By Clifford Smith, American Spectator
President Obama is rumored to be considering a major reversal of decades-long U.S. policy toward Israel by supporting a UN Security Council resolution that unilaterally recognizes a Palestinian state before a peace agreement is negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians. Congress must act to counter this bold and reckless move that endangers Israel’s security and America’s strategic interests.
There is much at stake: Israel is a free and democratic ally in a hostile region that has been repeatedly attacked by its neighbors. Before it occupied the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan Heights in 1967, these territories were used as a base of war and terrorism against the Jewish state. Offers to create a Palestinian state in Gaza and most of the West Bank that would allow for a safe and secure Israel have been repaid by intifada after intifada.
Others have argued persuasively that any Palestinian state established in the absence of a peace agreement with Israel will become a virtually ungovernable hotbed of terrorism sure to threaten not just Israel, but also the region and the world. The events in Gaza in the past decade strongly support this position. Ordinary Palestinians will also suffer, forced to endure rule by the same Islamic fanatics and brutal, corrupt autocrats who have destroyed their economy.
| Any Palestinian state established absent a peace agreement with Israel will be a hotbed of terrorism. |
A White House decision to support unilateral Palestinian statehood would unquestionably be contrary to the will of Congress: 88 senators recently signed a letter opposing such an action, while 388 members of the House have signed a similar letter supporting a veto of all “one-sided” UN resolutions concerning the Israel/Palestine issue.
And these numbers understate congressional opposition: several senators refused to sign the letterbecause they thought it was insufficiently strong. Furthermore, a White House reversal on unilateral Palestinian statehood would also be contrary to the stated policies of both the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees.
To dissuade a determined White House from this course of action, Congress will have to do more than write letters. Here are some of the legislative options that could throw significant roadblocks in its path.
| Congress should make clear it will sanction a unilaterally declared Palestinian state. |
First, Congress should make clear its intention to sanction any unilaterally-declared Palestinian state and its new leaders, blocking their access to U.S. banking and markets, similar to sanctions on the Iranian regime. Loss of access to the U.S. financial system would be extremely costly to any Palestinian regime.
Second, Congress should make clear its intention to immediately and completely cut hundreds of millions of dollars in annual U.S. direct aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the event that President Mahmoud Abbas succeeds in his bid to win Palestinian statehood recognition at the UN.
Congress reduced this aid by 22 percent last year in retaliation for the PA’s continuing terrorism incitement. It would be a significant blow to a new state to cut all such aid.
 PA President Mahmoud Abbas meets with relatives of Palestinian “martyrs” against Israel in a photo published by the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 2, 2016. |
Third, Congress should mandate that any newly-created Palestinian state be designated a state sponsor of terrorism. This designation would include restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance; a ban on defense exports and sales; and various other restrictions. The Palestinian Authority (PA) currently uses a shell-game to pay the families of terrorists, something Congress iscurrently working to stop. Other PA ties to various terrorist activities go back decades.
Finally, Congress should review and update decades-old federal laws prohibiting U.S. funding of any UN organization that “accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states” to ensure that they apply and cannot be skirted if Abbas wins Security Council recognition of Palestinian statehood.
| Now would be a good time for Congress to stop shirking its duty to shape foreign policy. |
Congress should use its power boldly to exert influence over this vital issue. Large majorities in Congress opposed the Iran nuclear deal and had both the facts and public opinion on their side. But due to the peculiarities of the law and the politics of the situation, they were outmaneuvered. Congress should work to ensure this situation is not repeated.
Though knowledgeable and trusted congressional leaders like Senators Arthur Vandenberg andHenry “Scoop” Jackson once led coalitions in Congress that held great influence in foreign affairs, there is a bipartisan belief that Congress has shirked its duty to shape foreign policy in recent decades. Now would be a good time to start taking it back.
Clifford Smith is director of the Middle East Forum’s Washington Project.
bernard ross Said:
Perhaps Trump has a stronger ‘moral compass ” then Hillary.
As in the 5th Nov Gunpowder Plot and Benedict Arnold cases treason is decided on the final results. Whatever else can be said about Oslo, two things are plain as pikestaffs. First it let Jordan off the hook of a PLO rebellion as in 70’s Black September, so Jordan followed Egypt into a peace with Israel that is holding long term. Second the Palestine Arabs – eternal bazaar bargainers as usual – wanted and want more than is available and are losing their side of the offer by their own violent incompetence which shuts down Israeli political trust to negotiate with them, and does not stop Israeli expansion on any level or location.
“epical incoherence” is a bit of the same. Epic(s) by definition are a coherent narrative and the adjective of epic is still epic.
