Blumenthal under the headline “Netanyahu government knew teens were dead as it whipped up racist frenzy”. Here is part of what he wrote.

From the moment three Israeli teens were reported missing last month, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the country’s military-intelligence apparatus suppressed the flow of information to the general public. Through a toxic blend of propaganda, subterfuge and incitement, they inflamed a precarious situation, manipulating Israelis into supporting their agenda until they made an utterly avoidable nightmare inevitable.

Israeli police, intelligence officials and Netanyahu knew within hours of the kidnapping and murder of the three teens that they had been killed. And they knew who the prime suspects were less than a day after the kidnapping was reported.

Rather than reveal these details to the public, Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency imposed a gag order on the national media, barring news outlets from reporting that the teens had almost certainly been killed, and forbidding them from revealing the identities of their suspected killers. The Shin Bet even lied to the parents of the kidnapped teens, deceiving them into believing their sons were alive.

Instead of mounting a limited action to capture the suspected perpetrators and retrieve the teens’ bodies, Netanyahu staged an aggressive international public relations campaign, demanding sympathy and outrage from world leaders, who were also given the impression that the missing teens were still alive.

Meanwhile, Israel’s armed forces rampaged throughout the occupied West Bank and bombarded the Gaza Strip in a campaign of collective punishment deceptively marketed to Israelis and the world as a rescue mission.

Premeditated aggression

The Israeli rampage described by Blumenthal, which included the arrest of hundreds of Hamas supporters, was the provocation. As Jeff Halper put it, “What is clear is that the military operations had a purpose of their own, that they would have been launched regardless, that they were merely waiting on a pretext.”

Israel’s purpose in making life hell for the occupied and oppressed Palestinians is, as it always has been, to cause them either to give up their struggle and accept crumbs from Zionism’s table or, preferably, abandon their homeland and seek new lives elsewhere…

In that light there is a case for saying that the best form of resistance is simply more of the incredible, almost superhuman steadfastness the occupied and oppressed Palestinians have demonstrated to date in saying “No” to crumbs from Zionism’s table and staying put on what remains of their land. In other words, their continued presence, their very existence, is a powerful form of resistance. But on its own that’s not enough if obtaining an acceptable amount of justice is not to become a mission impossible.

So to the question.

Pulling the rug from under Israel’s claws

If violence of any kind is not an option because it assists Israel’s leaders to go on selling their propaganda lies and is therefore counterproductive, what must happen if Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation is to be given new and more effective life?

In my analysis there is only one answer to that question. I have said what I believe it to be on several occasions over the past year or more but I’m going to say it again with emphasis.

The impotent and corrupt Palestinian Authority (PA), which is virtually an extension of Israel’s own security services, must be dissolved with complete responsibility and accountability for the occupation of the West Bank handed back to Israel.

This would impose significant security, financial and other burdens on Israel but, more to the point, it would make the task of calling and holding the Zionist state to account for its defiance of international law and its crimes something less than what it currently is – a mission impossible. 

What I mean is that Israel’s policy and actions in the new situation would make it increasingly difficult for the major powers led by the US to go on supporting Israel right or wrong. If they did they would be exposed fully naked as Zionist puppets, complicit in Zionism’s defiance of international law and crimes. My speculation (am I naive?) is that they would not want to be seen like that. 

Handing complete responsibility and accountability for the occupation back to Israel would not only concentrate the minds of the leaders and governments of the major powers. It would also enable activist groups of all faiths and none which campaign for justice for the Palestinians to sharpen their focus and be more effective.

With the PA dissolved and Israel completely responsible and accountable for its occupation, the Palestinians could assist the process of refocusing the world’s attention on their claim for justice by demonstrating, peacefully, on a weekly basis, in each and every Palestinian community on the occupied West Bank. The demonstrators would be armed only with banners bearing a simple message: “End The Occupation”. And they would not respond to any Israeli attack with stone throwing or violence of any kind.

Quite possibly Israel’s government would ban such demonstrations, but such a ban would convey its own message to the world, as would a violent Israeli reaction to peaceful Palestinian demonstrations.

Who would speak for and represent the occupied and oppressed Palestinians if the PA was dissolved? Simple. The PLO, preferably with fresh elections to its executive committee.

Quite possibly Israel’s government would then ban and outlaw the PLO but that, too, would convey its own message to the world.

A new strategy for Palestinian resistance as indicated above would change the dynamics of the conflict.

Without such a change I believe that Zionism’s monster child will remain above the law and free to impose its will on the Palestinians, the region and the world.

