The Associated Press called it “a striking rupture with past
practice.” But it was more than that. It was an intentional slap in the face to
Israel, President Elect Donald Trump, and all prior presidents who had manfully
resisted the recent UN declaration made possible by lame-duck President Barack
Obama’s decision to abstain from a UN Council vote that condemns Israeli settlements
in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a “flagrant violation of international
law.”
Mr. Obama’s decision to abstain from the council’s 14-0
vote, the AP reported, “is one of the biggest American rebukes of its longstanding
ally in recent memory. And it could have significant ramifications for the
Jewish state, potentially hindering Israel's negotiating position in future
peace talks. Given the world's widespread opposition to settlements, the action
will be almost impossible for anyone, including Trump, to reverse.”
Following the abrupt reversal of longstanding American
policy towards Israel and its numerous enemies in the Middle East, “Israel’s
government publicly accused the Obama administration Sunday of helping create
and push the recently passed United Nations resolution condemning settlement
activity,” according to a Fox News report.
A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
David Keyes, dropped the anvil on the Obama administration: “We have rather
ironclad information from sources in both the Arab world and internationally
that this was a deliberate push by the United States and in fact they helped
create the resolution in the first place.”
Information supplied to Israel through its various sources
has been far more reliable than the laundered data fed to the American media by
Obama operatives, many of whom are concerned with burnishing the legacy of
departing president.
At first taken by surprise, the response from Prime Minister
of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu was typically straight forward:
“Israel categorically rejects the despicable anti-Israeli
resolution at the UN, and will not adhere to it. While the Security Council
does nothing to prevent the massacre of half a million people in Syria, it is
shamefully singling out Israel — the only democracy in the Middle East. The
Obama administration not only failed to defend Israel from this harassment at
the UN, it cooperated with it behind the scenes.”
And the usual corners of the Obama campaign boxing ring are
no longer crowded with reliable Democratic congressmen.
Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Mr. Blumenthal,
who fulsomely supported Obama’s ruinous deal with Iran, issued a demurral,
while patting himself gently on the back:
“Support for Israel
on this issue has been and will continue to be strongly bipartisan. Consistent
with past policy, this Administration must now veto this most recent misguided
and one-sided attempt backed by the Palestinian Authority to isolate Israel and
weaken the peace process. The draft United Nations resolution directly
contradicts the Senate resolution I authored – and passed unanimously last year
– condemning Palestinian terrorism and calling on all parties to return to the
negotiating table immediately and without preconditions. Direct discussions
remain the best avenue to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This United
Nations resolution would undermine, if not undo, the chances for productive
discussions between the two sides.”
US Senator Chuck Schumer recorded for posterity his own dismay: “It is extremely frustrating,
disappointing and confounding that the administration has failed to veto this
resolution. Its actions will move us further from peace in the Middle
East."
Both Mr. Blumenthal
and Mr. Schumer, whose frustration wires are intimately connected, are
prominent American Jews, and both, presumably, have an abiding interest in the survival
of Israel.
The mischievous U.N.
resolution will, in fact, render less possible what has been called a “two
party” resolution of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in Israel. The
United Nations, many of whose members are concerned only with measures that
weaken the state of Israel, is not, and never has been, a disinterested player.
Israelis and Palestinians living in peace in Israel both know that peace will
not abide in the absence of a two party solution that does not disturb the
present, largely peaceful accord between Israelis and Palestinians residing in
the state of Israel. Any accord that assures both the dignity of Palestinians
and the survival of Israel as a state is endangered by outside forces bent on
the destruction of Israel and the subordination of Palestinians living in
Israel who do not wish to be forcibly inducted into the prolonged war on western
civilization now roiling in the Middle East – and places in Europe that have
welcomed the orphans of war and the terrorist scorpions tucked among them.
Mr. Blumenthal’s
recent concern with “consistent past policy” in an administration that has rather
too consistently thumbed its nose at friendly nations in the Middle East, while
slyly supplying through back doors, without the affirmation of Congress, hidden
support to the traditional enemies of the United States, is just too touching
for words. One paper noted archly that Mr. Blumenthal had agreed with President
Elect Donald Mr. Trump on the veto issue. One wonders if Mr. Blumenthal and Mr.
Schumer will as ardently support a measure proposed by Lindsey Graham and supported by Mr. Trump that will “significantly
reduce or even eliminate U.S. funding of the United Nations, and also to
seriously reconsider financial support for the nations that supported this resolution."
Support for such a measure will place both Democrats in a Republican
camp that has rarely wavered in its support of Israel. Behind the barricades,
they will find themselves fighting on the side of Netanyahu and – horrors! -- Ted Cruz, who tweeted on Friday, the day preceding
Hanukkah, “Spoke w/ Israeli PM @netanyahu tonight to wish him
Happy Chanukah & assure him of strong support in Congress. No US $ for UN
until reversed.”
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