Obama joins Likkud
February 20, 2011, 9:24 am
Posted by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels
“The first veto cast by the United States during Obama’s term, a veto he promised in vain not to use as his predecessors did, was a veto against the chance and promise of change, a veto against hope. This is a veto that is not friendly to Israel; it supports the settlers and the Israeli right, and them alone….”
“Israel, which is condemned by the entire world but continues merrily on its way, is a country that is losing its connection to reality. It is also a country that will ultimately find itself left entirely to its fate. That is why America’s decision harmed Israel’s interests: It continued to blind and stupefy Israel into thinking it can go on this way forever.” Gideon Levy in Ha’aretz
Tragic given what is currently happening in the Middle East. We need another Eisenhower! If we have two more “Egypts” Israeli policy will self-destruct.
I kept looking in the NYT Week in Review for commentary on this sad action , but nada.
Just a piece by the Israeli ambassador telling us how they’re working for a just peace… so it goes!
Was both shocked and outraged to read of that veto……. and then no subsequent reaction in NY Times. Very many thanks to Margaret for posting Gideon Levy’s response to that disastrous vote. He says it all……but who is listening?
Tragic given what is currently happening in the Middle East.
Yes it is, tragic given what is currently happening in the Middle East — violence and unrest in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Algeria, Jordan, Iran, and elsewhere, including China — and the United Nations is obsessed with Israel.
Far, far worse regimes, treating people far, far worse (including treating Palestinians worse), but the UN is obsessed with the Jews, er, I mean, the Israelis.
This obsession is tragic.
Gideon Levy is a citizen of Israel. He’s right to be obsessed with the way his government is behaving in Gaza and the West Bank. The U.S.’s veto at the UN implicates us further in the Israeli government’s policies. We too should be obsessed with those policies and our responsibility for aiding and abetting them.
Two notes: One, this happened on Friday, so was past weekend op-ed deadlines and such, though I agree it merits more extensive coverage.
Also, I think US policy on Israel (and fear of isolating or acting against Israel) is driven as much by the influence of strongly pro-Israel American evangelicals (for their own motives, often) and American public opinion which supports Israel in general but which is also very much against anything seen as anything favoring Muslims, who don’t have a very popular profile in the US.
Unfortunately, David Gibson (2/20 post) may well be right.
Obama ought to show some spine.
You can express your displeasure to the President at this address:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
Obama mocks his base. Who else will you vote for next year? The only “expression of displeasure” Obama or any politician cares about is that which is expressed at the ballot box. Lacking that, he couldn’t care less what you think of his UN veto.
Hope and Change! ©
There is still nothing on this at the NYT. I wonder if there is a crise de conscience going on there, or maybe a war?
The New York Times will not go against Israel. It will couch its objection more tactfully. There are few if any politicians that oppose Israel. The Republicans are courting the Israelis. Money rules.
David Gibson: “Also, I think US policy on Israel (and fear of isolating or acting against Israel) is driven as much by the influence of strongly pro-Israel American evangelicals (for their own motives, often) and American public opinion which supports Israel in general but which is also very much against anything seen as anything favoring Muslims, who don’t have a very popular profile in the US.”
True enough, as far as it goes. But AIPAC plays a big role in keeping Congress, the State Department, the WH, and polticians in line. And then there are all the U.S. Catholics with their guilt about the Holocaust (in some cases faux guilt) who are unable or unwilling to see that we’re in a different century and dealing with a different set of issues. Of course, we can always be guilty in the future for what we refuse to see and deal with now!
I don’t think U.S. policy towards Israel is going to change until Israeli politics change, for better or for worse (probably much worse). There is just so much political capital it is reasonable to expect an American president (*any* American president) to spend on Israel. The political capital at home overwhelmingly favors supporting Israel. Palestinian miscues make the situation easier to sustain, but really, when Anthony Wiener and Sarah Palin agree about something, you can be pretty sure everyone in between pretty much holds the same views.
And yes, it’s hard to ignore that the U.S. is doing the equivalent of feeding sugar to a poorly controlled diabetic. It feels so good not to have to worry about all that nutrition gobbledy gook, until one day you don’t wake up from the coma.
I think Barbara is quite right, but as the mideast dynamic rolls along, we’ll find the price we have to pay is getting heavier and heavier.
I also think Bill M. is righ tabout the NYT.
The outcry from Commonweal will be (unfortunately) small potatoes.
Ha’aretz continues to report the story that the U.S. MSM seems to ignore:
“Obama spoke with Abbas for 50 minutes on Thursday to urge the Palestinian president not to bring the resolution to a vote. According to the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, Obama told Abbas that the resolution could damage U.S. interests in the Middle East and could induce the U.S. Congress to halt aid to the PA.
