Archive for the ‘Israel and UN’ category

Martin Karo: A Modest (Statutory) Proposal

December 27, 2016

Martin Karo: A Modest (Statutory) Proposal, Power LineScott Johnson, December 27, 2016

(The US Congress and the UN Security Council resolution damning Israel. — DM)

Reader Martin Karo is a Philadelphia attorney. Mr. Karo has submitted a modest if lawyerly proposal for the consideration of President-elect Donald Trump and the 115th Congress. He writes:

After the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, declaring that all Israeli building and activity in any territory captured in the 1967 war (the third war imposed on the Israelis) is illegal under international law, Donald Trump immediately vowed that things will be different come January 20. Virtually all Democrats in Congress immediately went on record opposing the Obama Administration’s feckless betrayal of Israel as well. Chuck Schumer purported to be particularly outraged. In order to convert outrage to action, herewith a modest proposal for the first law to be presented to and passed by the Congress under the Trump Administration:

Whereas, it is a bedrock principle of the United States, and a sound principle generally, that no peace deal may be imposed by outside parties on any party not directly involved in any conflict; and

Whereas, said principle is especially relevant in the context of Israel and the Palestinians, and the conflict that has embroiled that region since the passage of the UN plan partitioning the British Mandate;

The following provisions of law are hereby enacted:

Section 1. The United States does not recognize, and repudiates, UN Security Council Resolution 2334. Said act shall have no force whatsoever within the United States, shall in no way influence any action of the Government of the United States, and shall not be observed in any way by any company that does business in the United States, except as necessary to carry out the following provisions of law.

Section 2. The United States shall, at the next meeting of the United Nations Security Council, introduce a resolution formally revoking UNSC 2334 and reaffirming that any peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians must and shall be negotiated and concluded between those parties only. This resolution shall be reintroduced by the United States at every UNSC session until it is passed.

Section 3. The United States Treasury is directed to reduce all United States payments or transfers to the United Nations, and all constituent elements thereof, to match those of New Zealand, Malaysia, Senegal, or Venezuela, whichever is least, until UNSC 2334 is revoked. The United Nations seeks to force the United States to follow the political contributions of those nations; consequently it shall be limited to the economic contributions provided by those nations.

Section 4. The United States shall revoke and withhold any direct or indirect aid to the Palestinians, or any organization that in any way assists the Palestinians, until UNSC 2334 is revoked pursuant to Section 2.

Section 5. No bank registered in the United States shall do any business whatsoever with any country that proposed, voted for or recognizes UNSC 2334, or with any bank registered in such countries, for any purpose, without an explicit waiver from the United States Congress. No bank registered in any country which recognizes UNSC 2334 shall do any business whatsoever in the United States or with any bank registered in the United States, without an explicit waiver from the United States Congress.

Section 6. The provisions of Sections 1 – 4 of this Act shall be effective immediately. The provisions of Section 5 shall be effective six months from the passage of this Act.

I’m informally considering titling this the “Mr. T’s Prediction Was Right” Act, though other titles are solicited.

EDITOR’S NOTE: For readers who may be wondering, I think this is “Mr. T’s prediction”:

(The short video is at the link. — DM)

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah

December 25, 2016

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, Dan Miller’s Blog, December 25, 2016

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

merry-christmashanukkah

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were delighted with the “surprising” election outcome this year and look forward to a reawakened America under President Trump. He — and the rest of us — have an Augean stable to muck out. We hope for a revitalized and far better America than we have seen for the past eight years and for a better world for all, with no more disgraces of this sort:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crEicBxcfwA&t=0s

Desire for a “two state solution” does not mean that there would be one state for the Jews and another for the Palestinians, living separately but in peace and harmony. Palestinian hatred for non-Muslims would not permit Israelis to live at peace in their separate state. Ultimately, if the Palestinians are successful, it would mean one Palestinian state with no Jews and few if any Christians.

Gaza, which had been controlled by the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah, has been controlled by Hamas since 2007. Despite an annual population growth rate of  2.91% (2014 est.), there are now few Christians.

In 2006, there were 5,000 Christians living in Gaza when hard-line Hamas took power from the more moderate Fatah party. Ten years later, there are just 1,100 left. . . .

In Israel, where Arab Christians have comparatively more opportunities than their Palestinian counterparts, the Christian population has stayed stable. The Christian population grew by about 5,000 in the past 20 years. Today Christians in Israel number 164,700, about 2 percent of the population, a similar ratio to past decades.

If the Palestinian Authority permits free and fair Palestinian elections throughout Israel, Hamas is quite likely to displace the PA as Israel’s “partner for peace.” Hamas is funded and otherwise supported by The Islamic Republic of Iran.

