Obama and the UN Menace Israel's Future

In a treacherous move that must go a long way to confirming Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s worst unspoken nightmare about President Barack Obama's attitude toward Israel, Deputy US Ambassador to the UN David Pressman told the UN Security Council on Friday that the US is “deeply concerned and strongly opposes settlements which are corrosive to peace.” In the name of the United States, Pressman blamed Israeli settlement activities in Judea and Samaria for creating ” a one state reality on the ground.” The UNSC meeting, titled “Illegal Israeli Settlements: Obstacles to Peace and the Two-State Solution,” was called by member states Egypt, Venezuela, Malaysia, Senegal and Angola. The meeting was encourageded by the Palestinian Authority delegation, which earlier this year refused an Israeli anti-settlement proposal in favor of a since-collapsed French-led peace initiative that would have forced Israel to accept the terms of an international conference or see the PA recognized as a state by France and the UN. The UNSC meeting came a week after the US and the EU had expressed anger at the fact that Israel was planning 98 new housing units in Samaria, for the residents of Amona, losing their homes because they were slated for demolition by the Israeli Supreme Court. Some Israeli commentators said that apparently the fact that Israel refuses to let a few hundred Jews go homeless poses a threat to the national aspirations of Palestinians everywhere. Attendance at the UNSC meeting was not mandatory and there was no vote, however, it was clearly a shot across the bow to Israel from the Obama administration. Many analysts believe that President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are preparing to go after Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria as soon as the November 8 presidential vote is cast in the US. Pressman pointed to the rise in the number of demolitions of illegally constructed Arab homes in Area C of Judea and Samaria as being of particular concern, but he also called on both sides to adopt policies that encourage rather than impede “implementing the two-state solution,” condemning Arab terrorism against Israelis, and argued that by inciting violence, the PA is telling the world it isn’t interested in peace. To nobody's surprise, the Russian representative said the situation in the liberated territories is near “the moment of truth,” and insisted that “settlement construction must stop,” because it creates “Palestinian enclaves” which are disconnected from the world. “Israel needs security, but without the two-state solution, the threat to Israel will grow,” he threatened. ~~~~~~ Hagai El-Ad, executive director of B’Tselem, and Lara Friedman, director of policy and government relations at the Americans for Peace Now were the centerpiece speakers at the special anti-Israel UNSC session. [NOTE : Bettylu Saltzman, a longtime liberal activist and supporter of Barack Obama whose father, Philip Klutznick, was a legendary Chicago developer, is the sister of APN's Board Chairman]. Friedman said the Israeli investment in settlements shows Israel is looking to thwart the two-state solution, and called on the UNSC countries to “send a message” to Israel. She accused Netanyahu’s government of promoting the construction of 11,000 new settlement housing units between 2009 and 2015. El-Ad added that “Israel has systematically legalized human rights violations in the occupied territories,” saying that 2016 was the “worst” in terms of the number of illegal Arab structures that were demolished by Israel in Area C, which is under Israeli control according to the Oslo Accords. ~~~~~~ In another piece of bad news for Israel, on Thursday UNESCO once again denied the more than 3,000-year-old connection between the Jewish people and its holiest site in Jerusalem, the Temple Mount. This was the site of Solomon’s Temple described in book of Kings in the Bible. It was the site of the second temple built by Jewish exiles who returned from Babylon 500 years later. It was this second temple that was refurbished by King Herod and visited by Jesus as recounted in the New Testament. UNESCO, the UN agency charged with protecting cultural treasures, passed a resolution that declares Israel an "occupying power" in Jerusalem while refusing to recognize Temple Mount and other Jewish holy sites as legitimate. [NOTE : Islam was founded in the 6th century A.D. -- 2,500 years after Jews had been living in Jerusalem.] The resolution is expected to be approved by the UNESCO executive committee this month. The Washington Times said the US and some European nations fought the resolution but were easily outmuscled by Russia, China and Middle Eastern and developing nations, and by two dozen countries that refused to vote at all. State Department spokesman Mark Toner denounced the latest UNESCO resolution version, which Israeli newspapers reported passed by a 24-6 vote : “One-sided anti-Israel resolutions have been a recurring challenge at UNESCO in recent years.” