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Obama’s parting UN shot at Israel a long time coming

Obama’s parting UN shot at Israel a long time coming

Israel dodged a UN bullet today thanks to Trump, but there are 27 days left in Obama’s presidency.

Back in February 2012, I wrote that I expected that in his second term Obama would force his vision of a “peace” deal on the Israelis.

We’ve had several close calls, with the John Kerry negotiation fiasco and flirtation with various European and Arab initiatives through the UN. The mechanism would be a failure to veto a Security Council resolution setting the terms of a deal.

Part of it is Obama hatred of Bibi Netanyahu, dating back to the beginning of Obama’s presidency. The snubs and dislike was palpable long before Netanyahu’s address to Congress opposing the Iran nuclear deal.

Aside from the personal, ideologically Obama at least implicitly signs onto the view that Jews living beyond the 1949 armistice line is an act of illegitimacy at best, illegality at worst, and the heart of the problem.

(We have refuted those claims both factually and legally many times.)

To put it in perspective, taking the position that Jews can’t legally live and Israel could exercise no sovereignty beyond the 1949 armistice line, means that the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, ethnically cleansed of Jews and ransacked by the Jordanians, would forever remain Jew-free.

Just a couple of months ago, there was written about how an Obama move was expected after the election. For example, on October 6, 2016, The Times of Israel reported:

An Israel official on Thursday deepened the latest dispute with the Obama administration over settlement-building by charging that “disproportionate criticism” from Washington over the latest construction plans is “an alibi” to cover plans by President Barack Obama to take anti-Israel actions in the final weeks of his presidency.

The NY Post Editorial Board wrote on October 12, 2016, Why Israel fears Obama’s last days:

Israel faces a unique window of danger from Nov. 9 to Jan. 20: What might President Obama do in his final days in office to slam the Jewish state?

Start with Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent flat refusal to promise a US veto on any upcoming anti-Israel resolution in the UN Security Council.

On Saturday, Haaretz reports, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Kerry he’s counting on Washington to stick to its policy of nixing anti-Israel resolutions. Kerry’s reply: The administration has yet to make a decision on the matter.

For Kerry to leave any doubt that America would shield Israel at the United Nations is bad enough. But concerns about what Team Obama might do go far beyond that.

In a recent Bloomberg column, Eli Lake reports on the threat of “a last-minute [Obama] speech, an executive order or UN action” at Israel’s expense.

On October 27, Charles Krauthammer predicted the same, Is Obama Preparing a Parting Shot at Israel?:

And what to make of the White House’s correction to a news release about last month’s funeral of Shimon Peres? The original release identified the location as “Mount Herzl, Jerusalem, Israel.” The correction crossed out the country identifier — “Israel.”

Well, where else is Jerusalem? Sri Lanka? Moreover, Mount Herzl isn’t even in disputed East Jerusalem. It’s in West Jerusalem, within the boundaries of pre-1967 Israel. If that’s not Israel, what is?

But such cowardly gestures are mere pinpricks compared to the damage Israel faces in the final days of the Obama presidency. As John Hannah of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies recently wrote (in Foreign Policy), there have been indications for months that President Obama might go to the U.N. and unveil his own final status parameters of a two-state solution….

The result would be not just perpetual war but incalculable damage to Israel. And irreversible, too, because the resolution would be protected from alteration by the Russian and/or Chinese veto.

As for the damage, consider but one example: the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, destroyed and ethnically cleansed of Jews by its Arab conquerors in the war of 1948-1949. It was rebuilt by Israel after 1967. It would now be open to the absurd judicial charge that the Jewish state’s possession of the Jewish Quarter constitutes a criminal occupation of another country.

Today, Obama’s plan almost was realized, and would have been but for the intervention of Donald Trump.

In a surprise move, Egypt announced on almost no notice that it would put to a Security Council vote a resolution that would have declared any and all Jewish presence beyond the 1949 armistice line illegal, the impediment to peace, and subject to further enforcement action. One provision in the resolution, demanding that nations distinguish between Israel and “occupied Palestinian territories” would be a boost for the emerging European labeling and boycott of items produced in the “West Bank.”

The resolution is not a mere expression of continued support for a two-state solution, it is imposing a solution based on a distortion of history.

