Hoping to get a Mideast peace deal with sraelis and Palestinians before termed-out Dec. 31, 2016, U.N. Secretary Gen. Ban Ki-moom criticized Israeli settlement- building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Writing in the New York Times under the title “Don’t shoot the messenger,” Ban reiterated the longstanding U.N. position that the so-called “occupied territories” or those territories seized as spoils of the 1967-Six-Day-War were not Israel’s to build on. Calling Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem “an affront on the Palestinian people,” Ban fuels the current uprising or “intifada” where 80-year-old West Bank leader Mahmoud Abbas gave the green light to Palestinians to murder Israelis at will. Repeating Palestinian talking points, Ban said “it is human nature to resist occupation,” excusing Palestinian violence started Oct. 12 with a skirmish in Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
Ban hopes to push Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu into freezing construction in all areas Palestinians view as their land. Ban, like other U.N. members, doesn’t accept Israel’s post-1967 borders, seizing Egypt’s Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula, Syria’s Golan Heights and Jordan’s West Bank and East Jerusalem. Despite attacked by Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon, with support from nine other Arab states, Israel’s expected to give back all its spoils. Giving back the Sinai Peninsula in 1979 and Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel hasn’t received “peace” for the land as promised. Ban glosses over the 2007 split between the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority and Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers. Hamas rejects all peacemaking with Israel, continuing its ongoing war of annihilation, periodically launching rockets and tunneling into Israel to destroy the Jewish State.
Ban and U.N. officials want Israel to accept 1967 U.N. Resolution 242, written less than six months after the Six-Day-War. While U.N. Resolution drove President Jimmy Carter’s 1978 Camp David Accords, resulting in Israel returning the Sinai to Egypt for a peace treaty, it’s no longer possible in a post-Sept. 11 world. Since Sept. 11, the U.S. has leaned heavily on Israel for its counter-terrorism strategy, having seamless military cooperation with Israel. Returning to the pre-1967 War borders isn’t possible to protect Israeli and U.S. national security. Ban mentions nothing about PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s role in organizing, pushing and participating in the Six-Day-War. Once defeated by Israel June 10, 1967, the U.N.-backed Arab states all wanted their land back. Today’s Israel-Palestinian conflict hinges on Palestinian claiming Israel’s spoils of the 1967 War as their own sovereign land.
Saying “it is human nature to resist occupation,” Ban buys the narrative that spoils of the 1967 War were Palestinian sovereign land. With Hamas and the PLO at war with Israel, it’s difficult for Netanyahu to buckle to U.N. or Arab pressure to swap more land for peace. Even if Netanyahu accepts the premise that spoils of the 1967 War should go for a future Palestinian state, or, that his government should stop building in that area, he can’t ignore Palestinian’s ongoing war. Ban writes in the N.Y. Times that Israel at some point must acknowledge that the international community wants an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Citing consensus on halting settlement construction, Ban warns Tel Aviv that it’s alienating its international partners, including the U.S. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, warning Israel Jan. 30 that France would recognize Palestinian statehood if peace talks fail.
Netanyahu’s announcement of more settlement construction in the West Ban fuels the U.N. antagonism toward Israel. Knowing that a future Palestinian State does not include Gaza under Hamas rule, the U.N. should pressure Abbas into ending the current West Bank and East Jerusalem uprising gives Palestinians the green light to shoot, stab and run cars over Israelis. Whatever the dispute between Israel and Palestinians, no sovereign state can be forced into concessions under the gun. “The time has come for Israelis, Palestinians and the international community to read the writing on the wall: The status quo is untenable. Keeping another people under indefinite occupation undermines the security and future of both Israelis and Palestinians,” wrote Ban, revealing his bias. To accept Ban’s argument, you’d have to go back to Israel’s May 14, 1948 statehood declaration.
Before anything can be done on a two-state solution, Palestinians must end their war against the Jewish State. Ban kids himself thinking the real issue for Palestinians is about accepting U.S. Resolution 242, returning the pre-1967 borders. Palestinians want nothing less that the British Mandate of Palestine handed to Israel after WWII When the U.S. officially accepted Israel into statehood May 11, 1949, the case should have been closed for Palestinians. Netanyahu understands what Palestinians really want. As long as Gaza and Ramallah are divided, with Gaza openly trying to destroy Israel, no responsible Israeli government can swap more “land for peace.” Ban would spend his time more wisely working to help Palestinians unite, accept Israel’s sovereignty, end the ongoing war and return to the peace table to figure out realistic borders for an independent Palestinian state.
