01/06 Links Pt1: UNSC 2334: A Victory of Jihadism; Why Israel’s Critics Are Losing Ground ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Bat Ye'or: UN Security Council Res. 2334: A Victory of Jihadism

No European nation protested against the Islamic colonization of Jewish-Palestinian areas, the expulsion of their Jewish inhabitants and the seizure of their belongings, or against the persecution of Jews in Arab countries.
An artificial Palestinian Arab "people" was created in order to replace the people of Israel. A European army of forger-historians and Arab Christian dhimmis transferred the historic characteristics of the Jews onto them. Names of towns and regions were Islamized: Jerusalem was called Al-Quds and "the West Bank" replaced Judea and Samaria.
Israelis, guilty of existing, were expected to apologize for that, humbly to maintain their enemies and suffer their terrorism without protesting or defending themselves. Their crime? They refused to mingle with and disappear into dhimmitude by giving up their rights and their history to the people created by the Euro-Arab alliance to replace them.
It is the turn of Europeans to see a replacement population be created in their countries, with all the rights that are being taken away from them. It is their turn to be forced to renounce their national, historic, cultural and religious identity, to apologize and take the blame for existing. It is their turn to be forced to monitor their borders and guard their airports, their schools, their trains, their streets and their cities with soldiers. European governments that contemplated the destruction of Israel worked together with the enemies of Israel to destroy their own people, their sovereignty, their security and their freedoms.
The recognition of the legitimacy of Israel's return to its homeland is the essential condition of Islamic peace with the world, because it will abolish the jihadist ideology.

Caroline Glick: The IDF’s new social contract

Ya’alon and Eisenkot and his generals have repeatedly offended the public with comparisons of “IDF values” with alleged processes of barbarization, Nazification and ISIS-ization of the public by the likes of Azaria and his supporters.
If there was a specific moment where the military brass abandoned its compact with society once and for all, it came on Tuesday, the day before the military court convicted Azaria of manslaughter. In a speech that day, Eisenkot insisted that IDF soldiers are not “our children.” They are grownups and they are required to obey the orders they receive.
By making this statement the day before the verdict in a case that pitted society against the General Staff, which sided with B’Tselem, Eisenkot told us that the General Staff no longer feels itself obligated by a sacred compact with the people of Israel.
Azaria is the first victim of a General Staff that has decided to cease serving as the people’s army and serve instead as B’Tselem’s army. The call now spreading through the Knesset for Azaria to receive a presidential pardon, while certainly reasonable and desirable, will likely fail to bring about his freedom. For a pardon request to reach President Reuven Rivlin’s desk, it first needs to be stamped by Eisenkot.
A pardon for Azaria would go some way toward repairing the damage the General Staff has done to its relationship with the public. But from Eisenkot’s behavior this week, it is apparent that he feels no need and has no interest in repairing that damage.
As a result, it is likely that Azaria will spend years behind bars for killing the enemy.
Moreover, if nothing forces Eisenkot and his generals to their senses, Azaria will neither be the last nor the greatest victim of their betrayal of the public’s trust. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Evelyn Gordon: The IDF’s Self-Inflicted Wound

