What was the one grain of truth in the UN statement against Israel? - opinion

Death, taxes, and United Nations condemnations of Israel seem to be the only certain things in this world, so the latest UN statement denouncing “Israeli settlements” would not seem to merit much of our attention or concern.

Except for one thing: buried deep within the UN’s latest outrageous, falsehood-filled, brimming-with-double standards statement was one important grain of truth.

The 313-word statement issued by the UN Security Council on February 21 began with all the usual “deep concern” and “dismay” about Jews having the chutzpah to reside in the 3,000 year-old Jewish national homeland.

Then it proceeded to list, and decry, “unilateral measures that impede peace” – but the list consisted exclusively of Israeli actions. It appears that the UN Security Council cannot conceive of any action by the Palestinian Arabs that might fit the definition of “impeding peace.” Incredible.

Then, stuck deep down in the UN statement, appeared these surprising words: “[The members of the UN Security Council] further recalled the obligation of the Palestinian Authority to renounce and confront terror.”

Notice how, even in this brief, rare moment of speaking the truth, the UN still couldn’t quite bring itself to actually challenge the PA. The sentence used the passive tense – instead of demanding that the PA do anything, it simply “recalls” that the PA has such an obligation. Nevertheless, it’s remarkable that the UN acknowledged that fact at all.

The real issue – which the UN avoids, of course – is not just that the PA has such an obligation, but that it has been violating that obligation for the past three decades since the Oslo Accords (1993) were signed.

The PA has neither disarmed nor outlawed terrorist groups. That’s required by Oslo II, Annex I, Article II, subsections 1-b and 1-d and Article XV.

The PA hasn’t honored any of Israel’s dozens of requests for the extradition of Palestinian terrorists to Israel. That’s required by Oslo II, Annex IV, Article II subsections 7-b and 7-f-1.

 And the PA hasn’t halted anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement. That’s required by Oslo II, Article XXII, subsection 1.

Of course, it’s not just a matter of what the PA hasn’t done. It’s what the PA actively does. Its notorious “pay-for-slay” program has created concrete financial incentives for terrorism by paying salaries to imprisoned terrorists, financial rewards to families of dead terrorists and bonuses based on how many Jews they murdered.

The PA happens to have one of the largest per capita security forces in the world, trained and armed by the US government. Yet, the PA leadership refuses to send its security forces to arrest terrorists. It treats the terrorists as brothers, not enemies. That violates the core premise of the Oslo Accords.

Reading about "clashes"

Every time you read about a “clash” between Israeli troops and Palestinian Arabs in Jenin or Nablus, every time you read about mobs of Palestinian Arabs assaulting Israeli security forces in Kalkilya or Tulkarm – remember that the only reason the Israelis briefly enter those cities is because they have to pursue the terrorists that the PA refuses to pursue.

Remember that the Israelis have no desire to enter those areas at all; the whole reason the Palestinian Authority was created and given jurisdiction over 98% of the Arab residents of the territories, was so that the PA, not Israel, would govern them.

And remember, too, that even the UN – that bottomless cesspool of anti-Israel hatred – has now grudgingly conceded that the PA has “an obligation to renounce and confront terror.”

 It is the PA’s refusal to “renounce and confront terror” that is the main obstacle to peace. Until the Palestinian Arab leadership sincerely renounces the terrorists and actively confronts them – arrests them, disarms them, extradites them – there will be no hope for a meaningful or durable peace in the Middle East.

The writer is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror, and an oleh hadash.