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told Reuters the decision is absurd : “To declare that Israel has no connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall is like saying that China has no connection to the Great Wall of China or that Egypt has no connection to the Pyramids. By this absurd decision, UNESCO has lost what little legitimacy it had left." Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, said : "This insanity shows that Israel’s adversaries are willing to go to any lengths to denigrate our ally. Not only does the UN pretend that there is moral equivalency between Israeli citizens and Palestinian terrorists, UNESCO goes out of its way to insult Israel.” Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, said he will insist on Jerusalem getting recognition as Israel’s capital by moving the US embassy there. And he said the Obama administration hasn’t done enough to defend the city’s place in Jewish history : “In a Trump Administration, Israel will have a true, loyal and lasting friend in the United States of America,” Trump said in a statement. American Thinker said the draft resolution affirms the Old City of Jerusalem’s place in “the three monotheistic religions” of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But, American Thinker rejects the tacked-on resolution details that are a long list of grievances, accusing Israel of hindering Moslem worshippers’ access to their holy sites and looking the other way as Israelis provoke Palestinians in both Jerusalem and Bethlehem : "This is nothing less than a denial of history. Palestinians routinely deny archeologists access to important digs to prevent anyone from proving that the Jews were in Jerusalem before Moslems. They deny that "Temple Mount" even exists by referring to the site as "al-Aqsa Mosque/al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary)." And then, said American Thinker, the Arabs had the gall to claim that the stated aim of the text was "the safeguarding of the cultural heritage of Palestine and the distinctive character of East Jerusalem." One Israeli minister referred to the resolution as "delusional" -- Education Minister Naftali Bennett said UNESCO was ignoring "thousands of years of Jewish ties to Jerusalem" and aiding "Islamist terror." Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a Facebook post that UNESCO has become a "theatre of the absurd." ~~~~~~ It's amazing how far the UN will go to demonstrate its anti-Semitism. Denying history and reality, the Palestinians and their allies won't be satisfied until everything Jewish in Israel is wiped off the earth. Decisions like this distort historical truth that Jews, Christians and most of humanity know to be fact. They do nothing to advance peace. On the contrary, they fuel the Palestinian fantasy of a Land of Israel with no Israel, falsely teaching Palestinian children that Jews have no history and no rights in Israel, so that there is no need to make peace with them. Over 1.5 million Arabs live in Israel as full citizens. Israeli Arab citizens serve in the Israel Defense Forces, pledging allegiance to Israel and its nationhood on a copy of the Koran that is given to each Arab soldier after the swearing-in ceremony. Is this a barrier to peace? No. That some Jews live in Judea and Samaria is not a barrier to peace either. ~~~~~~ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin said it best in a speech that I take the liberty to paraphrase : no matter how often lies about Israel are repeated, this doesn’t make them true. The real barrier to peace is not the settlements but the persistent Palestinian refusal to recognize a Jewish state in any form with any boundaries. That’s why the Palestinians attacked Jews for half a century before there was a single settlement and continued to attack Israel after it dismantled all the settlements and withdrew from Gaza entirely [under Ariel Sharon, who had hoped to give the Palestinians a chance to govern themselves, with Israeli economic help, even though the peace negotiations for a two-state solution were in limbo over Palestinian refusals to recognize Israel as a negotiating partner]. The real barrier to peace?? The outrageous idea that Jews cannot live in their ancestral homeland and need to be cleansed from it -- to be 'wiped off the face of the earth," [as Iran's Supreme Leader Khomenei often says]. The real barrier to peace?? Terrorist regimes like Hamas that launch tens of thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians and call for the genocide of all Jews. But the UN and UNESCO, and the so-called peace groups that testified at the UN Security Council on Friday, are too busy denying Jews all rights, using lies and distorting history by refusing to recognize and condemn the actual barriers to peace. Until the UN drops its double standards toward Israel and stops ignoring Palestinian terror and rejection of Israel's right to exist, peace for Israelis and Palestinians will not come from the UN and the Security Council. Netanwahu ended with these words : "I said recently at the UN that there may be a storm before the calm in the coming months. We are in the storm. But