Palestine

January 15, 2017 By Olivier Melnick 10 Comments

The anti-Israel Paris Conference needs to be “Trumped!”

Less than a week before Mr. Obama walks into the sunset–or at least walks out of the White House– further damage to US/Israel relations is still possible. Beyond a shaky relationship that has been crumbling over the past eight years, Israel is a risk once again because 72 world leaders are being manipulated by her fiercest foes. They are about to meet in Paris on January 15 and decide on the fate of the tiny Jewish State. Like a thorn in the flesh of our global village, according to these leaders, Israel must accept and recognize Palestine for her [Israel] own good.

Neither Mr. Netanyahu nor Mr. Abbas will be attending the Paris Conference. Mr. Abbas isn’t interested in negotiations (nothing new here) and Mr. Netanyahu, while opened to negotiating, will only do it with no preconditions AND in person with Mr. Abbas. But the world has “a wonderful plan for Israel” even if it leads to its destruction!

Several ambassadors wrote a letter ahead of the conference, explaining why it is in Israel’s interest to accept a two-state solution and finally recognize Palestine. They are asking France to lead the way in recognizing Palestine, and this could very well take place on January 15 in Paris, UNILATERALLY.

Last December, in passing resolution 2334, the United Nations officially made the building of settlements in the “disputed territories” illegal and punishable by international law. Not all within the US government were thrilled with the US abstention that facilitated the passing of resolution 2334 by the UN. As a matter of fact, several senators are currently proposing that the UN be defunded of taxpayers money if they don’t reverse the measure. President Elect Donald Trump has also expressed his disagreement and has asked Israel to hang tight until January 20, 2017, the official date of his inauguration into office.

We mustn’t forget that earlier in 2016, UNESCO decided that the Temple Mount–one of the oldest Jewish site– biblically, archeologically and historically wasn’t Jewish but was a Muslim site. Both the UN and UNESCO (as a UN agency) joined by the current US administration are simply ignoring factual, historical truth. In a recent article, journalist Maria Polizoidou said it well,
“The US and the UN – both the Security Council and UNESCO – are not who determine what is historically true and what is not. These shameful votes should be reversed immediately; if not, all funding should be withdrawn from the United Nations, by United States and all freedom-loving democracies. They are now, to paraphrase the words of the Soviet Union’s Vladimir Lenin, ‘paying for the rope with which members of the UN will hang them.'”

The Paris Conference on Israel/Palestine without Netanyahu or Abbas will possibly lead to a vote in favor of recognizing “Palestine.” The two main countries that are interested in such a move are France and the United States (under the current administration.) President Hollande of France will be out in May and Obama will be out in on January 20th. Both are lame ducks and have nothing to lose. They both believe that their legacies would benefit from a declared state of Palestine on their watch. By the end of Sunday, the arrogant world leaders who chose to convene in Paris might have enough momentum to push forward yet another United Nation resolution on January 17, only three days before our new POTUS is sworn in. If they could only take these few facts in consideration:

• The land of Canaan was given to the Jewish people through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob by divine decree in a covenant without preconditions as seen in Genesis 15:18-19: On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.” Geographically speaking the real estate includes much more than current Israel even if you add the Gaza Strip and the West bank back in. They might not believe that the Bible is a binding document, but they will find out soon enough that it is!

• The two-State solution isn’t an option for the Palestinians. Any map of “Palestine” published by the Palestinian side includes all of Israel “from the River to the Sea” with no room for Jews.

• Israel became a state on May 18, 1948 after being voted in by the United Nations and back then Palestinians didn’t exist.

• No other sovereign state ever had to give land conquered at war back to the enemy except for Israel. The territory gained during the Six-Day War isn’t to be returned unless Israel wishes to commit a geographical suicide.

The hatred of the Jews existed long before Israel was reborn. The voluntary or forced shrinking of the Land of Israel will never stop those who loathe the Jews from hurting them in the Land or anywhere else in the world. For anybody to think that Israel is the biggest obstacle to world peace in general and Middle East peace in particular is ludicrous. This is a false premise historically, geographically, archeologically, politically AND last but not least…Biblically. How could these 72 countries ignore the carnage in Syria, the ethnic cleansing in so many other parts of the world and the myriad of crimes against humanity committed daily, and yet, concentrate their effort on pushing the Jewish state off the cliff?

