Contretemps at the UN over Palestinian Statehood

by Jerry Gordon and Mike Bates (October 2011)

statement urging the Palestinians and Israelis to return to negotiations. Following his speech to the General Assembly on Wednesday, September 21st, President Obama held a meeting with Israeli PM Netanyahu issuing a joint statement decrying the PA statehood resolution. Obama subsequently met with President Abbas to no avail. On Friday, September 23rd, PA President Abbas submitted the Palestinians request for full membership to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon followed by a dramatic speech supporting the application for full membership to the Security Council. Abbas in a dramatic moment at the General Assembly podium said:

requested a vote within two weeks.

UN Palmer Uribe Inquiry Report on the May, 2010 Gaza Flotilla incident involving Israeli Naval Commandos and objecting to the assumption of the EU Presidency by the Greco-Cypriot Republic. Moreover, Erdogan threatened to send Turkish naval vessels to the eastern Mediterranean to purportedly secure “freedom of navigation,” a veiled threat against Israel.

speech before the General Assembly prompted a walk out by the US and 30 other nations given his intemperate remarks about 9/11, Israel as a  Zionist threat to the world and references to Holocaust denial. Outside the UN buildings, separate protests were held by Iranian opposition groups and Israel supporters drawing attention to the Islamic Republic’s brutal suppression of Iranian opposition and Iran’s nuclear program striving for hegemony in the Muslim world and destruction of the Jewish State. Elsewhere in the UN complex, the Durban III Conference commemorated its tenth anniversary. The Durban Conferences have been used as a platform by Palestinian and Islamic allies to demonize Israel, painting it as a pariah state. Meanwhile, a Durban Watch counter conference was streamed via the internet. It featured a panoply of noted human rights speakers decrying the proceedings of the UN Human Rights Council event across the street.

1330AM WEBY of Pensacola, Florida, Senior Editor Jerry Gordon of the New English Review and  Brussels-based Emanuele Ottolenghi, Senior Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies held a radio round table discussion.

Bates:  Good afternoon and welcome to Your Turn.  This is a special edition today. It is another one of our international round table discussions. There is always something going on in the Middle East and this week is particularly busy so we have in the studio with us to discuss it, Jerry Gordon who is a Senior Editor of The New English Review and its blog, The Iconoclast.  Jerry, welcome to Your Turn.

Gordon:  Glad to be back.

Ottolenghi:  Thank you for having me.

November 13, 2008. It was so important I saved it. It is historical so it's still applicable today. It says, “Former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the alleged father of the Iranian Nuclear Project when confronted with the prospect of such a nuclear Armageddon scenario with Israel noted that he would willingly sacrifice 10% of Iran's 70 million population to eradicate six million Jews in Israel. Note what he said on Al-Quds Day in December 2001 quoting Rafsanjani, “If one day the world of Islam comes to possess the weapons currently in Israel's possession, meaning nuclear weapons, on that day this method of global arrogance would come to a dead end.”  This he said is because “the use of a nuclear bomb on Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam.”

To listen to the audio recording of this program, please click here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.

To comment on this interview, please click here.

If you have enjoyed this article and want to read more by Jerry Gordon, please click here.

Jerry Gordon is a also regular contributor to our community blog. To read his entries, please click here.