Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, echoed calls made by Hamas earlier in the day for support for a new Palestinian intifada. 

The most violent confrontations on Thursday occurred in Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron, where Israeli forces fired teargas and plastic-coated rounds as hundreds of protesters threw stones and set alight barricades.

In the Gaza Strip, dozens of protesters gathered near the border fence with Israel and clashed with Israeli troops. Two missiles reportedly launched against Israel later in the day both detonated within the coastal enclave.

Protests took place across the region: in Jordan, demonstrators near the US embassy in Amman torched the US flag and pictures of Trump. In Tunisia, thousands of people joined peaceful protests in Tunis and several other cities, and labour unions called for even bigger demonstrations after Friday prayers.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/07/jerusalem-un-security-council-us-recognition-jerusalem-donald-trump-israel-capital

Two-faced on Israel

Australia has stood against the more rotten and anti-Semitic resolutions of the United Nations. Now, however, it has distinguished itself by, in the esteemed company of Paraguay, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, South Sudan, Togo and four other beacons of freedom and democracy, by abstaining from voting on – i.e. not opposing – a package of six anti-Semitic General Assembly resolutions which would in effect deny Israel’s right to exist as a viable, defensible state. The resolutions stated that ‘any actions taken by Israel, the occupying power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever.’

The only countries voting against the resolution were Israel itself, the US, Canada, and three Pacific micro-States.

While preventing the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is a key point of Mahmoud Abbas’s long term strategy of de-legitimising all Israel ‘from the river to the sea’, support for Israel is actually growing, and even some Arab countries are furtively moving towards co-operation with it in the face of threats from Iran and Syria.

Spectator 

Until now Australia has supported Israel against the odds in the UN and has built up a bank of goodwill there, which makes the present failure to support Israel puzzling. Julie Bishop is thought to be a supporter of Israel. However, anti-Semitism is gaining ground in the ALP, particularly, it seems among MPs whose electorates contain a large Muslim vote.

Jerusalem was the capital of the Jewish nation before the Roman Empire, Christianity, or Islam existed. The Western Wall is the last remnant of the Great Temple. Parts of Jerusalem’s walls were built by King Herod the Great.

The fact that Jerusalem was occupied by brute force, first by the Romans and later by the Muslims, then by the Crusaders, then by the Muslims again is irrelevant to the Jewish moral claim to the city and the sites within it. The resolution says in effect that the Jews have no holy places

Further, to deny the Jews’ historic and intimate link with Jerusalem (‘next year in Jerusalem’ was a Jewish toast during the centuries of exile) is also to deny the historic origins of Christianity; saying in effect that the Christian Bible is bunk. It is the historical equivalent of flat-Earthism. The intimate Judeo-Christian connection with Jerusalem is beyond dispute by any sane person

The Partition Plan was not implemented on the ground. The British did not make any measures to establish the international regime and left the city on 14 May, leaving a power vacuum,[13] as war broke out between the neighboring Arab nations and the newly declared State of Israel. The Battle for Jerusalem ended with Israel in control of west Jerusalem and Jordan controlling the east. On 2 August 1948 the government of Israel declared the Israeli-controlled part of the Jerusalem area Israel-occupied territory.[14] At the end of the 1948-49 War, under the Armistice Agreement, an Armistice Demarcation Line was drawn, with Western Jerusalem occupied by Israel and the whole West Bank occupied by Transjordan. By letter of 31 May 1949, Israel told the UN Committee on Jerusalem that it considered another attempt to implement a united Jerusalem under international regime "impracticable" and favored an alternative UN scenario in which Jerusalem would be divided into a Jewish and an Arab zone.[4] Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion declared "Jewish Jerusalem" (West Jerusalem) an organic, inseparable part of the State of Israel on 5 December 1949. He also declared Israel no longer bound by Resolution 181 and the corpus separatum null and void, on grounds that the UN had not made good on its guarantees of security for the people of Jerusalem under that agreement.[10]

It is little more than a month since Malcolm Turnbull claimed the relationship between Australia and Israel has never been more profound than now. The PM hailed the two nations’ deep ties and shared values after meeting Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

Mr Turnbull said collaboration between Australia and Israel had deepened over the century and was now at its height. But shared values of freedom, democracy and the rule of law were being tested by ‘militant Islamist terrorism’. ‘It is a threat to Israel, a threat to Australia, a threat to all who value and cherish freedom,’ he said.

Is the sole democracy in the Middle East to be supported or not? The latest vote is not merely critical of Israel but will encourage its enemies and have implications fundamental to its very existence. Australia’s failure to support Israel and the US must have been discussed beforehand at a high level – possibly even at Cabinet level. A phone call to New York from Canberra would have settled the matter.

Did the Prime Minister forget what he had said? Is it just another example of the confusion that has characterised every campaign he has been involved in, or is it all just the mouthings of a man who believes deeply in nothing?

Did the Prime Minister forget what he had said? Is it just another example of the confusion that has characterised every campaign he has been involved in, or is it all just the mouthings of a man who believes deeply in nothing?

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