Sudanese call for 'death to Israel' after alleged 'Israeli attack' on Khartoum weapons factory
300 people gathered outside a Sudanese government building calling for '
death to Israel' after an explosion at a Khartoum weapons factory on Tuesday night, which the Sudanese government is blaming on Israel. Sudan has also called on the UN Security Council to condemn Israel. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had no comment about the explosion.
A huge fire broke out late on Tuesday at the Yarmouk arms factory in
the south of the capital which was rocked by several explosions,
witnesses said. Firefighters took more than two hours to extinguish the
fire at Sudan's main factory for ammunition and small arms.
"Four
military planes attacked the Yarmouk plant ... We believe that Israel is
behind it," Information Minister Ahmed Belal Osman told reporters,
adding that the planes appeared to approach the site from the east.
"Sudan
reserves the right to strike back at Israel," he said, adding that two
citizens had been killed and the plant had been partially destroyed.
Another person was seriously injured, he said.
Around 300 people
gathered at the courtyard of a government building where the Sudanese
cabinet was in an emergency meeting, shouting "Death to Israel" and
"Remove Israel from the map."
"Israel is a country of injustice
that needs to be deterred," Vice President Ali Osman Taha, standing next
to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, told the crowd. "This attack only
strengthens our firmness."
The governor of Khartoum state
initially had ruled out any "external" cause for the blast but officials
later showed journalists a video from the vast site. A huge crater
could be seen next to two destroyed buildings and what appeared to be a
rocket lying on the ground.
Osman said an analysis of rocket
debris and other material had shown that the attack was engineered by
Israel, which Sudan views as an enemy.
Of course, there is no evidence whatsoever that Israel carried out this attack other than Sudan's say-so. It sounds a lot more likely that it was a work accident. But Barak should have said 'we know nothing about this' rather than saying 'no comment.' Even if we do know something about it.
Heh.
Labels: Ehud Barak, Hamas, Sudan, UN Security Council, weapons smuggling, work accident
Security Council issues statement condemning Syria
This story talks about it as a draft (as of now), but Israel Radio reports that the Security Council has
condemned Syria. But it's only a 'statement' and not a resolution.
The draft, obtained by Reuters, would "condemn widespread violations of human rights and the use of force against civilians by the Syrian authorities" and urges Damascus to comply with its obligations under international law.
It would also "call for an immediate end to all violence and urge all sides to act with utmost restraint, and to refrain from reprisals, including attacks against state institutions."
That phrase was a gesture to Russia and other countries that had called for a balanced statement that would apportion to both sides blame for the violence in Syria's 5-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.
A Security Council resolution on Syria drafted by West European countries had been lying on the council table for two months, blocked by opposition from Russia, China and several non-aligned countries.
The Europeans resurrected it this week, galvanized by weekend violence in the Syrian city of Hama in which more than 80 people died. Russia and its supporters eventually agreed to council action but insisted that it be just a statement, which is weaker than a resolution, diplomats said.
Diplomats said there was uncertainty over the position of Syria's neighbor Lebanon, a council member that has been reluctant to be involved in any action on the issue. They quoted Lebanese diplomats as saying they had referred the matter back to Beirut. Council statements are meant to be unanimously agreed by the body's 15 members.
Sounds pretty weak to me. I would bet on Bashar ignoring it.
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Syria, Syrian uprising, UN Security Council
The UN gets a message on Israel from Lazy Susan
President Obama's ambassador to the United Nations,
Lazy Susan Rice, sent a loud and clear message to the United Nations by absenting herself from Tuesday's final session on the 'Palestinian' effort to unilaterally declare a 'state' and sending her deputy, Rosemary DiCarlo, instead:
The Obama administration doesn't care about Israel.
At the last open meeting of the UN Security Council prior to the Palestinians' expected unilateral declaration of independence (UDI), Rice's deputy, U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative Rosemary DiCarlo, pronounced that "symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September will not create an independent Palestinian state. The United States will not support unilateral campaigns at the United Nations in September or any other time."
While the statement was reassuring, Rice's absence is troubling.
She has been instrumental in President Obama 's administration's most important multilateral achievements. She herded the international community with great tenacity on Iran sanctions last year and war with Libya this year. In the case of both multilateral efforts, it was clear Obama could not have moved those mountains without his trusted adviser.
Perhaps Rice's demanding schedule is getting the better of her. While other permanent UN representatives are based in New York and are dedicated full-time to the international debate over the General Assembly resolutions looming between now and September, Rice splits her time between New York and Washington. Rice, of course, enjoys a cabinet level position, and is often at the ear of the president.
By all accounts, the Palestinians are closing in on the numbers they need (if they haven't already). If U.S. policy is to stymie a vote in the General Assembly, where a two-thirds majority can pass a measure that would enable Palestinians to prosecute Israel in international legal fora, why wasn't Rice making more multilateral magic?