This impression was reinforced over the ensuing months by the fact that Eisenkot, in particular, refused to stop talking about the case, while demonstrating shocking insensitivity to the way his comments would sound to most Israelis. The very day before the verdict was issued, for instance, he said, “An 18-year-old man serving in the army is not ‘everyone’s child’ … He is a fighter, a soldier, who must dedicate his life to carry out the tasks we give him.”
Obviously, the second part of that statement is true; the army can’t function if its 18-year-old draftees aren’t treated as soldiers and fighters. But to parents, their child is always “their child,” even after he turns 18 and dons a uniform. And because in Israel, most young men do army service, most parents can imagine their own son in any other soldier’s place. In that sense, Azaria is “everyone’s child,” just as kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit was “everyone’s child.” Israelis therefore overwhelmingly supported freeing 1,027 terrorists to secure his freedom. Israeli parents entrust the army with their most precious possession–their children–and in return, they expect the army to take the best possible care of them that’s consistent with carrying out its military functions.
Thus, when Eisenkot dismissively declared that a soldier isn’t “everyone’s child,” what Israeli parents heard was a refusal to acknowledge that his soldiers are indeed also their children, whose protection must be high on his priority list. And that merely reinforced the impression left by his initial hasty condemnations: In responding to the case, he had given insufficient weight to his responsibility toward his soldiers.
Based on the evidence, I see no reason to think Azaria was in fact convicted unjustly. But from the start, Eisenkot and Ya’alon created the appearance of injustice by routinely speaking out against Azaria when they should simply have kept silent and let the military justice system do its work. The result is that now, many Israelis still aren’t certain Azaria was convicted fairly, and that has translated into overwhelming support for an early pardon.
This case has sowed devastating distrust of both the army’s leadership and its justice system among a large section of the Israeli public. Yet much of that distrust could have been avoided had Ya’alon and Eisenkot simply kept their mouths shut. That neither man proved capable of doing so is a damning indictment of them, and a tragedy for Israel.

Eugene Kontorovich on The John Batchelor Show (starts about 10:30)
Risks to Israel in UNSC Resolution 2334 & What is to be done? @jschanzer, @followfdd.

Why Israel’s Critics Are Losing Ground

Critics of Israel will dismiss the measures more as a function of effective lobbying by AIPAC than a groundswell of pro-Israel opinion. Schumer’s participation will be interpreted as a concession to local New York politics. But the larger story is that groups like J Street, which supports Obama’s stand and can claim to represent the views of the Bernie Sanders/Keith Ellison wing of the Democratic Party, have even less influence in the 115th Congress than they had before.
Obama’s lame duck betrayal will encourage some on the left to continue their efforts to distance the party from its former stance as a staunch backer of the Jewish state. But as much as they like to think that the future of the party is theirs, they remain effectively marginalized. As a minority, the party has bigger priorities than pursuing the former president’s vendetta against Prime Minister Netanyahu. Though many party activists have little affinity for Israel, most House and Senate Democrats still don’t wish to follow Sanders and Ellison down the anti-Israel rabbit hole.
Obama’s popularity and power were enough to force Democrats to treat support for the Iran nuclear deal as a litmus test of loyalty to both the party and the White House despite the opposition of the pro-Israel community. But once he and Secretary of State Kerry leave office this month, there will be little reason for Democrats—especially those already worried about the 2018 midterms—to buck public support for Israel.
Nor will Trump’s ardent embrace of Israel help J Street mobilize Congressional Democrats to back their cause. There will be plenty of better opportunities for the minority party to push back against Trump’s initiatives on health care and a host of other issues. Any attempt to obstruct a move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem or to prevent the new administration from reversing Obama’s effort to back international pressure on Israel will bring few rewards and come at a high price for Democrats. The dismay expressed by Haim Saban and other top donors about the UN vote is a reminder of just how much damage the president might have done to the party’s prospects.
Ellison’s campaign to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee will be the next big test of the strength of the left. But Congress’s rebuke of the departing Obama and Kerry is just one more sign that J Street and its allies are losing rather than gaining ground in 2017.

Bernard-Henri Lévy: Bernard-Henri Lévy: Israel, Obama and the United Nations

I am an unwavering proponent of the two-state solution in the Middle East.
And I continue to think that, even battered and bruised, abandoned by some, rejected by others, it is the only solution that, over time, will allow Israel to remain at once the Jewish state conceived by its pioneers and the exemplary democracy whose spirit and institutions 70 years of war, open and otherwise, have not managed to erode.
Yet, inured as I am to disappointment, I was deeply shocked by the circumstances surrounding the adoption by the United Nations Security Council, on December 23, of Resolution 2334, which called upon Israel to “immediately … cease” what some view as the colonization of the occupied Palestinian territories.
I know that news moves fast. Given that fast pace — especially at a moment when the United States has eyes and ears only for the “transition,” for the acts and utterances of the president-elect, for the government that he is setting up, and for his wife, his daughter and little Barron — this story may strike some as already being ancient history. Nevertheless, it has been swirling around in my head for two weeks. And I would like to take a moment to explain why.