But then Israel went into overdrive, and Donald Trump came to the rescue.

Haaretz reports on Israeli suspicions the Egyptian move was coordinated with the Obama administration, How Israel Blocked the UN Vote on Settlements:

After a 15-hour political drama Thursday, Israel succeeded in deflecting, if only temporarily, a United Nations Security Council vote on a draft resolution against the settlements.

Pressure from the Prime Minister’s Bureau on Cairo, which proposed the resolution, requests for assistance and coordination from President-elect Donald Trump and contacts at the UN and in several world capitals caused Egypt to retract its request for a snap vote.

Nevertheless it was made clear to the participants in a meeting of the security-diplomatic cabinet last night that the crisis is ongoing and the possibility remains that a vote will still be held in the next few days….

The senior official said that the deep concern in Jerusalem was that Egypt was acting in full coordination with the White House. The assumption in Israel, he added was – and is – that Obama did not intend to veto the resolution but to abstain – thus allowing it to pass.

That concern grew when information arrived in Jerusalem on Thursday morning that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had already prepared a speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which he intended giving a few hours before the Security Council session…

Another channel operated by Israel was with President-elect Trump.

Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer, and other Israelis, approached Trumps’ senior advisers, asking them to publish a statement against the Egyptian move. Trump subsequently tweeted, calling on Obama to cast a veto against the resolution. If the resolution was adopted by the Security Council, Trump said, it would be “unfair toward Israelis and will place Israel at a disadvantage in future negotiations.” ….

On Thursday afternoon, Netanyahu announced a special meeting of the security cabinet. Before the cabinet could meet however, Egypt announced that they would ask for the resolution to be postponed by at least a day in order to confer with the foreign ministers of the Arab League.

The immediate result of the announcement was the cancellation of Kerry’s planned speech, which the State Department spokesman said concerned Kerry’s vision regarding the conflict. The speech would be given at another time, he said.

The Jerusalem Post reports that the Israelis expect more Obama administration moves against Israel at the U.N.:

Israeli officials believed the Obama administration had planned its abstention for some time, and was angered by Egypt’s decision to suddenly change course. The goal of the White House, according to the Israeli government’s assessment, was to let off a parting shot at a prime minister with whom it has fought for years and to bind the incoming administration with new international language.

As its suspicions grew, the government warned the Obama administration that it would ask the president-elect for help.

According to Reuters, four Security Council members are now warning Egypt that if it does not put its resolution up for a vote, then they reserve the right to do so.

State Department officials declined to comment on whether Trump’s aides had reached out ahead of time, and would not confirm that the US had plans to abstain.

The Times of Israel  also reports on Israel’s belief this was a targeted strike by Obama and how Trump saved the day:

The effort to push through an anti-settlements resolution at the United Nations Security Council on Thursday constituted a diplomatic “hit” by US President Barack Obama against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the settlement enterprise, according to a senior source in Jerusalem quoted by Israeli television on Thursday night….

According to Israel’s Channel 2, Egypt agreed to withdraw the resolution after President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was sent “messages” by President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team urging him to do so.

An Egyptian diplomatic source told Reuters that Cairo may have withdrawn the resolution in order to maintain positive ties with the incoming Trump administration. “We [Arab states] are all looking for a way to ensure constructive relations with this new administration. It’s not clear if this (resolution) helps that, or if it might even hinder,” the unnamed diplomat said.

That Obama pulled this move on almost no notice to the Israelis and right before the Christmas holiday is typical of his passive-aggressive style.

He will impose his vision on Israel by letting others do the dirty work, and simply letting it happen.

The Israelis are desperately counting down the days until Obama leaves office, just like the rest of us.

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Comments

As was mentioned on another site, this is all a kabuki theater. Muslim countries make such resolutions. European countries express support for them. US vetoes them. Everyone has role to play, and they can play and get away with those roles because they know there is a point where US stops them. That lets people do things to appeal to their local anti-Israel factions, but not really upset status quo.

Well, this time it looks like US might not veto. And, when learning about that:

“Egypt requested the vote’s delay to permit them to conduct an additional meeting of the Arab League’s foreign ministers to work on the resolution’s wording,” Haaretz reported, citing Western diplomats. But the vote might be postponed “indefinitely,” according to the report”

This is interesting part, that it was Egypt who requested this. Egypt requested the delay and change in resolution wording, even though they are the ones who introduced it.