This violence is brought to you by the Religion of Peace and tolerance:

To end on a humorous but nevertheless sad note,

Again, Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, with hopes for a better, more peaceful world with less hatred.

xmas2016

Ruff, Dan, Sunshine and Jeanie

The UN vote teaches much but changes nothing and affects even less

December 25, 2016

The UN vote teaches much but changes nothing and affects even less, Israel National News, Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer, December 25, 2016

The so–called “Two-State Solution” died years and years ago.  No one told Obama that he helped kill it by siding so unilaterally with Arab demands against Israel.  Obama induced Mahmoud Abbas almost a decade ago to stop talks with Israel, leaving Obama and Hillary, succeeded by Kerry, to do the dirty work.  As a result, stasis ensued, and Jews continued moving in. There now are more than 750,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria, including Jews living in East Jerusalem.  The Arabs will not allow them to remain there, and Israel cannot logistically relocate them.  Israel could not even relocate or successfully re-employ 10,000 Jews from Gush Katif who were forcibly uprooted and displaced during Ariel Sharon’s Gaza give-away.  Israel cannot remove 800,000 people, place them in alternate homes and find them productive jobs.  It is logistically impossible.  Only Adolf Hitler could remove a million Jews from their homes and ‘resettle’ them. 

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1.  The U.S. Jewish organization J Street applauded the move, saying the resolution advances the goal of a two-state solution, also a longtime U.S. objective. “This resolution conveys the overwhelming support of the international community, including Israel’s closest friends and allies, for the two-state solution, and their deep concern over the deteriorating status quo between Israelis and Palestinians and the lack of meaningful progress toward peace,” the organization said.

2.  Obama will be out in 28 days.  Had Hillary Clinton been elected, this United Nations vote now would launch a real long-term headache.  Not a disaster, but a real headache.  Nothing ever can obstruct the will of G-d, certainly not those in Migdal Bavel — the Tower of Babel — but they still can cause headaches.  However, Hillary instead is an asterisk to history.  A minuscule small asterisk, best remembered as a Public Liar who lost two “Can’t Miss” elections, first to Obama and then to Donald Trump.

3.  It was a miracle that Donald Trump ever was elected.  Even on Election Day the exit-poll reports were that he was in big trouble in Florida and elsewhere.  The miracle goes back generations.  His grandfather never wanted to be in America in the first place, but the Kaiser would not let him back in after the grandfather traveled to America without paying a mandatory fee that permitted people to leave and then to return.  So the grandfather got stuck in America against his will.  Two generations later, Trump emerges as President of the United States.  Before that, his elegant and refined daughter converts to Judaism and undertakes to live a Modern Orthodox Jewish life, and she marries into an Orthodox family with long-standing ties to Israel and with demonstrated sympathies to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

President-elect Trump has been a friend of Israel and of Jews all his life.  He has been awarded for his friendship, has been a Grand Marshall of an Israel Day Parade, has donated to Bet El.  He surrounds himself with Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews who are deep and committed friends of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.  His front-line non-Jewish supporters, including Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Dr. Ben Carson, Steve Bannon, and others are huge supporters of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, and they all support moving the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  Mr. Trump is very close with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and he deeply admires scrappy, strong men who do not back down in the face of adversity.

4.  Obama now goes out — along with Kerry — with exactly the legacy they have earned but camouflaged from the public’s view.  By acting against Israel, Obama revealed his enmity and small churlish pettiness in his last month of the eight years, so that all could see and know what so many liberal Jews refused to acknowledge.  His legacy with the Jews is sealed, and his churlish pettiness will define him for the rest of his life as Jimmy Carter’s anti-Semitism has defined him.

5.  If Mr. Trump contemplated wavering on fulfilling his pledge to move the embassy, as so many other American Presidents before him have done, now he himself will be self-motivated to move the embassy — “just because” — because that is how Donald Trump is in the core of his being: “You push me, and I hit you back twice as hard.”  That is Donald Trump.  Thus, the short-term anti-Israel moment in which Israel’s enemies exult will guarantee Israel a much more satisfying long-term result.  This U.N. vote virtually assures that President Trump will move the embassy to Jerusalem.

6.  Notably — and excellently for those who love Israel — the U.N. vote also equates East Jerusalem completely with all the rest of Judea and Samaria, putting all Jewish communities there in the same category.  This is excellent because even most of the Israelis who are prepared to compromise on parts of Judea and Samaria are not prepared to compromise on East Jerusalem.  Although people anticipated that President Trump would move the embassy to West Jerusalem if he would honor his promise, this vote even may induce Trump miraculously to move the embassy to East Jerusalem.  I do not know whether he would go that far, but now he might.