‘Thank you America,’ says Netanyahu, hailing House for backing Israel against UN

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the US House of Representatives for declaring a United Nations Security Council resolution to be a “one-sided” obstacle to peace.
“After the anti-Israeli decision at the United Nations,” he tweeted in Hebrew, “yesterday the American Congress accepted a different resolution. The members of congress expressed clear support for Israel and clear opposition to the [UNSC] resolution. Thank you members of Congress, thank you America!”
Netanyahu later issued a video in English praising the vote against the “outrageous” UN resolution, and noting, “Democrats and Republics alike know that the Western Wall isn’t occupied territory.” Thus, “they voted either to repeal the resolution at the UN or change it. And that’s exactly what we intend to do.”
The House resolution was seen as a rejection of the Obama administration, which did not veto December 23’s UNSC Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements as illegal, thus enabling it to pass. Netanyahu has castigated the administration for abstaining in the vote, ridiculed its assertion that all land in Jerusalem and the West Bank captured by Israel in the 1967 war is occupied Palestinian territory, and claimed that the Obama presidency organized the resolution in what he called an “ambush.” The Administration denies this.

U.S. House Overwhelmingly Criticizes anti-Israel UN Resolution 2334 and U.S. Abstention (342-80)

Republicans nearly unanimous (233-4), Democrats split (109-76) — Possible DNC Chair Keith Ellison voted NO
The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approves House Resolution 11 (full embed at bottom) which criticizes not only anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334, but also the U.S. abstention.
It was the criticism of the abstention that split Democrats, with several speakers claiming Republicans were politicizing support for Israel in Congress. Several speakers claimed the Resolution was a swipe at Obama as he was leaving office.
Potential DNC Chair Keith Ellison voted No.
Republicans, by contrast, were almost unanimous.
Speaker Paul Ryan gave the opening speech in support of the House Resolution

Rep. Louis Gohmert: ‘Not Another Dime to the UN’ Until It Rescinds Anti-Israel Resolution

On Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) told SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam there was some congressional pushback against “USexit,” the drive to pull the U.S. out of the United Nations after its anti-Israel vote.
“I remember when I was a little kid, I saw these signs on fence posts and stuff: ‘Get Out of the U.N.’ And I thought, you know, that’s a little extreme. Well, the further I’ve gone, the more I’m going, ‘You know what? There was something to that,’” Gohmert said.
“So many dictatorships that are calling the shots, so many violators of human rights that are in charge of human rights – and they’re dictating to what was the freest country in the world, how bad we are and how bad Israel is, when actually, Muslims are more free in Israel than any other country in the area,” he pointed out.
“We’re about to bring up what should be a very noble thing, a resolution basically condemning the U.N. resolution on the Palestinian issue,” Gohmert said. “And yet it says four places in the resolution that we’re for a two-state solution. I’m not. As a Christian, I know what the Book of Joel and other places say, where there’s gonna be a day when the children of Israel do come back to Israel, and then all the nations that have divided Israel will be facing judgment.”

WATCH: Cruz - 'History Is Going to Record' Obama, Kerry as 'Enemies of Israel'

Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) took aim at the Obama administration for failing to stop a United Nations resolution aimed at the nation of Israel condemning settlements in so-called disputed territory.
Cruz alleged the failure to do so was done to advance outgoing President Barack Obama’s legacy, who he described along with Secretary of State John Kerry as an enemy of Israel.
“For decades, the United States has stood an ally of Israel at the United Nations against anti-Semitism,” Cruz said. “And I think Barack Obama did this because he wanted to secure his legacy. And I got to tell you, Sean, I think he has. I think history is going to record Barack Obama and John Kerry as relentless enemies of Israel.”