And this tells me Trump has zero to do with it. What it is really is realization that if they play the same play that they played before, they may not arrive at same ending that they expected and really wanted to arrive at, because of Obama being lame duck potential wrecking ball. Because of his hatred of Netanyahu, Obama might refuse to play his role – and that means nobody else can play their role either.

Don’t take me wrong: Trump will be much better for Israel than Obama. Most everyone would. Just that he had nothing to do with this play

    clintack in reply to fwiffo. | December 22, 2016 at 10:12 pm

    Interesting take.

    Seems like the only way President-Elect Trump *could* have played a role behind the scenes is if he got word to the Egyptian government that the huge “foreign aid” payoff we’ve been sending them every year since the Camp David Accords wouldn’t be arriving next year if this resolution passed.

    But I agree — the other actors in the kabuki didn’t really want this resolution to pass.

    Barry in reply to fwiffo. | December 22, 2016 at 10:52 pm

    “And this tells me” that you gone off the deep end.

    Unlikely.

    Far more likely is that the shadow-government communications behind the scenes have set this up between the State Department, the current UN Ambassador from the Obama Administration and Egypt to float this UN resolution, with Sec. Kerry having a “grand vision” speech ready to go at the last second.

    The point behind this would be for the Obama Administration to be able to claim it “laid the groundwork for peace” by failing to veto the resolution and hobbling the Israelis at the UN, and making Israel subject to ongoing “enforcement” actions by the Arabs and Persians. The Leftist Progressives will try to write the next generation of history textbooks to claim Obama’s actions created the conditions for peace. It’s all about context and the narrative for at least the next 4 years.

    The Obama administration knows that the incoming Trup administration is GOING to change the equation from the “Arab First” proposition that has been put forth for the last 8 years (the Bush 43 administration was at least neutral, Obama has had his foot on the scale actively against Israel). The selections for Sec. Def. and Israeli Ambassador alone prove that.

    More likely what happened is that the Trump team got wind of what was about to happen, and placed a well-timed phone call from one high-level back channel connection to another, with an explicit threat that if this resolution wasn’t withdrawn that Egyptian aid would END on January 20th. Now the Egyptians are talking to the other Arab states to see if the aid package they will get for taking this hit is going to be made up by the Saudis and the UAE. My guess is they will get a resounding “NO. You’re on your own.”

    The problem is with the resolution floating out there, now any OTHER Council member can force it to a vote, which is likely to happen. IF that occurs, Trump’s team needs to be out there front and center with an offer to build some military alliance structure in the post-49 lands to make it unquestionably Israeli controlled and signal that any “enforcement” action against Israel on those lands will result in a swift rebuke from the US.

    Actually, what I hope is that Israel finally ends the Wakf, tells the King of Jordan to take a hike, and takes control of the Temple Mount and al-Haram ash-Sharif security. War has been simmering for too long, and the Israelis have been too tolerant of the rioting Muslim rabble. Place heavily armed military personnel on the Mount escorting groups of Jewish worshipers. Let the Jews pray. Let them visit the foundation stone. Muslims that riot or are in any way violent are to be shot on sight, the bodies taken to a public square and left to rot for not less than 3 days before being cremated.

    Give the Arabs a choice: be polite or die and meet Allah right now. If the Arabs attempt to barricade anywhere in the al-Haram ash-Sharif: Siege them and starve them out. No food, no water, cut off utilities. Free passage out under military escort for those that peaceably lay down their weapons and agree to leave and never return. No “humanitarian aid,” no quarter, no mercy. If they riot and fight, then they leave or they die where they are.

    Short term though, the Trump team needs to keep the pressure up to prevent this from slipping through during the transition period. Then they need to tell Ambassador Haley to go to the UN and start kicking down doors until everybody there is on notice that BS like this will not be tolerated.

    casualobserver in reply to fwiffo. | December 23, 2016 at 11:16 am

    I’m not disputing your conclusion that this is primarily an act (sole?) by Egypt without much if any influence from Trump’s proposed administration. But the part you don’t analyze is to answer the question about the objective. To what ends? For what purpose right now?