7.  If Prime Minster Netanyahu wants to remain in office and not see the utter break-up of his coalition, this U.N. vote will induce the Israeli Government to expand Jewish populating of Judea and Samaria (“West Bank settlements”) as a response of defiance, particularly once Trump is in.

8.  The U.N. voted in 1975 that Zionism is Racism.  In time, they voted to retract the measure because it cost them dearly.  Mr. Trump is the sort, and he has the Republican Congress to back him, to cut American dollars to the United Nations so significantly — and he already believes that America spends far too much on too many overseas commitments — and that itself may be useful.

9.  More than 70 percent of American Jews voted foolishly for Hillary against Trump.  G-d blessed Israel that, at her time of need, there is a Christian community in America — the conservative Evangelicals — who back Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria fully and who made clear to Mr. Trump that, along with religious and social issues dear to them (and, by the way to Orthodox Jews) — opposition to abortion, issues regarding the traditional family, Government interference in religion — they insist on supporting Israel, support moving the embassy to Jerusalem, and support the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria (the so-called “Jewish settlements in Occupied Palestine”).

10.  The so–called “Two-State Solution” died years and years ago.  No one told Obama that he helped kill it by siding so unilaterally with Arab demands against Israel.  Obama induced Mahmoud Abbas almost a decade ago to stop talks with Israel, leaving Obama and Hillary, succeeded by Kerry, to do the dirty work.  As a result, stasis ensued, and Jews continued moving in. There now are more than 750,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria, including Jews living in East Jerusalem.  The Arabs will not allow them to remain there, and Israel cannot logistically relocate them.  Israel could not even relocate or successfully re-employ 10,000 Jews from Gush Katif who were forcibly uprooted and displaced during Ariel Sharon’s Gaza give-away.  Israel cannot remove 800,000 people, place them in alternate homes and find them productive jobs.  It is logistically impossible.  Only Adolf Hitler could remove a million Jews from their homes and ‘resettle’ them.

So there is no “Two-State” solution because, except for displacing a few families in Amona, who will one day live in even better homes, it will not happen anyway because Israel is not going to put a million Jews in cattle cars and ship them to camps of concentration. Israel simply does not have alternate housing and employment for a million people.  It simply will not happen because it now is logistically impossible.

11.  Israel made major concessions in past negotiations, reaching agreements under Clinton and George W. Bush to make major concessions in return for American assurances and guarantees that included assurances that America would recognize the legality of certain major populations of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Today’s experience at the U.N. marks America reneging fundamentally on its pledged commitments made in these deals, thus nullifying the legal binding of those deals.  It also reminds Israel that only she can watch out for her survival because other countries have their own interests, and government leaderships change.  Even President Trump will not be forever, though he does have four years ahead with a good chance of eight years if he jump-starts the economy successfully, and there is a reasonably good chance for some extra time afterwards with Vice President Mike Pence succeeding him in eight years if the Republicans rule properly, effectively, and generously.

12.  It is particularly satisfying the Myth of Obama in the American Jewish community to be exposed and remembered.  Israeli Jews already “had his number” eight years ago. This is an effete who characterized the Radical Islamist terrorist murders of Jews in France, in the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo murders, as having been the result of some violent people attacking a “random grocery store.”  That world view accorded with Obama characterizing the Radical Islamist murders at Fort Hood as “workplace violence.”

American Jews, more than others, need to remember whom they supported and what he and his ilk are.  Jews also need to know now that Charles Schumer, Democrat Senator from New York and the Democrats’ Senate Minority Leader, is not their savior but rather is their deep embarrassment, and Schumer has no influence on matters concerning Israel’s survival. He is utterly useless. Likewise, the Orthodox Jew in Obama’s cabinet — Jack Lew, Obama’s Secretary of the Treasury — could not influence the day. He, too, was utterly useless, and it is valuable that he be remembered that way, now that his uselessness has been exposed.

In the end, Jews need to know who their friends are, who their obvious enemies are, who their covert enemies are, and most importantly, as we embark on commemorating the Hanukkah miracle in the Beit Hamikdash — the Holy Temple — Jews need to know that their survival is in the hands of G-d.

13.  I conclude as I began.  J Street is an organization supported in no small measure by George Soros. There has been some public discussion the past ten days in America as to whether it is fair to call the pathetic self-hating back-stabbers in J Street “worse than Kapos.”  The record will show that, on the day that Obama ineffectually took one last swipe at Israel, J Street issued the statement it did.  Res Ipsa Loquitur.  The thing speaks for itself.

