On November 29, 2010 the United Nations held its annual Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. This was the 63^rd anniversary of the UN General Assembly resolution which partitioned Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state - a resolution accepted by the Jewish inhabitants and rejected across the Arab world. The Palestinians call this day the 'Naqba', or 'catastrophe'. Yet, the real catastrophe is that 63 years after adoption of the partition plan, the Palestinians have still not ceased the relentless attempt to eradicate the Jewish State.

At UN Headquarters, the day was marked by speeches from various UN leaders, Heads of State and Government, Foreign Ministers and NGOs. In addition, the attendees were 'treated' to a performance by the Ashtar Theatre, entitled Gaza Monologues, and a special photographic exhibit, "Summer Games in Gaza", presented by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), in cooperation with the Permanent Mission of Finland to the United Nations and under the auspices of the Committee.

The Setting

The meeting room was - again - adorned with just two flags, the UN flag and a Palestinian flag. The flag of the UN member state of Israel was nowhere to be seen.

Speakers included: Riyad Mansour, Palestinian Observer to the UN, Mark Lyall Grant (U.K.), President of the Security Council; Joseph Deiss (Switzerland), President of the General Assembly; Abdul Salam Diallo (Senegal), Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People; Palitha Kohona (Sri Lanka), Chairman of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories. North Lawn Building, UN Headquarters, New York

The Speeches

The day was formally opened by Abdou Salam Diallo, Chair of the Committee, who declared that "The question of Palestine weighs heavily on our collective consciousness as the great unfinished business of the twentieth century." Genocide in Sudan, poverty and hunger in Africa, a billion Chinese without basic rights, gender apartheid for tens of millions of women across the Arab world, or global terrorism sponsored by Muslim extremists didn't come to his mind.

Once again, antisemitism and continued rejection of a Jewish state were evident throughout the proceedings.

Riyad Mansour, Observer of Palestinian UN Mission, speaking on behalf of Mahmoud Abbas, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and President of the Palestinian Authority, called Israel's security fence intended to protect its population an "apartheid wall," and "the ugly face of the occupation." Ten months before launching the unilateral statehood bid, he told participants: "we strongly reject all unilateral actions by Israel."

Maged A. Abdelaziz, UN Ambassador of Egypt, speaking for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, on behalf of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, objected to any requirement that the citizens of Israel have "allegiance to the Jewish character of the State."

Yahya A. Mahmassani, UN representative of the League of Arab States, speaking on behalf of Amre Moussa, Secretary-General of the Arab League: "It is clear that Israel's...efforts to make Israel a Jewish State create difficulties and obstacles..."

There was only one invited NGO representative - billed as "speaking on behalf of civil society." The speech by Judith Le Blanc, Member of the Steering Committee of the United States Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, complained about what she called "the powerful, moneyed, pro-Israel lobby" in the United States, and proceeded to declare "boycotts, divestment and sanctions are best."

The Published Messages of Support

The 60-plus year rejection of the Jewish state by Arab and Muslim countries and their UN-based campaign to destroy Israel - given full vent on Palestinian Solidarity Day - also took other forms. The UN published "Messages Received on the Occasion of the International Day of Solidarity With The Palestinian People." They included repeated references to the foul abomination of a Jew living on what is claimed as Arab land.

Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of Algeria:

...the Judaization of the city of Jerusalem...constitute further impediments to the permanent and just resolution of the Palestinian issue......the criminal logic of the Zionist entity.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran:

The establishment of the fabricated Zionist regime...are among the roots of the Palestinian question and the Middle Eastern crisis.

King Abdullah Bin Al Hussein of Jordan:

...the continual endeavour to Judaize Palestinian areas...

King Mohammed VI of Morocco:

...the current crucial situation, which is the result of the Israeli Government's persistent policy of...Judaization...

Musa M. Abdussalam Kousa, Secretary of the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya:

No other people in the world has suffered the injustice to which the Palestinian people is subjected. It is the only people that has had to endure colonial settlement that is using every possible means to drive it from its land in order to establish there a racist State exclusively for Jews... We trust that the so-called peace process will not one day prove to be a mere waste of time and a means of empowering the Israeli entity to extend its authority over the whole of historical Palestine and to establish, exclusively for Jews, a racist State in which there are no Palestinians. The time has therefore come for the international community to declare its support for the proposal to establish a single, democratic State in historical Palestine, to which all the Palestine refugees may return...

Walid Al-Moualem, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Syrian Arab Republic:

As we observe this day, Israel continues to perpetrate the most repugnant violations and crimes against the Palestinian people and, indeed, all Arab peoples...the Judaization of Jerusalem...

The "Cultural Performance": "The Gaza Monologues"

UN Headquarters, New York, November 29, 2010

The UN press release urging the public and all UN staff and diplomats to attend read:

"In observance of the Solidarity Day, a cultural performance entitled The Gaza Monologues will be presented by the Ramallah-based Ashtar Theatre in Conference Room 2-NLB, immediately after the special meeting. Some 25 young people will narrate personal statements written by children in Gaza in the wake of the 2008-2009 Israeli offensive."

