Zionists panic over Palestine vote in UK Parliament

Here's a motion to be debated in the UK Parliament on Monday 13 October:

this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.

There hasn't been much news about the debate and I have to say I don't feel particularly moved by it but then Ive never claimed to support the so-called two state solution.  But Zionists here in the UK have gone into collective panic.

The first thing I noticed was a post to Harry's Place by a chap called Stephen Hoffman.  Actually that's where I got the text of the motion from.  Here's what Zionists are suggesting should be done to neutralise the motion:

At end, add’, on the conclusion of successful peace negotiations between the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority.

which of course means, this House believes that the Government should never recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.

Now the original motion is pretty weak and open to interpretation.  A state of Palestine alongside Israel could be in Syria, Jordan, Egypt or Lebanon.  But according to the Jewish Chronicle,

The [Zionist] activist said MPs backing the motion had been "very clever. The motion is very blandly worded and could be interpreted as being supportive of a two-state solution, which all key groups here support".

Yup, it's certainly bland but how could the words "recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel"  be open to any interpretation other than support for a two state solution?

Ah I know, the JC very smartly avoiding quoting the motion so here it is again just in case Marcus Dysch (who else?) happens to pop by:

this House believes that the Government should recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel

Bad news for one staters like me but why is the JC so down on it it won't even show it to its readers?

BICOM briefing boob

Many thanks to Mike Cushman on the Just Peace UK list for linking to this Guido Fawkes' blog post about an embarrassing mispost by BICOM CEO, Lorna Fitzsimmons.  It appears that an email from her intended only for the eyes of donors to the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre got sent instead to the media.  As it happens, Fitzsimmons's mistake was first reported in the Daily Mail which, remarkably, stands to the left of the Guido Fawkes' blog but the latter's post is more detailed:

After his story earlier in the week about pro-Israel lobby group BICOM, Guido was tipped that their CEO Lorna Fitzsimons, the former Labour MP, was in some serious trouble. He was tracking down an email that was accidentally sent out on Monday to some of BICOM’s media list instead of the intended recipients – the donors. Annoyingly Ephraim Hardcastle beat him to it this morning and reveals how Lorna blurted to the world that she has been:

“…liaising with BBC and Sky to ensure ‘the most objectively favourable line was taken…I briefed Jonathan Ford, the Financial Times leader writer for his upcoming leading article… BICOM had regular contact with the Editor at Large of Prospect magazine, David Goodhart, helping to inform him about the forthcoming UN vote on Palestinian statehood…”

We have put the whole email online here. It’s standard lobbyist boasting, but Guido imagines the FT editors will take a dim view of any sign of them being influenced by a PR operation. A BICOM source tried to play down the story as“mildly embarrassing”, but it was the comment given to the Mailthat really tickled Guido: “A BICOM spokesman denies that Ms Fitzsimons is to lose her job.” If you have to say it…

There's a little bit more to the post and the pdf of the email is worth a look at.

Palestinian bid for statehood

As anyone who follows these things will know, the Palestinian Authority leadership is intending to make a bid for statehood at the UN. Quite honestly I can't say what it all means but I have grave misgivings about the exercise because I don't see how a state with no land and no power differs from the situation for the Palestinians now. Of course the PA has nominal power in the West Bank but it is considered by many to be hopelessly corrupt both financially and criminally and so in thrall to Israel as to be an appendage of the Israeli state. So, if the UN recognises such an entity as a state can't zionists carry on expanding, colonising, segregating, ethnic cleansing and slaughtering business as usual only at the same time as saying that the Palestinians have what they wanted?

That was just off the top of my head but there are also warnings coming out of Palestinian quarters to the effect that the PA does not represent the entirety of the Palestinian people so the statehood bid would not enhance the rights of the Palestinians but curtail them. The PA does not represent the Palestinians in Israel, Gaza or the diaspora. It doesn't even truly represent the Palestinians of the West Bank. This means that the PA doesn't have the required authority to make the bid but also any state emerging from the bid would have the same lack of authority but would be assumed by many to have authority, even to write off the rights of the bulk of the Palestinian people.

There's a statement here from the Palestinian Youth Movement titled Statement on the September 2011 Declaration of Statehood.  Here's a little chunk:

This declaration serves as a mechanism for rescuing the faulty peace framework and depoliticizing the struggle for Palestine by removing the struggle from its historical colonial context. The attempts to impose a false peace with the normalizing of the colonial regime has only led us to surrender increasing amounts of our land, the rights of our people, and our aspirations by delegitimizing and marginalizing our people’s struggle and deepening the fragmentation and division of our people. This declaration jeopardizes the rights and aspirations of over two-thirds of the Palestinian people who live as refugees in countries of refuge and in exile, to return to their original homes from which they were displaced in the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) and subsequently since then. It also jeopardizes the position of the Palestinians residing in the 1948 occupied territories who continue to resist daily against the ethnic cleansing and racial practices from inside the colonial regime. Furthermore, it corroborates and empowers its Palestinian and Arab partners to act as the gatekeepers to the occupation and the colonization of the region within a neo-colonial framework.

Still, The Guardian's main resident zionist, Jonathan Freedland, supports the bid, and why wouldn't he?