The poetry of UN politics

December 25, 2016

The poetry of UN politics, Israel Hayom, Annika Hernroth-Rothstein, December 25, 2016

Obama has cemented his legacy, and now we can focus on our own. What should we do, what act of Jewish defiance should we partake in, to show the world what’s what? They can write words on paper and shake their fists while we settle our land and say our ancient blessings. One side is a paper tiger; the other is a lion that roars.

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I actually think it’s poetic. Just as Hanukkah, a festival of Jewish resistance, was approaching, the world turned on the Jewish state and an “ally” showed its true colors.

Much is being said about U.S. President Barack Obama’s choice to have his country abstain from voting on the U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements as illegal, and much will continue to be said, but none of us can really be that surprised. This was an obvious move by Obama, a last hurrah from a man who from day one set himself apart as a breaker of ties and holder of grudges. He was never a friend of Israel, and combined with his not-too-subtle need for pompous pageantry, this last kick in the gut toward Israel was a given.

The emotional upheaval notwithstanding, this act actually means very little for the outgoing president. But for others, it means all the more. What Obama did by choosing not to veto the vote was to re-elect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and throw support behind Donald Trump that the president-elect could have never expected to receive otherwise.

Until now, liberal Jews have supported and defended Obama and his policies, but when he set out to humiliate Israel, he also ended up shaming and humiliating a lot of Jewish Democrats, thus losing his party a whole host of voters to settle a personal score. Liberal Jews stuck by him through foreign policy blunders, anti-religious policies and personal spats with the Israeli leadership, but his ego got the best of him one too many times, and now minds are opening to Trump that otherwise would have stayed closed. As for Netanyahu, he is much too smart to be outraged over this resolution without teeth, and he knows that such biased bullying will do nothing to lessen the strength of the Jewish state but will only give him a more powerful mandate to lead.

And what this vote mean for us, the Jewish people? Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, once said that our future does not depend on what other nations say, but what Jews do, and what better time to be reminded of that than now, in this holiday season? These bills, proposals and outrageous resolutions do not attack the Jewish state; they attack our Jewishness, and it is with Jewishness we need to respond. Rather than focus outward, with anger at the obvious, we should focus inward at the core of what they hate and the heart of what we could be.

As I light my Hannukah candles and say the blessing in the words of my forefathers, I keep the codes and laws given to us through the original deed to our land. While some choose to cry out for our delegitimization, my actions and choices award me legitimacy, and the more they try to make me less of what I am, the louder and stronger I become.

This resolution was passed to delegitimize the State of Israel, but chances are it will lead to the delegitimization of the United Nations. They overplayed their hand and will ultimately end up losing. The only question is what we as Jews choose to do, and what choices we make when it comes to our survival.

This vote was not about Obama, Netanyahu or Trump, and it is neither more nor less important than any of the others before it. The more we shout and cry about it, the more we give Obama what he wants and enable him to feel like a trailblazer, when he is little more than a petulant child. This vote is about us, and we should keep it that way, honoring the message of the Maccabees and the struggle that brought us here and has kept us here until this day.

Obama has cemented his legacy, and now we can focus on our own. What should we do, what act of Jewish defiance should we partake in, to show the world what’s what? They can write words on paper and shake their fists while we settle our land and say our ancient blessings. One side is a paper tiger; the other is a lion that roars.

Happy Hanukkah.

UNSC resolution promotes Mid East war

December 24, 2016

UNSC resolution promotes Mid East war, DEBKAfile, December 24, 2016

obama_bibi2480-1

The United States did not abandon Israel by its abstention from vetoing the UN Security Council resolution condemning settlements that was passed Friday, Dec. 23, 2016.

The one who abandoned Israel was US President Barack Obama – and not for the first time. During his eight years in office, Obama let Israel down at least three times on issues that jeopardized its security:

One of the first consequences of his 2011 “Arab Spring” initiative was the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak as Egyptian president and his direct promotion of the Muslim Brotherhood’s takeover of power in Cairo.

Four years later, Obama turned his back on Israel to award Iran favored status. Iran was allowed to retain the infrastructure of its military nuclear program as well as continuing to develop ballistic missiles, with the help of an infusion of $250 billion in US and European sanctions relief.

The horror of the carnage in Syria overshadowed the fact that President Obama allowed Tehran to pump Revolutionary Guards forces into the country through Iraq in order to fight for the brutal Assad regime. The president made no effort to halt the influx of pro-Iranian Shiite groups, including the Lebanese Hizballah, into Syria, as though it was perfectly natural and his policies had nothing to do with bringing Israel’s arch-foes to its back door.