If a language develops two words for similar concepts and in the case of (il)legitimate and (il)legal both are from the same Latin root then there is a subtle distinction somewhere. Legal is definitely “cut and dried” in the law books of statute and case law all tested in court and parliament. “legitimate” has an aura that is not just court and lawyers about it, but a social context of customary due and proper form and acceptable to critical opinion – the contest between the Hous eofShammai and the House of Hillel; while (il)licit is a further projection of the idea into the less serious. The tendency is that legal is legitimate and licit but licit and legitimate are not necessarily legal. However hard cases requiring reforms are spoken of as losing legitimacy in the eyes of opinion and consent. The British tax proposals that caused the US agitation, then War of Independence were quite legal as the tested law then stood but the arrangements were too distant and so lost legitimacy ie acceptable consenting obedience. Look also at the area of greatest use of legitimate, namely “natural” children. These are people who exist even if outside the usual conventions and morality, yet there are legal arrangements to manage the situation. In contrast having intimate arrangements beyond matrimony is seen as illicit – if there are no illegitimate children to care for.
Hoping all this makes for some precision and more clarity. when Arabs say Israel is illegal they infer it breaks clear rules. Accusing Israel of illegitimacy is an outraged complaint that even if all in due and proper form her existence offends the general morality and acceptability of behaviour. This is not so in Europe and America but is so in the supremacist claims of the Moslem World’s medieval view of the functions of their religion; and also understandable in the eyes of the ex- colonial World bamboozled by thirst for oil and UN votes, allies etc. What is important now as regards the Third World is enough PR to brand the Arabs as out to revive their medieval imperialism which is just as politically immoral – and less improving – than the steam age imperialism of Europe.
stevenl Said:
I dont really understand what you are saying here. What I see is europeans libeling jews by saying it is “illegal” for jews to settle in the Jewish homeland and I see President hussein saying it is “illegitimate” for Jews to settle in the Jewish Homeland AND I see the Jewish prime minister of Israel has NEVER disagreed with them since he ascended the throne in 08 0r 09.
As I beleive that Israelis, Jews and the world have been hoodwinked with these narratives I conclude that the beginning of the solution is to change the narrative to an accurate narrative which should be led by the apparent leadership of the Jewish people, beginnning with the PM and filtering down into all political, social, educational, cultural institutions in Israel and the Jewsih world. I believe when this comes into sync the rest of the world will move towards reflecting the same narrative. Therefore, in my view, the power of the Israeli pm to change the world from anti semitic jew swindlers to pro semitic jew supporters is real.
Look how Trump is morphing into a more pro jewish pro Israel supporter than a large section of the Israeli Jewish population as a result of the Jewish advisors and consultants who surround him.
@ bernard ross:
In the jargon of the LEFT, the ILLEGAL must be given a path to legal. What about giving the LEGAL a path to LEGAL! That is of course the situation of Israel. But the Left insists on making LEGAL illegal! The left spins so much into epical incoherence. That is where they are the most dangerous. Btw Hitler, Stalin, Mao and many other of the left, > 200 million lost their lives in a few decades not long ago.
What does it matter NOW!!!
stevenl Said:
the lying euros use the term “illegal” and the lying pres hussein and minions use the term “illegitimate”, both are false and both are liars.
Trump says the opposite of the liars but the PM of Israel says NOTHING
bernard ross Said:
Legal & legitimate, a distinction without a difference.
Y & S are historically, artifactually, morally/ethically, practically & most importantly divinely integral part and parcels of Israel.
Perhaps BB is waiting for BHO to recognize and utter “Islamic TERRORISM”. Then and only then will BB recognize the legality of what is “LEGAL”!
Israel need not recognize any pal state as having existence if declared… it can prevent all traffic in and out.. the UN has no legal authority to declare a state. UN recognizing a state for membership has no legal import. In the end, it is always up to Israel and so far the PM cannot utter these words:
“JEWISH SETTLEMENT IN JUDAH SAMARIA IS LEGAL AND LEGITIMATE”
the land belongs to the Jews and no one else should be allowed sovereignty there. Temporary residence until those who teach their children that jews are sons of apes and pigs are moved out. Begin with stringent anti semitism laws which mandatory require loss of citizenship, residence, assets and deportation. This will encourage them to leave with their assets before losing them… no anti semite should be allowed to breathe in Israel. or any area under its control. They can use their assets to go to europe and plague the other jew killer wannabes
This is on bottom line, the pursuit of a tactical negative victory which does not affect the over-arching strategic problem. At the end of WWI in Oct 1918 the revived Poland was recognised before it had made peace with either Russia or Germany. This did not stop/erase the need of the new Poland and its enemies to make peace and exchange formal trade and diplomatic arrangements.
So with Israel and a “Palestine” state. If the Arabs want the UN to recognise “Palestine” as a state and the prat wishes to have that for a legacy; the viciously incompetent Arabs of Palestine will still need to make a peace with the State of Israel and sort out diplomatic trade and other arrangements – especially transit. Israel can always reply with measures that wage cold war on Palestine for not behaving as a state. Israel may still suppress all transit of goods and persons till “Palestine ” as a state signs up to the assorted international conventions and pays its bills for water and electricity. It is just possible that in the legal and diplomatic context of “Palestine” being a “state” that it will be easier to wage measures against it than in the present nebulosity of Oslo’s legacy.
Excellent ideas all; now if only Congress is up to fulfilling their duties.
The 3 Is: Inept, Impotent, Incompetent!
Don’t hold your breath!!!