JPost Editorial: Paris conference risks pushing peace further away

The imminent arrival at the White House of President- elect Donald Trump is welcomed by many in Israel, particularly by those who identify with the Right. However, the leadership change in Washington is also spurring European states and the present US administration to establish facts on the ground before Trump’s inauguration.
For the Europeans and the Obama administration the goal seems to be to make it more difficult for the Trump administration to honor promises such as moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, or to allow unrestricted housing construction in Judea and Samaria.
These efforts are likely to play out at the Paris Mideast Conference, slated to take place on January 15, five days before Trump takes office.
Preceded by UN Security Council Resolution 2334 on the illegality of the Jewish presence in Judea, Samaria and east Jerusalem, and by US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech, which laid out six principles for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Paris summit could lead to another Security Council resolution that dictates the general contour of a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, before Trump takes office.
A day after the Paris meeting, the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council, composed of the foreign ministers of the 28 EU countries, is scheduled to meet in Brussels, and may also issue a statement on the Middle East.

The biggest sin on the planet: Jews building houses

Listen to John Kerry’s speech on the comatose Middle East “peace process,” or follow the serial condemnations against Israel at the United Nations, including the latest Security Council resolution 2334, and you’d think that the biggest sin in the world is that Jews build too much. They build too many houses, too many schools, too many synagogues, too many hospitals, too many roads.
Think about that. The biggest problem with the Jews is not that they go on terror rampages that murder thousands of innocents, or that they jail poets, hang gays or stone women. No, it’s that they build too much.
The reason this Jewish construction is considered such a sin, of course, is that it’s happening inside disputed areas which Israel captured in a defensive war in 1967, when its Arab neighbors did everything they could to throw the Jews into the sea.
One of those disputed areas is East Jerusalem, which includes the Old City and the holiest active site in Judaism, the Western Wall. From the time Israel was created in 1948 until 1967, East Jerusalem was administered by Jordan and became a decrepit and closed place where holy sites were routinely destroyed.
After its liberation by the Jews in 1967, Jerusalem flourished, becoming an open, international city where all religions were honored.

David Singer: Anti-Israel Security Council Resolution 2334 violates UN Charter

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 violates Article 80 of the United Nations Charter and accordingly is illegal in international law.
Any attempt by the Security Council to enforce Resolution 2334 or to pass any new Resolutions based on Resolution 2334 will also be illegal.
Article 80 preserves the legal rights vested in the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home within 22 per cent of the territory comprised in the 1922 Mandate for Palestine (“Mandate”). That territory includes what is known today as Area "C" located in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and East Jerusalem (“disputed areas").
Resolution 2334 seeks to erase and annul – not preserve – those vested Jewish legal rights in the disputed areas by:

Elliott Abrams: What Happens When UN Security Council Resolutions are Ignored?

What happens when UN Security Council resolutions are ignored? That depends, really—on whether you are any of 192 other members of the United Nations, or are Israel.
Defenders of Israel often claim that it is treated differently by the United Nations from any other nation. That claim is accurate, and a brief look at Lebanon offers some proof. It continues to violate Security Council resolutions, year after year—but no one complains, and no one ever argues that Lebanon must be punished with boycotts or prosecutions for doing so. In fact they are often congratulated for their defiance.
The United Nations Security Council has been saying for decades that the Government of Lebanon must exercise control of its territory. Resolution 1559 of 2004 “Calls for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias” and “Supports the extension of the control of the Government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory.” By “Lebanese militias” the UN was referring to Hezbollah, but dared not speak its name. In any event, the Government of Lebanon did not comply.

David Collier: UN resolution 2334, British Jews and Yachad

Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you will be aware that United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 was adopted on 23 December 2016. The resolution was adopted in part, because the United States abstained rather than used their veto.
Further, on 28th December, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke in detail of the reasoning behind the US decision. Oddly, considering the UK had just supported the resolution, the UK PM Theresa May was critical of Kerry’s speech.
I do not need to enter into deep discussion over why UN 2334 should have been opposed. Far beyond the one-sided nature of the resolution, UN statements such as these are inter-dependent, building as they do, an ever increasing pile of self-referencing, legally-illiterate and conflict sustaining documentation. Fodder for the anti-Israel lynch mob. For those interested, on Sunday 8th January, there is a public demonstration in London against UK support for the UN vote.
Regardless of your position on different elements of Israeli activity in the West Bank, this resolution should have been shouted down. It is part of a unified effort, working alongside other UN specialized agencies such as UNESCO and UNHRC and UNRWA, that seek to rewrite Jewish history and delegitimise Israel. Can Israel be given a fair hearing at the United Nations? No, it cannot. So what friend of Israel would place Israel into that courtroom?