In that event obtaining an acceptable measure of justice for the Palestinians will be and will remain a mission impossible.

Note

President Obama’s silence on Israel’s latest killing spree – I agree with Ilan Pappe that it’s “incremental genocide” – invites my complete contempt for him. A post by Chris Ernesto, “Thank you, President Obama, Love, Israel”, says all that needs to be said on this aspect of the matter.

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Is changing the Israeli mindset possible?

By Alan Hart

In a recent article, “Charting a new course”, Alon Ben-Meir made the statement that “Only the Palestinians can modify and subsequently change the Israelis’ mindset.” The modification and subsequent change he hopes for would climax with a majority of Israel’s Jews insisting that their leaders stop being the victims of their own propaganda and make peace on terms the Palestinians could accept.

As those familiar with my work know, I think most Israeli Jews have been brainwashed by Zionist propaganda to the point where they are and will most likely remain beyond reason on the matter of justice for the Palestinians. But in this article, and for the sake of discussion, I am going to take Ben-Meir’s argument a big step forward and explore how, perhaps, the Israeli mindset could be changed.

For those not familiar with the Baghdad-born, Jewish-American Alon Ben-Meir, he is a widely respected expert on the Middle East. He is also a self-declared “passionate proponent” of the Arab Peace Initiative, of which more later.

The essence of his case is that the Palestinians must recognize that the average Israeli believes they do not seek real peace and are still committed to Israel’s destruction.

Opening the Israeli mind to the truth

That is indeed what most Israelis have been conditioned to believe, so the key question seems to me to be something like this. What could be done and by whom to open Israeli minds to the truth?

The essence of the truth to which all Israeli Jews need to be exposed is in two parts.

Arafat’s historic compromise

Leaving aside the fact that despite some stupid rhetoric to the contrary, the Arab regimes never, ever, had any intention of fighting Israel to liberate Palestine, the first is that the pragmatic Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, prepared the ground on his side for peace on terms which any rational Israeli government would have accepted with relief as far back as the end of 1979 – more than 35 years ago! He did it by persuading the Palestine National Council (PNC), then the highest decision-making Palestinian body, to endorse by 296 votes to four his policy of politics and what until then had been unthinkable compromise with Israel.

From then on the deal available to Israel was peace based on an end to its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to create the space for a viable Palestinian state with East Jerusalem its capital or the whole of Jerusalem an open, undivided city and the capital of two states. Arafat subsequently informed Israeli leaders through secret emissaries that he and his senior Fatah leadership colleagues accepted that the Palestinian right of return would have to be restricted to the land of the sovereign Palestinian state. (It took Arafat 10 long years to sell the idea of unthinkable compromise with Israel first to his Fatah leadership colleagues and then the PNC. At the beginning of this demonstration of real leadership he knew he was putting his credibility with his own people and perhaps even his life on the line. Israel’s response was an invasion of Lebanon all the way to Beirut where the PLO was then based with the aim of exterminating its entire leadership and destroying its infrastructure.)

Arab Peace Initiative

The second part of the essence of the truth to which all Israeli Jews need to be exposed is that there is on the table, and has been since 2002, an Arab peace plan. Because I am going to suggest that a massive promotion of it offers perhaps the only hope for changing the Israeli mindset, let’s now take a look at it.

Formally known as the Arab Peace Initiative (API), it was first presented on 27 March 2002 at the Beirut Summit of the Arab League by then Crown Prince and today King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. (Arafat was unable to attend the summit because Sharon’s government told him that if he left the occupied West Bank he would not be allowed to return). The API has since been re-endorsed by Arab leaders on a number of occasions.

What’s in the API for Israel?

An end to the conflict and with the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement the establishment of normal relations between Israel and the entire Arab world (and also, although the API does not say so, the establishment of normal relations between Israel and the entire Muslim world including Iran).

What does Israel have to do to secure this deal?

It has to end its occupation of all Arab land (including the Syrian Golan Heights) grabbed in 1967. It has to accept the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem its capital. And it has to agree to a just solution of the Palestinian refugee problem in accordance with UN General Assembly resolution 194 of 11 December 1948.

This resolution states that

the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest possible date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for the loss or damage of property which, under principles of international or in equity, should be made good by the governments or authorities responsible.

One of several given reasons for the instant, knee-jerk rejection by Israel’s leaders of the API when it was first presented was that the return of Palestinian refugees would swamp the “Jewish state” and turn it into an Arab state. From Zionism’s pathological perspective that fear was well grounded. But if Israel’s leaders had been interested in peace on terms other than their own – which require a Palestinian surrender to Zionism’s will – they could have discovered through back-channel exploration that the API was open to negotiation so far as Arab leaders were concerned. Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, subsequently said so.

