Netanyahu tells UN: 'We will stop Iran alone if we need to'
Prime Minister Netanyahu told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that Israel will go it alone against Iran if need be.
"Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, even if we have
to stand alone. Yet in standing alone, Israel will know that we will be
defending many, many others," he said.
He dismissed the recent so-called "charm offensive" by Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani, charging that while his predecessor, Mahmoud
Ahmedinejad, had been openly aggressive towards Israel, he was
concealing his true intentions. The Iranians' goal, Netanyahu said, was
an end to the sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy and were
implemented over Teheran's intransigence on its atomic ambitions, and it
was for this reason that Rouhani was elected.
"When it comes to
Iran's nuclear weapons program, the only difference between them is
this: Ahmadinejad was a wolf in wolf's clothing, Rouhani is a wolf in
sheep's clothing, a wolf who thinks he can pull the wool over the eyes
of the international community," Netanyahu said.
He also said that Iran's nuclear program had continued at a "vast and feverish" pace since the election in June of Rouhani.
"Like
everyone else, I wish we could believe Rouhani's words, but we must
focus on Iran's action," Netanyahu said, adding that sanctions should be
tightened if the Iranians pursue nuclear projects while negotiating
with world powers.
'Palestinians' set up diplomatic war room for September
In preparation for the September battle over recognizing their reichlet as a 'state,' the 'Palestinians' have set up a war room.
Until two months ago, the Palestinian leadership believed it was going to score an easy diplomatic victory at the UN. However, the Foreign Ministry's campaign against the Palestinian effort, first reported by Haaretz weeks ago, bore significant fruit and created momentum to counter the Palestinian move - with the United States, Germany, Italy and Canada announcing publicly they would vote against recognition of a Palestinian state in the General Assembly.
Israeli officials who were informed of the Palestinian plan of action said that the PA set up a diplomatic "war room" to coordinate the rallying of international support for the September vote. The war room is managing diplomatic and media messages and is deciding where to concentrate efforts and which countries will be visited by the Palestinian leadership.
Heading the Palestinian team is Yasser Abed Rabbo, the secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee. His team includes Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki, the head of the Palestinian negotiating team; Saeb Erekat, who is in charge of Fatah external relations; Nabil Sha'ath; Justice Minister Ali Khashan; and the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour.
Despite the automatic advantage that the Palestinians enjoy at the General Assembly, the Palestinian leadership has been receiving reports from Palestinian envoys and representatives throughout the world that Israeli and American diplomats are aggressively pressuring many countries to oppose the UN vote, or at least to abstain. On the other hand, Israeli ambassadors have reported to the Foreign Ministry that the ambassadors of Arab states, and especially Egypt, are assisting the Palestinians in their diplomatic campaign in Arab capitals.
'Palestinians' to give up on bid for full UN membership to avoid US veto?
'Palestinian' sources and European diplomats say that the 'Palestinians' are considering giving up on becoming full members of the United Nations, and instead seeking non-member state status 'within the 1967 borders' from the General Assembly. This would avoid a US veto in the Security Council and would only require a majority vote in the General Assembly.
Following the failed meeting of the Quartet foreign ministers in Washington last week, the Palestinians recognized that the United States will veto any resolution that will be brought before the UN Security Council for unilateral Palestinian statehood. Moreover, the Palestinians have also concluded that turning to the Security Council with a request for full membership in the UN is a more complicated proposition, largely because of time constraints.
Palestinian sources and European diplomats said that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his aides are increasingly leaning toward a direct appeal to the General Assembly of the international organization. Even though the assembly lacks the authority to offer the Palestinians full UN membership, at the General Assembly the United States is unable to use its veto power against resolutions brought before the plenum for a vote.
Also, the Palestinians would like the vote to take place during the General Assembly in the last week of September, and for this there is no need for a great deal of preparation. The vote at the General Assembly could be called with as little as 24 hours notice.
A vote at the General Assembly is expected to end with a Palestinian victory and a large majority, as some 140 member states are expected to support recognition of a Palestinian state. Even though a General Assembly resolution is "weaker" than one by the Security Council, the Palestinians are comparing such a decision to Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947, in which the General Assembly approved the plan to partition Palestine.
Senior Palestinian officials say that without the decision on dividing Palestine in 1947, Israel would not have had the international legitimacy to declare independence in May 1948.
Except that Israel could have done whatever it wanted in 1948 because the Arabs (there were no 'Palestinians' in 1948) rejected the partition plan and determined to drive the Jews into the sea. Moreover, Israel was admitted by the Security Council in 1949.