Rather than launching a full court press to divert the Palestinian unilateral declaration, Rice delegated the job to her deputy. And while DiCarlo enjoys the rank of ambassador, the other Security Council members got the message. The president did not send his close adviser.
And it gets worse.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, Susan Rice, UN Security Council, unilateral declaration of statehood, United Nations General Assembly
'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.
Labels: 1947 partition plan, 1949 armistice lines, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, UN General Assembly, UN Security Council, unilateral declaration of statehood
IAEA presents 'devastating' report on Syria to Security Council
The International Atomic Energy Agency has presented the United Nations Security Council with a 'devastating' report on Syrian attempts to develop nuclear weapons. And it feels like deja vu all over again. The Security Council would take action but
China and Russia are opposed.
The International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors voted in June to report Syria to the council, rebuking it for stonewalling an agency probe into the Dair Alzour complex, bombed by Israel in 2007 [pictured above. CiJ].
Western countries said Thursday's closed-door briefing by Neville Whiting, head of the IAEA safeguards department dealing with Syria and Iran, had made clear that Syria had a secret nuclear plant. They said the council should pursue the issue, but suggested it might not discuss it again before September.
Russia and China, allies of Damascus who can veto any council action, queried whether the council should be involved, as the Syrian complex no longer exists.
US intelligence reports have said the complex was a nascent, North Korean-designed reactor intended to produce plutonium for atomic weaponry, before Israeli warplanes reduced it to rubble. Syria has said it was a non-nuclear military facility.
British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant told reporters Whiting had given a "devastating briefing ... from which you could only draw one conclusion -- that Syria did have at Dair Alzour a clandestine nuclear plant."
Damascus had "tried to conceal the purpose of that plant ... misled the IAEA about what the purpose was and ... failed to cooperate effectively with the IAEA in following up the questions that the IAEA put to them," he said.
Read the whole thing.
This is highly relevant despite the fact that the al-Kibar reactor has been destroyed, allegedly by Israel. The reason it is still relevant, which the article does not mention, is that Syria has
three other sites that they are refusing to allow the IAEA to examine.
What could go wrong?
Labels: al-Kibar, China, IAEA, Russia, Syria, Syrian nuclear program, UN Security Council
Obama administration sought UN cover for military action in Libya
Over the weekend at the United Nations, the United States sought cover for
military action in Libya, to deliver humanitarian aid to the local population and to rescue its own nationals there. It succeeded in part, but at a price: Gadhafi's African mercenaries will not be hauled in front of the International Criminal Court.
The U.S. amendment called for authorizing member states, working with the cooperation of the United Nations, to use "all means necessary to protect civilians and key installations." In the diplomatic terminology of U.N. resolutions, the phrase "all means necessary" has traditionally served as a code for military action.
The debate over the use of force unfolded behind closed doors last week as the Obama administration began exploring options for ensuring the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Libya. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will arrive in Washington on Monday to discuss international plans to address the worsening violence in Libya. Over the weekend, the U.S. held talks with Europe and other countries to explore the possibility of establishing a no-fly zone over Libya, according to a report in the New York Times.
One U.S. official, while declining to comment on confidential negotiations over the Security Council resolution, cautioned that the U.S. diplomatic effort in New York was purely humanitarian. "Our intention on any of the language that had to deal with this particular issue was humanitarian in nature. None of this has to do with putting U.S. boots on the ground."
The United States had hoped its amendment would be included in the resolution that was eventually unanimously adopted on Saturday by the U.N. Security Council resolution, which imposed a range of financial and military sanctions on the Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi and his closest associates, and authorized an investigation into crimes against humanity. The U.S. had conditioned its support for the sanctions resolution on the inclusion of another provision that ensured that no foreign nationals inside Libya would be subject to prosecution by the International Criminal Court, according to France's U.N. ambassador, Gerard Araud.
The provision provoked criticism of the United States because it shields large numbers of foreign mercenaries operating on behalf of Qaddafi from possible prosecution by the Hague-based court. But the provision would also immunize American and allied forces from possible prosecution if they enter Libya to help protect civilians or protect humanitarian relief efforts.
The provision was included in the final resolution at the insistence of "one country," Araud said Saturday night. "It was absolutely necessary for one country to have that, considering its parliamentary constrains. It was a red line for the United States, it was a deal breaker. This is the reason why we accepted this unanimously."
The U.S. provision allowing for the use of force, however, was shelved.
Honestly, I am truly shocked that the US tried to get that into the Security Council resolution - it's so unlike this administration. Unfortunately, since it failed, you can bet that the US will not take any military action no matter what happens there.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Libya, UN Security Council, use of force
And they consider themselves Western?