Editorial: U.S. must restore relations with Israel

Israel and the United States share much. They began as pioneer societies and were motivated by ideals. The Pilgrims foresaw the city on a hill. The Zionists longed for a return to a homeland from which Jews had been dispersed since ancient days. The seed of Abraham united two peoples. Students of the American experience delve into political and philosophical tracts. They study economics and the Enlightenment and debate religion’s role in the Founding. Gordis opens by recounting Zionist literature — its poetry and its prose. The movement rose from ghetto and shtetl. The Colonies differed. Zionism reflected Western and Eastern Europe — and insights as fresh as Scripture.
The United States was born in revolution; Israel was reborn under siege. Minutemen gathered at Lexington and Concord; they fought at Bunker Hill. Yorktown turned the world upside down. Israel was greeted by hostility. Its enemies attacked at once. A so-called two state solution could have come into existence in 1948. Israel would have accepted coexistence; its foes did not. In a move of transcendent cynicism and hate, various Arab countries expelled their Jewish residents and simultaneously waged war against their refuge. Israel beat the odds. It has survived other assaults against its integrity. Israelis have suffered formal wars as well as terrorism. Terrorists have targeted Olympic teams and children at play.
In 1967, Israel won a desperate war and reunited Jerusalem. It gained sovereignty it had not sought and has erred while occupying disputed territory. Its record remains superior to the record of its antagonists, nevertheless. Regarding rightness, there is no dispute. We prefer Labor to Likud, Tzipi Livni to Benjamin Netanyahu. The Times-Dispatch stands by Israel. The equation is simple yet strong: “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high mountain. O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid.”
Obama is wrong.

Baltimore Sun: Israel isn't at fault for failure of the peace process

Commentator Richard Gross's latest missive misleads through omissions, applauding the most recent anti-Israel U.N. vote and blaming Israel for the lack of a peaceful "two state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ("No chance for peace," Dec. 30).
Mr. Gross claims that Israel ignored Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's advice to "resolve the Palestinian issue." But it was the leadership of the Palestinian Authority that rejected U.S. and Israeli offers of statehood in exchange for peace at Camp David in 2000, at Taba in 2001 and after the Annapolis Conference in 2008, among other instances. Had they been accepted, settlements would be a moot point.
Mr. Gross omits that the PA is violating the terms of the Oslo process which created it and under which it still receives international aid. That process called for recognizing Israel and resolving "outstanding issues" in bilateral negotiations with the Jewish state. It also stipulates that the Palestinian leadership cease its incitement to anti-Jewish violence.
Yet no such thing has occurred. In fact, Palestinian "peace negotiator" Saeb Erekat, who met with Secretary of State John Kerry shortly before the recent U.N. vote, said in October 2016 "we bow our heads in admiration and honor" for the acts of "heroism" committed by imprisoned Palestinian terrorists.

No One Is Afraid of AIPAC

At first blush, at least, a Trump presidency promises everything that AIPAC, America’s largest pro-Israel lobbying group, could ever wish for. After eight years of rocky relations between Jerusalem and Washington, Donald Trump promises that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will receive a much friendlier reception in the White House during his administration. The inclusion of Iran hawks such as CIA director Mike Pompeo, Trump’s nominee for CIA director, and defense secretary nominee James Mattis could even spell the end of the nuclear agreement with Iran, especially in light of Tehran’s repeated flirtations with violating the deal.
In reality, Trump poses a string of new problems for AIPAC. “There’s definitely no question that it was better and easier for [AIPAC] if Hillary won,” said one Democratic strategist recently. “Policy is only part of it. It would’ve been an opportunity or their best chance at hitting reset for Democrats.” Instead, after losing its fight against the Iran Deal, the lobbying group must try to stake out an unstable middle ground during an even more polarizing presidency than Obama’s while fending off challenges from its left and right. “In this new world where J Street really is a pro-Israel validator for segments of the Democrats and the Zionist Organization of America is a validator for segments of the Republicans, what’s AIPAC role?” the strategist wondered.
After an appropriate period of reflection and testing the waters, AIPAC may well decide that its role is to continue doing whatever it has been doing. Malcolm Hoenlein, president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, rejects the claim that that losing fight against the Iran Deal constitutes evidence of any larger organizational failure on AIPAC’s part, citing majority opposition to the agreement both in Congress and the American public. “The fundamental premise that people have been operating on is based on a deliberate effort to try to paint this as a defeat for the pro-Israel community, AIPAC, everybody involved … when, in fact, that is not the case,” he said.