By the way, the rest of the quartet is blaming the United States for the 'Palestinians' pique.
Senior European diplomats said that the failure of the Quartet meeting pushed the Palestinians even more toward turning to the UN. They say that responsibility for the failure of the meeting lies with the United States, which proposed to the other Quartet members - the EU, the UN and Russia - a one-sided wording for an announcement that favored Israel and which had no chance of being accepted by the Palestinians.
The U.S. version did include mention of negotiations being based on the 1967 borders with an exchange of territory, however, it also included portions of the letter of President George Bush to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon which noted that the border changes would reflect the demographic changes on the ground since 1967. This implies the annexation of the settlement blocs to Israel.
"The Israelis pressured the U.S. very heavily and the American wording was too blatant and unbalanced," senior European sources said. "In the way things had been written there was no chance that the Palestinians would accept this."
European Union Foreign Policy head Catherine Ashton refused to accept the U.S. version and was joined by the Russians. She put forth a more moderate version, calling for negotiations on the principle of "two states for two peoples," with mention to Resolution 181 on the division of Palestine in 1947. "Unfortunately the Americans failed to convince the Israelis to accept this version," senior European diplomats said.
Did they really expect Israel to accept the 1947 partition lines more than 60 years after the Arabs rejected them? Even Livni couldn't accept that.
"It was decided to go to the United Nations to request the recognition of the state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital and to move ahead and request a full membership," said the communique, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.
The statement did not provide a timeline indicating the application would be made in time for the UN assembly in September. A Palestinian delegate said the Arab League had appointed a committee to determine dates.
Full member status would require approval in the Security Council, where the United States had said it would veto any such resolution.
The Palestinians, who currently hold UN "observer" status, had previously pledged to seek UN endorsement in September for their claim of sovereignty in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
The Arab League formally backed this plan in May.
But in the face of opposition from Israel and some world powers, the Palestinians had previously signalled they might opt for a more limited upgrade to "non-member state" status, which requires only General Assembly approval.
The article makes it sound like the decision to seek 'statehood' has not yet been taken, but Israel Radio reports (5:00 pm) that the decision was made to see 'statehood' for 'Palestine.' It has not yet been decided whether to seek membership status or non-member state status.
According to Israel Radio, recognition as a non-member state only requires majority approval in the General Assembly, where there are no vetoes. The 'Palestinians' say they already have 117 votes in the General Assembly (which is more than a majority), and there is still a possibility that the 'Palestinians' will go that way. They must decide by the end of the month.
Saeb Erekat prepared a position paper for the Arab League that expressed fear that going for the full membership in the UN may draw sanctions from the United States as well as an attempt to 'impose' a 'solution' that would include recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. But Congress could withdraw aid even if the 'Palestinians' decide to go for the non-member state status.
Daniel Greenfield writes an open letter to Harvey Weinstein, the director of the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel movie Miral, which is previewing this week in the United Nations General Assembly.
Come along Harvey, into the bedroom where a father and his three-month-old daughter, Hadas, were fast asleep. It can be hard to get a 3-month-old baby to fall asleep. Her father must had quite a time of it that night. Babies may not have language, but they do have fears. They are afraid of the strange new world they were born into. And they need parents to comfort them and assure them that everything will be all right. That they are loved and protected.
When Rabbi Fogel finally got his little baby daughter to sleep, she must have felt safe with her father there. The man who would have taught her about life. Who would have done his best to protect her. And the man whose throat was slashed in his sleep along with his child's.
Tell me Harvey, do you know what goes through a three month old baby's mind when her throat is being slashed? You can't make a movie about it and you wouldn't it if you could. Movies are complex stories. The characters change and grow. They become someone else. A three-month-old baby having her throat cut will never become anyone else. She is fixed in that moment of horror and pain. Dying without knowing why. Only that her parents couldn't protect her.
If you were going to make a movie about this scene, it would be about the killers. You would show their past and explain their actions. Surely an Israeli soldier stepped on their toe once or blew up their house. Stretch it out over two hours and you can justify anything. Even the knife being drawn across Hadas' throat. That is the magic of cinema. But to three-month-old Hadas, there is no context. The movie of her life ended the night you were hard at work promoting yours.
The mother had been in the bathroom while the bloody work took place. A small moment of peace while her children slept. She didn't let them cut her throat, the way they had that of her husband and her baby daughter. Instead she fought them. They had to stab her to death.