As many of you have probably heard already, on Saturday, the United Nations Security Council
unanimously approved sanctions against the Gadhafi regime in Libya.
The United Nations Security Council approved the sanctions against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The sanctions include limitations on the movement of Gaddafi [and all of his children CiJ] and senior officials in his regime, the freezing of their assets, and the transfer of the handling of Gaddafi and his people to the International Court of Justice in The Hague on suspicion of war crimes.
The resolution also includes an arms embargo.
The unanimous vote means that Lebanon, which is an Arab country voted in favor, as did China, which debated exercising its veto, and decided to vote in favor. You might think that Gadhafi doesn't have a friend left in the world. You'd be wrong.
On Saturday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the United Nations
not to impose sanctions on Libya.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the United Nations not to impose sanctions on Libya, warning Saturday that the Libyan people would suffer most, not Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
Erdogan also suggested the international community might be acting more out of concern about Libya's oil reserves than about the welfare of the country's people.
...
"The people are already struggling to find food, how will you feed the Libyan people?" Erdogan asked. "Sanctions, an intervention, would force the Libyan people, who are already up against hunger and violence, into a more desperate situation."
"We call on the international community to act with conscience, justice, laws and universal humane values — not out of oil concerns," he said.
We heard that excuse with Iran and Iraq too.
Maybe Erdogan would like to do something constructive by convincing Gadhafi to accept an offer of asylum?
But what's most significant about Erdogan's statement is what it shows about Turkey. Turkey claims to be a Western country and continues to seek admission to the European Union. But Erdogan's statement shows that Turkey - or at least its leadership - is an Islamist country that should not be considered part of the West.
Labels: Libyan regime change, Libyan sanctions, Muammar Gaddafi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey, UN Security Council
Lazy Susan misses a meeting
The United Nations Security Council finally held a meeting on the slaughter in Libya on Wednesday. One ambassador wasn't there. Yes, you guessed correctly, the United States'
Susan Rice (Hat Tip:
Gateway Pundit). This is from Richard Grenell, the longest serving U.S. Spokesman in the history of the United Nations, who has been
critical of Rice in the past. This is from the first link.
At great personal risk to himself and his family, Libya's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, pushed the UN Security Council to take up the violence in his home country. Dabbashi said he could no longer support the regime of his boss Moammar Gadhafi and stepped out to condemn what he called "a genocide". The dramatic event prompted the first UN meeting of the 15 member Security Council on the uprisings sweeping across the region since the beginning of Tunisia's revolution, Egypt's violence and the developing protests in Bahrain, Yemen, Palestine and Iran.
The United States was represented by Foreign Service officer and Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo. The Obama administration's appointed ambassador, Susan Rice, skipped the Libya meeting and instead flew to South Africa to attend a UN panel discussion on global sustainability.
Missing the only Security Council meeting on the Middle East revolution was not Rice's first absence from high profile UN business. Rice was absent when the UN held an emergency Security Council meeting on Israel's raid of a ship headed to Gaza and when Iran was elected to the UN Women's Commission. Rice also failed to speak out when Libya was elected to the UN Human Rights Council in May 2010.
...
Rice's prioritization of the global sustainability meeting over the Libyan crisis sent a terrible signal to American allies at the UN. Rice's absence was not lost on foreign ambassadors and highlighted the inconsistencies of the Obama administration's handling of the Middle East crises. One Arab diplomat told me, "Egypt's violence could hardly be compared to Tripoli's but the (administration's) reaction was much harsher. We aren't sure what Washington is thinking. Ambassador DiCarlo was very strong but more needs to be done."
Read the whole thing. His criticism is withering.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Libya, South Africa, Susan Rice, sustainability, UN Security Council
European hypocrisy on the Middle East
Anne Bayefsky and Benjamin Weinthal demolish
Britain, France and Germany over their UN Security Council votes on Friday.
The EU’s bizarre and flawed fixation on settlement construction as the linchpin of Mideast peace turned absurd in the British, German, and French statement advocating a one-sided resolution rebuking Israel. It stated: “A way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of both states.” In short, while paying lip service to a negotiated resolution to the conflict, the EU unilaterally purported to settle one of the core elements to be negotiated.
The German move was an extension of its intemperate legislative language toward Israel. In 2010, the Merkel administration made no effort to convince members of its coalition government in the Bundestag not to agree to a resolution blaming the Jewish state for “violating the principle of proportionality” against the occupants of the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara. The ship contained a hardcore group of jihadists whose only aim was to diminish Israel’s right to self-defense and create an Iranian port on the Mediterranean.
