An historic victory for Palestine-another rejection of Occupation
Franklin Lamb
Beirut
The United Nations General Assembly vote of 11/29/12, which some in Lebanon's 12 Palestinian refugee's camps are calling a "birth certificate for our country" is the latest of more than 400 UN resolutions on the Question of Palestine and a rare major victory for Palestinians after 65 years of resisting occupation.
The UN action, which was backed by an overwhelm majority of UN members with a lopsided vote of 138 to 9, may well force the Zionist regime to seriously consider a just peaceful resolution of the conflict.
With due respect to the nearly 50 percent of the UN members who voted against the historic Palestine Resolution on 11/29/12 at the General Assembly, which is to say t he Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru ( the world's smallest republic covering just 8.1 square miles with a population of 9, 378)), and Palau, with its approximately 20,000 inhabitants, all former U.S. Trust Territories and currently "freely associated states" of the United States, with U.S. zip/postal and telephone codes much more closely resembling American states (51st, 52nd, 53rd and 54th) than sovereign countries, the World spoke clearly in favor of Palestinian self-determination. Indeed, the only reason these dissenting four "countries" are UN Members at all is due to cold war era efforts of Washington to stack the General Assembly in its favor by running up the numbers of its safe votes.
Over the past fortnight, as the US and Israel piled layers of threats onto their mantra of derision regarding yesterday's historic UN vote on Palestine, both countries desperately tried to dissuade the Palestinians from scrapping their application for non-member observer state membership status with the United Nations.
Way too much did Israeli officials and their US lobby protest, thus drawing more international attention and curiosity as they kept dissing the "purely symbolic empty gesture and meaningless act."
Naftali Bennett, leader of the extremist right-wing national religious Zionist party in Israel, Habayit Hayehudi ("The Jewish Home") leader warned the day before the vote that "the PA bid for non-member status at the UN has very real implications on Israel, and that we must take harsh measures in response. I don't accept the claim that this is a symbolic move," Bennet told Israel Radio. "This is not symbolic at all. This has very practical implications. "He added: "We must tell the Arabs, if you pursue a unilateral strategy at the UN, We will pursue a unilateral strategy in annexing settlements in the West Bank."
There is some important symbolism in the UN admitting Palestine as a non-member observer on the 65th anniversary of the November 29, 1947, adoption by the UN General Assembly of the resolution on the partition of Palestine (resolution 181 (II)). On December 2, 1977, it was recorded that the assembly called for the annual observance of November 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (A/RES/32/40 B).
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