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Palestinian State UN Bid – USA News Coverage – Fair or Unfair???

NEW YORK (AP) — The developer of an Islamic cultural center that opened Wednesday evening near the site of the terrorist attacks that leveled the World Trade Center says the biggest error on the project was not involving the families of 9/11 victims from the start.

People crowded into the center, where a small orchestra played traditional Middle Eastern instruments and a photo exhibit of New York children of different ethnicities lined the walls. The enthusiasm at the opening belied its troubled beginnings.

“We made incredible mistakes,” Sharif El-Gamal told The Associated Press in an earlier interview at his Manhattan office.

The building at 51 Park Place, two blocks from the World Trade Center site, includes a Muslim prayer space that has been open for two years. El-Gamal said the overall center is modeled after the Jewish Community Center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where he lives.

“I wanted my daughter to learn how to swim, so I took her to the JCC,” said the Brooklyn-born Muslim. “And when I walked in, I said, ‘Wow. This is great.’”

The project has drawn criticism from opponents who say they don’t want a mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The center is open to all faiths and will include a 9/11 memorial, El-Gamal said. He called opposition to the center — which prompted one of the most virulent national discussions about Islam and freedom of speech and religion since Sept. 11 — part of a “campaign against Muslims.”

Last year, street clashes in view of the trade center site pitted supporters against opponents of the center
To Read more click :Islamic center near ground zero opens its doors

A PR stunt which killed thousands and launched a propaganda war that has, so far, lasted a decade. Since 9/11, how far has the US and al-Qaeda been prepared to go to win ‘hearts and minds’ with elaborate media strategies?

Last-minute jitters should not hold up much-needed change.
THE proposed Palestinian statehood bid at the United Nations next month has caused an unpleasant tremor in Israel’s corridors of power.
For decades the mantra of a Palestinian state side by side with the state of Israel has been the only solution given any credence. But now Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going all out to prevent it, while a long-time supporter in Australia is deciding between a ”no” vote in the UN or abstaining.
Israel argues that the move is unilateral and violates the provisions of the Oslo peace accords between Israelis and Palestinians. There are, however, some 122 nations that have indicated they will vote ”yes” for a Palestinian state, which hardly makes the bid unilateral.
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As for violating Oslo – a process that was meant to last for five years but then had negotiations dragging on for 20 – Israel repeatedly breached the provisions with its illegal settlements.
Both the UN and the International Court of Justice have declared the settlement constructions impermissible unilateral acts in clear violation of international law. Nevertheless, Israel has succeeded in transferring more than half a million Jewish settlers into the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The statehood bid has jolted Israel out of its long-held dream. Hence the panic-stricken arguments against it.
A comparison with Israel’s own unilateral move in declaring statehood after the UN’s intention to partition historic Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state cannot be avoided. It underscores that Palestine was never a land without a people and that Israel’s existence was imposed on Palestinians, robbing them of their homes and land and destroying their proud and millenniums-old society.
Israel claims a third intifada will be triggered by the statehood bid. But only last month a senior Israeli army commander, Major-General Avi Mizrahi, warned that it was ”Jewish terror” against the Palestinians that would bring on a mass Palestinian uprising.
As attacks on Gaza and in the West Bank mount, a third intifada would be an understandable reaction to the brutal denial of Palestinian rights, not the statehood bid.
As for statehood endangering the economic co-operation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, that has to be a good thing. The co-operation has done nothing to help the average Palestinian farmer, manufacturer or retailer, profiting rather the elites. As long as the Palestinians are held to the dictates of the Israeli military occupation, Israeli businesses will continue to take advantage of an already weak Palestinian economy held hostage to restrictions of movement, water rations, land confiscations and agricultural violations.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s mendacious offer of unconditional talks mocks what has been happening on the ground for the past 20 years of fruitless peace talks. It is a double somersault after all his refusals to negotiate. And even as he speaks, the illegal settlement project is proceeding.
Back in 1977, Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, said: ”Israel has never presented the Arabs with a single peace plan.” Since then, the recently revealed ”Palestine Papers” showed the distance Palestinians were prepared to go to reach a solution. Israel even rejected the Arab peace initiative, which offered Israel fully normalised relations with the Arab world in exchange for a negotiated two-state solution on the 1967 borders.
In contrast, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly said his first option is to negotiate – provided Israel complies with international law.
The arguments for and against statehood are many. There is a sense of foreboding in many Palestinians and supporters who see the statehood bid as only further entrenching Israel’s occupation, with no prospect of an intransigent Israel abiding by international law.
Negotiations are, in fact, a ruse to keep the old discredited paradigm of a two-state solution going for as long as it takes Netanyahu to achieve his goal of a Greater Israel.
More than the statehood bid, what threatens the Greater Israel dream is the fast-growing global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Modelled on the movement that helped bring down apartheid South Africa, BDS is adding to the tremors being felt in the power structures that have enabled Israel to wreak such havoc at home and in the region.
For peace and a just solution, it is time to hold Israel to account.

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Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, sent a classified cable to the Foreign Ministry last week, stating that Israel stands no chance of rallying a substantial number of states to oppose a resolution at the UN General Assembly recognizing a Palestinian state in September.

Israel Foreign Ministry sources estimate that 130-140 states will vote in favor of the Palestinians

A major question mark remains over the position of the 27 member states of the European Union.

A senior source at the Foreign Israel Ministry, which is busy trying to foil the Palestinian move at the UN, said that so far only five western countries have promised Israel they would vote against recognition of a Palestinian state – the U.S., Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.
“Most western countries will not be willing to be in the hall and vote against a Palestinian state,” the senior Foreign Ministry source said.

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