the limping messenger

A reposting of a news-tableau published in December 2012 on my Flickr news-tableau pages. Not much has changed since, or it must be for the worst with the proposed move of the USA embassy to Jerusalem that will trigger anything but a solution of a conflict that seems to us mortals to be eternal. At least this reposting shows that also in the Obama and Clinton political area USA diplomacy was far from creative when it came to go beyond the stalemate in the Middle East.

THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE FOR A PALESTINIAN STATE & THE HOLY FAMILY with Mother Mary Clinton and her fiance Joseph Timmermans

THE HOLY FAMILY & THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE FOR A PALESTINIAN STATE
MARY CLINTON “unfortunate and counterproductive”
JOSEPH TIMMERMANS “premature and unwise”

Two foreign policy Ministers speaking out on the vote on November the 29th 2012 in the United Nations on upgrading the status of Palestine in the UN. The United States voted Against with 8 other states and The Netherlands was one of the 41 abstention states that did vote neither ‘for’ nor ‘against’, still favouring a new Palestinian state, but along another trajectory. With 138 of 193 states voting ‘for’ what Palestine President Abbas called “the birth certificate of the reality of the state of Palestine” was passed.

The name of the (new) Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs ‘Timermans’ means ‘carpenter’ in Dutch, and thus my association with the Biblical scenes of ‘Joseph the Carpenter’ who has ‘no voice’ in the scriptures, but is believed to be the one who changes the feeding ‘crib’ in the stable where the Blessed Virgin Mary delivered the Child of God, into a ‘cradle’ for the the new born.

Palestine, the ‘land of milk and honey’, symbolised by a crib to both feed live-stock and as a warm comfortable nest for a new born to be laid down on a cloth covering the straw: either a Jewish ‘tallit’ (Hebrew: טַלִּית) or a Palestinian ‘kufiya’ (Arabic: كوفية).

Metaphorical questions arise from this imagery. One crib for two infants? Two separate cribs, or a Judgement of Solomon whereby Joseph the Carpenter will be asked to take his saw and split the crib into two? There are other possible readings. Is the Holy Infant single or multiple? If more than one, are they twins, maybe even Siamese twins? Can one speak in the case of twins about the oldest one, having the oldest rights? Are the superlative a-historical claims as spoken by the Israeli ambassador at the United Nations Ron Prosor “No decision of the United Nations can break the 4000 year old bond between the people of Israel and the land of Israel”, to be taken as true?

You need to be a true believer to be convinced that virgins can deliver babies. Still, many Christians, do accept the concept of ‘immaculate conception’ of Maria herself – forever free of sin -by her mother and father Saint Joachim and Saint Anne, followed by the later ‘incarnation’ of God in the human form of Jesus Christ by a mother that remained a virgin.

—–
“And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.
—–

There has been a raging discussion- over millennia – in the great variety of Christian Church Institutions, how this actually could happen, and – most important – when she conceived without assistance of a human male, who then was the father.

There is a strong association with the clerical debate about the ‘immaculate conception’ of Maria and the incarnation of God and the tormented way in which these two “new nations” Palestine and Israel were conceived. They are young states, each with their claim of an ancient origin. It is not so much about what exists and can happen in real life, but more about believe systems of an imagined past. Concepts of such ‘imagined nations’ are hardened by differing and warring schools of religious leaders, archeologists, linguists, historians, lawyers, geographers, anthropologists, who all massage and shape “their facts” to let them fit the different views of a ‘promised land’.

The voting on November the 29th in the UN came 65 years after the then still infant organisation, proposed the partition of the what had become over time the British Protectorate of Palestine, into two states, one of them Israel. Two years later in 1949 Israel became the 59th member state of the United Nations. At that time the Soviet Union was one of the Great Powers that supported the creation of this new state. There was a lot opposition and dissatisfaction though from Palestinians finding themselves excluded and expelled. All neighbouring Arab states were against either the partition as such, or details o how territory was supposed to be divided. A whole series of violent clashes over territory and control delayed and changed the forming of a Palestinian State, that was finally proclaimed in the year 1988. Pro-Palestine voted 90 from the then 159 member states of the UN in that year.

To use – 24 years later – the word “premature” for a vote on further acknowledging the rights of Palestinians to their own independent state, is best expressed with the Jidish/Dutch word ‘gotspe’, ‘chtuzpah’ in English usage, meaning an ‘aggressive boldness or unmitigated effrontery’. The Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Timmermans did use the word “premature” adding another one “unwise” (in Dutch “ontijdig en onverstandig”) and thus he echoed State Secretary Clinton with her widely quoted catchwords for the pro-Palestine UN vote: “unfortunate and counterproductive.”

Curiously Timmermans, before he accepted the job as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the new Dutch Government formed in autumn this year, has been actively pledging for a pro-Palestinian position in the Dutch parliament and on the level of the European Union. He has extensively explained away his change of policy with lots of diplomatic finery, but for most voters on his party the social-democrat PvdA it simply remains a betrayal of principles.

There are now 131 from 193 UN member states that voted for the upgrading of Palestine position toward an de facto independent state. Against were 9 states with Canada, the Czech Republic, Panama, The USA and a series of small USA vassal states in the Pacific.

From the 41 states that chose to abstain from voting there was a big contingent from the European Union. The EU is now split in two camps when it comes to the tactical view on how to favour a peace process in the Middle East with these ‘twins’ that do not want to fit in the same crib.

In favour: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Cyprus, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Sweden.

Abstentions: Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and United Kingdom.

It should be noted that two world powers, other than the United States, China and the Russian Federation, have voted pro-Palestine.

How “unfortunate and counterproductive” the merely symbolic vote for the new Palestine state will be, will not only be determined by the State of Israel. The first reactions of the big loss of support of Israel in the UN were immediately accusations of “lies” being told by the President of Palestine and punishing measures of expanding the building of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land, plus the freezing of tax and other assets belonging to the Palestinian Authority.

A signal has been given by so many members of the United Nations now, that they want to see an end to what has become known as ‘the endless conflict’. It is a signal, not so much to ‘the old warrior guard’ that is leading Israel on the path of ‘no solution’ expressed by the continuous state of ‘low-intensity-war’ with an imprisoned neighbour, but to the Israeli population at large.

Time to think up another kind of future. Time for a new generations of politicians to differentiate themselves fundamentally from all those who have failed decade after decade, who came with all those ‘solutions’ that have generated even more problems, with ;the wall’ just as one of the most obvious examples.

Two equally comfortable ‘cribs’ for two infants that once they come to a settlement will be able to learn how to share that thing which is beyond division: the future…