In 2015, too, when Obama tried to wash his hands of the Middle East at large, he opened the war for the Islamic State and its leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi to walk in and commandeer large swathes of Iraq and Syria virtually unopposed.

From those vantage points, the jihadists sent out a tentacle to Egyptian Sinai – close to another Israeli border.

Of late, the Obama has claimed he was not aware of ISIS’ potential for expansion, implying that US intelligence was at fault.

All the same, Obama never tired of emphasizing that he had done more than any US president before him to support Israel’s security, mainly in the form of advanced US weapons systems supplied for its defense. Because of the close military and intelligence ties between the two countries, no voice was raised to contradict him.

It is now time to point to the hypocrisy of the incumbent president’s posture: Had he invested less in granting benefits and free rein to the Jewish state’s closest enemies, Israel would perhaps have been less dependent on American hardware.

In the latest UN Security Council resolution, Israel is reprimanded on the score that “all Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including east Jerusalem, are illegal under international law and constitute a major obstacle to the achievement of peace on the basis of the two-state solution.”

Before anyone else, Barack Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry are in a position to attest to the falseness of this equation.

On Nov. 25, 2009, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced that Israel would impose a 10-month freeze on construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as a concession to ease the US peace initiative. Israel gave way further on its demand for direct negotiations, when Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas dug his heels in against meeting Israeli officials face to face. John Kerry was forced to engage in shuttle diplomacy.
Even after those concessions for peace, the Obama initiative fell flat when it came up against Palestinian resistance.

The departing US president seems determined to use his last weeks in office to teach the Israeli prime minister a painful lesson he won’t forget in a hurry after his White House exit on Jan. 20.

But he is getting it wrong one more time. The UN SC resolution will soon be reduced to a piece of paper. The Palestinians will wave it gladly in the face of the international community, but Israel won’t remove a single settlement or stop building new housing estates in Jerusalem. The Prime Minister’s Office made it clear that Israel is not bound by the resolution and rejects it.
The only concrete result will be to make peace more elusive than ever

The notion that Donald Trump will come riding to Israel’s rescue as soon as he moves into the Oval Office is foolish. He was elected to rebuild America as a global power. That would necessarily include restoring US influence in the Middle East, but how he proposes to accomplish this is not generally known.

If he decides to call on Israel for support and assistance, it stands to reason that he will introduce radical changes in Obama’s steps – especially the nuclear deal with Iran and the peace process with the Palestinians.

Not all those changes can be achieved peacefully. They may well entail the use of military force by the United States and Israel. In this sense, Security Council Resolution 2334 may turn out to be the real obstacle to peace, tending rather to promote belligerence in the Middle East, because the Palestinians and other hardliners and rejectionists will use the resolution as their justification for bashing Israel and more acts of terror.

Obama Joins the Jackals

December 24, 2016

Obama Joins the Jackals, Washington Free Beacon , December 23, 2016

The Jewish Federation of North America, or JFNA, one of the country’s largest and most influential pro-Israel organizations, described the administration’s actions as “tragic” and said the move is likely to mar Obama’s legacy.

“It is tragic that the administration chose to mar its legacy of support for the Jewish State and set back the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace,” the organization said in a statement.

The Anti-Defamation League, a historically left-leaning organization that is headed by a former Obama administration official, said that it was “outraged” by Obama’s decision to allow the anti-Israel measure to be approved.

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Multiple sources from across the Jewish organizational world and in Congress are accusing the Obama administration of stabbing “Israel in the back” on Friday by choosing not to veto a United Nations resolution censuring the Jewish state, according to conversations with sources.

The resolution, which has been floating through the U.N. for some time, finally came to a vote in the Security Council on Friday, where the Obama administration reversed years of policy by abstaining from the vote instead of vetoing it.

The decision quickly drew outrage across the pro-Israel community and in Congress, where multiple sources told the Washington Free Beacon that the incoming Trump administration is likely to pursue consequences for the U.N.’s action.

Israeli officials also lashed out at the Obama administration, calling its behavior “shameful” and alleging that President Obama used the anti-Israel vote as a way to express his hostility for the Jewish state before vacating the Oval Office.

“The Obama administration has long flirted with international efforts to delegitimize Israel, so what happened today isn’t really surprising,” said one senior congressional aide who spoke to the Free Beacon only on background when discussing potential action against the U.N.

“The good news is that a Republican government will enable us to roll back the Obama administration’s hostile anti-Israel policies,” the source said. “President-elect Trump has already signaled a level of support for Israel that we haven’t seen in eight years. Now we have a real opportunity to hold Iran accountable, fight BDS, and do everything possible to ensure Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region.”