Israel’s ambassador to Berlin was apparently under the mistaken impression that the Merkel administration would likely reject the Security Council resolution. But the anti-Israeli writing was plainly on the wall. As a 2009 WikiLeaks cable from U.S. diplomats in Berlin reveals, Christoph Heusgen, a senior adviser to Merkel, urged the U.S to water down its opposition to the U.N.’s anti-Israel “Goldstone Report” in order to force Israel to freeze settlement construction. The dispatch from Heusgen, Merkel’s point man on the Middle East, ought to raise giant question marks over her oft-repeated declarations to the U.S. Congress and the Israeli Knesset that the Jewish state’s security is “non-negotiable” for Germany.
A day after German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle instructed his U.N. diplomats to add Germany’s voice to the round of condemnations at the Security Council, he traveled to Tehran and met with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There were no statements about Israel’s security, Iranians dying in the streets, or Ahmadinejad’s grotesque denial of the Holocaust. Iranian dissidents speaking to AP called Westerwelle’s meeting “simply a disgrace.” “His meeting ignored the ruling regime’s terror, the people’s suffering,” they said.
British and French support for the resolution comes at a time when we are learning how deeply immersed both countries are with the dirty business of propping up unsavory regimes in Tunisia and Libya. WikiLeaks cables point directly to Britain’s role in releasing the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, in exchange for British energy giant BP’s right to access and develop Libyan oil. During the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tunisia, France’s foreign minister Michele Alliot-Marie offered a sophisticated French police-skills program to the security forces of now-deposed Tunisian despot Ben Ali.
There's another explanation for the Europeans' actions: rank anti-Semitism. They see no connection between the positions that they take in the Arab world and the positions they take on Israel. They just hate Jews. They have a long and bloody history of that. After all, it was the French ambassador to the Court of St. James who some years ago referred to us as that '
s****y little country.'
Read the whole thing.
Labels: European anti-Semitism, Jerusalem construction, Judea and Samaria construction, UN Security Council
The end of the pretense that Obama is pro-Israel
When on Saturday night, I published a post entitled "
Obama throws Israel under the bus," I got back a tweet from an American television correspondent who follows me asking why I believed that when Obama did in the end veto the Security Council resolution. There's a 140-character limit on Twitter so my response was essentially limited to "But look what Rice and Clinton said." Jonathan Tobin
expands on that thought.
On the surface, the veto cast by the United States in the UN Security Council on Friday ought to be considered more proof of Obama’s steadfastness as a friend of Israel. When all was said and done, he followed in the footsteps of his predecessors and refused to allow the UN body to brand Israel a criminal lawbreaker. That this veto took place after an American effort to head off a vote by proposing a “statement” by the president of Security Council, rather than a formal resolution, was rejected by the Palestinians was testimony to the latter’s intransigence and not to Obama’s loyalty to his Israeli ally. And the unnecessary explanation given after the vote that branded the Jewish state’s position on the issue of settlements as “illegitimate” and went on to claim that they “threatened” peace and “devastate” trust undermined any notion of U.S. support for Israel.
Obama apologists could argue that opposition to settlements isn’t new. But the talk of the “illegitimacy” of the homes of not only the more than quarter million Israelis who live in the West Bank but of the more than 200,000 who live in the parts of Jerusalem that were illegally occupied by Jordan between 1949 and 1967 is something different. As with the fight that Obama picked in the spring of 2010 over building houses in an existing Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem, this statement escalates a long-standing disagreement into a more serious dispute. Obama’s attempt to erase the distinction between the remote settlements that Israel has already said it would give up in a peace accord and those that the Bush administration conceded in a 2004 were established facts that must be respected was one thing. But Obama’s willingness to treat 40-year-old Jewish neighborhoods in Israel’s ancient capital as illegal settlements was quite another. Agreeing with those who wrongly claim all the settlements are illegal (as opposed to unwise or worthy of surrender for the sake of peace) was bad enough. But the American declaration on Friday (repeated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on ABC News on Sunday) that the Jewish presence there was “illegitimate” again places the issue in a different light.
Things could be worse. Had the U.S. not vetoed the resolution it would have been the final signal that this administration really was determined to cut loose the Israelis. But by showing that the veto was cast reluctantly and with ill will, the effect is not much different. So while relations could still deteriorate further, there is no doubt that Obama’s negative feelings toward Israel are becoming a serious factor in Middle East diplomacy that is making the already poor chances for peace worse and increasing the possibility that Israel’s foes will conclude that the Jewish state cannot count on U.S. support if new fighting breaks out along the border with Gaza or Lebanon. The work of Obama’s pro-Israel apologists has just gotten more difficult. One suspects that by the time he leaves office, it will have gotten harder still.
Obama is worse than those who came before him. Yes, maybe even worse than Carter.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Obama, pro-Israel, UN Security Council
Elliott Abrams on the US veto
Former Bush administration diplomat Elliott Abrams rips the Obami some new body parts for their
bungling of the 'Palestinian' resolution condemning Israeli 'settlements' at the Security Council.
