A Palestinian State Redeems the U.N's Historic Nakba (Catastrophe)

May the United Nations ever be vigilant and potent to defeat the swallowing up of any nation, at any time, by any means-by armies with banners, by force or by fraud, by tricks or by midnight treachery.” --Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

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(WASHINGTON D.C.) - Nakba Day (Arabic: يوم النكبة Yawm an-Nakbah, meaning "day of the catastrophe") is generally commemorated on May 15, the day after the Gregorian calendar date for Israeli independence day (Yom Ha'atzmaut). For the Palestinians it is an annual day of commemoration of the displacement that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948. - Wikipedia

From the Website al Nakba, this account from a Jewish fighter:

"I am writing through tears. I wept when I saw the photo of the ruined village of al-Sanbariyya because it was my former brother-in-law who helped destroy the village and the lives of those who lived there. My now deceased brother-in-law was born in Los Angeles and after World War II decided he wanted to live in Palestine. He met his wife-to-be at a training camp somewhere in the midwest. While at the camp many of the people decided they wanted to build a kibbutz in then Palestine. I am not sure that they gave a thought to the fact that they would be taking the lands of others. But then, I don't know. I wasn't there.

As a Jew who was raised to believe in justice for all peoples, I believe that it is my obligation to speak out about Israel and to try in whatever way possible to bring about a better life in Palestine for the people who belong there... The people who were so cruelly evicted from their lands.

Name of author withheld by the Sakakini.

- Israeli account on the destruction of Al-Sanbariyya village in the Safad area. from alnakba.org

The Honorable President of the United States Barak Obama

The Honorable Secretary of State Hilary Clinton

The Honorable Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon

The Honorable President of the General Assembly Joseph Deiss

The Honorable Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Sperry

The Honorable Director of UNRWA Chris Guiness

The Honorable President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek

The Honorable High Representative of the E.U. for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton

The Honorable Acting Head of the EU Delegation to the U. N. Pedro Serrano

The Honorable Ambassadors of the U.N. Security Council

The Honorable Ambassadors and Representatives of Palestine 
 

“May the United Nations ever be vigilant and potent to defeat the swallowing up of any nation, at any time, by any means-by armies with banners, by force or by fraud, by tricks or by midnight treachery.”

      --Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.   
 

The Palestinian Authority plans to submit a resolution to the U.N. Security Council to approve and recommend to the U.N. General Assembly the recognition and admission of a Palestinian State that will represent close to 11 million Palestinians made refugees by the west, the U.N., Zionist terrorism (see Report submitted to Dr. Ralph Bunch, U.N. Mediator for Palestine titled: ‘A Summary of Zionist terrorism in the Near East—1944-1948” documenting 259 acts of Terrorism against the British, American and Arab populations and the amply documented Israeli crimes against their humanity and land.  (Recall the shelved Goldstone Report discredited by Israel and the U.S.) 

This September is the moment of truth for the United Nations Security Council and the U.N. General Assembly, despite the threatened U.S. veto. 

Members of both the Security Council and General Assembly are presented with a most unique of historical opportunities that rarely resurrect themselves to right a historical wrong and tragedy inflicted upon the Palestinian people living in refugee camps in the most deplorable misery in and out of their native land. 
 

This opportunity can redeem the United Nations in the eyes of billions of people around the world who’ve lost hope and trust in the organization.  It is a glorious opportunity to fulfill the divine and human mandate that all people are equal in the eyes of God and humanity and are endowed from birth to live in liberty, independence, with guaranteed human rights, and free from the subjugation and oppression by any other people or nation. 

Does the world have the courage of its conviction, the will, the honesty of thought and compassion of heart for once to defy Israel and its American benefactor and declare its independent vote to support a besieged, brutalized, and occupied people who yearn to join the community of nations as a people living in dignity and honor in a State they call their own? 

To the majority of the world nothing less than the very credibility and relevance of the United Nations is at stake regarding the rightful recognition and admission of a Palestinian State into the fold of U.N. membership. 

A failure to do so will further inflame a world already unhappy with the minimal role and influence of the United Nations, perceiving it as solely an extended arm of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy.   In the Arab and Muslim world undergoing dramatic and rapid changes such a failure will seal any future role of the U.N. in the region and will exponentially inflame animosity against the U.S. and Israel. 

Now is not the time for the U.S. and the Security Council to continue the policy of surrendering to Israel’s demands and its constant ironic proclamation of an “existential threat” that arises from a stone in a Palestinian child’s hand as he faces the most modern American tank in Gaza. 

Now is the Audacity for Hope and Courage for a world to make its post-colonial voice heard that the surest way to world peace is a Free Independent Palestine. 