"The Israeli offensive" is how the UN described Israel's decision finally to respond to the terrorization of hundreds of thousands of its citizens by 12,000 mortar and rockets over eight years. But the UN provided no context for the war - no mention of Hamas terrorists living and operating and hiding among the civilian population, no mention of the gross violation of the prohibition against the use of human shields - just the suggestion of a bloodthirsty Jewish enemy let loose upon innocent Arab children.

The performance was about the suffering of Palestinian children perpetrated by Israel. There was no mention of the effect of Palestinian terrorism on Jewish children from southern Israel, many of whom have had to learn to live in bomb shelters since Hamas came to power in Gaza in 2007.

The only unmistakable message was the demonization of Israel. The lines of one "child" actor: "The Israeli planes were in the air. The sounds of the helicopter was like a monster waiting to pounce on its prey." Or another: "I don't have anyone who was martyred...but we were very upset for our chickens."

The Public Exhibit at UN Headquarters: "Summer Games in Gaza"

Joseph Deiss, President of the General Assembly (2010), opening the exhibition

The "Summer Games" exhibit repeated the theme of the morning's performance; it told the story of Palestinian children suffering because of the seemingly gratuitous evil of Israel; conflict with Israel had no source or explanation; border crossings had no purpose but to cause grief to the innocent. No mention was made of the government in Gaza sworn to the annihilation of both Israel and the Jewish people, and actively promoting and perpetrating terrorist activities on a daily basis.

Instead, the UN propaganda exhibit on the UNRWA-sponsored summer camp for Gaza children had posters reading: "...the socio-economic situation of ordinary Palestinians has been in steady decline, notably...since the imposition of the blockade. Years of conflict have left the vast majority of the population in need of international assistance." And again, "Erez Crossing: Open six days a week, during day time, for the movement of aid workers and limited number of authorized Palestinian medical and humanitarian cases."

Maps read "Israel-declared No-Go zone" and "Double wire fence with watch towers" and "Closed and Restricted Areas" - without any inkling as to why they would be necessary or the Gaza government's war against the existence of a Jewish state, or the words of the Charter of Gaza's governing party: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it...There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad..."

The UN General Assembly Debate: November 29-30, 2010

When the UN Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People was finished with its meeting, Solidarity Day moved to the General Assembly and the debate on its agenda item "The Question of Palestine." For a day and a half, antisemitism and the delegitimization of a UN member state were permitted in the primary policy-making body of the UN - the global organization founded on the ashes of the Jewish people, and theoretically dedicated to "the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small":

Syria

In the light of the continuation of the suffering of the Palestinian people, resulting from the Israeli occupation, that settler, racist occupation...the act of cancerous settlement...Israel...works...to Judaize the city...Israel targets innocent civilians...Israel...shows and rears its ugly face...It believes in racism...

Qatar

...it is quite clear that military occupation is the main reason for the problem and it will not provide security for Israel. It is the worst violation of human rights against a defenseless and persecuted people on the pretext of combating violence and terrorism. As a matter of fact, it is one of the radical reasons for terrorism.

Palestinian Observer

To this day, the Palestinian people continue to suffer the consequences of the 1948 Nakba, in which they were uprooted and dispersed from their homeland...

Libya

...the Zionist leaders...had further ambitions. They wanted to benefit as much as they could from the sympathy of the great powers with the Jews because of what took place with them at the hands of Nazism. Hence, the Zionist movement established armed terrorist organizations...they attacked all the Arab territories in Palestine and...was able to dominate 77% of the Palestinian territories after bloody butchering of the Palestinians... Palestinians are living in separate areas like the racist Bantu Stands that we witnessed before in South Africa...laws that aim at ethnic cleansing in Palestine...The General Assembly in its resolution 3379 of 10 November 1975, the GA declared that Zionism is a form of racial discrimination. It wasn't faulty, as some tried to prove. Zionism, in reality, is the worst form of racism because of its practices of racial discrimination and its belief in ethnic cleansing in Palestine as a way to establish exclusively Jewish state...Israel... has become a colonial project based on the system of apartheid or racial discrimination...Because of this deadlock, it has become urgent to consider another solution...that takes place on the whole territories of historical Palestine, a state where all the Palestinian refugees would return...The Israeli entity's practices wouldn't leave any help for another solution except the solution of the single state. Hence, we have to choose between either that state with the racial state imposed by the Zionists and would be limited to the Jews alone or to be a democratic state imposed by the international community...

Lebanon

...the Israeli occupation...is akin to...apartheid because of...the adoption of laws and regimes and racial and discrimination policies...

Iran

...in the history of the Zionist regime existence, there is nothing but crimes killing men, women and children in Palestine, the use of banned weapons and stockpiling nuclear weapons, blind assassinations, attacks on civilians...

Yemen

The tragic situation in the Palestinian Territories, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as a result of assassination and genocide and state terrorism...

The UN General Assembly Resolutions - November 29-30, 2010

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People transmitted four draft resolutions to the General Assembly (under the agenda item "The Question of Palestine.") The drafts were all adopted by the General Assembly on November 30, 2010.