On that date, to borrow and update a phrase from FDR's famous June 10, 1940 speech on Mussolini's declaration of war on France, "The hand that held the dagger has stuck it into the back of" Israel.
Our execrable Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, abstained on the UN Security Council Resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the "occupied" territories (text.) This is not just another UN anti-Israeli resolution joining the ranks of thousands of previous ones.
Security Council resolutions are tantamount to international law. This one states,
Condemning all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law and relevant resolutions,
Expressing grave concern that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-State solution based on the 1967 lines . . .The Western countries that voted for this resolution should be deeply ashamed of what they have done. They will be seen as cowards by the Muslim world. This will not prevent any jihadi attacks in Europe, and, probably, will encourage them. They should also remember that there already is a two state solution: Israel and Jordan.
We will see Israelis, private individuals and public officials, haled before courts in PC EU Europe and the ICC for living in "occupied territories." Those territories include, of course, eastern Jerusalem, or what used to be called the Jewish Quarter until 1948 when the Jews living there were expelled by Jordan's Army, and Jewish access to the Wailing Wall prevented. Israel, furthermore, continues as the only country not allowed to pick its own capital, and forced to consider a large portion of it off-limits to its own citizens.
Obama allowed this resolution to pass out of cowardly spite--notice he didn't even have the guts to vote for it, just to vote the equivalent of "present," much as he has done for most of his political career.
President Obama detests PM Netanyahu, and clearly has bought into the leftist view of Israel as a Western imperialist outpost, and, in essence, the cause of the current global jihadi explosion. This resolution will do nothing to further peace and, in fact, will make it harder as the so-called Palestinians will now see that they do not have to talk to Israel, they just have to come running to New York.
A reading of the resolution also shows that Obama has sought to throw a land mine in the path of incoming President Trump who had vowed to move our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In theory, by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel then the US would be in violation of the Security Council resolution as we would have helped alter the "status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967."
What can Trump do?
He has a ranges of options. First, of course, join Israel in saying we do not recognize the validity of the Resolution; since we "ONLY" abstained, we don't feel bound by its strictures. Second, we should move our embassy to Jerusalem. Third, we should make it very clear that we are ready to defund the UN if this is not repealed.
Readers of this blog know my long-standing position that we should get out of the UN. As Britain has left the EU, so should we leave the UN.
I agree with all you say here. I think Israel is the first and in some ways the last, line of defence between the West and the Zombie Apocalypse.
ReplyDeleteHow do I find out if, and how, Australia voted on this Resolution?
I don't think Australia is in the Security Council right now. The four supporting the resolution were New Zealand, Venezuela, Senegal (which gets $30 million per year from us) and Malaysia. The other Permanent members voted for it.
DeleteYes, Australia was not on this UNSC this go round.
DeleteVenezuela--ruled by a Third World socialist thugoacracy; Senegal, which is majority-Muslim; and Malaysia, majority-Muslim is fiercely anti-Israel. Then there are permanent members China, which remains officially anti-Israel, and fearful of the Jews for what they did to the Soviet Big Brother when they got "uppity"; Russia, still aggrieved over the loss of their empire, the birthplace and propagator of _The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion_; France, which apparently hasn't forgiven us for liberating them in 1944-45....
DeleteOne additional suggestion for Trump. Introduce a resolution requiring New Zealand to relinquish territory taken from the Maoris. Payback's a bit*h.
ReplyDeleteThe Kiwis will just respond by suggesting that the US give up land taken from the Injuns, Spaniards, Mexicans, and Polynesians.
DeleteBut we didn't vote for the resolution. They co-sponsored it.
DeleteThe Kiwis are doing pretty well by themselves giving back land taken from the Maoris. Thank You. I don't follow this closely, but the latest instance I read of was closing off an area of coastline and the adjacent sea for fishing (exploitation) to anyone but Maoris.
DeleteGiving back a tiny sliver of the land you stole does not undo the injustice of stealing the land in the first place and displacing its original inhabitants. If NZers want to do the right thing they need to dissolve their occupier state and disembark back to England from whence they came. There is no statute of limitations nor "grandfather" provision to the Geneva Conventions.