The Palestinian Authority began to talk about this resolution months ago. The United States could then have adopted a clear position: put it forward and it will be vetoed. That very clear stand might have persuaded the Palestinian leaders and their Arab supporters to drop the effort early on, when it could have been abandoned with no loss of face. Instead the Administration refused to make its position clear until the final day. In its Friday edition the New York Times was reporting that “the Obama administration was trying Thursday evening to head off an imminent vote in the United Nations Security Council that would declare Israel’s settlement construction in the West Bank illegal, but would not declare publicly whether it was prepared to veto the resolution.” It seems clear that the Administration was desperate to avoid a veto, indeed desperate to go four years without spoiling its “perfect record.” But a “perfect record” in the UN requires vetoes, given the persistent anti-Israel bias of the organization. The Administration’s desire to avoid vetoes only served to reduce its bargaining power, for the credible threat of a veto has long served American diplomats seeking to achieve an outcome more favorable to our interests.
...
Abbas rejected the Clinton and Obama appeals and/or ignored their threats, in itself a sign of reduced American diplomatic influence. The American veto will have angered Palestinians even more. But it will not have gained the Administration any thanks from Israel or from supporters of Israel in the United States, who were appalled by the Administration’s search for a bad compromise. According to the New York Times, the Administration proposed that instead of a resolution the Security Council issue a “presidential statement” that “would condemn settlements but also call on all sides to resume negotiations. That statement would be paired with a Russian proposal for a fact-finding mission on settlements, and a proposed change in how the quartet, the international group that deals with the Middle East peace process, defines the basic building blocks of negotiations ranging from borders to the political status of Jerusalem.”
So the Administration was content with condemning settlements, happy to establish a new UN fact-finding mission, and willing to redefine the role of the Quartet. All that just to avoid a veto of the sort American presidents have been ordering for decades.
Feeling guilty about its veto the Administration then issued an extraordinary “explanation of vote,” read by UN Ambassador Susan Rice....
This is amazing language for a diplomat: “folly,” “illegitimacy,” “devastates,” “corroded,” and so on. It’s hard to recall such a vehement statement against Israel, nor one that contains so many conclusions that are, to say the least, highly debatable. Has construction in and around Jerusalem or in Ma’ale Adumim, for example, “undermined Israel’s security?” Given that the Israelis and Palestinians concluded the Oslo Accords and the numerous other agreements while construction activity was far greater than it is today, what is the basis for saying that it “devastates trust?” No doubt the Administration decided that as it had vetoed it would “make it up” to the Arabs with this statement. But emotive language such as Amb. Rice employed serves no purpose. Arab newspapers will headline the veto—assuming of course that they have space in their pages tomorrow after covering the revolts in Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, Libya, Bahrain, and Egypt—and are very unlikely to cover her speech. Only Israelis and supporters of Israel in the United States will study her language, and remember it.
Indeed.
Labels: Jerusalem construction, Judea and Samaria construction, Palestinian intransigence, UN Security Council, US veto
But for one word, US would not have vetoed resolution
The Wall Street Journal reports that
but for one word in that Security Council resolution on Friday, the United States would not have exercised its veto.
President Obama telephoned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas Thursday night, offering to either adopt or abstain on the resolution if the Palestinians agreed to replace the word "illegal" with "illegitimate" in reference to the settlements, according to a person briefed on the call.
But Mr. Abbas refused, this person said. Mr. Abbas told Mr. Obama that his domestic position is so too fragile to risk any further compromises, especially now that he believed the peace process was dead, according to this person.
The Palestinian leader explained to Mr. Obama that he is facing internal challenges to his rule from within his Fatah party, and that he has been weakened by the release of classified internal Palestinian negotiating documents known as the Palestine Papers, which appeared to show Mr. Abbas and his subordinates agreeing to make generous concessions to Israel while getting little in return, according to this person.
Mr. Abbas also told Mr. Obama that he feared the wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world also threatened to sow unrest in the Palestinian territories, according to this person.
"Abbas recognizes that this wave that's hitting the Arab world may also hit him, so he's trying to make it look that he's actually sticking firm to Palestinian rights by pushing forward with this resolution," this person said.
The U.S. had tried to head off the vote because it feared entangling the settlement issue with the popular uprisings across the Arab world, according to a senior U.S. diplomat. Until now, he said, the U.S. and Israel haven't been targets of the pro-democracy protesters. But the veto threatens to change that.
For reasons I've discussed many times on this blog, the 'settlements' are most definitely
not illegal.
Labels: Barack Obama, Judea and Samaria construction, UN Security Council, US veto
'Palestinians' call for 'day of rage' against US
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.