“Obama reportedly suggested that in lieu of bringing the resolution to a vote, Abbas accept an alternative package of benefits, including a presidential statement on the settlements by the Security Council. Such a statement would be nonbinding, but could be couched in harsher terms. The package would also have included a Security Council visit to Ramallah to express support for the PA and denounce the settlements, and a statement by the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers that, for the first time, would call for the boundaries of the Palestinian state to be based on the 1967 lines.
“On Friday afternoon, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton phoned Abbas with an even more sharply worded message….
Following the vote, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice gave a speech in which she attempted to explain the contradiction between the veto and the U.S. administration’s clear opposition to construction in the settlements.
“While we agree with our fellow Council members and indeed, with the wider world about the folly and illegitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, we think it unwise for this Council to attempt to resolve the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians,” Rice said. “We therefore regrettably have opposed this draft resolution.”
“The British ambassador read a joint statement by Britain, France and Germany that said that construction in the settlements, including in East Jerusalem, contravened international law.”
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/pa-to-call-urgent-un-session-over-settlement-resolution-veto-1.344479
“Illegal”, no. “Illegitimate”, yes. Our State Department is starting to speak Vaticanese.
This weeks New Yorker (February 28, 2011) has a profile of Haaretz by David Remick for those of you with access.
The US MSM has never adequately reported that one of the reasons given for 9/11 by those who planned it was the unconditional US support of Israel………. this should make national security advisors reflect on our policy there and shudder……quite apart from any legal/moral issues involved in settlement building, etc.
To Bender. The Security Council isn’t “obsessed” with Israelis….it’s doing its job, which is upholding international law.
There is, one must note, a lot going on in the world today, ahem. Even though I largely agree with the thrust of this discussion.
What I think is interesting is that American Jews themselves also tend to agree on many aspects of the US-Israeli relationship.
(The J Street conference, by the way, is next week: http://conference.jstreet.org/)
I think it’s interesting to probe some of the other dynamics at work here besides the influence of the old-line lobbies, which are formidable.
David G, here are J Street polls from March 2009: Looks like more than a majority of American Jews favor pressure on both sides; but more than a majority also favor U.S. pressure on Israel. An old poll to be sure, but as paralysis has continued would we be surprised that these numbers have held up. There is always the question of how well the old-line lobbies represent American Jewish views; not all that well it would seem. http://jstreet.org/campaigns/j-street-releases-new-poll-american-jewish-community Scroll down to survey data for this poll.
[354 Respondents]
Q.33 (IF SUPPORT ACTIVE ROLE) (SPLIT A) Would you support or oppose the United States playing an active role in helping the parties to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict if it meant the United States publicly stating its disagreements with both the Israelis and the Arabs?
Total
Strongly support 46
Somewhat support 39
Somewhat oppose 10
Strongly oppose 5
Total Support 86
Total Oppose 14
…
[354 Respondents]
Q.34 (IF SUPPORT ACTIVE ROLE) (SPLIT B) Would you support or oppose the United States playing an active role in helping the parties to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict if it meant the United States publicly stating its disagreements with Israel?
Total
Strongly support 31
Somewhat support 35
Somewhat oppose 18
Strongly oppose 16
Total Support 66
Total Oppose 34
…
[354 Respondents]
Q.35 (IF SUPPORT ACTIVE ROLE) (SPLIT A) Would you support or oppose the United States playing an active role in helping the parties to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict if it meant the United States exerting pressure on both the Israelis and Arabs to make the compromises necessary to achieve peace?
Total
Strongly support 43
Somewhat support 37
Somewhat oppose 14
Strongly oppose 5
Total Support 81
Total Oppose 19
[354 Respondents]
Q.36 (IF SUPPORT ACTIVE ROLE) (SPLIT B) Would you support or oppose the United States playing an active role in helping the parties to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict if it meant the United States exerting pressure on Israel to make the compromises necessary to achieve peace?
Total
Strongly support 27
Somewhat support 37
Somewhat oppose 16
Strongly oppose 20
Total Support 64
Total Oppose 36
Stephen Walt makes these points (and many others) at Foreign Policy: Whole thing here: http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/02/20/a_false_friend_in_the_white_house
“The transparently lame explanation given by U.S. officials was that the security council isn’t the right forum to address this issue. Instead, they claimed that the settlements issue ought to be dealt with in direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians, and that the security council should have nothing to say on the issue.
“This position is absurd on at least two grounds. First, the expansion of settlements is clearly an appropriate issue for the security council to consider, given that it is authorized to address obvious threats to international peace and security. Second, confining this issue to “direct talks” doesn’t make much sense when those talks are going nowhere. ..