I also said that I have total confidence that in the years ahead the revolution in Israel’s standing among the nations will finally penetrate this hall of nations. It will take some time, but that too will come, when most of nations of the world will decide to stop using the UN as a platform for lies and hate and it will reclaim its noble mandate to advance truth and peace." ~~~~~~ If the Progressive Democrat leaders in America have their way, Israel will be stripped of its settlements and every other leverage it possesses in its efforts to bring the Palestinians to the peace table. Who are these backdoor naysayers of Israel's right to exist? Well, on his birthday in 2011, Bill Clinton received $1-million ‘birthday present’ from ISIS funder, Qatar, which is a major ISIS and world terrorism sponsor. The recent WikiLeaks document dump of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta has revealed Qatar’s previous desire to give her husband a $1 million “birthday” present. The latest email thread shows an aide discussing conversations with ambassadors from Qatar, Brazil, Peru, Malawi, and Rwanda : “[Qatar] would like to see WJC ‘for five minutes’ in NYC, to present $1 million check that Qatar promised for WJC’s birthday in 2011,” an employee at The Clinton Foundation said to numerous aides, including Doug Brand. “Qatar would welcome our suggestions for investments in Haiti -- particularly on education and health. They have allocated most of their $20 million but are happy to consider projects we suggest. I’m collecting input from CF Haiti team.” The Foundation apparently took Qatar's bhaksheesh. ~~~~~~ Even more disturbing is the blind eye being turned by the Obama administration to the questionable-at-best intentions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov -- its only aircraft carrier and part of Russia’s Northern Fleet -- has begun a journey through the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the fleet’s press service announced on Saturday, saying the force on its way to the Syrian shore consists of the aircraft-carrying heavy cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov, a battlecruiser, large anti-submarine ships and support vessels. Once in the Mediterranean, according to the Telegraph, the Kuznetsov will be positioned off the coast of Syria for four to five months, possibly using its complement of 20 MIG 29, 12 SU-33, and Kamov helicopters to carry out airstrikes. The first announcement regarding the combat deployment of the Kuznetsov was made by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on September 21. On October 10, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov announced the establishment of a permanent Russian naval base in the Syrian city of Tartus. According to retired colonel-general Leonid Ivashov, head of the International Center of Geopolitical Analysis, a Moscow-based think tank : “Over the past 25 years, we have lost bases in Qatar and Yemen, whereas Tartus has miraculously survived.” Ivashov says the Russian naval facility in Syria currently consists of a floating workshop, which can provide only basic maintenance and repairs to ships. Obama's only response was to send the Mount Whitney command ship of the US Navy into the Black Sea on October 11. According to the US military doctrine, the Black Sea is within the US Sixth Fleet’s area of responsibility. But international conventions dictate that foreign ships may not remain in the Black Sea for more than 21 days. ~~~~~~ Russia has also test-fired three ICBMs, and earlier this month announced it would hold joint “anti-terror” military drills with Egypt “in a desert environment.” And, Russia is preparing to train with Egypt in military strategies, equipment and personnel and build a closer relationship Cairo, in a way similar to its beginning in Syria. Moscow’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin claimed that tensions are at their worst since 1973, but not as bad as they were during the 1973 Yom Kippur War : “Despite the fact that we have a serious disagreement, we are continuing [to work together] in other areas -- sometimes successfully,” Churkin told reporters this weekend : “It’s a lack of basic respect, and a lack of in-depth discussions on political issues.” According to ABC News, Russia has conducted a nationwide civil defense drill since September that has involved 40 million citizens, preparing them for a panoply of disasters that run the gamut of war scenarios, including nuclear fallout, and announced who would run the nation should war break out. ~~~~~~ Russian activities in Syria and Egypt, and Iranian aggression against US naval vessels near the coast of Yemen, as well as the UN Security Council and UNESCO anti-Israel draft resolutions, could be seen as part of the strategic endgame of Barack Obama’s administration. Some American analysts are warning that Obama may act dangerously in the 'lameduck' period from November 8 to January 20. Russia is already acting dangerously. And, Iran is challenging US power at the mouth of the Red Sea in the belief that it advances its strategic aims in the