    There are a lot of hypothetical possibilities. But the timing should add a unique twist to this. If they were serious and hoping to find a weakened US position because of the transition of power, why stall? That scenario could be argued as finding a willing Obama on his way out or finding a situation where neither Obama or Trump were going to get too deep into it. The delay is the curious part. Why? Perhaps this was an effort to quell some internal forces or regional forces. But the delay isn’t explained.

      As has been shown today, it was an ignorant conclusion, ignorant on many levels, but the worst one, pretending it is all some game to the players involved. It’s not a game.

      It would appear to me that Egypt decided they did not want to be first in line in the retribution column. Might have been something else, hard to say.

      Just another anti-Israeli act perpetrated by the anti-American president.

Obama was about to take his Parthian Shot at the Jews.

But Obama retired months ago. POTUS Trump the fixed it. He probably told Sisi some version of, “Did somebody hit you with a stupid bat? You know what time it is?'”

And that was that. Obama’s given Egypt the high hat since his beloved Mo Morsi got tossed. I suspect Sisi knows that Trump is a man who knows how to return a favor.

27 more days, as I post this comment.

    There is only one nation on Earth that Obama hates more than israel – the United States of America.

    That hatred will not stop after he is out of the White House. He will continue to do whatever he can to hurt the two most essential nations in the world.

    A countdown clock to put on any web page:
    ===============================================================
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    <td id=dd></td><td>:</td><td id=hh></td><td>:</td><td id=mm></td><td>:</td><td id=ss></td></tr>
    <tr style=”font-size:7.1pt”>
    <td>Days</td><td></td><td>Hr</td><td></td><td>Min</td><td></td><td>Sec</td></tr></table>
    <script type=”text/javascript”>
    var tdd = document.getElementById (“dd”),
    thh = document.getElementById (“hh”),
    tmm = document.getElementById (“mm”),
    tss = document.getElementById (“ss”),
    endtime = ‘Jan 20, 2017 17:00:00 GMT’;

    function updateClock () {
    var t = Date.parse(endtime) – Date.parse(new Date());
    if (t < 0) t = -t;
    t = (t/1000) |0;
    var ss = t % 60,
    mm = ((t/60)|0) % 60,
    hh = ((t/3600)|0) % 24,
    dd = (t/86400)|0;

    tdd.innerHTML = dd;
    thh.innerHTML = (‘0’ + hh).slice(-2);
    tmm.innerHTML = (‘0’ + mm).slice(-2);
    tss.innerHTML = (‘0’ + ss).slice(-2);
    }

    updateClock(); // run function once at first to avoid delay
    setInterval (updateClock, 1000);
    </script>

      Milhouse in reply to Milhouse. | December 23, 2016 at 3:55 pm

      You know what, whoever’s down-dinging every d*mn thing I post, why don’t you drop dead. Whoever you are, you are a worthless piece of filth, and don’t deserve to breathe. Die a long, painful and lingering death.

Ironically, they claim that Donald Trump is antisemitic.

    Mannie in reply to myiq2xu. | December 23, 2016 at 9:42 am

    This is a typical case of Liberal Projection. Liberals believe everyone is as evil as they are, and in the same ways. So they assume that we feel as they do. Whenever a Libturd accuses you of some evil, you can safely assume that they are engaged in that evil.

    Liberalism is a cult of hate and violence.

DouglasJBender | December 23, 2016 at 1:45 am

Obama will probably be disappointed that he was not allowed to be the Antichrist.

Would Obama have done this if Hillary won?

As you watch Obama during his last days, his treatment past and present of Israel, his legislative “process” for enacting laws, his treatment of the opposition party, and so forth, it is easy to now understand how those Democrat Centers of Excellence i.e., Chicago, Detroit, Philly, Newark, LA….) are the lawless and bankrupt cities that they are.

Oshitbag is on a roll and I am sure we have not seen the last shenanigans of this muslin POS.

Well, where else is Jerusalem? Sri Lanka? Moreover, Mount Herzl isn’t even in disputed East Jerusalem. It’s in West Jerusalem, within the boundaries of pre-1967 Israel. If that’s not Israel, what is?

According to every US president since 1948, none of Jerusalem is in Israel. The USA has never recognised Israeli sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem. Not even Ronaldus Magnus reversed that policy. Let’s hope Trump finally does.