Posted on 05/17/2009 1:09:07 PM PDT by yoe
In advance of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States on Monday, President Obama unveiled a new strategy for throwing Israel to the wolves. It takes the form of enthusiasm for the United Nations and international interlopers of all kinds. Instead of ensuring strong American control over the course of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations or the Arab-Israeli peace process, the Obama administration is busy inserting an international mob between the U.S. and Israel. The thinking goes: If Israel doesn’t fall into an American line, Obama will step out of the way, claim his hands are tied, and let the U.N. and other international gangsters have at their prey.
It began this past Monday with the adoption of a so-called presidential statement by the U.N. Security Council. Such statements are not law, but they must be adopted unanimously — meaning that U.S. approval was essential and at any time Obama could have stopped its adoption. Instead, he agreed to this: “The Security Council supports the proposal of the Russian Federation to convene, in consultation with the Quartet and the parties, an international conference on the Middle East peace process in Moscow in 2009.”
This move is several steps beyond what the Bush administration did in approving Security Council resolutions in December and January — which said only that “The Security Council welcomes the Quartet’s consideration, in consultation with the parties, of an international meeting in Moscow in 2009.” Apparently Obama prefers a playing field with 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, 22 members of the Arab League — most of whom don’t recognize the right of Israel to exist — and one Jewish state. A great idea — if the purpose is to ensure Israel comes begging for American protection.
The U.N. presidential statement also makes laudatory references to another third-party venture, the 2002 Arab “Peace” Initiative. That’s a Saudi plan to force Israel to retreat to indefensible borders in advance of what most Arab states still believe will be a final putsch down the road. America’s U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice, announced to the Security Council that “we intend to integrate the Arab Peace Initiative into our own approach.”
Make no mistake: This U.N. move, made with U.S. approval, sets America on a well-calculated collision course with Israel. U.S. collusion on this presidential statement was directly at odds with Israel’s wishes and well-founded concerns about the U.N.’s bona fides on anything related to Israel. Israeli U.N. ambassador Gabriella Shalev issued a statement of Israel’s position: “Israel does not believe that the involvement of the Security Council contributes to the political process in the Middle East. This process should be bilateral and left to the parties themselves. Furthermore, the timing of this Security Council meeting is inappropriate as the Israeli government is in the midst of conducting a policy review, prior to next week's visit by Prime Minister Netanyahu to the United States. . . . Israel shared its position with members of the Security Council.”
By contrast, Rice told reporters: “We had a very useful and constructive meeting thus far of the Council. We welcome Foreign Minister Lavrov’s initiative to convene the Council, and we’re very pleased with the constructive and comprehensive statement that will be issued by the president of the Council on the Council’s behalf. This was a product of really collaborative, good-faith efforts by all members of the Council, and we’re pleased with the outcome.”
The Obama administration’s total disregard of Israel’s obvious interest in keeping the U.N. on the sidelines was striking. Instead of reiterating the obvious — that peace will not come if bigots and autocrats are permitted to ram an international “solution” down the throat of the only democracy at the table — Rice told the Council: “The United States cannot be left to do all the heavy lifting by itself, and other countries . . . must do all that they can to shore up our common efforts.” In a break with decades of U.S. policy, the Obama strategy is to energize a U.N. bad cop so that the U.S. might assume the role of good cop — for a price.
On Tuesday the Obama administration did it again: It ran for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council. As expected, the administration won election to represent the Council’s Western European and Others Group — it was a three-state contest for three spaces.
The Council is most famous, not for protecting human rights, but for its obsession with Israel. In its three-year history it has:
adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than condemning the 191 other U.N. members combined;
entrenched an agenda with only ten items, one permanently reserved for condemning Israel and another for condemning any other U.N. state that might “require the Council’s attention”;
held ten regular sessions on human rights, and five special sessions to condemn only Israel;
insisted on an investigator with an open-ended mandate to condemn Israel, while all other investigators must be regularly renewed;
spawned constant investigations on Israel, and abolished human-rights investigations (launched by its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights) into Belarus, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Moreover, every morning before the Human Rights Council starts, all states — and even observers like the Palestinians — get together in their regional blocs for an hour to negotiate, share information, and determine positions. All, that is, except Israel. The Western European and Others Group refuses to give Israel full membership. Now the U.S. will be complicit in this injustice.
Joining the Council has one immediate effect on U.S.-Israel relations: It gives the Obama administration a new stick to use against Israel. Having legitimized the forum through its membership and participation, the U.S. can now attempt to extract concessions from Israel in return for American objections to the Council’s constant anti-Israel barrage.
