Israel Prepares Its Response to Statehood Vote
November 28, 2012 16:52 by Pesach Benson
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Today’s Top Stories
1. Israel’s response to the PA statehood vote will be low key, focusing on legalities rather than drama. The Jerusalem Post writes:
The source said that if Jerusalem, as some in the international community feared, greeted the Palestinian move with a decision to build thousands of new housing units in the settlements, then that would become the center of attention, not the Palestinian step . . .
One idea being raised is that the legal consequences of the UN General Assembly accepting the Palestinians as a non-member observer state would not be retroactive.
This means that if, as a result of this decision, the PA is able to take Israel to the International Criminal Court, it will not be able to make claims against it for anything that happened before the GA resolution was passed.
Haaretz adds:
If the day after the vote the Palestinians will make do with celebrations in Ramallah and a renewal of negotiations with Israel, as they have declared, then no more punitive steps will be taken. But if Abbas opts to prosecute Israelis in the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the reaction will be harsh . . .
Israeli ambassadors worldwide have been instructed to pressure every country to publish an announcement, regardless of how they will vote, emphasizing that the borders of the Palestinian state and the other core issues will be decided only by direct negotiations with Israel.
2. A graph leaked to AP indicates that Iran is working on a nuclear weapon three times more powerful than the atomic bomb which destroyed Hiroshima.
The IAEA report mentioning the diagrams last year did not give details of what they showed. But the diagram seen by the AP shows a bell curve – with variables of time in micro-seconds, and power and energy both in kilotons – the traditional measurement of the energy output, and hence the destructive power of nuclear weapons.
The curve peaks at just above 50 kilotons at around 2 microseconds, reflecting the full force of the weapon being modeled . . .
The diagram has a caption in Farsi: “Changes in output and in energy released as a function of time through power pulse.” The number “5″ is part of the title, suggesting it is part of a series.
3. Nationwide protests against Mohammed Morsi continue — 200,000 demonstrated in Tahrir Square and clashes reported in several Egyptian cities. AP says the turmoil will continue.
Palestinian Statehood Vote
• Daniel Schwammenthal asks the million dollar question:
By supporting the unilateral UN bid, EU member states would not only assist the Palestinians in violating their contractual obligations, they would also undermine the EU’s own standing, which after all signed the Oslo Accords as a witness.
And how will violating past agreements encourage Israelis to trust Palestinians to abide by future agreements?
• A staff-ed in the Sydney Daily Telegraph takes Canberra to task for allowing party politics to trump principle and not oppose Palestinian statehood:
In the wake of those recent attacks by Hamas, the political entity that rules Gaza, it was more than reasonable that Australia vote against the resolution. A vote in favour could appear to be a reward for Hamas tactics of terror. Yet Gillard’s decision was undermined by her own cabinet and backbenchers, who preferred that Australia simply abstain from the voting.
Basically, they want to wimp it.
• For commentary/analysis on the statehood bid, see Elliott Abrams, David Harris, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, Christian Science Monitor, Jeffrey Goldberg, and Rabbi Michael Lerner.
Frank Adam
6:04 pm
Nov 28, 2012
The UN will please its OIC manipulators so it is time to look at what to do when PA becomes an Observer “state” at the UN.
Precedents were set in 1949 when Egypt and friends were members of the UN, Israel joined but the Arabs still would not talk to her. It was the same with West and East Germany. Both halves of a quarrel still have to eventually talk and agree.
Like Egypt & Jordan, Palestine will have to talk and agree borders face to face with Israel, irrespective of any UN flat Earth resolution that its frontier is the 49 – 67 lines. It can only buy those borders by paying Israel by dumping “the return” of the refugees of 1948, and a bit more for keeping everybody waiting.
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alan
8:20 pm
Nov 28, 2012
the two state solution within israel’s boundaris including Judaea, Samaria and Gaza is a no go regardless of what the arabs promise or have the UN say.
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Robert Skole
6:24 pm
Nov 28, 2012
Your item head, “52 Nobel laureates call for a boycott of Israel”, is inaccurate. There are only a few Nobel Laureates named among the 52, according to the story.
