Amb. Bolton on US abstention from UN Israel vote, Fox News via YouTube, December 23, 2016
Posted tagged ‘Obama and Israel’
Amb. Bolton on US abstention from UN Israel vote
December 24, 2016Congress Threatens to Defund UN over Anti-Israel Vote
December 24, 2016Congress Threatens to Defund UN over Anti-Israel Vote, Breitbart, Joel 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)
Anthony 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.
U.S. Abstains In UN Vote On Israeli Settlements
December 23, 2016Trump was Right to Stop Obama from Tying his Hands on Israel
December 23, 2016Trump was Right to Stop Obama from Tying his Hands on Israel, Gatestone Institute, Alan M. Dershowitz, December 23, 2016
(This was published just a couple of hours before the UN Security Council voted unanimously to pass the resolution, Obama’s America abstaining. — DM)
The Egyptian decision to withdraw the one-sided anti-Israel 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’ roll by preparing to abstain rather than voting for the resolution. But in the context of the 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 once cast 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 President Obama’s successors, most particularly 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 he 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 try to even personal scores and act on pique. That 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 now appears that Obama will not be stopped. Four temporary Security Council members have decided to push the resolution to a vote now. It is difficult to believe that they would have done so without the implicit support of the United States. Stay tuned.
U.S. declines to veto U.N. Security Council resolution for Israel to stop Jewish settlement activity
December 23, 2016U.S. declines to veto U.N. Security Council resolution for Israel to stop Jewish settlement activity, Washington Post, Carol Morello, December 23, 2016
The U.N. Security Council on Friday passed a resolution demanding Israel cease Jewish settlement activity on Palestinian territory in a unanimous vote that passed with the United States abstaining rather than using its veto as it has reliably done in the past.
The resolution said settlements are threatening the viability of the two-state solution, and urged Israelis and Palestinians to return to negotiations that lead to two independent nations.
This marked the first time in more than 36 years that the Security Council passed a resolution critical of settlements.
The United States’ abstention Friday reflected mounting frustration in the Obama administration over settlement growth that the United States considers an obstacle to peace.
The resolution came one day after a scheduled vote was postponed when the sponsor, Egypt, withdrew it after the Egyptian president spoke by phone with President-elect Donald Trump. Friday’s resolution was sponsored by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal.
Shortly before the vote, several U.S. senators said that if it passed they would introduce legislation to cut off U.S. funding to the United Nations and to any states that voted in favor of it.
US pushes back against Israeli claims of collusion with Palestinians over UN vote
December 23, 2016US pushes back against Israeli claims of collusion with Palestinians over UN vote, Jerusalem Post, Michael Wilner, December 23, 2015
(Please see also, Israel Official: Obama Administration Secretly Worked With Palestinians to Craft ‘Shameful’ UN Resolution. — DM)
US 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, 2016Israel Official: Obama Administration Secretly Worked With Palestinians to Craft ‘Shameful’ UN Resolution, Breitbart, Aaron Klein, December 23, 2016
Mark 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.
Security Council likely to vote on settlements Friday despite Egyptian reversal
December 23, 2016Security Council likely to vote on settlements Friday despite Egyptian reversal, Times of Israel, December 23, 2016
A UN Security Council resolution criticizing Israeli settlements will likely go up for a vote Friday despite original sponsor Egypt pulling its support, after four countries agreed to present a draft resolution, diplomats said.
New Zealand, Malaysia, Senegal and Venezuela stepped in after Egypt, under pressure from US President-elect Donald Trump, withdrew the measure.
“Most likely, we will have a vote soon,” French Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters.
“The key goal that we have here is to preserve and reaffirm the two state-solution,” said Delattre. “The text that we have does not exclusively focus on settlements. It also condemns the violence and terrorism. It also calls to prevent all incitement from the Palestinian side so this is a balanced text.”
Diplomats said the same draft resolution would be submitted to a vote, at the request of the four countries.
The draft resolution demands that “Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”
It states that Israeli settlements have “no legal validity” and are “dangerously imperiling the viability of the two-state solution” that would see an independent Palestine co-exist alongside Israel.
The four member states had warned earlier that they would push ahead with the resolution if Cairo stood by its decision to delay.
“In the event that Egypt decides that it cannot proceed to call for vote on 23 December or does not provide a response by the deadline, those delegations reserve the right to table the draft … and proceed to put it to vote ASAP,” wrote New Zealand, Venezuela, Malaysia and Senegal in a note they presented to Egyptian officials, according to Reuters.
Egypt had said earlier its president received a call from Trump in which they both agreed to give the incoming US administration a chance to try and resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The call came hours after Egypt indefinitely postponed the UN vote on its resolution, following pressure from Israel and Trump, who had called on members to veto it.
A statement from the Egyptian presidency said the two men spoke by phone early Friday and agreed on “the importance of giving a chance for the new American administration to deal in a comprehensive way with the different aspects of the Palestinian issue with the aim of achieving a comprehensive and a final resolution” to the decades-old conflict.
Egypt requested Thursday that its resolution demanding Israel halt settlements be postponed after Jerusalem launched a frantic lobbying effort.