DeleteWe by far contribute more money to the UN than anyone else. Since we hold the purse strings, it should be a simple matter to jerk the globalists back in line. I sense that after Trump gets in, he will do exactly that.
ReplyDeleteIf we stop funding the UN, half the five-star hotels in Europe would close ... and maybe a few here too.
DeleteWhich might not be such a bad thing.
Deletehttps://www.lawfareblog.com/unscr-2334-israeli-settlements
ReplyDeleteIn sum, while the resolution’s immediate practical significance is limited, it revitalizes the legal case against settlements under international law and provides a basis for states and organizations to act against Israeli settlements in the future—with or without U.S. participation. President-elect Trump’s objections to the resolution and threats by members of congress to defund the U.N. not withstanding, chances are that the resolution is here to stay. To reverse it, the Trump administration would need to push through a new resolution, which requires the support of the other members of the Security Council. That is not going to be easy.
Impossible. Defunding the UN would probably kill it off. Salutary lesson for those used to US weakness.
DeleteI hope Mr. Trump treats the UN like the nest of vipers it is, ends the United States' involvement in it, and demolishes the building, with no prior notice.
ReplyDeleteI hope they demolish it while it is in session.
DeleteOdd story--Back when I was in Bangkok, I had to escort a group of high-level GOP Congressional staffers to meet with the UNHCR people. The representatives of the supposed American White People's Nationalist Party were a Japanese-American, a recently naturalized man of East African birth but Indian descent, and a WASP. The two FSO's escorting were white ethnics of the sorts the pre-PeeCee era joked about. The UNHCR people were all Western European Bureaucrats. Afterwards, the recently naturalized GOP staffer quipped, "Which side represented the world?"
DeleteCarrying water for a nation on the other side of the world is not the responsibility of the US government. The 8th of June, 1967 was a dagger stabbed into the back of the US by the terrorists in Tel Aviv.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first thing in 8 years Obama has gotten right. Let Israel stand or fall on it's own, without the welfare and big stick of the American tax payer. America First, America Only, America Always.
It is not an assigned responsibility, it is voluntary. The majority of Christian Americans and non-Christians too, are united with our Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel. We volunteer every year through our Congress to send aid to Israel for several reasons. First, they are the first line of defense against Iranian imperialism. Second, God tells us to love Israel, and third because the heart beating within the Christian breast beats strongly for Israel. So, Chris, get over your anti-semitism and join the majority of Americans in supporting Israel. Make a good donation towards sending them a couple of those 30,000 pound bunker busters and B-52's to fly to Iran and back.
DeleteWe *could* throw Israel to the zombie-apocalypse, as Obama has attempted to do here, but it would probably just end badly for Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Iran and on and on. Dimona has been functional for a very long time, and we import an amazing amount of weapon technology from Israeli companies.
DeleteI think we pay Israel to maintain a footprint in the middle east that serves as a bulwark and disruptor of aggression expanding from the region as it did for some 1400 years post-muhammed. But at this point, we're probably *also* paying Israel to not lay waste to its sworn enemies. (Personally, I think they're kinda crazy for taking our money on these terms, as they're basically just waiting for the time at which their enemies will be technologically capable of annihilating Israel, but I admit it's an extremely difficult calculus)
That said, if we are against actions Israel is taking, we should take it directly to them, whether that's threatening military aid (we might get bitten ourselves there), or threatening economic consequences. We most definitely shouldn't be putting the alliance's dirty laundry out on display in the UN like this.
- reader #1482
I would argue that our support has tempered Israeli reactions to Arab attacks, not encouraged as believed. Most nations when attacked on multiple occasions would, if possible, demand unconstitutional surrender. In the case of Israel that would have included the complete removal of all Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. In hindsight it's a pity this was not done. After your outrage subsides remember this was standard procedure after WWI, the Greek/Turkey war, and WWII when millions of people were force marched out of new territories.
DeleteGosh, I can't imagine a person other than Trump who could reverse this.
ReplyDeleteSeems like a huge wall to climb to get the UN out of the clutches of the insane appeasers, but I do believe he *could* do it.
