2006 UN "Day of Solidarity" with the Palestinian People

A Celebration of Terrorism

On November 29, 2006 the United Nations held its annual Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Last year the event sported a map without the state of Israel on it and a moment of silence honoring the self-sacrifice of suicide bombers. This year, after EYEontheUN exposed the scandal, the map did not appear and the moment of silence was cancelled. Instead, the UN hosted an event which included the following speeches and activities at UN Headquarters:

  • A movie was screened encouraging children to glorify death and murder. Open to all members of the public and entitled "The Color of Olives", it told a story of Palestinians said to suffer because of the security fence. The suffering was not connected to the terrorists who make the fence necessary. The Israeli victims of terrorism in the absence of the fence were not mentioned. In one scene, small children are depicted repeating the following words in their classroom: "Jerusalem, I sacrifice myself to you, land of my grandfather, we will return."
  • Farouk Kaddoumi, opening the exhibit
    29 November 2006
    An exhibit in the UN public headquarters was opened by Farouk Kaddoumi, Head of the Political Department, of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He encouraged terrorism or "resistance", claimed anti-semitism was about Arabs, and rejected the very idea of Jewish self-determination or Zionism. He said:
      The Palestinian people are not defined only by their resistance, they also speak the language of peace and love. ... Incredibly, Palestinians, a semitic people, are now accused of anti-semitism. This is a myth propagated by Zionists, not by Jews. Jews have always lived among us. Since the time of the Caananites, the land has been ours. We defend the religious heritage of all the three great religions, thus I am asking you to stand with us. Security yes, but not surrender. The land is ours and we shall not cede it.
  • Trusteeship Council Chamber,
    UN Headquarters, November 29, 2006
    On display during the meeting of the Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP), at the front of the Trusteeship Council room, was a series of panels. The display, which is also exhibited elsewhere in the UN, is a rewrite of the Arab-Israeli conflict from the UN/Arab point of view. Here is what is included in the storyline:

    • the 1948 war and the 1967 war were not touched off by Arab armies promising to emasculate the Jewish state, but were merely about two parties with conflicting claims to territory
    • there are 7 or 8 million Palestinians "claiming the right to return to their homes from which they were uprooted" – numbers which would clearly bring to an end the Jewishness of the state of Israel
    • the only concern over "uprisings" is with the human rights of the Palestinian people, not over the Israelis that have lost their lives as a result of these uprisings
    • the uprisings/intifada are described as a success. They focused attention of the international community on the plight of the Palestinians. Violence works.
    • the peace process halted because, number one, settlements were constructed; the continued violence was not at fault; the Palestinian uprising "broke out" spontaneously; the only party specifically "called upon" to act is Israel - withdraw Israeli troops; and the terrorist has no name.
    • the only plight of interest to the UN is that "of the Palestinian people", not of Israelis forced to send their children into the army over almost 6 decades in order to protect themselves, and subject to terrorism in every aspect of daily life.

    [text of panel]

    The Occupied Palestinian Territory

    The international community, through the UN, has shown deep concern over the living conditions and human rights of the Palestinian people during the uprising (1987-1993) and during the on-going intifada which began in September 2000. These uprisings have focused the attention of the international community on the plight of the Palestinian people and the urgent need for a solution to the question of Palestine.

    For many years, the UN, though its different organs, has dealt with the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In numerous resolutions, UN bodies have addressed such issues as the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949, relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Israeli settlements and the status of Jerusalem.
  • Security Council President Jorge Voto-Bernales
    addresses the meeting in observance of the
    International Day of Solidarity with the
    Palestinian People. 29 November 2006
    During the CEIRPP meeting participants lauded Hamas, complained of the evils of Judaization, pressed the message of a racist Jewish state, and called for Israel's economic strangulation. For example, speeches included:

    • Paul Badji, Chairman of the CEIRPP, "the Palestinian parliamentary elections...were a major success." The Hamas Covenant states: "The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." Yet the victory of a terrorist organization dedicated to killing Jews was a positive development in the view of a global organization supposedly dedicated to human rights.
    • Prasad Kariyawasam (Sri Lanka), Chairman of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, complained about the evils of Judaization or a Jewish presence on Arab land. According to him: "The Judaization of Arab culture and school curricula goes unabated in cities in Golan."
    • President Mahmoud Abbas delivered a statement through Riyad Mansour, the Permanent Observer of the Palestinian delegation to the UN. This alleged peace partner accused Israel of "a colonial occupation that continues to devour Palestinian land through the construction of the Apartheid Wall." He neglected to mention the logo of the letterhead upon which his statement was officially circulated. It sports a map claiming all of Israel is "Palestine".
    • This is the letterhead upon which the statement of Abbas was distributed
    • Yahya A. Mahmassani, Permanent Observer for the League Of Arab States continued 'the Jewish state as racist' theme of the day by referring to the "racist separation wall..."
    • Joshua Ruebner, U.S. Campaign to End the Israel Occupation, was the only NGO invited by the UN to address the event. He was given a platform in order to call for the destruction of a UN member state by economic strangulation or "boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel" and the "reframing of our work in an anti-apartheid context."

  • Paul Badji, Senegal's UN Ambassador and
    Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise
    of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian
    People, addresses the General Assembly,
    November 29, 2006.
    The General Assembly session held on November 29 was dedicated to condemning Israel and UN members listened attentively while Israelis were compared to Nazis.
    • Farouk Kaddoumi, Chairman of the Palestinian observer delegation, made a hysterical speech applying Nazi imagery to Israel, which included support for terrorism as acceptable "resistance". In his words "By the year 2003, Israel...intensified the building of the Apartheid Wall, which represents a grave violation of human rights, international law, international humanitarian law, specifically the Fourth Geneva Convention...consecutive Israeli governments continue to practice all kinds of repressive policies and collective punishment against the unarmed Palestinian population-starting with the breaking of bones and followed by a policy of assassination, preventive detention and the imposition of military curfews, sieges and inhuman checkpoints and finally by the building of the strangling Apartheid Wall which transformed Palestinian cities and towns into a collective huge prison cells and ghettoes...Over-equating between the victim and the aggressor, between an occupied, repressed, unarmed population and the Israeli army of occupation...has been frustrating to the Palestinian people, who...suffer from ...the injustice of a new world order which...blames the weaker side and accuses it of terrorist acts...while ignoring to apply the legal distinction between resistance against occupation and terrorism." (On December 1, 2006 the Syrian delegate similarly analogized the victims of the Nazis to the Nazis themselves -- "We say that Israeli policies are Nazi policies.")
  • General Assembly Adopts
    Resolutions Condemning
    Israel, December 1, 2006
    The Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People and the resolutions pushed by the Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People - resulted in the adoption of another six UN General Assembly resolutions condemning only Israel on December 1, 2006.