Here's a
blow-by-blow description of what happened on Friday afternoon.
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.
More
here.
Labels: day of rage, Obama's obsession with Palestinians, Palestinians, UN General Assembly, UN Security Council
Calling the UN's double standards
Following Friday's vote in the UN Security Council, the Emergency Committee for Israel issued a statement calling on the Obama administration to 'encourage' the UN to deal with
more urgent matters than Israeli housing construction.
President Obama has claimed that greater American engagement with the UN can make it a useful organization. Yet so far, engagement has provided almost nothing in the way of serious change. The events of this week give President Obama an opportunity to demand that the UN address real problems, not fashionable obsessions. So, in addition to vetoing the anti-Israel resolution in the Security Council, why shouldn’t the Obama administration convene the Security Council to deal with a genuine and urgent problem – the murder of protesters by dictatorial regimes in the Middle East? And if that’s impossible, why are we paying any attention, and offering any support, to the UN at all?
Good question, but don't expect the Obama administration to ask or answer it. After all, Hillary Clinton
told ABC's Christiane Amanpour on Friday in an interview to be
aired later Sunday
I think it is absolutely clear to say, number one, that it's been American policy for many years that settlements were illegitimate and it is the continuing goal and highest priority of the Obama administration to keep working toward a two-state solution with both Israelis and Palestinians.
If the Obama administration's 'continuing goal' and 'highest priority' is a 'two-state solution,' why would it call for the the murder of a few protesters in Arab autocracies to take priority at the UN?
Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, UN Security Council, US veto
Where is the American Jewish community
Did any of you happen to notice any American Jewish organizations other than the
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (OU) that came out against President Obama's betrayal of Israel in the United Nations? I'm especially interested in hearing if any non-Orthodox Jewish organizations came to Israel's defense.
I didn't hear of any others. But
Christians United for Israel did come to our defense.
Shame on all those Jews who didn't.
Labels: American Jewish indifference to Israel, Obama's obsession with Palestinians, UN Security Council, US veto
Obama throws Israel under the bus
Shavua tov, a good week, once again. Unlike the two previous posts and the two following posts, all of which I prepared before the Sabbath, this one is more or less live.
The United States vetoed the 'Palestinian'-sponsored UN Security Council resolution. But the Obama administration did not miss the opportunity to
slam Israel anyway.
In explaining her veto, US Ambassador Susan E. Rice said the vote should not be misunderstood as support for settlement activity.
“On the contrary, we reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity,” she declared. “Continued settlement activity violates Israel’s international commitments, devastates trust between the parties, and threatens the prospects for peace…
“Every potential action must be measured against one overriding standard: will it move the parties closer to negotiations and an agreement? Unfortunately, this draft resolution risks hardening the positions of both sides. It could encourage the parties to stay out of negotiations and, if and when they did resume, to return to the Security Council whenever they reach an impasse.”
Rice was not alone. Shortly before the UN vote, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC's Christiane Amanpour that Israeli 'settlements' are '
illegitimate' (Hat Tip:
Memeorandum).
In an exclusive interview with "This Week" anchor Christiane Amanpour taped on Friday afternoon, Clinton said, "I think it is absolutely clear to say, number one, that it's been American policy for many years that settlements were illegitimate and it is the continuing goal and highest priority of the Obama administration to keep working toward a two-state solution with both Israelis and Palestinians."
...
In December 2010, Clinton took a similarly harsh line against continued Israeli settlements.
"We do not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity," she said in a speech at the Brookings Institution. "We believe their continued expansion is corrosive not only to peace efforts and two-state solution, but to Israel's future itself."
Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney got it right in
this piece in National Review (Hat Tip:
Memeorandum) in which he tears apart the idea of a UN Security Council 'Presidential statement,' which the US offered as a 'compromise' earlier in the week.
For one thing, the U.N. condemnation put forward by the president puts Israel, our closest ally in the region, in an untenable position. In exchange for peace, previous Israeli governments offered radical border concessions, surrendering most of the West Bank and even portions of Jerusalem. In 2005, the government of Ariel Sharon withdrew from the Gaza Strip, uprooting thousands of its own citizens. Yet all such proposals and steps toward peace have been met by Palestinian rejection, by intifadas, by suicide bombings, and by Qassam rocket fire. Isolated more than ever in the region, Israel must now contend with the fact that its principal backer in the world, the United States, is seeking to ingratiate itself with Arab opinion at its expense. Will an increasingly tenuous relationship with the U.S., at the very moment when it is becoming more vulnerable, encourage Israel to be as flexible as it has in the past, or the reverse? The answer is clear.