It’s not about the settlements, it’s about the terrorism

Secretary of State John Kerry argued that if Israel does not stop settlement activity and move forward with a two-state solution, the resulting friction will “create very fertile ground for extremists.”
But the fertile soils of Gaza and Ramallah, sowed with potent doses of incitement, have already produced bumper crops of extremism – and it has just as much to do with the Jews over in Tel Aviv or Sderot as it does with the Jews in east Jerusalem or Gush Etzion.
And Kerry charged that the settlements and lack of two-state deal are “allowing a dangerous dynamic to take hold,” but that dangerous dynamic has long had its grip on the peace process in the form of multiple intifadas and evolving terrorist alliances.
Yes, the U.S. condemns and condemns. “We have consistently condemned violence and terrorism and even condemned the Palestinian leadership for not condemning it,” Kerry said with a certain huffiness, a tone that bemoaned how Washington condemns terror until blue in the face – before steering back to settlements.
But it’s that knife intifada, that unifying vow of international terror groups that they are coming for the al-Aqsa mosque, that determination to obliterate Israel that comprise the currently insurmountable main roadblock to a peace process.

Victor Davis Hanson: Why the Anti-Israeli Sentiment?

The Palestinians — illiberal and reactionary on cherished Western issues like gender equality, homosexuality, religious tolerance and diversity — have grafted their cause to the popular campus agendas of race/class/gender victimization.
Western nations in general do not worry much about assorted non-Western crimes such as genocides, mass cleansings or politically induced famines. Instead, they prefer sermons to other Westerners as a sort of virtue-signaling, without any worries over offending politically correct groups.
Partly, the piling on Israel is due to American leverage over Israel as a recipient of U.S. aid. As a benefactor, the Obama administration expects that Israel must match U.S. generosity with obeisance. Yet the U.S. rarely gives similar “how dare you” lectures to less liberal recipients of American aid, such as the Palestinians for their lack of free elections.
Partly, the cause of global hostility toward Israel is jealousy. If Israel were mired in Venezuela-like chaos, few nations would care. Instead, the image of a proud, successful, Westernized nation as an atoll in a sea of self-inflicted misery is grating to many. And the astounding success of Israel bothers so many failed states that the entire world takes notice.
But partly, the source of anti-Israelism is ancient anti-Semitism.
If Israelis were Egyptians administering Gaza or Jordanians running the West Bank (as during the 1960s), no one would care. The world’s problem is that Israelis are Jews. Thus, Israel earns negative scrutiny that is never extended commensurately to others.
Mr. Obama and his diplomatic team should have known all this. Perhaps they do, but they simply do not care.

Juliet Moses: Israel vote was an affront to all New Zealanders

New Zealanders are often told that our country punches above its weight internationally.
Unfortunately, in the case of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 regarding the conflict between Israel and Palestinians, Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully has delivered New Zealand an uppercut to its face.
New Zealand co-sponsored the "anti-settlement" resolution with Senegal, Malaysia and Venezuela, hardly bastions of human rights.
With the United States abstaining, the Security Council passed it at its last sitting of 2016 on Christmas Eve.
You don't have to be a fan of Jewish settlements in the West Bank to criticise the resolution.
And there are many people, like me, who support a two-state solution - the co-existence of a secure Jewish state and a viable Palestinian state - who are demoralised by this resolution, believing that it makes that outcome less likely.
The resolution goes well beyond condemning Israel for West Bank settlements. It deems all settlements beyond the 1949 armistice lines a "flagrant violation of international law".
It declares all the land beyond those lines "occupied Palestinian territory". That includes East Jerusalem, where Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount, as well as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, are situated.