But then again, there is always a chance that the whole thing will get “Trumped” in a few days. President Elect Donald Trump has been called a “Nazi”, “Hitler”, a “Racist” and many other names. He has much on his plate and many opportunities to show his true colors early. He might surprise us all.

Am Yisrael Chai!

August 17, 2016 By Olivier Melnick 4 Comments

Does World Vision’s Entanglement with Hamas show Naiveté or Malice?

The Evangelical Christian charity known as World Vision was founded in 1950, to become World Vision International (WVI) in 1977 and currently serve 97 countries worldwide. Their humanitarian work has become the hallmark of Christian love and aid over the decades, so much that their yearly revenue nears $3 billion. Their published mission statement says “World Vision is an international partnership of Christians whose mission is to follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in working with the poor and oppressed to promote human transformation, seek justice, and bear witness to the good news of the Kingdom of God.”

In early August 2016, Israel’s internal security service (Shin Bet) accused World Vision Gaza office manager, Mohammed El Halabi of using up to $50 millions of charity funds to pay Hamas fighters, build tunnels and buy weapons. He was arrested in June and detained for fifty days before the accusation was made public. The Shin Bet claims to have more than sufficient proof that will be produced in court. If this accusation turns out to be true and indeed Mr. Halabi did funnel funds from World Vision that had been donated by well intentioned Christians globally, it would take years for World Vision to recover if at all possible.

If the verdict exonerates WVI, the damage will remain, and it raises many questions about WVI methods for fund-raising, accountability and financial integrity. World Vision claims that the total budget allocated to Gaza is about half of what Mr. Halabi has been accused of funneling to Hamas. But does the amount really matter? When the truth is finally out, will it matter if fifty, twenty or even one million where funneled? What will really matter will be the motives of Mr. Halabi and/or World Vision.

Over the years, World Vision has shown some signs of unequivocal bias for the Palestinian narrative as well as some poor accountability choices. This makes the rumor of funds embezzlement by Mr. Halabi harder to dismiss as a set-up or a gross misunderstanding. Consider a few facts about World Vision:

• When the Palestinian movie “With God on Our Side” came out in 2010, It was endorsed on the front cover of the DVD by World Vision, Steven W. Haas (then VP of the organization). His endorsement read “I dare anyone to see this film and remain unchanged.” To World Vision’s credit, the endorsement is no longer there and they have even issued a statement declaring that they no longer support the movie. Yet, the endorsement remained on the front cover for a while, making one wonder what made World Vision decide to stop supporting that project and why it took so long to see that the movie claiming reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians is nothing more than a Palestinian propaganda piece?

• On the World Vision website, all the countries helped by the organization are listed. While Palestine and/or Israel are not listed by names, “Jerusalem/West Bank/Gaza are listed. Jerusalem and Gaza could be considered the best neutral way to describe these two areas without taking sides, but the area called the West Bank (West of Jordan, including East Jerusalem) is another name for Judea and Samaria. Israel calls it Judea and Samaria while those who believe that Israel occupies the territories call it “The West Bank.” To remain neutral, WVI could have called it The West Bank/Judea and Samaria. They made a clear choice in their labelling.

• in 2007, World Vision International, which by all standards is NOT A CHURCH, decided to change its fiscal status to a “Church Status” enabling them to no longer file the IRS form 990s. This form, required by the IRS of all non-profit organizations, forces them to disclose a lot of financial details to the IRS and to their donors. By changing their status to a church, they limit the amount of financial information they have to share. But WVI is not a church in the biblical sense of the word. It is an NGO (non-governmental organization.) It even belongs to the International NGO Charter of Accountability (INGO Charter.) Additionally, in a recent article about WVI decision to allow same-sex marriage to their employees, WVI CEO Richard Stearns clearly stated “I want to be clear that we have not endorsed same-sex marriage, but we have chosen to defer to the authority of local churches on this issue.” So which is it World Vision? Are you a church organization when it comes to fiscal accountability and are you not when it comes to same-sex marriage?

