Posted on 12/25/2016 4:58:54 AM PST by SJackson
The Egyptian decision to withdraw the one-sided anti-Israel United Nations Security Council resolution should not mask the sad reality that it is the Obama administration that has been pushing for the resolution to be enacted. The United States was trying to hide its active behind-the-scenes role in the matter by preparing to abstain rather than voting for the resolution. But in the context of a Security Council where only an American veto can prevent anti-Israel resolutions from automatically passing, an abstention is a vote for the resolution. And because of this automatic majority, an anti-Israel resolution like this one cannot be reversed by a future American president. A veto cannot be cast retroactively.
The effect, therefore of the Obama decision to push for, and abstain from, a vote on this resolution is to deliberately tie the hands of the president’s successors, in particular President-elect Trump. That is why Trump did the right thing in reaction to Obama’s provocation. Had the lame-duck president not tried to tie the incoming president’s hands, Trump would not have intervened at this time. But if Trump had not urged the Egyptians to withdraw the resolution, he would have made it far more difficult for himself to try to bring about a negotiated resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The reason for this is that a Security Council resolution declaring the 1967 border to be sacrosanct, and any building behind those boarders to be illegal, would make it impossible for Palestinian leaders to accept less in a negotiation. Moreover, the passage of such a resolution would disincentivize the Palestinians from accepting Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu’s invitation to sit down and negotiate with no preconditions. Any such negotiations would require painful sacrifices on both sides if a resolution were to be reached. And a Security Council resolution siding with the Palestinians would give the Palestinians the false hope that they could get a state through the United Nations without having to make painful sacrifices.
President Obama’s lame duck attempt to tie the hands of his successor is both counterproductive to peace and undemocratic in nature. The lame-duck period of an outgoing president is a time when our system of checks and balances is effectively suspended. The outgoing president does not have to listen to Congress or the people. He can selfishly try to burnish his personal legacy at the expense of our national and international interests. He can even try to settle personal scores and act on pique, which is what seems to be happening here. Congress does not support this resolution; the American people do not support this resolution; no Israeli leader – from the Left, to the center, to the Right – supports this resolution. Even some members of Obama’s own administration do not support this resolution. But Obama is determined – after 8 years of frustration and failure in bringing together the Israelis and Palestinians – to leave his mark on the Mid-East peace process. But if he manages to push this resolution through, his mark may well be the end of any realistic prospect for a negotiated peace.
One would think that Obama would have learned from his past mistakes in the Mid-East. He has alienated the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the Emirates and other allies by his actions and inactions with regard to Iran, Syria, Egypt and Iraq. Everything he has touched has turned to sand.
Now, in his waning days, he wants to make trouble for his successor. He should be stopped in the name of peace, democracy and basic decency.
But it appears that Obama will not be stopped. Four temporary Security Council members have decided to push the resolution to a vote now, today. It is difficult to believe that they would have done so without the implicit support of the United States.
Stay tuned.
Addendum
As predicted, the United States allowed the anti-Israel resolution to be approved by the United Nations Security Council. Votes in favor were cast by Russia, which has occupied Kornengsberg since 1945, after capturing that ancient German city, ethnically cleansing its population and bringing in hundreds of thousands of Russian settlers; China, which has occupied Tibet and brought in thousands of Chinese settlers; France who occupied and settled Algeria for many years; Great Britain which has occupied and colonized a significant portion of the globe; and assorted other countries, several of which have horrendous human rights records.
Israel on the other hand, offered to end the occupation and settlements in 2000-2001 and again in 2008 only to be rebuffed by the Palestinian leadership. But Israel is the only country to have been condemned by the Security Council for an occupation and settlement. This hypocrisy is typical of the United Nations as even our representative acknowledged when she explained why the United States abstained.
Now peace will be more difficult to achieve, as the Palestinians become further convinced that they do not have to accept Netanyahu’s offer to negotiate without preconditions.
Thank you, President Obama for completing your 8 years of failed foreign policy with a final blow against, peace, stability and decency.
Congress can ameliorate the impact of this destructive resolution by enacting a statute declaring that the resolution does not represent the United States’ policy, which is that peace will not come through the United Nations but only by direct negations between the parties. The law should also prohibit any United States funds to be spent directly or indirectly in support of this Security Council resolution. I suspect that the incoming president will be willing to sign such a law
it’s try TO stop not try AND stop
If you'd like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Obama seeks to back Israel into an impossible corner. In doing so he hopes to see it react with the real power that they have and to use that to turn the entire world against it so that Islam can rise as the undisputed inheritor of the Middle East.
And Merry Christmas to you, too (or whichever holiday you celebrate at this time of year).
Obama doesn’t learn nothing because he’s a leftist jackass who thinks he’s never wrong and projects his wrongs on others.
Trump’s hands will not be tied on Israel or anything. He will reverse every single thing that this traitorous bastard has done. FUBO!
It’s either or. You should see some of the phrases the Brits use. “In hospital”, “went missing”, “make a fist of it”..kookoo according to US.
Now just a cotton pickin’ minit here. Alan Dershowitz is a highly educated lawyer. He knows what preposition to use. It’s just he’s using the vernacular so as to talk to us non-highly-educated-lawyer pleb types. You may think it’s patronizing or condescending, but we should try and be grateful to him for actually addressing us. Plebs can’t be English teachers.
Shouldn’t have voted for Obama, Alan. Stupid mistake.
This should be an invitation to kick the UN out of the US and withdraw all material support and participation for the organization from our end. If they ever want our opinion on a matter, they can seek it, but I’ve had enough of these corrupt nobodies trying to boss us around.
I love how Trump flips Obama the middle finger in such nice ways.
You said: “This should be an invitation to kick the UN out of the US and withdraw all material support and participation for the organization from our end.”
Bingo, we have a winner. Completely defund the gang of thugs called the UN and evict them from the US.
Dershowitz is still tap dancing around the fact the UN gave the Western Wall (Kotel) to Hamas.
Can’t these lawyers talk like normal people for a minute?
Well either is fine. "Try to stop" or "(to) try and (to) stop". The latter being slightly didpfferent in meaning in that it is two successive actions.
it's all good
Where are the UN’s divisions?
It is very common for editors, not the author, to compose the headline for an article. Dershowitz very likely had no say in this.
“...Alan Dershowitz ... highly educated lawyer ... knows what preposition to use ...”
hehehe! Haaahvaaahdrd lawyer at that ! Too bad he is waking up to the disaster of the Moslem anti-Jewish Obama too late!!
... and these Harvard lawyer intellectuals are sooooo much smarter than we “plebs” ?? Really?
Socialist leaning leftie secular Jews are blinded by something - not sure what! I so admire the orthodox Jews who for the most part do not suffer from these blanks in common sense- I am not an anti semite - just dumbfounded at the profound lack of insight that comes from the so called brilliant “intellectual” leftist elites, who often are secular cultural Jews.
Can anyone explain this? (rhetorical question, although I would like to know how the socialist secular Jewish intellectual elites misinterpret reality so disastrously when reality is right in front of them).
Is it the “non Jewish” Jew Trotskyite syndrome?
I do give Dershowitz credit for this editorial.
The cynical side of me wonders if Trump is perfectly fine with having his “hands tied” on this issue. It likely would have been a huge distraction for him over the next 1-2 years anyway, and this move gives him every reason not to focus a lot of his administration’s attention on it.
“..........so that Islam can rise as the undisputed inheritor of the Middle East.”.......
And the libs continue to deny that odumbo is a “Muzlime”?
Oh how I long for the day’s of the old west when they would publicly hang bastards like that half breed bastard.
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