Trump warned the U.N. shortly after the vote via Twitter that “things will be different” after his inauguration.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) said that Congress and Trump will work together “to reverse the damage done by this administration, and rebuild our alliance with Israel.”

A senior official at a national Jewish organization who works with Congress and the White House told the Free Beacon that Obama intentionally abstained from the vote in order to “stab our Israeli allies in the back.”

“The only reason Republicans have kept funding for the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations is because the Obama administration said the funding was helpful to American diplomacy,” the source said. “President Obama just used that diplomacy to stab our Israeli allies in the back. Republican lawmakers are already talking about how they can come together with the Trump administration to axe that spending. Democrats, many of whom will now be in trouble with constituents, are certainly not going to get in their way.”

Lawmakers and national Jewish organizations quickly condemned the administration’s behavior, accusing it of abandoning Israel at a time of need.

“The Obama administration’s decision to abstain from today’s UN Security Council vote is disgraceful,” Rep. Peter Roskam (R., Ill) said in a statement. “The adopted resolution is anti-Israel and anti-peace.‎ Congress and the incoming administration will stand with our friends and allies, and oppose all efforts to delegitimize Israel.”

The Jewish Federation of North America, or JFNA, one of the country’s largest and most influential pro-Israel organizations, described the administration’s actions as “tragic” and said the move is likely to mar Obama’s legacy.

“It is tragic that the administration chose to mar its legacy of support for the Jewish State and set back the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace,” the organization said in a statement.

“The administration’s decision undermined a core principle of American foreign policy that has been embraced by Democratic and Republican Administrations for decades: that the only route to a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is through direct negotiations between the parties,” JFNA said.

The Anti-Defamation League, a historically left-leaning organization that is headed by a former Obama administration official, said that it was “outraged” by Obama’s decision to allow the anti-Israel measure to be approved.

“We are outraged over the U.S. failure to veto this biased and unconstructive UNSC resolution on Israel,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, the ADL’s CEO. “This resolution will do little to renew peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians. It will only encourage further Palestinian intransigence vis-à-vis direct negotiations with Israel in favor of unilateral, one-sided initiatives.”

“The Obama administration repeatedly stated that a solution to the conflict cannot be imposed on the parties but must be achieved directly by the parties themselves,” Greenblatt added. “It is deeply troubling that this biased resolution appears to be the final word of the administration on this issue.”

Amb. Bolton on US abstention from UN Israel vote

December 24, 2016

Amb. Bolton on US abstention from UN Israel vote, Fox News via YouTube, December 23, 2016

Congress Threatens to Defund UN over Anti-Israel Vote

December 24, 2016

Congress Threatens to Defund UN over Anti-Israel Vote, BreitbartJoel B. Pokkak, December 23, 2016

(Obama allowed the UN Security Council to do its nasty deed. Isn’t there some way we can “defund” Obama? — DM)

barack-obama-samantha-powers-sept-29-2015-getty-640x480Anthony Behar-Pool/Getty Images

Ambassador Samantha Power, who represents the United States at the UN Security Council, sat mum on Friday when the chair called for votes against an anti-Israel resolution declaring Israeli settlements illegal. But she raised her hand high when the chair called for abstentions.

She, and her boss, President Barack Obama, could have voted no, in keeping with precedent, and in deference to the incoming administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump. Instead, they let the resolution pass.

In anticipation of Obama’s suspected — now confirmed — abstention, members of Congress threatened to de-fund the UN. The U.S. accounts for some 22% of the UN’s budget, supporting a large, comfortable bureaucracy and its various programs.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) issued a statement, warning:

This provocative action by the United Nations is an outrage and must be dealt with sternly and forcefully.

As the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I oversee the United States assistance to the United Nations. The United States is currently responsible for approximately 22 percent of the United Nations total budget.

If the United Nations moves forward with the ill-conceived resolution, I will work to form a bipartisan coalition to suspend or significantly reduce United States assistance to the United Nations.

In addition, any nation which backs this resolution and receives assistance from the United States will put that assistance in jeopardy.

Others joined Graham’s call to defund the UN, including Sen. James Lankford (R-OH). The Republican Jewish Coalition issued a statement also calling for defunding the UN:

By allowing the United Nations’ anti-Israel resolution to be adopted by the Security Council, in the face of fierce bi-partisan opposition, the actions of the Obama Administration will forever be remembered as a dark, shameful moment for our country. The resolution passed today will only serve as a greater barrier to peace, which can only truly be achieved through negotiations. Instead of pressuring the Palestinians to be a partner for peace, President Obama chose to break with long standing diplomatic practices and allowed the one-sided, anti-Israel United Nations to be used as a tool to bludgeon Israel, our greatest ally in the Middle East.