Obama administration officials may believe they can put the lid back on Pandora’s box after having invited the U.N., Russia, the Arab League, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to jump into the process of manufacturing a Palestinian state while Israel is literally under fire. They have badly miscalculated. By making his bed with countries that have no serious interest in democratic values, the president has made our world a much more dangerous place.
— Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and at Touro College. She is also editor of (Eye on the UN)
Take whatever action you can. Thank you.
Too bad they aren't the Jews who will suffer the consequences of their stupidity..
And the percentages of American Jews who voted for that POS are staggering.
How’s that CHANGE working out for you now?
Do you suppose that they HOPE for a Republican next time?
Bibi and others in Israel must get the message out that Zero and the RAT party is stabbing Israel in the back. As a result all American Jews must cut off their donations to the RAT party. The GOP has done nothing to expose the anti-Semites that reside in the RAT party starting with Zero.
Psalm 2
1Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
2The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
3Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
Bibi is going to ream Zero a new one, and leave Zero with a tootsie roll in his hand.
And that tootsie will be nuclear war.
Obama can't play with the big boys. He is not in their league.
Watch the flip flops begin shortly after the Zero meeting with Bibi.
Zero in trying to hamper Israel will free Israel to act alone, and he has not learned how to play the Israel game. Too bad for Zero. No one impugns Israeli sovereignty, and Zero is about to find that out. Zero is screwing the pooch badly on this one, and Zero's lies will not really influence Bibis path at all. Zero is about to become.....well...zero in influence in the middle east.
Liechtenstein will now have more influence on Israeli policy that the US will have henceforth.
“Obama can’t play with the big boys. He is not in their league.”
I wonder how long Putin laughed when he heard Obama was elected. Chances are it was for days. Does anyone know if Putin has met Obama, or Medvedev? Has Zero gone to China and thanked them for not invading us.
Don't bet on it.
With idiots running US diplomacy,,we will have one, and only one end point....and that is war, swift , violent and terrible.It won;t be like a WWII replay, and it will be over in a matter of months.Nuclear arms will be in play, which is the fact that every one seeks to ignore while these children in the White House play a bankrupt ideology game in a Wrold Jungle that is about to become increasingly very dangerous.
Jimmy Carter was BAD, but he has nothing on the Obatoad, who will cause a horrible war and bring suffering to millions. And we will likely be attacked here on US soil.
Obatoad is about to see what the world does to those who are not prepared to handle its violent animals.
Just a serious question. Why do so many Freepers look like beeing obsessed with the state of Israel? this is no offense i´m really just interested because for me as european Israel means nothing to me. (at least it´s just another country in this world. i don´t see why “we” should especially care). Please stay civil because i´m really interessted in different oppinions.
greetings
The real question is, why don't these factors matter to europeans, who played a major role in establishing the parameters for the current situation?
Welcome to Free Republic. You have a month and a half membership under your belt. How do you like it so far?
Hmmmm... That would be the only “upside” of our pending disaster....
“Obama tried his lefty touchy feely schmaltz with Putin on the Iran nukes issue. Putin told him to get lost”
Openly I trust.
“With idiots running US diplomacy,,we will have one, and only one end point....and that is war, swift , violent and terrible.”
I just KNOW that that dipwit is going to hire some Hollywood dolt to represent him and then they’ll commit some diplomatic faux pas and then we’ll get hit. I just hope that it isn’t nukes. Anything but nukes.
“the fact that every one seeks to ignore while these children in the White House play a bankrupt ideology game in a Wrold Jungle that is about to become increasingly very dangerous.”
President Bush was the few keeping a tight hand over the lid and holding it down. That’s why I refuse to go after him on stuff like immigration. He ran two wars and succeeded and has helped give birth to two independent nations. That’s nothing to knock down and that’s why I get testy when people bash him baout immigration. It’s the job of the governors to deal with what is best for their states.
We are seeing prophecy fulfilled. Anyone who still doubts it is blind, faithless, and lost.
Im assuming you are not a Christian and have never taken the time to read the oldest textbook around, the Holy Bible...
as a Christ centered conservative, the idea of this nation turning its back on the Jewish people and their homland is a very prophetic sign of the peril that we will face in our future, as God will not look kindly at our transgressions in this area...
as a US citizen, I think it is equally laughable that the only beacon of freedom in the mid east is being thrown away during a time in which we have [had] an opportunity to really make progress for the rights of all people in that area of the world...
without the 'check' of islamic powers in the mideast, we are destined for further socioeconomic, as well as real world security collapse here and abroad...
that enough for starters ???
Zero does not realize that he is playing a deadly game, for he has come to save everyone and use his ideology to support the Muslim causes. That doesn't play for even a second in the league that Obama is about to find himself in. Obama's weakness is about to create horror around the world.
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