Thursday, September 10, 2020
Elder of Ziyon*The Organization for World Peace (OWP) targets key issues such as war and international security with the aim of educating and challenging individuals as well as larger international institutions to think critically about peaceful solutions to complex issues plaguing society.*The OWP aims to challenge the status quo of resorting to war and destruction both within the national and international space. Instead, the OWP proposes peaceful solutions to these complex issues.
In an article about the Israel/UAE deal, they make the mistake that so many other do in viewing the Palestine issue as the major source of problems in the region:
If other gulf states follow Dubai’s lead, as U.S. diplomats have been pushing them to do, this may mark a turning point in negotiations of a peace deal. But a peace that is achieved by progressively ignoring the territorial claims of millions of Palestinians is not likely to have enduring effects.
One would think that the Organization for World Peace would be a bit more enthusiastic about something that furthers world peace.
The author is a recent graduate from the anti-Israel SOAS at the University of London.
This shortsightedness is perhaps not surprising, when one looks at their overview of the Israel/Palestinian conflict:
At the end of the Second World War, the issue was handed over to the UN, which recommended the division of the country into separate Jewish and Arab states. The partition plan was reluctantly accepted by the Jewish Agency but rejected outright by Arab leaders. The UN General Assembly adopted the resolution in November 1947, triggering the outbreak of civil war across the country. When the British left in May the following year, Jewish leaders in Palestine declared the establishment of the State of Israel, prompting an invasion by the surrounding Arab states. The ensuing war saw Israel emerge victorious, during which conflict 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes, becoming lifelong refugees. By the time of the 1949 armistice agreement, Israel had acquired territory far greater than what it was allocated in the UN Partition Plan of the previous year – territory it would expand upon further during the 1957 Suez Crisis, the Six-Day War of 1967 and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In response to these latter conflicts, the UNSC adopted resolutions 242 and 338, calling for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from territories occupied during the Six Day War. These resolutions formed the basis of the Oslo Accords, signed between 1993 and 1995, in which Israel agreed to recognise the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. Despite this relatively hopeful period, the turn of the century saw a return to violence as Israel stepped-up its building of illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories (a practice adopted in earnest following the 1967 conflict). This government-led, illegal settlement activity continues to be a cause of extreme tension today and is now openly supported by the government of the Unites States.
Besides the many basic factual errors ("700,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes", "1957 Suez Crisis", saying Israel gained territory then, 242 forming a basis for Oslo, and the insane assumption that settlements are the core of the conflict,) this paragraph has startling errors of omission: Nothing about Palestinian terror, whether in 1947 or the 1970s or either intifada. Nothing about Jordan's annexation of the West Bank and Palestinian acquiescence to that. Nothing about Palestinian rejection of multiple peace plans. Nothing about current Palestinians making terrorists into heroes.
This overview shows that OWP is hardly a serious organization, at least in terms of dealing with Israel.