region. Iran’s game is clear. It wants to replace the US as the regional power at US expense -- and we may add, using US money provided by Obama. During Obama's eight years, Iran has had uninterrupted success -- control over the Iraqi government after Obama's 2011 troop withdrawal; and,exerting almost full control, with Russia, over Syria's al-Assad regime to transform Syria from a sunni majority to a shiite plurality state. Rather than oppose Iran, Obama has done the absolute minimum to save face in the West. The Jerusalem Post's Carolyn Glick wrote this weekend that by becoming aggressive in Yemen using its Houthi proxies, Iran is gambling that a dying Obama administration will let it take Yemen, while Obama "abandons" Saudi Arabia and tacitly "transfers control over Arab oil to Iran." This could be true. Iran would then exercise effective control over all maritime oil flows from the Arab world. Obama has never publicly discussed such a strategy. But, in 2006, then-president George W. Bush named former Secretary of State James Baker to lead the Iraq Study Group, which he asked to offer a new strategy for winning the Iraq war. The report, released in late 2006, contained two basic recommendations. First, it called for the administration to abandon Iraq to the Iranians, because the Iranians would fight al-Qaida for the US. The report’s second recommendation was that after turning Iraq over to Iran, the US would have to appease its sunni allies and convince the Iranians of its sincerity by pressuring Israel to give the Golan Heights to Syria and give Judea and Samaria to the PLO. Bush rejected the Iraq Study Group report, opting to win the war in Iraq by adopting the surge counterinsurgency strategy. But once Bush was gone, and Obama became President, the Iraq Study Group recommendations tacitly became the US strategy in the Middle East. Obama insisted that the US’s only enemy was al-Qaida, later expanded to include ISIS, and since Iran is opposed to ISIS and al-Qaida, the US can leave the job of defeating them both to the Iranians. One can argue that Obama paid off the ayatollahs by giving them an internationally-approved road to nuclear weapons through his nuclear deal, by abandoning sanctions against them, and by ignoring their ballistic missile development. Obama has also said nothing about the atrocities that Iranian-controlled militia have committed against Iraqi sunnis and has stopped operations against Iranian proxy Hezbollah. ~~~~~~ Dear readers, this leaves Israel in a very tenuous position. Obama's consistent and escalating condemnations of Israel mirror an "Iraq Study Group" type strategy. So, we might reasonably assume that Obama intends to carry out his strategy by causing an open rupture in the US alliance with Israel in his final days in office -- or perhaps to sit back while Russia positions itself in the Middle East to make US intervention to help Israel very dangerous. The Jerusalem Post reports that Netanyahu asked Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday if Obama intended to allow an anti-Israel resolution to pass in the UN Security Council after the presidential election next month. By refusing to rule out the possibility, Kerry all but admitted that this is Obama’s intention. The New York Times has repeatedly published Obama administration policies, and then advocated for them. Last week for instance, the NYT called for the US to turn on Israel at the Security Council. On Tuesday, the Times published an editorial calling for the administration to end its military support for the Saudi campaign against the Iran-sponsored Houthis in Yemen. Such an Obama strategy would be disastrous. Iran sees the US as its enemy. The Iranian regime’s entire identity begins with its hatred for the US and its strategic aim of destroying America. Obama has, accordnig to Glick, "based US policy on a deliberate denial of the basic reality of Iranian hostility. Not surprisingly, the Iranians have returned his favor by escalating their aggression against America." If Hillary Clinton succeeds him, she is unlikely to try to stop Iran -- just look at the Clinton Foundation donations from the anti-Israel Arab world. Further, Hillary Clinton has repeatedly embraced Obama’s policies toward Iran. Almost all her senior advisors are from the Obama administration. Wendy Sherman, a leading candidate to be her Secretary of State, was Obama’s chief negotiator with the Iranians. If Donald Trump wins next month, even he won’t find it easy to undo the damage Obama has caused. Time has not stood still as Obama "engaged in strategic dementia." Not only has Iran been massively empowered, Russia has for the first time since the Soviet era become a Middle East strategic player. Israel is justifiably worried about the implications of Obama’s intention to harm it at the UN. But, the harm to Israel by the UN is nothing compared to the long-term damage stemming from Obama’s seeming embrace of the Iraq Study Group strategy. Israel, the US and the entire Middle East will contiue to suffer from Obama's unspoken strategic flight from reality long after he has left the White House.