HAARETZ : New Zealand, Venezuela, Malaysia and Senegal told Egypt on Thursday that if it did not clarify by midnight whether it planned to call a vote on a draft UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements, then they reserved the right to move ahead with the text, diplomats said.
This article by Anne Bayefsky originally appeared on Fox News.
President Obama, left, at the Kapolei Golf Club, in Kapolei, Hawaii, Dec. 21, 2016.
The UN Security Council is scheduled to vote Thursday on a scandalous and irreversible Palestinian-led resolution purporting to decide that Israeli settlements violate international law. All signs point to President Obama being a willing participant and refusing to exercise the American veto.
If adopted, the treacherous resolution will greenlight the boycott, divestment, sanctions “BDS” master plan to devastate the Israeli economy and fast-track the effort to send Israel’s Prime Minister to the International Criminal Court to stand trial for war crimes.
The Palestinians are in a hurry to capitalize on the deep-seated antipathy that President Obama has always had for Israel and its leaders, but occasionally repressed during election-cycles. Now an Obama foreign policy, with strong affinities for the UN mob, is unhinged.
Add to this toxic mix, Obama’s legacy problem. It turns out that a habit of systematically alienating America’s allies and coddling its enemies didn’t make the world a safer place. In the Middle East, Obama has left us with the horrors of the Islamic State, 400,000 dead in Syria and millions of refugees, carnage in Yemen, deadly chaos in Libya, and ruthless crackdowns in Turkey. And then there is Obama’s Iran – the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism now unabashedly enriching uranium, upgrading centrifuges, and testing ballistic missiles. Not to mention North Korean nuclear weapons testing, occupied Crimea, an aggressive China, and an active stone-age cult called Boko Haram.
With a mere four weeks to go until leaving office, the president has come up with a get-tough strategy. Slam Israel.
In some respects this plan has been ages in the making. For eight long years, the Palestinians have taken their cues from a President who continually took no for an answer. They said no to a Jewish state, no to direct negotiations, no to ending incitement to terror, no to building homes rather than terror tunnels, no to stopping payments to the families of dead terrorists, no to teaching their youth tolerance instead of violent antisemitism, no to giving up the demand to return millions of Arabs to eradicate a Jewish state demographically, and no to co-habitating with Jews on Arab-claimed land.
And through it all, the message coming from the White House was that “settlements” – Jews living peaceful, productive lives on disputed territory whose ownership (by existing agreement) is to be determined through negotiations – are a fatal “obstacle to peace.”
As recently as December 4, 2016, Secretary Kerry told the Saban Forum in Washington, D.C., that settlements “are a barrier to peace and the right that supports it, openly supports it because they don’t want peace.” Allegedly, mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who for seven decades have had to live with the anguish of mandatory military service do not want peace. Even non-deplorables would doubt that. Or they might actually remember that Israelis have repeatedly been moved in advance of a negotiated end to hostilities by their own government for the sake of peace, only to have those hopes dashed time and again.
Moreover, seven decades of unremitting war and terror – that commenced the minute modern Israel was born – tell a different story. Arab rejectionists consider all of Israel to be occupied territory and an illegal settlement from 1948 on. Rolling back the clock to the 1967 borders is a way station. And a move back to indefensible borders – as Israelis have learned the hard way with their blood, sweat and tears.
If President Obama fails to veto the Palestinian resolution – while chuckling from the golf course in Hawaii – the consequences will be profound.
It will be a permanent outcome – the Russian and Chinese veto powers would prevent any effort to rescind it in the future by President Trump or any other president.
It will abandon long-standing bipartisan American foreign policy fundamentals that insist peace between Israelis and Arabs must come through direct negotiations – since such talks require each side to recognize and legitimize the other.
It will doom any prospect of negotiations for the foreseeable future. Palestinians will have no incentive to negotiate since the UN gang will do their work for them. And Israelis will have been double-crossed; negotiated agreements can simply be “appealed” to the UN.
It will be a full-throated endorsement of BDS. Why shouldn’t there be boycotts, divestment and sanctions of an illegal enterprise?
It will be a major incentive to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to push forward with charges (already before her) that Israeli leaders are guilty of “war crimes” for supporting settlements.
Last Friday, President Obama made the preposterous claim that “almost every country on Earth sees America stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago.” Wounding the people of Israel, who courageously struggle against an implacable foe and yet long for peace with their neighbors, will earn him the respect of the thugs at the U.N., and a legacy of shame.
Anne Bayefsky is the Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and President of Human Rights Voices. Follow her @AnneBayefsky.
bernard ross Said:
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It also seems to be fact that 50% of all the money donated to the Dems for elections and other etcs is from Jews… How disgusting, when they should be sending their spare cash to worthy Israeli causes, or funding action against Anti-Israel NGOs
Who put NZ up to it?
Why would New Zealand even care?
I bet there were phone calls from an Hawaiian golf course to the NZ PM.
this is the muslim president and his party’s Hanukkah gift to the Jews, done on a Shabbat eve.
May the lights of HANUKKAH light our paths for a peaceful, joyous and a blessed year.
HAPPY HANUKKAH TO ALL!
Watch the donuts. It has consequences. I ordered mine already.
If I forget, may all of you have a Happy Hannukah.
Well, that was not good.
Obama dumped a steaming gift (with emphasis on the word dump) in Netanyahu’s lap.
