Obama gave a good speech today at the U.N. on the Israel-Palestinian conflict:
President Barack Obama told a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday that Mideast peace “will not come through statements and resolutions” by the world body, arguing against a proposed resolution calling for U.N. recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state.
“I am convinced that there is no shortcut to the end of a conflict that has endured for decades. Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the UN – if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now,” he told the UN General Assembly. “Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians who must live side by side. Ultimately, it is Israelis and Palestinians — not us — who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and security; on refugees and Jerusalem.”
Yes, yes, I know that this speech doesn’t undo years of unrealistic and destructive policies in the Middle East, many of which have been documented here.
But standing on it’s own, it was a good speech. If only he had given this speech a year ago, perhaps expectations would not have been raised (full speech here).
Question of the Day: Will this speech dissauade Mahmoud Abbas from forcing the U.S. to use the veto in the Security Council?
Update: Doesn’t look like it worked:
Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, said following Barack Obama’s UN speech that the US president’s statements on the freedom of the Arab people are far removed from his call to resume negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel.
“We expected to hear that the liberty of the Palestinian people is the key to the Arab spring,” he said. “The entire region deserves liberty.”
And:
A top Palestinian official says President Mahmoud Abbas has no plans to agree to a delayed vote on his bid for membership in the United Nations, rejecting mounting pressure to do so from the United States and France.
“We will not allow any political maneurvering on this issue,” said Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Abbas and former chief of negotiations.
And, well maybe it did work, as the application to the Security Council will be put on the slow boat:
The Palestinians will give the UN Security Council “some time” to study their application for full membership in the United Nations, a senior Palestinian official said on Wednesday.
“We will give some time to the Security Council to consider first our full membership request before heading to the General Assembly,” Nabil Shaath, a senior official in Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
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Comments
This may appear OT but it is not:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039879/.html
LLoyds suing Saudis over 11SEP01. It’s not OT because it pulls back the curtain just a mite on key backstory of this current drama in the UN: state-sponsored terrorism. That’s what the “PA” and Hamas are, state-sponsored terrorists.
” Will this speech dissauade Mahmoud Abbas from forcing the U.S. to use the veto in the Security Council?”
No. Next question?
Struck me more as a post-NY9 flavored speech. As in “… perhaps I should conceal my anti-israel stance by sounding non-commital rather than risk more defecting Jewish voters in 2012.”
Nice to see him use his greatest skill for good instead of evil. A shame that it’s too little too late.
Will this speech dissauade Mahmoud Abbas from forcing the U.S. to use the veto in the Security Council?
Unlikely. Abu Bluff is basically committed at this point. He can’t back down without looking like a moron for going on and on about how the “Palestinians” deserve to be recognized as a nation and then failing to deliver.
I concur with Aucturian: This new tone at the UN is to try to soothe the Jewish vote after the disaster in NY-9. He’s playing up the “unshakeable” bond between the US and Israel. However, he DID say the R word (refugees) in regard to the negotiations.
I did find it amusing that Obama called for “each side to see the world through the other sides eyes.” I think that the Israelis already see the world quite clearly from the Squatter’s point of view. But, experience being a good teacher, the Israeli’s have learned that the Squatters really want to end Israel as a nation, take Israel for their own land, and then execute the Jews both as a race and as a religion. That’s what the world looks like through the “Palestinian” eyes, which is why the negotiations have stopped.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: You CAN’T negotiate with someone who’s starting point is your death, because they’re never going to accept anything less than your death.
Note on the update:
Obama should send out a spokesperson to say the following:
“The Palestinian people will get liberty when they recognize Israel’s right to exist, and not one moment before. When the Palestinians put down the terrorist implements of violence and replace them with the plowshares of peace, the US is sure that the Israeli people will be ready to talk.”
It’ll never happen, but I can dream. Maybe once Gov. Perry whoops Obama in the 2012 elections, he’ll have the stones to tell the Squatters to go pound sand until they’re ready to be peaceful neighbors. Because we have a saying in Texas:
Good fences make good neighbors.
Don’t ever believe a word he says. He continues to fake right and go left all the time.
I agree totally.
Word.
The Paleos may get their state, but they refuse the citizenship of “refugees”. It’s all a gambit for “Right of Return”, which is a nonacceptance of Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. One good thing of statehood for the Paleos is that they would be subject to war if they misbehave
They still will not wear an identifiable uniform and will still hide behind women and children.
Oh please, that speech stank! The high brow, the lofty rhetoric, the condescension….”freedom from want is a human right”????? It was full of the usual unachievable academic claptrap.
Usual Obama at the tennis match. Head swinging side to side reading the teleprompter.