All these elements related to the reputation of WVI give us a picture of a shady organization with less integrity that they would like us to believe they have. WVI operates on a very large budget, mostly from Christian donors with a humanitarian burden. The Hamas allegations might be false. If true, they might be outside of WVI knowledge, yet the mode of operation chosen by the humanitarian organization creates a lot of doubt as to their integrity. World Vision is going to have to come clean and be consistent in the way they manage their finances, or they will lose big. But at the end, the ones truly affected by World Vision less-than-perfect financial integrity are all the people from almost 100 countries served by the NGO, even including some of the Palestinians in a region characterized by abuse, corruption and violence.

July 26, 2016 By Olivier Melnick 4 Comments

For Once Its Not the Jews’ Fault!

99 years ago, a very important document was written in the United-Kingdom by foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour to the leader of the Jewish community Baron Walter Rothschild. It has become known in history as the “Balfour Declaration.” The text of that letter reads as follows “I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet. “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.”

The Balfour Declaration is a document that has been foundational in the world’s recognition of Israel’s right for self-determination within the boundaries of her own historical and biblical land of Eretz Yisrael. It was followed by another important agreement including the original Balfour Declaration, known as the San Remo Resolution, where the Mandate for Palestine was drawn together (land boundaries were decided four years later.) As a result of the San Remo Resolution being drafted, Great Britain ended-up being responsible for the drawing of the Mandate and land boundaries for Palestine. This became latter known as the “British Mandate for Palestine.” Fast forward to 1947 and the United Nations voted in favor of Resolution 181 and the partitioning of Palestine between Jews and Arabs. On May 14, 1948, under the leadership of David Ben Gurion, one day before the end of the British Mandate, Israel became a modern nation. Within hours five neighboring Arab countries declared war on the newborn Jewish state. One way or another, this war has been going on for seventy-seven years.

Just days ago, in a move that we could see as being both creative and ludicrous, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas decided to sue Great Britain for the Balfour Declaration. Abbas asked his foreign minister, Riyad al-Malki to help with the lawsuit. According to the Palestinians, it is the Balfour Declaration that set in motion all the bloodshed seen in the Middle East in the last eight decades. In fact, Abbas insists that the Balfour Declaration paved the way to the rebirth of Israel, and thus Great Britain is to be held responsible for ALL ISRAELI CRIMES committed against Palestinians since.

This would be a very bold move to make, even if we were dealing with to people groups fighting for territory. Britain might have been involved in initiating the agreement, but whatever took place after the United Nations voted for the partitioning of the region, even if it was connected to the Balfour Declaration, remains the responsibility of Israel and her Arab neighbors. Dan Margalit of Israel Hayom says “But the Balfour Declaration didn’t exist in a vacuum. The world supported it. Even King Faisal of Iraq, whose family originated in Saudi Arabia, reached an agreement with Weizmann on the terms. The declaration was approved in 1920 by an international conference that met in San Remo after World War I. The approval of the mandate by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922 gave the Balfour Declaration international validity, almost like the 1947 U.N. resolution to establish a Jewish state in part of the land of Israel.

But here is a bigger problem; Palestinians didn’t exist in 1917 (Balfour), 1920 (San Remo), 1924 (San Remo Land boundaries), 1947 (UN partition vote) and 1948 (Israel’s Declaration of Independence.) As a matter of fact, Palestinians didn’t come onto the scene as a “people” until the mid 1960s. So in essence, Abbas is retroactively inserting the Palestinians into history to justify the injustice he is claiming took place in 1917 and subsequent years. It is akin to quoting Abraham Lincoln saying: “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet”, except that the latter statement is funny because it was made tongue-in-cheek. Abbas is dead serious about the Palestinians going way back in history.

The original Palestinian was invented, forcibly placed in Israel as a “displaced refugee” and further coerced into staying through several generations, born within the refugee camps and/or territories. Palestine went from a geographical area to a political agenda aimed at the complete destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. It took about fifty years to get where we are today. The current acceptance of the Palestinian narrative has become the new normal and is used as the foundation to historically justify a lawsuit against Britain for the Balfour Declaration. That justification doesn’t rest on factual history but this will not stop the PA from proceeding with the suit.

