Israel denies financial aid to UNESCO to oppose Palestinian membership

Israel denies financial aid to UNESCO to oppose Palestinian membership

Benjamin Netanyahu ,After the United State, it was Israel’s turn to show anger over UN decision to give recognition to Palestine as a sovereign independent state and full membership. Israeli Prime Minister  called on to stop giving financial aid to UN cultural wing—UNESCO.

Netanyahu  stated that  Israel would discontinue its contribution to UNESCO’s annual budget as the United Nations has accepted Palestine as a member. Israel’s contributions to UN cultural wing accounts for $2 million.

“The prime minister also declared that instead of contributing to UNESCO, Isreal would prefer spending this money  for cooperative initiatives in its region to fulfill similar goals.

Netanyahu’s declaration comes following the United States’ fierce reaction to UNESCO’s voting to accept Palestine as a member of UN. Israel also joined hands with the United States and opposed UN decision.  Israel’s decision of taking back its financial support from UNESCO has been severely criticized by countries across the globe.

He stated that accepting Palestine as its member, UN has pushed peace process back.  Real peace can not be achieved by negotiations with conditions, he added.

The United States pulled its hands back from helping UNESCO. The UNESCO has been receiving 22 percent of its annual budget from the United States.

US vested interests exposed again

Recent incidents have exposed the dual faces of US diplomat once again. The disgusting game of death and destruction, which the United States of America has been playing with rest of the world in the name of promoting democracy and anti-terrorism campaigns is not hidden from anybody.

What the United States justifies its actions with is all to establish peace and democracy, but behind curtains its foreign policy is dictated by oil diplomacy and on ways to seek for reasons to exploit other nations’ resources.

If the Bigg Boss and Uncle Sam today declares Pakistan among suspects of terrorism sponsoring nations and says it would attack the later getting evidence of the accusation, it does not surprise anybody. Be it Afghanistan or Iraq, Cuba or Indo-China, US ambitions have always come up naked.

Recently Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI has been declared a terrorists’ ally and blamed for having a hand behind attack on US Embassy in Kabul.

Experts of politics are in doubt regarding the notion that this declaration is the beginning of US war against Pakistan. Annoyed by Russia and China’s support to Palestinians’ demand for statehood in the UN General Assembly, US gets no excuse to hide its real intentions.

Israel has always been a problem state since its inception. Palestinians were pushed toward margins and suppressed in their own homeland for many decades.

However, even after 20 years of continuous killing of civilians, Palestinians are yet begging for peace. though the United States has always posed to be negotiating with Israel on its behalf for settlement.

However, now the real intentions of the superpower are clear with its strong protest, against Palestinian demand for UN membership as a sovereign state. Palestinian should now better seek for a bilateral solution with Israel rather than looking at the United States or its puppet UN for achieving peace and sovereignty.

France not to support Palestinians in bidding for UN membership

Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian is going to feel the heat of pressure from France and the United States for giving up his bid for UN membership. The two countries are trying to discourage Palestine from seeking for global recognition.

Nicolas Sarkozy, French president is going to express his disapproval of Palestinian desire in the whereas US president Obama will also argue against Palestine, both in the UN general assembly.

U.S. officials revealed that officially both countries had no authority of stopping Abbas from demanding for UN membership but Obama and Sarkozy would try to persuade the Palestinian leader to drop his demand for statehood for Palestine.

Abbas would make a formal request for Palestine’sstatus as an independent country in the UN General Assembly. However it will take a long time for the United Nations to actually proceed with Palestine’s request for statehood and decide on it.

Even if the United States fails to make Abbas not to proceed with demand for UN approval for Palestine’s statehood, Obama will certainly use veto power finally to stop the move.

If the United Nations takes months to proceed with Paqlestinian demand for statehood, it will open a chance for reopening of peace talsk between Israel and Palestine.

Netanyahu sets tough agenda for peace negotiations

The prime Minister of Israel Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu addressed American congress where he asked the Palestinians back to the negotiation table but with a tough stance on some of the issues that divided the two sides. He told congress that the Israeli government is prepared to make concessions in exchange for peace.

His speech to the congress was immediately rejected by the Palestinian officials who declared that the stance of Israel is equivalent to declaration of war against the people of Palestine.

It appears that the speech was accepted by the American law makers who greeted his speech with resounding ovation. The prime minister has presented a proposal that would lead to two separate nations that would be co existing with each other. The proposal that was presented by the prime minister according to him would lead to what he called viable, prosperous and an independent Palestinian state. The speech was high mark of the prime minister’s visit to US thus ending the row that has greeted the Obama 1967 border line agenda.

The prime minister is one of the few world leaders who had the special privilege of appearing before the US congress twice. He told the congress that Israel is ready to make some concessions including land.

Obama reiterates need to respect 1967 borders in Middle East

President Barack Obama believes that the only way to bring about a lasting peace in Mideast is for Israel to respect the 1967 borders. It is the thinking of the administration that peace would continue to elude both Israel and Palestine unless Israel put hold to the expansions that is going on beyond the 1967 borders. The administration believes that it is only a parallel state that exists beside each other that can bring peace to the much troubled Middle East.

This American position is not going down well with the prime minister of Israel Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu. He was furious about the American position and described it as already determining the destiny of the territory in question even the actual talk begins. He said that any talk about the pre 1967 border is completely out of touch with the realities on ground in the Middle East. He said the state of Israel would never agree to such a proposal.

The prime minister criticized the policy  by president Obama as well as the Republican party presidential aspirant Miti Romney saying that they have thrown the state of Israel under the bus. The reactions from the inside and outside the US and Israel are such furious that people have started wondering whether Obama is trying to undermine the state of Israel.