There is something particularly odius in sabotaging the work of the incoming president. Jimmy Carter did the same thing when he placed millions of acre under Federal Protection, before Reagan came in, who would have released it to oil exploration.
There is little Trump can do. China and Russia would prevent a recision.
THERE MAY BE ONE GOOD OUTCOME
For decades, Israel used to blame the Arabs for not accepting UN 181
Ben Gurion even mentioned UN Resolution 181 in the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
But UN Resolution 181 never went to the Security Council; and had no legal standing, and everyone knew it. Israel even wrote a letter to the UN saying that since 181 has no standing, Israel could keep what it conquered in 1949.
Hence the Israeli criticism of the Arabs for not accepting 181 was invalid, at least on that point.
Afterwards, the Arabs blamed Israel for ignoring subsequent UN Resolutions. Both sides do this.
Both side play the UN, and both sides ignore it.
Maybe it is time for Israel to leave the UN. The shock might persuade Trumnp to quit the UN, too.
I have always said that Israel’s right to exist came more from natural law and history than San Remo, the UN, whatever.
This will force Israel to redefine their natural rights more logically rather than the appealing to ridiculous legal constructs.
What the UN giveth, the UN taketh away.
Maybe it is time Israel left the UN. Trump might follow.
american jews should support pulling out of Nato and SEATO.. nato has turkey in it and the euros always go agianst the jews same with new zealand… why should I care if the russians or muslim light them on fire? Remember who are your enemies, I will support nothing for all these scum. I hope trumps kicks over their tables.
Its time for Israel to take charge of its future and dump the leaders of all parties who trade the rights of jews to be at a table with anti semites.
dont forget who was involved in this…
there is a reason why venezuelans should starve.. they voted for this
may all the nations who voted against Israel burn in war.
its not just that muslim POS, its the whole dem party, the Jews that support them and leftist jews in general.
the main blame for this lies on the heads of the leftist Jews who voted for this scum and his party and the leftist Jew Israelis who fed them the lies of apartheid and child killing.
Netanyahu is a major cause too because he never disputed the canard nor did he ever say these words:
“JEWISH SETTLEMENT IN YS IS LEGAL AND LEGITIMATE”
Netanyahu has finally succeeded , it is now too late to say the words…. Netanyahu should resign after all his begging nothing good ever happened and he is unable to lead the jews to seize their rights… as for the left they are a shameful breed of jews
there are moves to take but not the wishy washy whiny begging craap that has been going on that led to this moment of face slapping and back stabbing… a complete humiliation for those who put their faith in the euroscum and the dem party.
Jews should spit on obama and every democrat alive
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That dirty dog Obama has finally instructed his reps to abstain, in the Resolution before the Security Council, so he finally as a last effort, betrayed us to the enemy.
New Zealand was just as bad being at the forefront of urging on and presenting the Resolution for passage. It passed with 14 YES and the 1 abstention.
So it looks as if the next move is for Israel to annex, Trump to withdraw funding from the UN and the PLO, as well as all Anti-Jew groups, with both countries to abandon the UN, and leave it reeling. All this should be done on his very first day in office to show that he’ll stand for NO NONSENSE any more.
Although this is true… Trump can cut off the UN at the knees with defunding all anti Israel UN groups. Jews, pro Israel groups and politicians could seek the further passage of US anti BDS laws and the equating of anti zionism with anti semitism… they could then see that these laws are used against any or or business doing business with the US… this is how the sanctions worked.
However, all this is moot… why should anyone dispute the UN finding that settlements are illegal and illegitimate if the PM of Israel cannot dispute that same canard…. Notice that in none of the arguments against this resolution floated by BB and the GOI is there any assertion of dispute with the canard that the settlements are illegal and illegitimare… the only argument the GOI advances is not Jewish rights but that it will obstruct the peace process. This is pathetic.
No Jew or Israel should expect the onslaught of anti zionism, anti semitism or anti Israelism in global institutions until the canard of illegal and illegitimate Jewish settlement is diputed by the PM, the pres and the gov of Israel. These are the word that are NEVER uttered by the PM or the President of Israel.
Furthermore, the passage of the resolution should be viewed as an opportunity rather than a crisis or a catastrophe. The passage should be used to change the current paradigm of Israels MO. The immediate response should be for Israel to declare adherence to the prime directive of the LON mandate to immigrate and settle Jews in the Jewish homeland by embarking on a massive immigration drive of diaspora Jews giving free land grants in YS. Israel should declare the paradigm of Oslo dead and proceed to annex area C giving no citizenship to its former jordanian citizens. A and B should continue to function as is or under martial law.
BB should stop running around begging everyone else daily to stand up for Israel in anti semitic global orgs. As PM he should declare to the world that “JEWISH SETTLEMENT IN YS IS LEGAL AND LEGITIMATE” and proceed to execute that principle in action. It is tiresome to see BB always begging others to do his work, pretending that begging and whining to anti semites is a substitute for being a leader of the Jews.
Those leftist Jews of Israel and the diaspora who have facilitated and encouraged this lie of the illegality and illegitimacy of Jewish settlement have brought a cloud upon the title of jews to any part of Israel….. those Jews are responsible for the current wave of anti semitism and Jew killing in the diaspora and Israel….. those jews have painted all jews as land thieves of innocent palestian victims…… thus creating an environment of “the jews will get what they deserve”.