Shameless hypocrisy watch: The UN Palestine Committee and Arab "support" for the Palestinians

One of the most revolting of United Nations organizations, the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, met on November 30, International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

The Committee is repulsive not only because it’s the twin brother of the United Nation’s repulsive “Zionism is racism” resolution, born on the same day—November 10, 1975. It’s repulsive because, in the words of the Anti-Defamation League, it’s “the single most prolific source of material bearing the official imprimatur of the U.N. which maligns and debases the Jewish State. The CEIRPP has served as a forum for anti-Israel rhetoric and represents the worst example of institutionalized anti-Israel bias in the United Nations.”

International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, according to the committee, is actually November 29. This is the anniversary of the United Nations vote approving the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. Here’s the committee’s explanation of the day’s significance:

The date of 29 November was chosen because of its meaning and significance to the Palestinian people. On that day in 1947, the General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (II), which came to be known as the Partition Resolution. That resolution provided for the establishment in Palestine of a “Jewish State” and an “Arab State”, with Jerusalem as a corpus separatum under a special international regime. Of the two States to be created under this resolution, only one, Israel, has so far come into being.

It is shameless hypocrisy to imply that Israel is somehow responsible for the fact that no Arab state resulted from the partition. The Palestinian Arab state never came into being because (1) the Arabs started a war to prevent the Jewish state from being born, after which (2) Jordan occupied the West Bank, while Egypt occupied Gaza during Israel’s Independence War, continuing the occupations until the 1967 war.

There was no Palestinian Arab state in 1948 because the Arabs decisively rejected it.

The Arabs pretend that this isn’t true; they pretend that it doesn’t matter; and they have persuaded countless people that it isn’t true and doesn’t matter. But it is nonetheless shameless hypocrisy.

Getting back to the Committee on the Inalienable etc. and the International Day of etc, it’s a splendid opportunity for the Arab leaders to show how much they care for the Palestinians—how their hearts bleed, their eyes weep, their teeth gnash. And the Arab rulers never disappoint.

For example, King Mohammed VI of Morocco sent a message to the committee that was probably written by a committee:

As we commemorate the International Day of solidarity with the Palestinian people, it gives me great pleasure to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to the members of the esteemed Committee for its untiring efforts in regional and international forums to uphold the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.
I commend the action of all those who have been working to support the just Palestinian cause as well as the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to establish an independent state with Al-Quds al-Sharif as its capital. Because of its work, your Committee is held in high regard by all supporters and advocates of freedom, security and peace in the world.
I have sought to remain in close touch with your esteemed Committee not only because the Palestinian cause is a fundamental one for us, but also because I am keen to continue supporting the steadfast Palestinian people so that they may achieve their legitimate right to an independent homeland, in which their human dignity would be safeguarded, and their cultural identity preserved.

UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan used Palestinian Solidarity Day to blame Israel:

After we had been encouraged by the efforts of U.S. administration and the Quartet, based on the roadmap envisioning the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, we and the international community were surprised that the Israeli government once again revealed the true intentions of hostilities against the Palestinians to disrupt and thwart any efforts to help achieve their aspirations in their own legitimate and independent country," he said and added: "Israel was not content with intimidating the Palestinian people and exercising the worst forms of aggression against them, especially in Gaza strip, as witnessed by the report of UN investigation commission known as the Goldstone Commission, but it persisted in the closure policy of Gaza strip and the cities of the West Bank and it continued its aggression and illegal settlement besides building the separation wall deep into the West Bank and Jerusalem." "UAE expresses its disappointment at the continuing inability of the international community to face all these Israeli practices, which is punishable by international law and international humanitarian law under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.

Not to be outdone, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem wrote the committee a letter, complaining that the international community didn’t care enough about the Palestinians.

The Arab states gives such reflexive lip service to the “Palestinian cause” because that’s all they give. Oh, pardon me—they do support Palestinian terrorism. But when it’s time to actually help alleviate the suffering of the Palestinians, the Arabs beg to be excused.

Michael Freund wrote scathingly about this recently in the Jerusalem Post:

For all their talk of standing by the Palestinians, the Arab regimes sure have a strange way of showing it. Despite reaping an oil-driven windfall last year of unprecedented proportions, few Arab states seem willing to dig very deep into their own pockets to back up their concern with cash.
Indeed, the hollowness of their pro-Palestinian pronouncements was unambiguously on display last week in Amman, at a meeting of the Advisory Commission of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, better known by its acronym of UNRWA. . . .
In 2008, the combined revenues of the GCC states from oil production amounted to a whopping $575b. Yet their joint contribution to UNRWA's regular budget was a little more than $3.6m., signifying less than one one-thousandth of a percent of their total petroleum income! Bahrain gave a miserly $50,000, Oman forked over just $25,000, while Saudi Arabia coughed up zero.
I've been to Hadassah dinners where more money was raised in an hour than the Arab states seem willing to part with in an entire year.
In fact, over the past two decades, Arab regimes have been providing a steadily decreasing percentage of UNRWA's funding. In the 1980s, their contributions amounted to 8% of the group's annual budget, whereas now they comprise barely 3%.

The Arab states insist on keeping the Palestinian “refugees” in squalid camps, then refuse to contribute to the maintenance of the camps, then send plaintive and supportive missives to the UN Committee on the Inalienable Right of the Palestinian People to be Alternately Sucker-Punched then Ignored by their Arab Brethren While Blaming Israel. One would search in vain for a finer example of shameless hypocrisy.