Egyptian demonstrators support Palestine

The military and Egyptian protesters clashed on Monday outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo. The protest was organized in support of the Palestinian struggle against Israel.

About 40 of the demonstrators were injured and many arrests made when the Egyptian military responded to the protests with rubber bullets as well as tear gas. The protesters had tried to gain access to the Israeli embassy. The protest was planned to be peaceful but clashes soon start when some of the protesters changed mind and tried to gain entrance forcefully to the embassy.

It was a bloody Sunday when some Palestinian refugees tried to forcefully gain entrance into Israel from their base in Lebanon and Syria. The security forces of Lebanon and Israel responded with gun fire several of the refugees were killed although few of them still managed to gain access to Israel through the fences. Also the forces fired at Palestinians who were protesting. The protesters tried to force their way into the border with Gaza Strip which was heavily fortified with armed soldiers. Also Palestinians in west bank took to street, holding flags and waving the old key which is a sign that they would one day reclaim their territory which Israel sized in 1948. The Palestine leader Mr. Abbass has also said that the blood of the Palestinians would never be in vain.

Fatah-Hamas sign peace deal

The rifts between two leading Palestine political organization Fatah and Hamas have come to an end following a peace deal entered between the rivalry Palestinian organizations.

In a swift reaction to the peace deal Israeli government rejected it. United States of America is still studying the peace deal to know whether it will accept it or not.  Part of the deal is that the two bodies are to share political offices between themselves pending the general election which will be due by next year.

To ensure that the western world particularly United States of America welcome the peace deal the Palestinian Authority president Mahmood Abbas has reassured that he is still in charge of the Palestinian state and that he is unequivocally committed to peace noting that there is nothing in the peace deal that his allies in the West should be skeptical about.

However it appears that the international community is waiting for the deal to be worked out to know which side of the swing they will take to. They are waiting to know who is going to occupy which position in the transitional government. They are waiting to know which ministerial portfolio that Hamas is going to occupy.

The problem the international community had with Hamas is that it is not recognizing the state of Israel and has still not denounced violence. The international community would not have anything to do with Hamas until it renounces violence and recognize the state of Israel. The consortium of concerned Palestinians who worked out the peace is optimistic that Hamas will opt for peace.

Israel refutes unity deal with Palestine

The Palestinian territories are now under the whim of a fight for power sharing. The Palestinian leaders including that of the rival factions HAMAS and Fatah are trying to make an agreement with the rival Israel to for a shared jurisdiction over the disputed land in order to establish peace in the region.

The diplomats expect the deal to create more chances for Palestine to exist or survive as a separate and sovereign identity.  However, Israel does not seem to be appeased with the proposal.

Israel rejected the offer from the Palestinian groups citing their insistence to defy its identity as a country and also due to the continuous violent activities carried by them.

At present HAMAS control the territory of Gaza strip and its representative Moussa Abu Marzouk is leading the talks with Israel over unity deal proposal.  He called it as an end of a period in Palestinian history to free people from territorial jails.

Azzam Al Ahmed, a delegate from the Fatah group stated that Palestinian territories have been ruled by division and people wanted an end of this division and occupation era. He called the initiative to establish a power sharing deal was called as an achievement for the Palestinian youth.

US to follow new strategy for establishing peace in Middle East

Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State stated that the United States is formulating new strategy to promote Arab-Israeli peace and also to resolve conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Clinton revealed that President Barack Obama is to lay out new U.S. policy to tackle with the Middle East issues as well as North Africa in order to establish peace in these regions. The US president initiated a direct dialogue over Israel-Palestine peace however America is pressurized now with the possibilities that Palestinians might seek help from the United Nations to form a Palestinian state.

Mrs. Clinton further stated that the president would talk over US policy toward Middle East and North Africa coming week. She explained that the US interests are same toward human values and commitments to establish harmony and peace in the world as they have been and it pledges to resolve conflicts and remove terrorism from the entire world. She reiterates US aim to resolve Middle East issues and says that the nation is eager to reinitiate the peace process.

The US secretary of state discussed the problems of mass revolutions in Middle East and other parts of the world that are fighting against authoritarian rulers. She attributed the unrests in Arab World as impacts of the same in Tunisia and Egypt, inspiring Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Syria to follow the same path.

Demonstrators protest against Syrian regime

Demonstrators protest against Syrian regime

Syrians witnessed an intense upsurge of feelings against the autocratic government with thousands of demonstraters marching in the capital ciry roaring slogans against the President Bashar al-Assad. Many of the protesters have been killed and injured during fierce clashes with the government supporting security forces in Syria.

Surprisingly, the demonstrations speeded up after the Syrian president tried to lure and appease them with some economic and political concessions.

The international community involving security forces from the United States, Israel and Europe affirm that Assad’s government is losing control over the regime.

The unrest among Syrian people has a great potential of turning into a wide scale violent rebel to force Mr Assad to step down from president’s post.

The international community fears over the possibilities of another unrest in the Middle East following Syrian crisis.

The political crisis stated in the last week amidst rebels everywhere in the Middle East—following Egypt, Southern Syrian towns have witnessed violent confrontations among government security forces and protesters and in the capital city Damascus.

Last Friday thousands of protesters came into streets asking fo reforms and grieved over the death of people during violence clashes with security forces. If the same situation continues, Syria might face regional repercussions. Being a key factor in the Middle East politics, Syria influences Iran, Lebanon and Palestine, It supports Hezbollah and Hamas and this way creates a pain to the United States, which has always boasted to be the big brother, and crusader of anti-terrorism campaign.