Haaretz says that Germany has backtracked on decision to oppose Palestinian non-member status at the U.N., and will abstain. “We lost Europe,” an Israeli Foreign Ministry official says.
Early Thursday morning, just hours before the vote — scheduled to take place around 11:00 P.M. (Israel time) — Germany changed its mind, deciding to abstain from voting rather than opposing the Palestinian initiative, as Israel had assumed it would.
“The decision wasn’t taken lightly,” Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said. “Germany shares the goal for a Palestinian state. We have campaigned for this in many ways, but the recent decisive steps towards real statehood can only be the result of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians,” the German official said.
Ma’an says Israeli peace groups are for the Palestinian bid:
Israeli peace organizations said Wednesday they would hold demonstrations in Tel Aviv to support Palestine’s bid to upgrade its status at the UN..
The statement was also signed by groups like Peace Now, Israel’s centrist peace organization, and Machsom Watch, which monitors Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank.
Jewish Voice for Peace is for it:
This vote will not create an independent Palestinian state. It could, however, give Palestinians the ability to hold Israel accountable in the International Criminal Court. Despite its limitations as a tool to achieve a fair resolution, Jewish Voice for Peace supports the move.
A successful bid will show that the majority of the world’s countries support Palestinian political and social rights.
Meanwhile, Israel and the United States are lobbying furiously against it. Both countries, which say they support Palestinian independence, have worked at nearly every turn against a just and lasting peace for both peoples.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Bernard Avishai that he supports the statehood initiative, to save Israel:
“I believe,” Olmert wrote me, intending his statement to be made public, “that the Palestinian request from the United Nations is congruent with the basic concept of the two-state solution. Therefore, I see no reason to oppose it. Once the United Nations will lay the foundation for this idea, we in Israel will have to engage in a serious process of negotiations, in order to agree on specific borders based on the 1967 lines, and resolve the other issues. It is time to give a hand to, and encourage, the moderate forces amongst the Palestinians. Abu-Mazen”—an alias for Abbas—”and Salam Fayyad need our help. It’s time to give it.”
Zionists are already seeking to discount the anticipated victory. Mark Leon Goldberg at Open Zion says Palestine can’t take Israel to the International Criminal Court because that court is only for African countries, and Israel can pressure its way out. “The ICC is primarily a legal institution, but it is not sealed off to the dynamics of international power politics.” More:
An investigation of Israel would be a radical departure from the cases the court currently pursues. The seven cases before the court all deal with African countries with barely functioning justice systems, and are the result of primarily intra-state, rather than inter-state, violence. … [T]he court is simply not accustomed to pursuing charges against a western country with a strong legal system for its conduct in international conflict.
Even if the court could get over these hang-ups, pursuing charges against Israelis would be tantamount to political suicide for the court. It would not be unreasonable to think that several European countries would hold back their funding for the ICC, which is already cash-strapped.
Thanks to Ilene Cohen.
“that court is only for African countries” is a statement from a racist. White racist, Jewish racist, what’s the difference?
Zionism backed by more or less all of Judaism has swept the Palestinians under the carpet but Galut knows that they are under the carpet and is concerned about them . And nobody trusts Netanyahu.
Israel lost the Germans. FFS.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/germany-abstaining-at-un-because-israel-wouldn-t-budge-on-settlements.premium-1.481443
“The German decision not to oppose the Palestinian bid for non-member observer state status, and to abstain in the vote at the United Nations General Assembly this evening has shocked the top brass at the Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister’s office. A top German official who took part in discussions in Berlin, however, stressed that the writing was on the wall.
The senior German official, who has requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, has told Haaretz that Germany has been trying to help Israel on the Palestinian issue for a long time but Israel has not taken the necessary steps to advance the peace process. “The Israelis,” he said, “did not respond in any way to our request to make a gesture on settlements.””
Israel now has to choose between Europe and the Hebron Jews. Procrastination is over. Hevron will never be Israeli. And YESHA is a joke.
I don’t doubt that the western countries would withhold money from the ICC if they didn’t like its doings. But that would not stop Palestine from trying. Let Israel (and USA and UK et al) be SEEN as the destroyers of human-rights organizations, be SEEN as taking the world back to the moral/ethical conditions of the dark ages.
But Germany and others are wrong who say that a Palestinian State can emerge only from negotiations with Israel. If the hand of God were to descend over Israel and deprive it of most of its oxygen, for example, the Palestinians might easily achieve a state by negotiating with the remnants of the catastrophe.
This could happen, figuratively, if the nations decided to impose major trade sanctions on Israel to end the occupation (or at least end the settlement program), for trade is the “oxygen” for Israel, and the international community (hitherto the do-nothing God of all nations) could descend on Israel (for its international lawlessness) just as the hand of God’s Nature recently descended on New York City and the New Jersey shore (and do not forget God’s Nature descending on the American Midwest and West with drought and fire) (and if I am not mistaken, God’s Nature has descended with hell and high water elsewhere on earth as well).
At some point people will stand up on their legs and say, “Enough!”. And the nations will hear tham and, all too tardily, follow suit.
Czech Republic has also decided to exchange its anticipated NO for ABSTAIN.
Italy has announced that it will vote yes (source: ANSA).