For another thing, even on its own terms of supposedly promoting the Arab-Israeli peace process, this is not a step forward but a step back. By taking up and embracing a core Palestinian demand, as the president has done repeatedly on this issue over the past two years, the United States is removing incentives for the Palestinians to parley with Israel at all. They are induced to believe that they can simply wait until their demands are handed to them on a silver platter by Washington. The administration’s contemplated compromise in the U.N. thus would punish Israel and reward Palestinian intransigence.
The harm wrought by the Obama administration’s diplomatic decisionmaking is doubly driven home by the fact that it is taking place in that chamber of double-standards, the United Nations. For decades the U.N. has been the epicenter of the worldwide campaign to delegitimize Israel, a campaign that has often devolved into naked anti-Semitism. Democratic and Republican administrations alike have long resisted this vicious business. It was Daniel Patrick Moynihan who in 1975 denounced the U.N.’s “Zionism Equals Racism” resolution as an obscenity, and it was Pres. George H. W. Bush who in 1991 won its repeal. The Obama administration is abysmally remiss in departing from our proud tradition of standing by a democratic ally when the world’s most unsavory regimes gang up on it.
Finally, there's
this from Anne Bayefsky (which I also received by email).
To understand just how evil the scene is, it is necessary to talk about what happened to Lara Logan. The CBS reporter was in Cairo last week covering the aftermath of the overthrow of Mubarak, when she was brutally sexually assaulted by democracy-celebrating Egyptians heard yelling “Jew, Jew.” It does not matter that she wasn’t Jewish. It does matter that the hatred and anti-Semitism which runs so deep among the masses screaming for tolerance, for everybody but Jews, is precisely what is driving the diplomatic mobs at the UN. Ganging up on Israel at the UN Security Council is an ugly and contemptible scene.
Iranians are rioting today against a vicious government that stones women for alleged adultery, murders homosexuals for the crime of existing, amputates limbs by judicial decree, brutalizes anyone wanting free speech, and is currently holding two Americans hostage for hiking. Is there a Security Council resolution in the works on the dying and the dead in Iran? Bahrain? Libya? Tunisia? Egypt? Algeria? Not the slightest possibility.
The only thing on the table at the UN is a statement that it is illegal for any Jew to live on any land that is claimed by Palestinian Arabs. Not only is this a racist recipe for an apartheid Palestine, it is also a direct violation of the American and UN-sponsored “Middle East Roadmap.” The Roadmap states that the settlement issue will not be finally resolved until final status negotiations – “Phase III:… a final, permanent status resolution . . . on borders, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements.” This Security Council resolution is intended to take the settlements issue off the table and pre-determine the outcome without having to negotiate or actually live with Jewish neighbors.
It is a familiar pattern. The Obama administration has repeatedly used the UN to do its diplomatic dirty work of backstabbing an ally while assuring voters of the reverse. Last May, it agreed to Arab demands to hold Israel up as the world’s gravest nuclear threat at a major 2012 international meeting. Last August, it foisted upon Israel a UN Secretary-General investigation over nine Turkish extremists killed on a boat while attempting to pave the way for an Iranian port on the Mediterranean. In 2009, it joined the UN Human Rights Council, the most notorious anti-Israel UN body of them all, immediately lending it undeserved credibility. And it is still refusing to pull out of the UN’s latest “anti-racism” bash known as Durban III — scheduled for New York City in September — though demonizing the Jewish state is the meeting’s raison d’etre.
Last week UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay held a news conference in Jerusalem to make it clear that her first priority was to condemn Israelis for building and living, not Arab states for destroying and killing.
Read the whole thing.
There is an evil administration blowing an evil wind from Washington. All we can do is take cover, and hope and pray that 2012 yields better results.
Labels: Anne Bayefsky, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Susan Rice, UN Security Council, US veto
Report: Obama told Abu Bluff US will veto Security Council resolution
According to Khaled Abu Toameh, who has good sources among the 'Palestinians,' President Obama told
'moderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen on Thursday night that the United States
will veto a 'Palestinian' sponsored Security Council resolution condemning Israel when and if it comes to a vote on Friday night. As a result, there is an emergency meeting of the Fatah and PLO executives on Friday.
Sources in Ramallah said that the phone conversation dealt with the PA’s plan to seek a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning construction in the settlements. They said that Abbas rejected Washington’s demand not to go to the Security Council.
The sources said that Obama made it clear to Abbas that the US would veto such a resolution so as not to jeopardize efforts to resume peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Nabil Sha’ath, member of the PA negotiating delegation, said on Thursday that the PA leadership was determined to pursue its efforts to obtain a resolution condemning the construction in the settlements despite heavy pressure from the US.
Sha’ath said that the US Administration has offered the PA to abandon its plan to seek a resolution on the settlements in return for a statement that would be issued by the Security Council and that would condemn the construction without holding a vote.
