There They Go Again- The Tenured Peace Processors
by RUTH KING September 4, 2014
The Gaza war has come to a temporary lull, and as surely as day follows night, the peace processors are busy recycling the same old prescriptives for peace between the Arabs and Israel. They will demand suicidal territorial withdrawals from Israel in exchange for "recognition of Israel's "right to exist."
Simply defined it is as follows: In order to have its right to exist acknowledged, Israel must cease to exist.
No other nation in the world is given this choice.
Before World War 11, a significant portion of the global population lived under the sovereignty of European colonial powers including Palestinian Jews. At the conclusion of the war, decolonization accelerated and from 1945 to the 1980s scores of nations in Asia and Africa acquired sovereignty.
Concomitantly, those nations joined the United Nations which had 35 member states in 1946, grew to 127 members by 1970 and at present has 193 member states. Independent studies show that only 87 nations, roughly 45 % of those member states are real democracies.
Some former colonies retained some of the infrastructure and economic institutions of their former colonizers, but most remained suspicious and hostile to European-style government, political ideas, and economic institutions.
The outcome of independence has been catastrophic in Africa. Of the 55 nations of the African Union (Morocco, a former colony of France is not a member) only a handful, Malawi, Botswana, Namibia, Benin, Ghana, Mauritania and Senegal have achieved any real semblance of freedom and stability according to Freedom House ratings for 2014
Unfortunately, for the millions of decent and hapless people of that continent, elected or chosen leaders who offered so much hope of "one man-one vote" rule became crooks with their hands in the national till or hands soaked in the blood of their countrymen. Famine, epidemics, tribal wars, massacres, coups and jihads against innocent civilians have plagued the continent. Millions have died and millions live in abject fear and misery. Celebrities come and go and wring their hands, get their photo ops and then move on. A racist media and an indolent and hypocritical Congressional Black Caucus ignore their plight.
In Asia, during the same period (1946- 1981) the Philippines, Israel, India and Pakistan, Burma, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) Indonesia and Malaysia( originally a federation of North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore. Singapore was expelled and is now a sovereign City State) Cambodia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, gained their independence and are all members of the United Nations.
The vast majority of those nations are repressive at best and brutal tyrannies at worst. Among the Muslim nations, oppression of women, dissidents and harsh Sharia laws are the norm. Taiwan, a democracy, was expelled by the United Nations to accommodate The Republic of China in 1971, and their bid to join the United Nations as an independent nation was formally rejected in 2007. They remain an economically stable democracy without the "benefits" of UN membership.
Israel India and the Philippines are the only democracies in the post-colonial nations of Asia. And, in fact, it can be argued that of all nations which achieved in dependence in those decades, Israel is the most successful western type democracy- with highly advanced scientific , academic, civil rights, and cultural institutions that rival those of any in the West.
Nonetheless, assorted despots and tyrants are now a majority of the member states in the United Nations and their emissaries, joined even by those diplomats from those relatively free African nations, bash Israel with metronomic regularity, joined from stage left by a chorus of European pundits and "statesmen." The United Nations Human Rights Council was created in 2006 and as of 2013 had more resolutions condemning Israel than any on the rest of the world combined. It is mind boggling.
Israel is the only, repeat, only member nation whose sovereignty is challenged. Even more egregious is the fact that only Israel, repeat, only Israel is asked to accept "recognition of its right to exist" as a negotiable item.
Even when supporters and friends of Israel tally up the concessions that Israel must make- territorial surrender that mounts to self- destruction- they list "recognition of its right to exist" as an Arab concession.
And the most perverse outcome of all the so-called negotiations is that even Israel's putative leaders have been brainwashed to accept those perverse terms from their enemies instead of categorically rejecting them.
That is really something to ponder.
Ruth King is a freelance writer. She has written a book and articles on gardening, and also writes a monthly column in OUTPOST, the publication of Americans for a Safe Israel.
Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/there-they-go-again-the-tenured-peace-processors#ixzz3CSSqfNSG
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