If you ever make a movie about these particular terrorists, be sure to emphasize how hard it is to stab a mother to death. She will fight for her children. And the terrorists will have to work to kill her. You should swoop the camera down sympathetically on their sweating faces as they do the hard work of murdering her.
From there they went on to murder 11 year old Yoav who was reading in bed. Next was 3 -year-old Elad. Why stab a 3-year-old boy twice in the heart? That is the question, Harvey. I understand once. Once is certainly enough to kill any 3 year old. But twice? Maybe it was that each killer wanted a turn and a share of the glory of murdering a toddler. They had already murdered three children and their parents, but the laws of Islam can be arcane sometimes. Is it possible then that the Shaheed (the martyr) will not enter paradise unless he murders a 3 year old too?
Maybe there are more virgins waiting in paradise for each child killed. Murder a child and trade his body in for more virgins. Or maybe it is that the brave Jihadists who climb through living room windows and cut the throats of children in their sleep wanted to feel the violence of that blow. The thrill of the knife slamming home into a child's heart. Or maybe it is that Elad's heart was strong enough that even two adult Muslim terrorists had to stab twice to kill him.
I would like to think so.
Your article promoting Miral urges that 'understanding the "other" requires us to step out of our comfort zones'. Step now out of your comfort zone. And understand the other. I don't mean the murderers themselves. I think you understand them a little too well. If you didn't understand them at all, Miral would be lying on a back shelf somewhere.
I urge you to understand your own 'Other', not those who kill in the name of Islamic terrorism, but those who die of it. Who die and yet refuse to give in. Who cling to their tiny patch of land, more than you would ever cling to your Connecticut estate.
Family members have released photos of the children lying in their blood, but I don't think you will want to see them. They are too far outside your comfort zone. There is plenty of blood and gore in your movies, but this is different. These are the bodies of inconvenient children. Their deaths don't fit into your ideological framework. You know quite well that Muslims are good people, and Jews who live on land claimed by the Muslims, are bad people. If they are murdered it is inconvenient because it retards the peace process. The process by which terrorists climb through living room windows and slash the throats of children. Until whole families are at peace.
...
"Unless the Palestinian narrative is finally understood and acknowledged by Israelis and their American supporters, there will never be peace in the Holy Land," you say. As if peace were in your hands to give. But we understand the Palestinian narrative all too well. The real one and the fake one. We know the olive groves, the bulldozers and the keys. And we also know the terrorist gangs trained by Islamic fanatics and Socialist dictators to seize the land and murder its inhabitants. The gangs whom Moscow gave a nationalist gloss calling them the Palestinian people, the smirking thugs on whom President Clinton and European leaders bestowed legitimacy and billions of dollars.
If you want to know the real narrative, then put Miral on a shelf and ask where the Christians of the region have gone. Where have the Zoroastrians gone? Why are there so few left? The answer would make for a much better movie, but it is not a movie that you will ever make. It is a story of bigotry and genocide. It is an old story and a new one. You can find its oldest chapters in the Koran, along with the graves of the Jews of what is today Saudi Arabia. Its latest chapters are being written in Europe, where Jews once again flee European cities, not from men in uniforms, but in long robes. And unless that narrative is understood, there will be no peace in the Holy Land, or anywhere else.
I know that none of this will move you. Controversy is your bread and butter. The more you hear cries of pain, the more you count the cash. Miral will make you money. Just as Der Ewige Jude made money. And you will protest that there is no comparison between the two. Miral is only giving the Palestinian narrative, just as Der Ewige Jude gave the Aryan narrative. It is more subtle, I'm sure. The audiences you count on are liberal and sophisticated. They won't be taken in by gutter propaganda.
You will dismiss this as, what you describe in your article, being, "smeared by those who insist on reducing this conflict to us vs. them." So stand outside while Rabbi Cohen walks with his gun, a twelve year old by his side, her heart beating almost as hard as her little brother's did when the knife came down on it, and wait while she goes inside. And then answer her this, if you truly believe in not reducing the conflict to 'Us vs Them' then why are you telling the story of Miral and not her story?
You have chosen a side. Our 'Them' is your 'Us'. Soon that girl will leave the house again, along with her younger brothers. Three children who somehow survived. Look her over carefully. She is your 'Other'. The story you do not want to hear. The face you do not want to see. She survived tonight. So did two of her brothers. Next time they might not. No movie is needed to tell her story. Her life is her story. Her survival a testament.
Bechor proposes that Israel pull back the IDF from operations in the Arab controlled areas and stop security cooperation at that level.