He said that the PA would pursue its efforts to seek condemnation of Israel even after the US vetoes the resolution at the Security Council. The PA would go to the Quartet and other international forums, including the international court in The Hague, to force Israel to stop settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, he said.
“The US will lose a lot if it uses the veto to kill the resolution that is supposed to be presented to the Security Council on Friday,” Sha’ath cautioned. “The US is currently facing a test to prove its fairness and its objective role as the sponsor of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. We hope that the US would refrain from using the veto.”
I'm sure Obama is quaking in his boots, but I doubt anyone else is.
Heh.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Obama, Jerusalem construction, Judea and Samaria construction, Nabil Sha'ath, UN Security Council
The 'Palestinians' goal in the Security Council
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.
Labels: Barack Obama, Palestinians, UN General Assembly, UN Security Council, unilateral declaration of statehood, US veto
Bolton and the OU on the Security Council resolution
Jennifer Rubin has John Bolton's reaction to President Obama's attempt to muddy the waters at the UN Security Council, as well as some
solid pushback from the OU (Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America). Here's Bolton:
This is a classic case of negotiating for the sake of negotiating. The Obama Administration may well produce a slightly less-outrageous draft resolution than the sponsors' original draft, but this is simply putting lipstick on a porcine being. If the United States votes for or abstains on such a resolution, it will reflect a dramatic shift in policy against Israel. If the United States vetoes such a resolution, it will be voting against a "more reasonable" text. The right approach is to say at the outset that the sponsors' approach is fundamentally misguided, and that the only sensible US policy will be to veto. So doing may actually dissuade the sponsors from proceeding, now or in the future, or will at least shorten the period of agitation and agony. American weakness in this type of context only invites further provocation.
The OU's reaction includes this:
Assertions that Israeli "settlement activity" is illegal under international law are incorrect as such a position is at variance with United Nations Resolution 242.
Passed in 1967, Resolution 242 calls for Israel to return "territories" captured during its defensive war of 1967. The words "all" and "the" were proposed by those who advocated a complete return, but the U.S. and Great Britain, which opposed that view, prevailed. Even partial return of captured territories is conditioned on "termination of all claims of belligerency" and "acknowledgment of the sovereignty . . . of every state in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." Resolution 242 does not mention the rights of non-states, such as the Palestinian Authority, Hamas or Hezbollah, the latter two of which do not accept the conditions of the resolution. (Nor do Iran and several other states in the region.) . . . .
A Security Council resolution declaring "settlement activity" as "illegitimate" is no better, and no less counterproductive, than a resolution asserting it's illegality. Such phrasing by an authoritative body such as the Security Council is nothing more than semantics. Given the record of animosity toward Israel in the UN and its bodies and the actions and stated intentions of the resolution's proponents, it is clear that a slightly amended text would be used for the same purposes against Israel; to further isolate the Jewish State diplomatically, utilize the UN and other international entities to pressure Israel economically, and ultimately undermine Israel's security.
Indeed.
I cannot tell you how many times a day I see articles and blog posts that take for granted that Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria are 'illegal.' I know all the arguments and I have cited them many times (and have written about them many times on this blog - see
here for example). But those first two paragraphs that I quoted from the OU are just about the best succinct summary of the arguments that I've seen. Clip and save them.
And
read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Obama, Jerusalem construction, Judea and Samaria construction, settlements are legal, UN Security Council, UN Security Council Resolution 242
Cantor and Hoyer call on Obama to veto Security Council resolution
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md) have issued a joint statement calling on President Obama to
veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel's 'settlement construction.'
“As we wrote to the President last month, the Palestinian leadership’s decision to reject the difficult but vital responsibility of making peace with Israel through direct negotiations, and instead to advocate for anti-Israel measures by the United Nations Security Council is counterproductive and unacceptable. Successive Israeli governments have proven Israel’s steadfast commitment to peace and our Secretary of State has noted that the current Israeli government took an ‘unprecedented’ step in pursuit of peace with its ten-month moratorium on Israeli housing construction in the West Bank. Furthermore, since the beginning of the current Israeli government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for direct negotiations with the Palestinians anytime and anywhere, without preconditions.
“Instead of negotiating directly with Israel to achieve a peaceful solution to the conflict, Palestinian leaders continue to seek to circumvent the negotiating process by advocating anti-Israel measures at the U.N. Security Council, U.N. General Assembly, and U.N. Human Rights Council. The U.S. should not condone or reward this behavior by supporting their resolutions. We strongly urge the Administration to veto this resolution and to uphold our longstanding commitment to Israel’s security.”
Amen.
Labels: Barack Obama, Eric Cantor, Jerusalem construction, Judea and Samaria construction, Steny Hoyer, UN Security Council, US veto
