At the United Nations Nothing Justifies Terrorism, Except Palestinian 'Frustration'

For Immediate Release: February 3, 2016

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At the United Nations Nothing Justifies Terrorism, Except Palestinian 'Frustration'  This article by Anne Bayefsky originally appeared on National Review. The United Nations played the Holocaust game last week so it could play another lethal game this week. The ruse consists of making a big deal about the gas chambers for Jews back then, while stoking the fires of anti-Semitism burning right now. On January 31, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon penned a New York Times op-ed to say at one and the same time that “people will always resist occupation” and “nothing excuses terrorism.” That follows a statement he gave to the Security Council on January 26, in which he said “Palestinian frustration is growing” and “it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as an incubator of hate and extremism.” Reaction to the claim that it is human nature to stab pregnant women and mothers in front of their children — as Palestinians had done the week before — has been unanimous across the Israeli political spectrum. In the words of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on January 26: “The secretary-general’s remarks give a tailwind to terrorism.” Nevertheless, the spokesman of the secretary-general doubled down in a press briefing on January 27 with these words: “Absolutely nothing justifies terrorism. . . . At the same time, if we want to see an end to this violence . . . we must address the root causes, the underlying frustrations.” In short, for the United Nations, nothing justifies terrorism except Palestinian frustration. It is hardly a secret that the UN agenda is to find reasons for treating the Jewish state differently — notwithstanding the UN Charter’s promise of equality for nations large and small. The settlements bandwagon is one of many. In effect, the “occupation” rant is the PC version of ISIS’s “Allahu Akbar.” It has been the Arab cry since the minute of Israel’s birth in 1948 and is the verbiage that presages destruction, not peaceful coexistence. It is the complaint about Jews living on Arab-claimed land, despite the fact that ultimate ownership of this land — according to legal agreement — is to be decided by negotiations, not UN fiat. The bigger picture tells the story. The UN just wrapped up a year in which there were a total of 26 General Assembly resolutions condemning specific countries for human-rights abuse: 19 — that’s 73 percent — against Israel and one, for instance, against Syria. In 2015, the UN Commission on the Status of Women adopted one resolution condemning a country for violating women’s rights: Israel — for violating the rights of Palestinian women. Finding excuses for demonizing Jews, discriminating against Jews, delegitimizing Jewish self-determination, and just plain old Jew-hatred, is thousands of years old. It has a name, anti-Semitism. Which is where the UN’s international Holocaust Remembrance Day comes in. At the UN, it provides cover. So on January 27, Ban Ki-moon showed up at the General Assembly’s annual commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz. After checking-off “present” in his Holocaust remembrance speech, the secretary-general could manage to mention anti-Semitism only once, and only together with “anti-Muslim bigotry.” His UN secretariat also used the day to promote the claim that there were multiple Holocausts, adding for the first time to the rostrum of the annual event a Sinto speaker, who repeatedly referred to “the forgotten Holocaust of the Sinti and Roma.” The occasion was further desecrated by the Palestinians and their UN collaborators, who managed to hijack the day to hold the annual kickoff of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP). The secretary-general delivered his anti-Semitism/anti-Muslim-bigotry speech at the Holocaust(s) event and then walked into the CEIRPP event and delivered another speech on Israel’s international crimes. Here is Ban Ki-moon on Holocaust Remembrance Day when he was not in the presence of survivors: “Palestinians are losing hope. Young people especially are losing hope. . . . If we hope to see an end to this violence . . . we must address the underlying frustration.” He said nothing about the “frustration” — actually the deep psychological burden — of necessary and mandatory military service for millions of Israelis throughout the prime of their lives. Nothing about Palestinian responsibility for their own lives, or their choice of more terror over more land, or their refusal to negotiate, or their installation of a terrorist organization to govern the land they already occupy in Gaza. In late November 2015, Palestinian UN representative Riyad Mansour announced at an exhibit opening held in the public lobby of the UN: “We are so proud that in this popular uprising, the backbone of this uprising are the youth of Palestine.” On January 17 a 16-year old Palestinian stabbed to death an Israeli mother of six — a.k.a. a “settler” — in front of her children. And now the UN secretary-general expresses his empathy and understanding of this normal, to-be-expected, “youthful frustration.” We know what comes next, because that’s a straight line if there ever was one. Anne Bayefsky is the Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and President of Human Rights Voices. Follow her @AnneBayefsky.