A Jew from the depth of Latin America’s jungle can immigrate to Israel and automatically become an Israeli citizen, but a Palestinian living in his native land is denied by Israel and the United Nations of being a citizen in his own state. 

This is the greatest injustice of our time and the world can no longer afford, nor  accept and surrender the fate of millions of Palestinian families to Israel’s whims, brutal military occupation, and war crimes such as was committed in Gaza in 2008-2009.   

How shocking that for decade’s the world has simply acclimated itself to accepting Israel’s occupation as a de facto existence for the Palestinians and swallowing in whole any justification Israel presents for its rule over a people in their own land. 

While Israel’s influential tentacles reach all western governments the most active, moral and just opposition to Israel’s policies arise from its own citizens and conscientious Jews around the world, the far majority of whom are not associated with the powerful wealthy minority that constitute the Israel Lobby. 

A powerful example of an Israeli’s view on the illegality and immorality of Israel’s occupation comes from Israel’s former Attorney General, Michael Ben-Yair, in his article in Haaretz titled “The War’s Seventh Day”, March 3, 2002.  He wrote: 

“We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities. Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems: one - progressive, liberal - in Israel; and the other - cruel, injurious - in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.”  
 

How shameful for the world that it accepts Israel’s mythological narrative that justifies the four year total siege of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, the world’s largest open air prison, which the U.N. calls a “humanitarian catastrophe”, allowing Israel to prevent even a Flotilla of food and medicines to hungry malnourished children. 

No nation but Israel can get away with such war crimes and not be held accountable for its policies.  On the contrary in many western governments it is praised for its tolerance, patience, care not to harm civilians by the “most moral army in the world”, and democratic values.    

Israel and soon the U.N. Security Council will recognize the new State of Southern Sudan to be the 193^rd member of the U.N., but the Palestinians are denied that same right because Israel has succeeded in dehumanizing, demonizing, marginalizing them, manipulating the media narrative, and denying their very humanity, even their very existence as Gold Meir proclaimed. 

What will the world body decide on the issue of a Palestinian State?  Will it continue to succumb to the Israeli-American threats or will the nations of the world bestow upon the Palestinians the same rights, recognition, and privileges every member of the United Nations enjoys. 
 

The real question is not should the Palestinians be admitted to the United Nations, but should be, is Israel a legal member of the United Nations given its defiance of U.N.G.A. Resolution 273 that allowed Israel’s conditional admission based on its acceptance of U.N.G.A. Resolutions 181 and 194 and its obligations under the U.N. Charter?  The answer is NO.  But, this is Israel, it was admitted nevertheless.   

Here’s just one of the countless U.N.G.A. Resolutions, 38/180 of December 19, 1983, that emphatically answers that question in the negative. 

“Recalling Security Council resolution 497 (1981) of 17 December 1981,

Reaffirming its resolutions 36/226 B of 17 December 1981, ES-9/1 of 5 February 1982 and 37/123 A of 16 December 1982,

Determines once more that Israel's record, policies and actions confirm that it is not a peace-loving Member State, that it has persistently violated the principles contained in the Charter and that it has carried out neither its obligations under the Charter nor its commitment under General Assembly resolution 273 (III) of 11 May 1949” 

Any other U.N. member state that has repeatedly violated the U.N. Charter and hundreds of U.N. Resolutions would be considered for expulsion, but this is Israel, a nation above the laws of mankind. 

Ariel Sharon stated the governing principle of the Jewish only State when it comes to its accountability to International Law.  He said (BBC: March 25, 2011) 

"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial"     

Netanyahu’s remarks during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, 2009 bashing the U.N. for not standing up against Iran more accurately applies to the U.N. should it incredulously reject the Palestinian people’s right to an independent State of their own 

“Have you no shame? Have you no decency?”   

Perhaps the famed British historian Arnold Toynbee most aptly described the western infatuation with Israel and the hidden brutality it inflicts upon millions of innocent Palestinians.

“Right and wrong are the same in Palestine as anywhere else. What is peculiar about the Palestine conflict is that the world has listened to the party  
that has committed the offence and has turned a deaf ear to the victims."

May God guide you as members of the U.N. Security Council and guide the General Assembly to do right by a population who lost lives and land due to the very actions of the United Nations to legitimize the State of Israel in Palestine. 

To a Free Palestine.   Amen. 

Note from Author:

This article will be sent as a letter to the persons addressed above.   Please consider writing the U.N. Security Council as soon as possible urging them to live up to the founding principles of the U.N. and their convictions as governments and peoples that all mankind deserves to live free from subjugation and occupation in an independent nation they call home. 

Thank you for caring and supporting the Palestinian people as they struggle to emerge from the most brutal of military occupations.

Mohamed Khodr is an American Muslim born in the Middle East. He is political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.