PA readying diplomatic assault on Israel
The Palestinian Authority is laying the groundwork for another major diplomatic assault on Israel on the backdrop of the United Nations General Assembly’s annual debate next month.
Speaking to the Palestinian Authority’s Voice of Palestine radio station on Sunday, Omar Awadallah, the head of the U.N. department in the P.A. Foreign Ministry, said that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is expected to travel to Ramallah after the UNGA meetings, while International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan is scheduled to visit in October.
Neither Guterres’s nor Khan’s office could confirm the plans to JNS, with the ICC stating that “this information is not accurate.” However, both officials have recently indicated their wish to visit P.A.-controlled areas in Judea and Samaria.
In December, during the ICC’s annual Assembly of States Parties in The Hague, Khan asserted that “God willing” he intends to visit “Palestine” in 2023. At the time, Israel’s Kan News public broadcaster quoted the court as confirming that “a visit to Palestine is one of the prosecutor’s goals for next year.”
At the same time, the U.N. Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP), which consists of 25 U.N. member states in addition to the PLO and other observers, said last week that it had persuaded Guterres to visit the region.
Riyad Mansour, the PLO envoy to the U.N., said on Aug. 22 following a meeting with Guterres, “He agreed that [for] the Palestinian people who are very fed up and frustrated and angered by the brutality of this Israeli occupation and the terrorist settlers, a visit from the secretary-general of the U.N.—and what the U.N. represents and what multilateralism represents to all of us—is extremely significant and important.
“We are happy and delighted that we are in the stage of preparing for this visit with the secretary-general to take place as soon as possible,” Mansour told journalists in remarks that went largely unreported.
Experts in Israel believe Ramallah is trying to capitalize on recent tensions between Jerusalem and the international community at a time when the Jewish state is facing a wave of Palestinian terror.
Lapid to meet US officials in DC as Netanyahu visit still up in the air
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid of the Yesh Atid Party will travel to the United States next week for high-level meetings in Washington, his office said on Tuesday.
Lapid is to meet with senior officials at the White House and the State Department as well as members of Congress.
During the meetings, U.S. officials intend to bring up the normalization process with Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has requested American help for a Saudi civilian nuclear program in exchange for ties with Israel, a demand that Lapid has publicly opposed.
“I am very much in favor of a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia,” he said during a TV interview earlier this month, before adding, “But not at the expense of uranium enrichment that would endanger Israel’s security.”
Lapid’s planned visit comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been snubbed, so far denied a traditional White House visit. On July 17, more than six months after Netanyahu returned to the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, U.S. President Joe Biden invited Netanyahu for a meeting “somewhere in the United States” at some time “later this year.”
It is still unclear whether the long-expected meeting will take place at the White House.
Netanyahu is expected to fly to New York for the U.N. General Assembly general debate next month, during which he may meet with Biden in the city, although neither side has confirmed details.
“The details are going to be worked out by the different teams,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told journalists last month. “But they have committed to meeting and seeing each other.”
30 yrs later, #OsloAccords, have been systematically violated countless times by Palestinian leadership, w/int’l impunity that undermines infrastructure created to uphold & protect.
— מיכל קוטלר-וונש | Michal Cotler-Wunsh (@CotlerWunsh) August 29, 2023
A glaring example is the weaponization & politicization of the law, inc of the ICC. @i24NEWS https://t.co/alo4BGF7af
Australia must do more about Iran
Earlier this month, Canberra announced that it will officially refer to the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip as “occupied Palestinian territory,” and, moreover, that it deems it “illegal” for Jews to live in the West Bank. In October of last year, the Australian government also reversed its predecessor’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Oved Lobel comments:
Apart from its criticism of Israel, the government says little about other issues and countries in the Middle East. There’s the slight exception of Iran, but even there Australia’s response falls short. [Foreign Minister Penny] Wong used Australia’s Magnitsky powers to impose thematic (human rights) sanctions against Iranian individuals and entities—long after the U.S., Canada, the UK, and the EU had begun doing so—in December 2022, in February this year, and again in March.
It also took Australia substantially longer than most of its allies to condemn Iran or impose sanctions against it for supplying drones and other weapons to Russia for its attack on Ukraine. Australia’s government has not criticized any action by Iran since the foreign minister condemned the May 19 execution of Majid Kazemi, Saeed Yaqoubi, and Saleh Mirhashemi. Iran has reportedly hanged at least 423 people since the start of 2023 and its “morality police” have returned to arresting women for not wearing their hijabs “properly.”
The government has had little to say about events in the Middle East outside of Israel and Iran even though 2022–23 has seen overwhelming regional shifts. In addition, an Australian citizen, Robert Pether, remains unjustly jailed in Iraq, something that ought to warrant a statement.
Meanwhile, pressure has been maintained on Israel despite the Palestinian leadership’s longstanding refusal to accept two-state peace offers or, in recent years, even to engage in negotiations on the subject.