They'd probably try to squeak by with some sort of 'tacit repeal' and save face, but when push comes to shove, I suspect Trump could find a way to unilaterally shut down the whole sham operation that is the UN.
Just really glad out Constitution does not recognize 'international law' except as explicitly defined by treaty.
Israel certainly makes its cause difficult *sometimes*, but it still is the only state *near* ally potential in the middle east.
- reader #1482
I think the danger here, bigger than the Security Council vote itself (which Trump can always renounce, even if doing so won't invalidate the resolution), is that it will enable and embolden the enemies of Israel in our midst.
ReplyDeleteI'm talking about the people who self-righteously promote the anti-Israel BDS movement -- calling on every person, every company and every country to boycott, divest from and impose sanctions on the only free and democratic nation in the Middle East.
I'm talking about the people, especially in Europe, who will see this as an open door to taking bolder action against Israel and Israelis in the courts and, especially, the International Criminal Court. The courts themselves may see this as an opening to issue rulings that might not have withstood scrutiny before.
And I'm talking about the people who, more generally, are flat-out anti-Semites who may have been somewhat closeted until now. Their hatred might become not just more obvious, but more acceptable.
A price is going to be paid for this eventually, and it probably won't be pretty. In the meantime, with three and a half weeks until he leaves office, Obama still has time to further embolden the enemies of western civilization, of which -- despite his deceptively smooth talk, and like so many on the left -- he is one.
Before he dies of old age, he could well find himself with the blood of millions of people on his hands thanks to his reality-denying, ideologically driven actions.
Very good point
DeleteGranted, my experience as an FSO was much shallower than yours, Dip, but it was my impression that a lot of the Foreign Service did not like the Israelis. I won't say that they were anti-Semites, but many whom I knew seemed to take it personally that the Israelis could be a lot more prickly, forthright, and stand-up-for-themselves than a lot of our other unpopular "clients".
DeleteMy guess is also that Benyamin Netanyahu was probably a difficult person for the O to deal with. Netanyahu is a patriot, a veteran, and probably has scant patience with a US President who probably impresses him as a first-class nebbich, shmo, and utter non-mencsh (to use a few Yiddishisms). Obama seems to have a rough time dealing with anything short of adulation, and probably has been livid with Netanyahu for failing to deliver it.
What about your experience?
It's a reasonable wager than Netanyahu humiliated him in private conversation. BO relies on blarney and is lacking in genuine erudition.
DeleteKepha, you left out 'fegaleh'.
DeleteMichael Adams
OK, Michael. OK. But I am not completely persuaded that the O is a feygeleh, even if I am convinced he is no mensch.
DeleteOn other chat boards, an oft-made point is that opposition to Israel's actions, such as the settlements (in which matter I actually think Israel has somewhat overplayed its hand), or even Anti-Zionism, does not equate to being an Anti-Semite.
ReplyDeleteThis, of course, is true. The only problem is that Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism far too often reside within the same person.
Obama in this case has allowed his personal animosity towards Netanyahu to blind him to the consequences of his actions.
Seems to be a major Obama flaw, this obsession with himself.
Take this as coming from someone fundamentally pro-Israel and utterly disgusted by the recent UN action and by the O [mal-]administration.
ReplyDeleteFace it: the world sees Israel as an exercise in Ashkenazi Jewish colonialism. Never mind that the Jews were never completely removed from 'Eretz Yisroel, or that the Ashkenazim in Israel were quickly outnumbered by Mizrahi and Sefardim, many of whom were in as bad or worse a condition than the Falastin Arabs who lost their homes in 1948. In the "anti-colonialist" paradigm established in the wake of WWII, to which both we and the Soviets contributed mightily, modern Israel was bound to be a "problem child" for our era.
A big moral of the story is that if you must colonize, be sure you did your colonizing some time before 1550. Where would most of the world be if "colonialism" of all kinds at all times were condemned out of hand, and we'd have:
The Han Chinese moving back to the North China Plain and Wei River valley, leaving Taiwan to the Austronesians and everything from the Chang Jiang basin and south to the Miao, Yao, Zhuang, Tujia, Yi, and a multitude of peoples.
