The European Jewish Congress notes the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, November 29 to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Authority to that of observer state and expresses its concern that such unilateral actions threaten the future of the peace process.
The General Assembly supported the request tabled by the Palestinian Authority by 138 votes to 9 against with 41 abstentions.
Clearly, recent events have demonstrated that there are in fact two distinct Palestinian entities. One, the Palestinian Authority, ostensibly utilizes international forums to push its diplomatic agenda while refusing to return to the negotiating table in order to pursue the peace process. The other, representing 40 percent of the Palestinian population and controlled by the terrorist organization, Hamas, fires thousands of rockets into population centres in Israel.
By any normative and legal criteria, there is nothing which remotely appears to be a Palestinian ‘state’ with these two entities led by opposing ideologies with separate policing, administrations and governments, one ostensibly signing peace treaties and the other, violently rejecting them.
The EJC deeply regrets that many European states have failed to pursue a coherent and united position in the face of this coordinated good cop-bad approach of the two Palestinian entities. It is not enough to condemn Hamas violence while simultaneously handing out prizes to those who seek diplomatic gain from that violence.
We are concerned at the abandonment of the EU’s responsible role within the Quartet to positively assist in shepherding the peace process towards final status and by the increasing threat to lives in the region when UN tokenism does not meet the aspirations of Palestinians.
The chopping and changing of EU members’ positions at the UN up to the vote itself does no credit to the largest bloc of democratic states in the world, and the deep divisions between EU members in that vote seriously question any positive role that the European Union can continue to play as a member of the Quartet.
Ultimately, the result of this vote like so many other one-sided UN declarations in recent years will have no real effect on the ground, fails to address the daily lives of Israelis and Palestinians and contributes absolutely nothing to the furtherance of peace in the region.
Read here the full speech of Mr. Ron Prosser, Israel’s ambassador to the UN:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-ron-prosors-speech-to-the-un-general-assembly-november-29-2012/
Based in Brussels, the European Jewish Congress is the representative umbrella organisation of national Jewish communities. It federates democratically elected national Jewish community organisations in over 40 European countries uniting 2.5 million Jews across the continent.
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