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hfiers
7:08 pm
Nov 28, 2012
No matter what the UN desicion is, where is this “state?” If I am correct, the Palestinians live in the territory of the West Bank (considered a territory seized from Jordan by Israel), which is yet in the STATE of Israel (ask any Israeli). Until direct negotiations settle this dispute, shouldn’t Abbas be asking for “observer status as a (stateless) people?” When and only when there is a Palestinian state, borders will have to be determined. Israel, only through a Peace of Deterrance, will not, and should not give up it’s security either militarily or politically.
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Joseph Notovitz
7:59 pm
Nov 28, 2012
Much of the world allows its hatred for Jews stand in the way its clear thinking and logic.
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Israel Prepares Its Response to Statehood Vote | Blogs about Israel aggregation
9:44 pm
Nov 28, 2012
[...] Continued on Page 2 [...]
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David L. Fried
11:46 pm
Nov 28, 2012
I just want to point out that the (Iranian) graph of nuclear weapon power and yield shows incompatible results. The power curve (the solid line curve) has a width of the order of 1E-7 sec and a peak power of 1.6E+13 kT/sec. That would indicate a total yield of the order of 1.6E+6 kT (i.e. 1,600,000 kT). The yield curve (the dotted line curve) indicates a yield of about 50 kT.
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Michael H. Manning
4:46 am
Nov 29, 2012
Opinion on UN
In the 67 years since its establishment, the UN has accomplished little to nothing in meaningful world affairs. Other than making empty promises it has done nothing of consequence except allowing the creation of a Jewish homeland, a most monumental and wonderful event. However, the UN has consistently hammered Israel over several decades when Israel has only sought to be recognized as a legitimate State and live in peace.
Over the years, the UN has had many opportunities to intervene and stop genocidal insanity (e.g. Rwanda; Darfur, Sudan) but has done little to nothing except talk. Moreover, when a country, which is part of the UN, asks for help in stopping the continued rocketing of its targeted civilian population by neighboring Arabs, the UN has done and continues do nothing except ignore or excoriate that country seeking help (e.g. Goldstone report later repudiated by its author) it’s time to ask whether the UN deserves continued existence.
It seems clear that the UN has become the main character in the story of “The Portrait of Dorian Gray.” Its life has been a continuous series of vile corruptions (e.g. allowing Yasser Arafat, a terrorist, to speak to the UN General Assembly and do so while wearing a sidearm) which it tries to hide beneath a veil respectability.
However, its true character has long been revealed to those whose eyes have been and continue to remain open.
It is now time to recognize the reality that the UN, as envisioned, no longer exists, if it ever did. It is a corruption of the international body politic such that it should now be viewed as if it were a putrid rotting corpse that, like any human body, requires burial deep beneath the earth lest its stink be allowed to continue.
Sent from my iPad
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steven L
5:54 am
Nov 29, 2012
The war of the West and Muslims against the Jews continues.
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Jeffrey
3:54 pm
Nov 29, 2012
The message that the UN should be sending to the Arab inhabitants of Judea and Samaria is that the only way to achieve an indpendent state is by negotiating and agreeing its borders with the state of Israel. Anything else undermines the whole process of giving them independence. There is a risk that it will end in their total expulsion because if the world backs their attempts to avoid the negotiating process, in the end, the world will give Israel no choice but to reenter the disputed territories and drive out the Arab occupiers. Will the world take responsibility for creating this situation? I doubt it.
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Dany
8:36 pm
Nov 29, 2012
The UN has just confirmed its irrelevancy,
and at the same time annulled the Oslo
Accords which were witnessed by the EU
Israel is now free from any and all Oslo
agreements, good bye Falasteen, you
never existed and probably will never be
a fact state only a de-facto one, always
relying on hand-outs and thievery for your
Survival. Pity!!
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Donald
4:28 am
Dec 02, 2012
Negotiating with a terrorist entitiy obsessed with your destruction won’t solve any short or long term issues. Loud wheels get attention, but also annoy.
After the Intifada, the Wall Street Journal attributed the world wide reactions to OIL.
Palestinians need to recognize the Israeli right to exist. Otherwise, what is there to negotiate?
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