We applaud the efforts of Republican Senators, led by Senator Graham, to strip funding to the United Nations, which has time and again showed their anti-Israel bias. What happened today will forever be on the heads of the President, his Party, and groups like J Street that remained silent.

The passage of the resolution marks the Obama administration’s final stab in the back against Israel, on its way out the door and in defiance of the results of the November election, when voters chose Trump’s more assertive U.S. foreign policy.

In the hours before the vote, American Jewish organizations otherwise friendly to the Obama administration, such as the Union for Reform Judaism, belatedly mobilized to urge the Obama administration to veto the resolution. It was all to no avail.

In her statement attempting to justify the Obama administration’s failure to exercise its veto, Power cited a statement by President Ronald Reagan in 1982 opposing further Israeli settlements. She argued — incorrectly — that opposition to Israeli settlements had been the policy of every U.S. administration since 1967, ignoring the fact that President George W. Bush had assured Israel it would accept some settlements, as a reward for Israel’s recognition of the Palestinian aspiration to statehood.

Power attempted to cover the Obama administration’s backstabbing by noting that Israel is unfairly singled out for criticism by the UN: “Israel continues to be treated differently than other UN member states,” she said.

Yet even as Power said those words, she and the Obama administration participated in precisely that kind of singling out — subjecting Israel to criticism that no other states in similar situations had ever faced, in a week when the city of Aleppo fell to the genocidal Syrian regime.

She further argued that the U.S. would have blocked any resolution that threatened Israeli security. The implication was that a resolution that is factually and legally false, and which rewards Palestinians for decades of terror, does not harm Israel.

Power stated that “we cannot stand in the way of this resolution as we seek to preserve a chance to attain” the goal of a two-state solution. The claim flies in the face of Israeli efforts to renew negotiations — even to freeze settlement construction — in vain.

President-elect Trump had managed to keep the resolution at bay the day before by opposing it publicly, and by convincing Egypt to withdraw it from the agenda. But the Obama administration, aided by temporary Security Council members New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela, and Senegal, persisted.

The vote is a watershed: Israel faces a new and more hostile diplomatic reality, and the myth of bipartisan support for Israel has been shattered forever. Democrats will now bear an anti-Israel legacy.

US pushes back against Israeli claims of collusion with Palestinians over UN vote

December 23, 2016

US pushes back against Israeli claims of collusion with Palestinians over UN vote, Jerusalem PostMichael Wilner, December 23, 2015

(Please see also, Israel Official: Obama Administration Secretly Worked With Palestinians to Craft ‘Shameful’ UN Resolution. — DM)

ohamawavesUS President Barack Obama speaks at the Righteous Among the Nations Award Ceremony, organised by Yad Vashem, at Israel’s Embassy in Washington January 27, 2016. (photo credit:REUTERS)

WASHINGTON – The White House has not been behind a push for a resolution at the UN Security Council condemning Israel’s settlement enterprise, a senior Obama administration told The Jerusalem Post on Friday, insisting that claims to the contrary are baseless.

Reports that the administration will allow the resolution to pass are “premature,” the official added.

The administration is pushing back against a furious Israeli government that has determined US President Barack Obama intends to abstain from the vote, allowing a resolution harshly critical of its actions to pass. Furthermore, Israeli officials are claiming that Obama orchestrated the effort with their Palestinian counterparts.

“To be clear: from the start, this was an Egyptian resolution,” a senior official told the Post. “The Egyptians authored it, circulated it, and submitted it for a vote on Wednesday evening before asking for a delay and subsequently removing their sponsorship. A group of other Security Council members, not including the United States, is now moving forward the Egyptian text.”

“Contrary to some claims, the administration was not involved in formulating the resolution nor have we promoted it,” the official added. “We have not communicated to any UN Security Council members how the United States would vote if the resolution comes before the UN Security Council.”

After Egypt pulled its resolution last minute— prompted by pressure from both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President-elect Donald Trump— New Zealand took up the cause this morning, adopting their published text.

The resolution tracks with longstanding US policy that Israel’s settlement activity in the West Bank is illegal, and damages the peace process.

Once Israel came to the conclusion that Obama was likely to abstain, officials from the government at a “high level” contacted the incoming president’s team to intervene. The Israelis gave the White House warning it would do so, they said.

A senior Israeli official said on Friday that President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry pushed a “shameful” draft anti-settlement resolution at the UN Security Council.

“The US administration secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme anti-Israeli resolution behind Israel’s back which would be a tailwind for terror and boycotts,” the official said.