So what is next, a law suit against Italy for the San Remo Resolution of 1920? What about suing the United Nations for allowing Israel to become a modern nation in 1947/48? I suppose the Palestinians could even go as far as suing themselves for signing the Oslo Accords in 1993! Taken to an extreme, they could sue God Himself for giving the Land of Canaan to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants (Genesis 12:7, 13:15, 15:18-21, 35:9.) After all, it looks like God started it all! Ironically, for once the Jews are not being blamed and I’ll take that as a small victory.

May 1, 2016 By Olivier Melnick 3 Comments

UNESCO and Israel: Factual Truth or Fatal Lies?

The United Nation Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was started in 1945 as some sort of “intellectual” agency from the United Nations. Their motto is “Building peace in the minds of men and women.” Over the last 70 years, they contributed to, enhanced and preserved our planet from many different perspectives. They indeed have done much good, but lately, as if possessed by the spirit of multicultural tolerance, political correctness and/or historical revisionism, they seem to be interested in throwing Israel under the bus.

Most people have forgotten or didn’t even know that in October 2011, UNESCO recognized Palestine as their 195th member country. Back then, I warned that this would only open the door to more damage done against Israel and the Jewish people. There is no Palestinian culture, history, language, customs or even foods. All of the above are Arab, not Palestinian. But the pro-Palestinian propaganda has been going for long enough for even an organization such as UNESCO to believe it. If Israel is indeed Palestine (which it is not!), then many if not all Jewish archeological and historical sites will become Palestinian/Muslim sites. That is part of the package of historical revisionism, first you lie about history, then fabricate a story to replace factual truth and finally expose the players within real history to a great danger because suddenly they have been delegitimized.

An agency founded on peace and justice for all is endorsing terrorism and violence and is in the process of rewriting history. On their World Heritage List, UNESCO chooses to list the “Church of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage Route” as being in Palestine not Israel. But this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise when we see that since 1978, UNESCO has selected November 29th as “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”.

Then in 2012, UNESCO declared that the Jewish site of Rachel’s tomb was also a Christian AND Muslim site and that to say otherwise would be a hindrance to the peace process. Palestinians decided that the site was holy to them and was part of their heritage, even though Islam was only founded 1500 years ago. The site goes back way further than 1500 years and is mentioned in Genesis 35:19 as the place where the Jewish matriarch was buried. It has zero Palestinian connection!

To add insult to injury, UNESCO decided in 2013 that Israel and the United States–while retaining their membership–will lose their voting power because they had both stopped paying their dues after the 2011 inclusion of Palestine. I guess they [UNESCO] got a bit upset when the US contribution equal to 22% of their total budget stopped. I commend the United States and Israel for taking a stand in an age of cowardice and hypocrisy.

Finally, in what I see as another by-product of UNESCO’s historical revisionism of the last 40 years, they declared on April 15, 2016 that the Temple Mount, the holiest of Jewish sites had no Jewish connection. If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you–a bridge, I might add, that has no connection to America! (is that how historical revisionism starts?)

This didn’t go well with Benjamin Netanyahu who immediately and rightfully so declared “This is yet another absurd UN decision, UNESCO ignores the unique historic connection of Judaism to the Temple Mount, where the two temples stood for a thousand years and to which every Jew in the world has prayed for thousands of years. The UN is rewriting a basic part of human history and has again proven that there is no low to which it will not stop.”

One of my professor in Bible college years ago called it the “Salami Effect.” You take a people group, a country or a part of history, in our case Israel and the Jewish people and you start cutting away small truths about them. The slices are so thin that nobody really notices any changes. Eventually, one slice of factual truth at a time, you have delegitimized Israel and the Jewish people.

The last time that the Jewish people were delegitimized was during World War Two, when they were relegated to the status of vermin, virus or even sub-human. The result was the Shoah or Holocaust. If the Jewish people keep losing their land and their history, then they will once again lose their legitimacy as a people, and will be one step closer to being decimated again. Only days before Yom Ha Shoah on Nissan 27, we are reminded of the importance of factual truth!