An official in Jerusalem later Thursday accused the Obama administration of attempting a diplomatic “hit” against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the settlements by planning to let the resolution pass, and a second Israeli source said the administration, in its final days, was violating a “core commitment” to defend Israel at the UN.
“After becoming aware that the (US administration) would not veto the anti-Israel resolution, Israeli officials reached out to Trump’s transition team to ask for the president-elect’s help to avert the resolution,” an Israeli official told AFP on Friday.
“The [Trump] phone call touched on the draft resolution before the United Nations Security Council on Israeli settlements,” a statement from Sissi’s office said.
Trump, who had campaigned on a promise to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, bluntly said Washington should use its veto to block the resolution.
“The resolution being considered at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel should be vetoed,” he said in a statement.
Trump and Sisi discuss Middle East peace
December 23, 2016Trump and Sisi discuss Middle East peace, Israel National News, Elad Benari, December 23, 2016
Trump and Sisi meet in New YorkReuters
“The presidents agreed on the importance of affording the new U.S. administration the full chance to deal with all dimensions of the Palestinian case with a view of achieving a full and final settlement,” he added.
Sisi recently praised Trump and said he expected greater engagement in the Middle East from his administration.
******************************
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Thursday night spoke with U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump, Sisi’s office said, according to Reuters.
The call came hours after the UN Security Council postponed indefinitely a vote on Egypt’s draft resolution denouncing Israeli “settlements”.
“During the call they discussed regional affairs and developments in the Middle East and in that context the draft resolution in front of the Security Council on Israeli settlement,” said Sisi’s spokesman, Alaa Yousef.
“The presidents agreed on the importance of affording the new U.S. administration the full chance to deal with all dimensions of the Palestinian case with a view of achieving a full and final settlement,” he added.
Thursday’s vote on the UN Security Council resolution was reportedly postponed after Sisi instructed his nation’s delegation to push for a delay in the vote.
Trump had earlier called for the United States to veto the resolution, as it has traditionally done with similar proposals. American officials indicated that the Obama administration was planning to abstain from voting or even to vote yes.
Sisi recently praised Trump and said he expected greater engagement in the Middle East from his administration.
The Egyptian President has also been at the forefront of the effort to resume talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, having several months ago urged Israelis and Palestinian Arabs to seize what he said was a “real opportunity” for peace and hailed his own country’s peace deal with Israel.
The comments were welcomed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who stressed that “Israel is ready to participate with Egypt and other Arab states in advancing both the diplomatic process and stability in the region.”
Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman welcomed Sisi’s call as well, saying he welcomed the Egyptian president’s efforts to achieve peace and establish a Palestinian state.
Egypt scuttles UN vote on Israeli settlement after Trump warning
December 23, 2016Egypt scuttles UN vote on Israeli settlement after Trump warning, Washington Examiner,
Trump’s statement might have had the greatest influence on the Egyptian decision, beyond Netanyahu’s lobbying or other American statements. “Diplomats in Tel Aviv speculating that Sisi didn’t cave because of Israel, but rather because he didn’t want to piss off incoming president,” Economist correspondent Gregg Carlstrom tweeted.
*********************
Egyptian officials scrapped a plan to proceed with a United Nations Security Council vote condemning the construction of Israeli settlements, following pushback from Israeli officials and President-elect Trump.
“Egypt requested the vote’s delay to permit them to conduct an additional meeting of the Arab League’s foreign ministers to work on the resolution’s wording,” Haaretz reported, citing Western diplomats. But the vote might be postponed “indefinitely,” according to the report.
Israeli settlement construction drew condemnation from the State Department earlier this year, in addition to the rebukes of more customary critics, raising fears in Israel and among congressional Republicans that President Obama might not veto a resolution on the matter in the waning days of his presidency. President-elect Trump stated his opposition to the resolution, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was lobbying Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to drop the resolution.
“The resolution being considered at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel should be vetoed,” Trump said in a statement. “As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., also called on the Obama administration to veto it.
Trump’s statement might have had the greatest influence on the Egyptian decision, beyond Netanyahu’s lobbying or other American statements. “Diplomats in Tel Aviv speculating that Sisi didn’t cave because of Israel, but rather because he didn’t want to piss off incoming president,” Economist correspondent Gregg Carlstrom tweeted.
Egypt is a temporary member of the UN Security Council, which is dominated by five permanent members — the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, and France — which have the authority to veto council resolutions. Obama used that authority to block a similar resolution condemning Israeli settlements in 2011, but his administration’s increasingly public frustration with the failure of talks between Israel and the Palestinians raised the possibility that he wouldn’t veto it this time around.
Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged the appeal of a change in policy when asked about a potential resolution to be authored by French diplomats. “If it’s a biased and unfair and a resolution calculated to delegitimize Israel, we’ll oppose it,” he said at the Haim Saban Forum on December 4. “But it’s getting more complicated now because there is a building sense of what I’ve been saying to you today, which some people can shake their heads, say, well, it’s unfair.”
Kerry emphasized that the Israeli settlements in disputed territory are not the cause of violence, but he argued that were nonetheless a “barrier” to an ultimate peace that was being tolerated by the Israeli government. “I’ll tell you why I know that: because the left in Israel is telling everybody they are a barrier to peace, and the right that supports it openly supports it because they don’t want peace,” Kerry said.
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