All Romance-speakers had to move back to Central Italy; leaving western Europe to the Celts and Basques.
All Germanic-speakers had to move back to the Netherlands, Germany north of Heilbroon, and southern Scandinavia; leaving Bavaria, Austria, Switzerland, and Britain to the Celts.
Thai speakers had to move back to the area near Dien Bien Phu, leaving everything south of a Vientiane-Keng Tung line to the Mon, Khmer, Lua, etc.
All Kinh Vietnamese had to move north of Vinh, leaving the central and south to the Cham.
All the Bantu-speakers had to move back to the Nigeria-Cameroon borderlands, leaving Central and SE Africa to the Mbuti and Khoisan peoples.
And, of course, the Arabs and Turks would have to move back to the Hijaz and Central Asia respectively.
Won't the world go WWAAAAAAAAAAA!
Really we ought to roll it *all the way back*, right? I suspect that 'colonialism' started somewhere in the stone age. Back to beating our chests.
DeleteBut this is the point of the left, to drive mankind to global suicide, the ultimate rebellious middle finger to the creator.
- reader #1482
#1482; You're probably right.
DeleteWon't someone think of the poor Neanderthals?
DeleteLot's of people were mad at Turkey after 1974. Then again, back then, Turkey was also a good member of NATO...hmmm......
ReplyDeleteI agree but Turkey is particularly ham handed under Erdogan. There is very little goodwill left, I suspect. I worry about some of the army officers I met when I was there ten years ago. They were very helpful and friendly. The only hostility I saw was angry looking young men who were outside the Blue Mosque watching that we took off our shoes and the women covered their hair going into the mosque. I suspect they were Erdogan voters.
ReplyDeleteB. Hussain Wormtongue played to the emotions and fears of those who would be bamboozled, especially those so called leaders that are leading their people to ruin while they focus on hating the jews. The one saving grace of this situation is that time is running out for Wormtongue. That is the good news. The bad news is that he is not finished with his mayhem. President Trump will have his work cut out for him next year cleaning up the mess.
ReplyDeletehttp://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1408/6540/original.jpg?w=600&h
ReplyDeleteBO detests Benjamin Netanyahu because Netanyahu's the real deal and BO's a phony.
Yep, BiBi is a leader and a man. Obama is neither.
DeleteThe U.S. should move the embassy to the old Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, certainly, get out of the U.N.
What's involved in "defunding the UN"? Reducing our yearly contribution to the amount contributed by non first world states?
ReplyDeleteWe just announce suspension of payments. There might be a move thereafter to take away our voting rights, but, who cares? We should leave.
Delete"We should leave"
DeleteAfter which that fancy building in NYC would be an excellent site for a modest live-fire MOUT exercise.
I wonder if Chuck Schumer was aware of the UN resolution and Obama's role. I have trouble beleiving that he would have gone along with this, given that he and his shrinking band of Dem house members will have to bare the consequences long after Obama officially becomes the worst ex-President in history. I haven't heard a word out of him, which tells me he's either avoiding the subject or is as speechless as the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteInternational Law is codified in the Geneva Conventions which all nations adhere. Is this Security Council resolution something that should demand a discussion on the relevancy of the Geneva Conventions?
ReplyDeleteAccording to our current Sec State (kin to Iran) Israel is breaking International Law (not under the GC though).
Trump should entertain floating the idea that each nation reaffirms its commitment to the GC. The US did not join the last round of the GC as did most of Europe and the world, but to each nation its own self-interest.
John F. Kerry and the White House are weak on International Law and the idea that this resolution could rewrite the CG is an angle that may render the SC Resolutions moot.
"Third, we should make it very clear that we are ready to defund the UN"
ReplyDeleteWith all due respect, Dip, this sentence should have ended here.
Is there a difference between funding the UN and paying our dues? Because I remember for a while we were not paying our dues and it didnt seem to have much effect on them. I would be more than happy to kick the scoundrels out of NYC.
ReplyDelete