These moves not only delegitimize Israel and the Jewish people, but hey also embolden her enemies. When Israel makes a legitimate claim, it runs the risk of being countered by people who now have been reassigned legitimacy. All this is being done with absolutely no historical foundation, simply in an attempt to weaken Israel. If factual truth mattered, UNESCO would obviously admit that the Temple Mount existed centuries before Islam was even born in 610 CE. Archeological and historical evidence are here to prove it and it should be exactly what the United Nation Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization uses to determine the legitimacy of historical sites. Why is it different for Israel? I think that once again the jewish state is a victim of the ills of double standards. So what exactly is UNESCO trying to accomplish in the Middle East? Are they really applying their motto “Building peace in the minds of men and women” to their actions? How could this possibly be the case?

April 6, 2016 By Olivier Melnick 6 Comments

The UN Obsession with Israel!

When the League of Nations (founded in 1920 after WWI) was replaced by the United Nations in 1945, the world was hopeful that the new organization would succeed in averting another world war–a feat that the League of Nations clearly failed at. The UN prides itself in promoting international cooperation and world peace. It even won the Nobel peace prize in 2001 (but so did Yasir Arafat in 1994.) The UN current Secretary is Ban Ki-moon (since 2007.) In the first article of the UN charter, we can read their purpose for existing:
1. To maintain international peace and security, to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

There is no doubt in my mind that the original crafting of the UN charter took a lot of careful efforts from its founding members to assure that the world organization would be equipped to function properly. As a result, we have seen many decisions made by the UN that definitely helped make the world a better place. One of these decisions was the 1947 vote for the partitioning of British Mandate Palestine, that led to May 14, 1948 and the re-birth of Israel as a modern nation (33 for, 10 against, 10 abstentions.)

But 1948 is nearly 70 years ago and since then, the United Nations have been less than friendly to Israel. As a matter of fact, for many years, there have been more resolutions passed against the Jewish state than the rest of the world combined (and here). For instance, in 2015, the UN adopted 23 resolutions, three against Iran, Syria and Korea and twenty against Israel. There are no indication that it will slow down in 2016. It is also very hard to forget the 16 years that it took the United Nations to revoke their 1975 resolution claiming that “Zionism is Racism.” And even if they did revoke it, the organizing of the Durban I (2001), II (2009) and III (2011) conferences against racism have shown that the target was once again almost exclusively Israel.

The United Nations’ obsession with demonizing Israel is obvious to any unbiased observer. Just days ago, the unbelievable claim was made by the UN that Israel was the number one country violating women’s human rights. The UN ignored Hamas, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, ISIS, Syria to name just a few of the countries were animals are treated better than women. Yet it found Israel guilty of human rights violation against Palestinian women. Is it me or whatever comes out of the UN is officially believed as fact by a world population that certainly doesn’t care to check for accuracy as much as it cares for stigmatizing and ostracizing Israel?

To add insult to injury, the UN decides to praise and promote violence, lies and murders. How do you explain the UN funded tree planting by Palestinians to honor the memory of terrorists? How sick is it to promote death and make murderers into martyrs while accusing the victims of human rights violation?

This makes it very difficult for anyone who is seeking truth and fairness to not accuse the UN of antisemitism. It is a fact that a large number of UN members are Arab/Muslim nations who are against Israel and are weighing in at every chance they have to vote against the only Middle East democracy. In the meantime, Israel treats Palestinians in their hospitals, gives jobs to Palestinians and even has two Arab parties as a part of the Knesset. This is looking more and more like there is nothing Israel can do to be in good standing with the world in general and the United Nations in particular.

Even if all Jews would die today and Israel as a whole would become Palestine, antisemitism would continue to exist in the hearts of men. You read me right, no Israel and no Jews do not guarantee no antisemitism, it only guarantees no Israel and no Jews, something that God will never allow (Jeremiah 31:35-37). But if the UN could continue trying to play god…well, that’s a different story! Those nations are united indeed, but they are united against Israel and as a result, against God (Psalm 83:5.)

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