The UN resolution on Israel
The UN resolution on Israel, Israel Hayom, Elliott Abrams, December 28, 2016
Since the adoption last week of the Security Council resolution on Israel, I’ve had my say in The Weekly Standard and The Washington Post condemning the Obama administration’s decision to allow the resolution to pass.
The resolution rewards the Palestine Liberation Organization for refusing to negotiate and adopts its tactic of replacing serious, face-to-face negotiations with useless dramas in New York. It is a danger to Israel. And by refusing to veto the resolution, the Obama administration abandoned the usual American practice of defending Israel from what former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Jeane Kirkpatrick called “the jackals” at the United Nations.
Over this past weekend, administration spokesmen have tried to defend this abandonment of Israel in truly Orwellian terms, inverting the meaning of their action. This was done to ”help” Israel and to “defend” it; we know better than its elected government (and main opposition parties) where its interests lie; we abandoned Israel because we are its friend.
These were main themes of the president’s aide Ben Rhodes when he spoke to reporters Friday, saying the resolution “expresses the consensus international view on Israeli settlement activity. … This is consistent with long-standing bipartisan U.S. policy as it relates to settlements. … One of our grave concerns is that the continued pace of settlement activity, which has accelerated in recent years, which has accelerated significantly since 2011. …
“Let’s be clear here: We exhausted every effort to pursue a two-state solution through negotiations, through direct discussions, through proximity discussions, through confidence-building measures, through a lengthy and exhaustive effort undertaken by Secretary [of State John] Kerry earlier in the president’s second term. We gave every effort that we could to supporting the parties coming to the table.
“So within the absence of any meaningful peace process, as well as in the face of accelerated settlement activity that put at risk the viability of a two-state solution, that we took the decision that we did today to abstain on this resolution.
“Where is the evidence that not doing this is slowing the settlement construction?”
Those who enjoy the children’s exercise where the child is asked to find all the things wrong in a picture — signs upside down, dogs with horns, etc. — will enjoy pondering Rhodes’ misleading narrative.
Yes, the resolution “expresses the consensus international view on Israeli settlement activity,” and calls them illegal, and that is the point: Until the Obama administration, the United States’ position was that they were unhelpful but not illegal. Therefore, the resolution is not “consistent with long-standing bipartisan U.S. policy.”
As to the pace of settlement activity, Rhodes is simply wrong. I reviewed the statistics in Foreign Policy and there Uri Sadot and I concluded that: “A careful look into the numbers shows that neither the population balance between Jews and Palestinians, nor the options for partition in the West Bank have materially changed. … Israeli population in the settlements is growing, but at a rate that reflects mostly births in families already there, and not in-migration of new settlers.”
In fact, settlement growth has not “accelerated significantly” since 2011, whatever Rhodes says.
His most disingenuous remark is about the failure of negotiations. Indeed, the Obama/Kerry efforts failed because the Palestinians refused to come to the table even when Israel undertook a 10-month construction freeze. One of President Barack Obama’s officials, Martin Indyk, was described in Haaretz as saying this in 2014 about those negotiations: ”Netanyahu moved to the zone of possible agreement. I saw him sweating bullets to find a way to reach an agreement.”
Indyk continued that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas did not show flexibility.
“We tried to get Abu Mazen [Abbas] to the zone of possible agreement but we were surprised to learn he had shut down,” Indyk said.
So what is to be done when the Palestinians refuse to negotiate? Punish Israel. Join the jackals in Turtle Bay. Adopt the PLO view that action in the United Nations will replace face-to-face talks. That was Obama’s decision.
Rhodes’ twisted formulation of “where is the evidence that not doing this is slowing the settlement construction?” is a kind of epitaph for Obama policy. He said: “We have a body of evidence to assess how this Israeli government has responded to us not taking this kind of action, and that suggests that they will continue to accelerate the type of settlement construction that puts a two-state solution at risk.”
Settlements expand if we veto resolutions, he is saying, so we have decided not to veto resolutions.
This is precisely wrong, an inversion of the truth. The Obama account of settlement expansion is invented and avoids the facts to build a case against Israel. Netanyahu is not popular among settlers exactly because he has restrained settlement growth and adopted a 10-month freeze. In 2009, Hillary Clinton said, “What the prime minister has offered in specifics on restraints on a policy of settlements … is unprecedented.” What has been the Obama reaction to his restraint, to his freeze, to the PLO refusal to negotiate?
The reaction has been to blame Israel and assault Netanyahu year after year, including with childish epithets. And this attitude culminated finally in the abandonment of Israel at the United Nations. Supporters of strong Israel-American relations can only be glad that the 22nd Amendment limits presidents to two terms in the White House.
Explore posts in the same categories: Israel, Israeli settlements, Obama and Israel, Two state solution, UN and Israel, UN Security CouncilTags: Israel, Israeli settlements, Obama and Israel, Two state solution, UN and Israel, UN Security Council
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