The official added that “President Obama could declare his willingness to veto this resolution in an instant but instead is pushing it. This is an abandonment of Israel which breaks decades of US policy of protecting Israel at the UN and undermines the prospects of working with the next administration of advancing peace.”

Israel Official: Obama Administration Secretly Worked With Palestinians to Craft ‘Shameful’ UN Resolution

December 23, 2016

Israel Official: Obama Administration Secretly Worked With Palestinians to Craft ‘Shameful’ UN Resolution, BreitbartAaron Klein, December 23, 2016

obamaohMark Wilson/Getty

TEL AVIV — The Obama administration secretly worked with the Palestinian Authority to craft a “shameful” United Nations resolution behind Israel’s back, an Israeli official told reporters on Friday.

The official told Breitbart Jerusalem by email:

“President Obama and Secretary Kerry are behind this shameful move against Israel at the UN. The US administration secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme anti Israeli resolution behind Israel’s back which would be a tailwind for terror and boycotts and effectively make the Western Wall occupied Palestinian territory. President Obama could declare his willingness to veto this resolution in an instant but instead is pushing it. This is an abandonment of Israel which breaks decades of US policy of protecting Israel at the UN and undermines the prospects of working with the next administration of advancing peace.”

The official sent the same quotes to major news agencies, including Reuters and the Associated Press. He spoke as four UN Security Council members met on Friday to discuss how to advance the anti-Israel resolution despite Egypt’s decision to delay the vote on the draft that it introduced. The draft was originally scheduled for vote yesterday, but was delayed following criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President-elect Donald Trump.

After the meeting, diplomats said the UN will move forward with the vote, which is expected to take place Friday at about 3 p.m. Eastern (10 p.m. in Jerusalem).

The text of the resolution repeatedly and wrongly refers to the West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem as “Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.”  In actuality, the Palestinians never had a state in either the West Bank or eastern Jerusalem and they are not legally recognized as the undisputed authority in those areas.

Jordan occupied and annexed the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem from 1948 until Israel captured the lands in a defensive war in 1967 after Arab countries used the territories to launch attacks against the Jewish state.  In 1988 Jordan officially renounced its claims to the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.

The text of the resolution declares that the Israeli settlement enterprise has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”

It calls for Israel to “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”

As the Committee for Accuracy for Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) pointed out in an email blast, international law does not make Israeli settlements illegal.

CAMERA notes:

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions, which is relied upon by those who claim the settlements are illegal, does not apply in the case of the West Bank. This is because the West Bank was never under self-rule by a nation that was a party to the Convention, and therefore there is no “partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party,” as Article 2 of the Convention specifies. Moreover, even if it did apply, by its plain terms, it applies only to forcible transfers and not to voluntary movement. Therefore, it can’t prohibit Jews from choosing to move to areas of great historical and religious significance to them.

If the resolution is brought to a vote in its current form and Obama fails to veto, the resolution would contradict a Bush administration commitment to allowing some existing Jewish settlements to remain under a future Israeli-Palestinian deal.

That U.S. commitment, which the Obama administration has repeatedly violated by condemning settlement activity, was reportedly a key element in Israel’s decision to unilaterally evacuate the Gaza Strip in 2005.

The UN draft resolution text states that “cessation of all Israeli settlement activities is essential for salvaging the two-State solution,” and it “calls for affirmative steps to be taken immediately to reverse the negative trends on the ground that are imperiling the two-State solution.”

In 2004, just prior to the Gaza evacuation, President Bush issued a declarative letter stating that it is unrealistic to expect that Israel will not retain some Jewish settlements in a final-status deal with the Palestinians.

The letter stated:

In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.

Elliott Abrams, the Deputy National Security Adviser for Global Democracy Strategy during Bush’s second term, was instrumental in brokering understandings between the U.S. and Israel on settlements. In a June 2009 piece published by the Wall Street Journal, Abrams accused the Obama administration of “abandoning” those U.S.-Israel understandings by taking positions critical of all settlement activity.

Abrams wrote:

There were indeed agreements between Israel and the United States regarding the growth of Israeli settlements on the West Bank … principles that would permit some continuing growth. … They emerged from discussions with American officials and were discussed by Messrs. Sharon and Bush at their Aqaba meeting in June 2003. … The prime minister of Israel relied on them in undertaking a wrenching political reorientation – the dissolution of his government, the removal of every single Israeli citizen, settlement and military position in Gaza, and the removal of four small settlements in the West Bank. … For reasons that remain unclear, the Obama administration has decided to abandon the understandings about settlements reached by the previous administration with the Israeli government. We may be abandoning the deal now, but we cannot rewrite history and make believe it did not exist.