UN Committee wants a UN "Palestine Occupation Remembrance Day" Mimicking Holocaust Remembrance Day

A UN Committee has embraced the idea of a remembrance day for Palestinians mimicking Holocaust remembrance day. The comments came during a meeting on May 17, 2017 at UN Headquarters of the "UN Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People." Addressing the Committee, the Palestinian representative harked back to the alleged original crime of the creation of Israel itself. In the words of Feda Abdelhady Nasser: "we meet in these days that the Palestinian people are solemnly commemorating the 69th anniversary of the Nakba of 1948, an injustice that our people continue to suffer the consequences of to this very day." The remarks are a stark reminder of the reason Israel has no Palestinian peace partner.

The Palestinian Rights Committee is composed of 26 UN member states and another 24 observers, and includes many countries with some of the world's worst human rights records, such as Cuba, Pakistan, Turkey, Venezuela, China, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen. The Committee's executive is: Senegal (Chair), Malta (Rapporteur), Cuba (Vice-Chair), Indonesia (Vice-Chair), Nicaragua (Vice-Chair). The latter three do not even have diplomatic relations with Israel.

At Wednesday's meeting, the UN Committee engaged in another display of modern antisemitism by appropriating Jewish history and experience as Palestinian. Reporting on the Committee's recent activities, Ambassador Carmelo Iguanez (Malta) called for the UN to establish a "Palestine Occupation Remembrance Day" and repeatedly referred to a "Palestinian diaspora."

Similarly, Palestinian representative Feda Abdelhady Nasser alleged there was "Israeli settler terror and incitement against our people" - well aware of the reality of Palestinian terrorism and incitement.

Nasser then demanded more money from the UN, by way of an increase to the budget of the UN's Palestinian Refugee Agency, UNRWA. The money grab was made openly without regard to the needs of any other community around the globe. In her words: "We...have recently circulated to all delegations a...resolution aimed at stabilizing and sustainably funding UNRWA...Here I believe it is necessary to clarify for delegations that...there is no call for an increase in the UN regular budget itself, but rather for a larger share for UNRWA from the budget...for the organization as a whole for the 2018-2019 biennium."

During the meeting, the Committee also demanded that the Secretary-General start producing written reports on Israel's non-compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 2334. (To date the reports have been oral.) Resolution 2334, adopted in December 2017, was the first time that the Security Council declared Israeli settlements to be illegal, and was adopted after the Obama administration joined forces with the Palestinians and abandoned America's closest ally.

The Committee holds Israel-bashing meetings on a year-round basis. Next up: the Committee adopted the program for a major two-day conference to be held at UN Headquarters on June 29 and 30, 2017.