“… the real reason for Obama’s misguided decision was the profound influence of the Israel lobby. Indeed, few observers have missed this simple and obvious fact. One can only conclude that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s repeated claims that they are “friends of Israel” and devoted to its security are nothing more than empty, politically expedient rhetoric. Whatever they may say, the policies they are pursuing — including this latest veto — are in fact harmful to Israel’s long-term future.”
For the record: a search today of the NYT yields its 2-18 coverage of the U.S. vote against the U.N. attempt to censure the Israel settlements.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/world/middleeast/19nations.html
“The Security Council isn’t “obsessed” with Israelis….it’s doing its job, which is upholding international law.”
What is this “international law” of which you speak? There are international treaties, agreements between nations. But there is no such thing as international law as there is, say federal law or state law.
If you disagree, then I would ask you to cite an “international law” that Israel is allegedly breaking.
Why no NYT editorial and what kind of op eds will we see?
Chuck Hagle (former Nebraska Senator and A REPUBLICAN) offers some sane observations about U.S. policy in the Middle East. (Hagle for Secretary of State anyone?)
http://omaha.com/article/20110220/NEWS01/702209903/
Bender (revised 2:37. oops! P. Flannagan–hard to tell you guys apart): you might read UN Declaration 181 which ended the British Mandate in Palestine and set forth a process for the establishment of two states, one Arab, the other Jewish. As we know the Arab state has never emerged. Who better than the UN to declare that West Bank Settlements impede the emergence of an Arab State, and that Israel is violating the very declaration that made its own existence possible.
For a number of reasons it is interesting reading. Here:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/res181.htm
Again, Declaration 181 is just that: a declaration. A sort of treaty. Not law in the sense that 3:19PM claimed the Security Council was “upholding international law”.
Historically, it was the Arabs who refused to allow implementation of 181 by resorting to armed force against the initial establishment of Israel. Morally, it is the Palestinians who are responsible for thwarting their own independence by the use of terrorism. If not for suicide bombings, the Palestinians would have had their own State decades ago.
“Bender (revised 2:37. oops! P. Flannagan–hard to tell you guys apart)”
Thanks for what I consider a compliment.
Call it what you will, the Israelis have taken it to be the foundation of their state and President Harry Truman recognized the state of Israel on the basis of Declaration 181 and the subsequent Israeli declaration. Sorry, but the early history you describe is far more complicated than “it is the Palestinians who are responsible…..”
Don’t confuse flanagan (and Bender) with facts.
Some surprising and unexpected news: “The Arab League on Tuesday suspended Libya from its sessions in light of a violent crackdown on anti-government protests, Qatari news network Al Jazeera reported.” Bravo!
http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/arab-league-suspends-libya-as-deadly-crackdown-persists-1.345096
It seems to me that the support the revolutionists are getting from all over the Islamic world isn’t wholly due to the fact that there are proportionately so many young Arabs and Iranians. After all, the Arab League is not led by 20= or 30=somethings. I wonder whether the Muslim world, having seen the effects of radical Islamic theology such as the Ayatollah Khomeini’s and Bin Laden’s is deciding to reject it. If so, that would be a religious change equal to the political ones.
Are things more complex than they appear on the surface?
AO: Yes, they are more complex. Especially for Westerners (like myself and almost everyone else on this blog and other blogs) who understand little about the culture(s) of the Middle East though some are better schooled in the politics of ME than others.
I must admit I’ve learned an awful lot about Egypt in the last two weeks. I didn’t know it was the most important of the ME countries (I thought that Saudi Arabia was), didn’t know that it had such a large highly educated segment, didn’t even know that Cairo is a huge city even by world standards, etc. My images of it were those oresented by Agatha Christie novels and movies– old fashioned, exotic, Muslim (whatever that meant) with only very occasional social eruptions. It’s worst problems were antiquities smugglers and “the British”. How ignorant!
Arab unrest could help Turk-Israel ties, says former Israeli diplomat.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=arab-unrest-could-accelerate-turk-israel-normalization-2011-02-24
P. Flanagan…..honestly I might resort to “terrorism” too if I was Palestinian living under conditions which resemble apartheid. And those random rockets shot over the border and stone throwing at occupation forces cannot compare with the overwhelming power of the Israeli army…….weapons courtesy of USA. Of course suicide bombing is wrong….but who is the provocateur? I suggest you read Walt and Mearsheimer, (“The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy”) which was an eye-opener for me. Also the Goldstone Report commissioned by the UN to investigate the Gaza situation. These are committed Jews……certainly not anti-Semites. I am on J Street’s e-mail list because I wanted to have a better understanding of the divisions in the Jewish community over Israeli policies. I recommend it….also “Tikkun”. Recently a shocking film was made by a Jewish woman living in NY who graphically documented the abuses inflicted on ordinary Palestinians every day.
Will post more details about this film…….title, availability, etc.