The world would applaud Israel (for a day or so) for pulling out.
But at this point, it is only a short time until the Palestinian Authority is overthrown by Hamas, which is more explicit in their goal to destroy Israel.
We would have a situation in Areas A of Judea/Samaria like we have in Gaza.
Bechor believes that perhaps enough of the world would accept the concept that a Hamas controlled territory doesn’t deserve a recognized state.
JoeSettler goes on to analyze some of the risks to Israelis (including himself) that would inure as a result of Hamas being in control. But on the whole, he seems to believe that allowing Hamas to take charge of Judea and Samaria would prevent the General Assembly from voting in favor of a 'Palestinian state.' Read the whole thing.
I disagree. I believe that the General Assembly is going to vote in favor of a 'Palestinian' reichlet whether Judea and Samaria are controlled by Hamas or Fatah. The Organization of Islamic Countries will all vote in favor, even with Hamas in charge, as will the so-called Non-Aligned Movement. That will be more than enough for a General Assembly majority.
The West may also be convinced to vote in favor - or at least those countries that can be convinced that Hamas has a 'political wing' and a 'military wing' can be convinced to vote in favor of a 'Palestinian state' run by Hamas.
The United States will probably vote against if Hamas is in charge - after all, the vote will be only 14 months before the US Presidential elections - but in the General Assembly that matters little because the United States has no veto, and in any event, no one seriously expects - for now at least - that the United Nations will send troops to fight with Israel.
The United Nations General Assembly will be screening a virulently anti-Israel film called Miral on Monday.
Sources said that invitations were sent out on Thursday afternoon for the Monday night screening. Members of the Israeli delegation to the UN said the decision to screen a feature film in the General Assembly hall – especially such a dramatically pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli film – was a “horrible” one. The decision seems to have been made unilaterally by Switzerland’s Joseph Deiss, the General Assembly’s president. Messages to his spokesperson left by the Post Sunday were not returned.
On Friday morning, Israel’s delegation to the UN sent a letter of complaint to Deiss, protesting his decision to host the US premiere of Miral, Israeli spokeswoman Karean Peretz told the Post.
In the letter, Israel’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Haim Waxman wrote, “We find it very troubling that the UN has chosen to feature this film in the GA Hall. We are not aware of any other films with such contentious political content that have received this kind of endorsement from the President of the GA.”
The event, according to the Israeli delegation, “will mark a rare occasion in which the UN’s GA Hall is used for a movie premiere. This is clearly a politicized decision of the UN, one that shows poor judgment and a lack of evenhandedness.”
According to members of the Israeli delegation, various offices at the UN denied having any knowledge of the event beforehand, including the office of the Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. His office did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.
Waxman told the Post that Deiss, as president of the General Assembly, in some circumstances is independent and therefore has the prerogative to make decisions such as these.
“But the hall of the General Assembly is not his own property,” Waxman continued. “This is the main hall of the global community and belongs to the countries of the world. Anything that happens there has to be decided with great care. We find ourselves arguing about commas here and there on every document – so how can this screening happen?”
I've reported previously on the film and shown you the trailer here.
Here is the plot from Wikipedia (it's actually based on a true story, which has been propagandized).
A chronicle of Hind Husseini's effort to establish an orphanage in Jerusalem after the 1948 partition of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel.
Jerusalem, 1948. On her way to work, Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbass) comes across 55 orphaned children in the street. She takes them home to give them food and shelter. Within six months, 55 had grown to almost 2,000, and the Dar Al-Tifel Institute was born.
In 1978, at the age of 7, Miral (Freida Pinto) was sent to the Institute by her father following her mother's death. Brought up safely inside the Institute's walls, she is naïve to the troubles that surround her. Then, in 1988, at the age of 17, she is assigned to teach at a refugee camp where she is awakened to the reality of her people’s struggle. When she falls for Hani, a political activist, she finds herself torn between the fight for the future of her people and Mama Hind's belief that education is the road to peace.
You can probably guess to whom this movie is sympathetic....
...
So what's wrong with a highly visible film that's likely to get a lot of attention (even though it may be out of the running for an Oscar) and that shows the 'Palestinians' in a favorable light? Well, let's start with Hind Husseini. Does the name sound familiar? I thought it might. She was the sister of Haj al-Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem and a collaborator with Hitler. And she never apologized for that. And no, the movie isn't going to highlight it either.