In particular, Israel’s leaders could have discovered that if they engaged in good faith negotiations for a comprehensive peace arising out of the API, the Arabs would effectively endorse Arafat’s pragmatism by accepting that the return of Palestinian refugees would have to be restricted to the territory of the Palestinian state – not Israel inside its borders as they were on 4 June 1967.

As I have pointed out in previous articles, Arafat was well aware that if his pragmatism on the matter of the return of the refugees had become public while he was preparing the ground on his side for peace, he would have been accused by some Palestinians of betraying their cause. When I discussed this with Arafat he made two comments. One was to the effect that it was better for the Palestinians to have “some justice rather than none”. The other was an expression of his hope that a two-state peace might lead eventually to a one-state by mutual consent. So he did not regard his compromise on the return of the refugees as necessarily closing that door for ever.

The other thing Israel’s leaders could have discovered about the flexibility of the API is that its requirement for East Jerusalem to be the capital of the Palestinian state is not a take it or leave it option. If Israel’s leaders were prepared to negotiate for a real peace, Arab leaders would be very open to the idea that Jerusalem should be an undivided, open city and the capital of two states.

To sum up so far: in return for an end to its occupation of all Arab land grabbed in 1967 (in a war of Israeli aggression not self-defence) the API offered and still offers Israel a comprehensive peace with the governments and therefore the vast majority of the peoples of the entire Arab and wider Muslim worlds. (Within that context it’s reasonable to assume that violent Islamic fundamentalism in all its manifestations could be isolated, contained and defeated.)

The main reason why Israel’s leaders are not under any internal pressure to take the API seriously is, as indicated by public opinion polls, that the vast majority of (Jewish) Israelis have not been informed about it.

That being so the question arising is this.

Would the truth open Israeli minds?

Would knowledge of the API, I mean a real and true understanding of what it offers Israel, be enough to change the mindset of a significant majority of Israelis to the point where they insisted that their leaders responded positively to it in order to get good faith negotiations for a comprehensive peace underway.

For the sake of discussion I am going to assume that the answer is “Perhaps”.

In that light the question that needs to be asked and answered is this.

What can be done to inform all Israelis about what is on offer to them in the API?

My answer is that the Arab League should call and push for the convening of a special session of the UN General Assembly to focus on the API.

The UN Charter (Chapter IV, Article 20) provides for the General Assembly to meet in special sessions. It states:

The General Assembly shall meet in regular annual sessions and in such special sessions as occasion may require. Special sessions shall be convoked by the secretary-general at the request of the Security Council or of a majority of the members of the United Nations.

So, if the Obama administration blocked a request for a special session on the API from the Security Council to the secretary-general, it could be made to happen by a majority of all the member countries.

At the special session the foreign ministers of each and every country in the Arab and wider Muslim world would re-endorse the API, spell out what is in it for Israel and indicate that if Israel was prepared to negotiate in good faith, a final agreement for a comprehensive peace would state that the return of Palestinian refugees is to be restricted to the territory of an independent and sovereign Palestine (with compensation for those unable to return), and, that Jerusalem would be an undivided, open city and the capital of two states.

In their own and various ways Arab and other Muslim foreign ministers could also take the opportunity to speak directly to all Israeli Jews. The main message to them would boil down to something like this.

If you really want peace on terms that guarantee your security and wellbeing and an acceptable amount of justice for the Palestinians, it’s time for you to stop believing the propaganda of your leaders and insist that they negotiate in good faith. Peace and security for all is there for the taking so far as the Arab and wider Muslim worlds are concerned.

Media coverage of such an event ought to guarantee that most if not all Israelis were made aware of what they had to gain from a real peace process kick started by the API. No doubt some writers, broadcasters and other commentators in the Israeli media would assert that it was all an Arab and other Muslim confidence trick, and that Arabs and all Muslims were never to be trusted. But the message from such an event would be clear to all but those whose minds have been closed and locked by decades of Zionist propaganda

Question. Would such an event be enough to change the mindset of a majority of Israeli Jews and cause them to insist that their leaders be serious about negotiating a comprehensive peace on terms that would provide an acceptable amount of justice for the Palestinians and security for all?

My answer is, probably not but it’s well worth a try.

Last question. Does the Arab League have the political will to take such an initiative?

My answer is, probably not but it should.

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