How the Democrats Became the Anti-Israel Party

Democrats have come down with a wicked virus. Somewhere along the way they caught Nazi fever.
It’s not the Nazi fever of the fevered headlines in which Trump is the new Fuhrer and Republicans are the new Third Reich.
The truth is that there’s only one major political party in this country that supports the murder of Jews.
The Democrats demand the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Jerusalem. They fund the mass murder of Jews by nuclear fire, rocket, bullet, bomb and bloody knife. And they collaborate and defend that terror.
President Clinton was the first to openly fund Islamic terrorists killing Jews. Men, women and children across Israel were shot and blown up by terrorists funded by his administration. And when terror victims sought justice, instead of protecting them from Iran, he protected Iran’s dirty money from them.
And he was not the last.

Jordan Says Moving U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem is 'Red Line'

Jordan’s government spokesman warned on Thursday of “catastrophic” repercussions if President-elect Donald Trump makes good on a campaign promise to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Such a move could affect relations between the US and regional allies, including Jordan, Information Minister Mohammed Momani told The Associated Press, addressing the issue publicly for the first time.
An embassy move would be a “red line” for Jordan, would “inflame the Islamic and Arab streets” and serve as a “gift to extremists,” he said, adding that Jordan would use all possible political and diplomatic means to try and prevent such a decision.
The US considers pro-Western Jordan as an important ally in a turbulent Mideast. The Hashemite kingdom is a key member of a US-led military coalition against ISIS in neighboring Syria and Iraq, and maintains discreet security ties with Israel.
Jordan also has a stake in Jerusalem, serving as custodian of Islam’s third holiest shrine in the city’s eastern sector.

Abbas warns US not to go ahead with ‘aggressive’ embassy relocation

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas urged US President-elect Donald Trump on Friday not to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem.
Abbas on Friday invited Trump to visit and said “We call on you not to implement your statement…because we consider it as an aggressive statement, when you say you want to move the embassy to Jerusalem.”
The PA president said moving the embassy would throw the peace process into a crisis it would not necessarily overcome, according to Israel Radio.
Abbas said any action that affects the status of Jerusalem was a red line the Palestinians would not put up with.

Abbas: UNSC resolution says settlements illegitimate, not Israel

UN Security Council resolution 2334 was not an anti-Israel decision, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday evening, speaking to a group of some 200 Israeli activists, professors, and former officials.
“UNSC resolution 2334 was not against Israel; it was against settlements, no more, no less,” Abbas told the Israelis, who traveled from all over Israel to meet with the PA president at the Mukata, the PA presidential headquarters in Ramallah. “It did not say Israel is illegitimate; it said settlements are illegitimate."
UNSC resolution 2334, which was passed on December 23, said that settlements “have no legal validity” and constitute an obstacle to peace.
While Palestinian officials have welcomed the resolution, characterizing it as “historic,” Israeli officials have rejected the resolution, calling it “shameful.”
Abbas, who was in good spirits using hand motions as he spoke, added that he and the Palestinian leadership vehemently oppose violence.
“We don’t believe in violence, terrorism, or extremism and we will fight all of [these phenomena] openly and secretly,” Abbas remarked emphatically. “We have no other choice but to live in peace.”

WATCH: That Moment Chaim Herzog Ripped The United Nations A New One

It was November 10th, 1975 when Chaim Herzog , then Israeli ambassador to the UN, denounced UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 that declared Zionism a form of racism, a day that also coincided with the 37th anniversary of Kristallnacht.
History shows the resolution was adopted by a 72-35 vote with 32 abstentions and remained in place until 1991.
And the UN continues to pass outrageous anti-Israel resolutions.

Reminder to news editors about coverage of convicted Israeli soldier

I can't think of any other explanation of why the western media (which consistently ignores terrorist attacks against Israelis) is not only obsessing over this story but is refusing to provide the context of the original terrorist attack. If this story happened in any other country it would be ignored completely.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.