And guess where the original 55 children in the orphanage came from? They were survivors of what Wikipedia calls the 'Deir Yassin massacre.' (There never was a 'massacre' there, but I won't get into that now). So you can bet that lie will be repeated.
The orphanage ended up in Sheikh Jarrah, directly across from what was until 2002 the 'Palestinian' headquarters in Jerusalem known as Orient House. Maybe we'll even see the nearby Shepherd's Hotel....
Do you all have a sense of where this is heading? This entire movie is one massive slander against Israel....
But as a reminder, I am going to show you the trailer again.
Remember this the next time Ahmadinejad wants to come to the UN
Every time Israel and the Jewish community object to the likes of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Libya's Muammar Gadhafi coming to the United Nations, we are told that under the agreements establishing the UN, the United States has to admit everyone who wants to come to the UN to its shores. On Wednesday night, that was shown to be a lie. The United States can turn away people wishing to come to the United Nations.
A report Wednesday night said that airport officials in New York had prevented a Libyan plane from landing at Kennedy Airport. The plane was reportedly carrying Ali Tari, a top aide of Muammar Qaddafi, who was coming to the United Nations to defend his government's actions. Libyan diplomats in the US have refused to represent the government.
Reports in Arab media said that the plane was forced to turn back to Libya.
Let's start working now to prevent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from coming to the UN in September for the General Assembly, and to prevent the Geneva III conference from taking place altogether. Yes, the United States can bar 'diplomats' when it wants to!
The 'Palestinians' have called for a 'day of rage' against the United States on Friday, as they prepare to take their resolution condemning Israel to the UN General Assembly.
Palestinians on Saturday called for a “day of rage” this Friday to protest against the US administration’s decision to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israel for building in the settlements.
Expressing outrage over Friday’s veto, the Palestinian Authority threatened to reassess its position on the Middle East peace process.
...
The PA said it was now considering going to the UN General Assembly with a request to issue a similar resolution condemning construction in the settlements. Just two months ago, the assembly passed a resolution – which had the approval of 159 out of 192 UN member states – calling on Israel to halt settlement activity. Only six nations, including Israel and the US, opposed it.
...
Some Palestinians, including Tawfik Tirawi, a former Fatah security commander, called for organizing the “day of rage” against the US next Friday.
Tirawi said that the veto “exposed America’s real face and the extent to which it is biased in favor of oppression and occupation.”
In response to reports that the US had threatened to cut off financial aid to the PA if it insisted on presenting the resolution to the Security Council, Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf said that the Palestinians “want to get rid of occupation and are not only waiting to earn their living.”
The US Administration should support the Palestinians and not block freedom and independence, Assaf said. He added that Fatah was planning more anti- US demonstrations in the West Bank in the coming days.
“US threats to cut off the aid show that that the Americans are ignorant of our people’s moral and national values and aspirations,” read a statement issued by Fatah the leadership.
“The US veto is a victory for occupation and settlements.”
Fatah said that the veto harmed Washington’s status as a major broker in the peace process and encourages Israel to continue building in the settlements.
Hamas also condemned the US veto, saying it exposed Washington’s bias in favor of Israel.
“The US veto is an award to the occupation government for its violations against the Palestinians,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.
Obama spoke with Abbas for 50 minutes on Thursday to urge the Palestinian president not to bring the resolution to a vote. According to the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, Obama told Abbas that the resolution could damage U.S. interests in the Middle East and could induce the U.S. Congress to halt aid to the PA.
Obama reportedly suggested that in lieu of bringing the resolution to a vote, Abbas accept an alternative package of benefits, including a presidential statement on the settlements by the Security Council. Such a statement would be nonbinding, but could be couched in harsher terms. The package would also have included a Security Council visit to Ramallah to express support for the PA and denounce the settlements, and a statement by the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers that, for the first time, would call for the boundaries of the Palestinian state to be based on the 1967 lines.
On Friday afternoon, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton phoned Abbas with an even more sharply worded message.
But Abbas told both Obama and Clinton that settlements were the reason for the breakdown in the peace talks, and the Palestinian people would not back down on this matter.
After the phone calls, Abbas called a joint meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee and the leadership of his Fatah party. Mansour told the participants by phone that Arab missions to the UN wanted the resolution to move forward no matter what. They then voted unanimously to bring the resolution to a vote.
And then there was the pile-on.
The British ambassador read a joint statement by Britain, France and Germany that said that construction in the settlements, including in East Jerusalem, contravened international law.
The 'Palestinians' are the real winners of Friday's saga, despite the veto, while both the US and Israel are unsatisfied.
The veto garnered praise from pro-Israeli American lawmakers and numerous Jewish groups that had been working energetically over the past few weeks to secure it.
But the Obama administration is reportedly worried that the veto will degrade America's status in the Arab world.
And an Israeli official in New York warned that "the Palestinian initiative was thwarted, but it increased Israel's isolation." Israel's claim that the Palestinians are responsible for the stalled talks falls on deaf ears at the UN, he added.
Abbas' rejection of Obama's request will help him politically, as the Palestinian public will not be able to accuse him of buckling under U.S. pressure, as it did in 2009 when American reservations led the PA to postpone a UN Human Rights Council vote on the Goldstone report on Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza earlier that year. Moreover, given the anti-government protests now sweeping the Arab world, Abbas apparently wanted to demonstrate that it is not afraid of a showdown with the White House.
All of this is Obama's fault, as the New York Daily News did a great job of explaining in this editorial.
Obama began the botch in 2009, when, out of nowhere, he called for a settlement freeze - effectively making that a precondition for peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.
This was something no Palestinian partner had ever asked for or expected. It also vested a third-level consideration with more importance than, say, Palestinian recognition of Israel's right to exist. And it displayed a naive belief that Palestinians would negotiate in productive good faith if only Israel would make this one gesture.
With the American President suddenly prioritizing it, the demand morphed into the perfect excuse for the Palestinians to stall - telling people to "look over there" while rejectionists continued their frontal assault on Israel's legitimacy.
Obama further degraded matters by repeatedly using some of the same "settlement" terminology to describe neighborhoods that are home to tens of thousands of Jews in East Jerusalem.
These are not settlements in any shape or form.
And so the Palestinians adopted a strategy of painting Israel as a party so intransigent and anti-peace as to be willing to resist the requests of the Jewish state's close ally America.
With anti-Israel sentiment running high around the globe, it worked.
The Security Council took up a Palestinian-backed resolution that had more than 100 cosponsors. Desperately, Obama tried to persuade the council to issue a "statement" rather than a "resolution," as if the damage would have been less, as if any good would come of it.
This is not a split-the-difference, muddy-the-waters kind of thing. There is right and there is wrong - and the President, unfortunately, was wrong.
Not that he is willing to admit it.
...
Would that this could become a humbling lesson for Obama. His grand attempt to forge a Mideast peace is in shambles. Yes, talks break down, but this is worse. The parties are further apart than when he started, thanks largely to his settlements demand.
Some of you may be wondering why the 'Palestinians' took the opportunity to miss an opportunity by turning down the American offer of a statement from the President of the Security Council. While I disagree with his premise that the Obama administration can be relied upon (if this were, God forbid, Obama's second term, I believe that resolution would be allowed to pass), I'm not sure this is over yet, Shai Franklin has the correct explanation for the 'Palestinians' behavior:
The Arabs rejected the U.S. proposal, for the same reason the U.S. offered it. They don't care whether the Council issues anything, be it a full-fledged resolution or a less formal statement. They care about forcing the United States to veto a tactical resolution now so we'll have less credibility later on when a vote on Palestinian statehood comes before the Council.
But while I believe that's what the 'Palestinians' were thinking, I don't think they gain a lot through their behavior. First, why should the US have less credibility for having ostensibly been shown to be partial to Israel (if only it were true) when everyone else in the UN still has credibility despite the fact that they are clearly partial to the 'Palestinians'?
Second, what good does it do the 'Palestinians' to have the US lack credibility on the unilateral statehood question? The bottom line is that a General Assembly resolution is a no-brainer, but would be utterly meaningless. Without the Security Council, they are not going to get a meaningful resolution through, and if the US vetoes this resolution, having jumped into the scalding tub of exercising its veto power once, it seems all the more likely that the Obama administration would use the veto again to try to reach a negotiated settlement, particularly given that this is 2011 and not 2015.
For all of their faults, the Obama administration seems to recognize that a 'Palestinian state' can only arise out of a negotiated settlement with Israel. I don't believe that will ever happen because the minimum the 'Palestinians' will accept is far more than Israel can ever give - look at the fury over Palileaks - and because what the 'Palestinians' really want is to destroy Israel and they will never give up the 'right' to do that. The US is not going to send its own troops here to fight us, and they're not going to agree to a UN resolution sending troops here to fight us, although Obama may abandon us if God forbid we are attacked. We can't count on a Nixonian airlift like in 1973.
Hopefully the Government of Israel recognizes those realities.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
