Candidly Speaking: Responding to Obama’s malicious betrayal of Israel

This will not be the first time that we overcame major challenges and emerged stronger than ever.

By ISI LEIBLER
RUSSIA’S AMBASSADOR to the UN Vitaly Churkin sits in the security council chamber following a United Nations Security Council meeting. (photo credit: REUTERS)
RUSSIA’S AMBASSADOR to the UN Vitaly Churkin sits in the security council chamber following a United Nations Security Council meeting.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
As predicted, on the eve of his retirement President Barack Obama betrayed Israel. The former long-standing congregant of the paranoid anti-Semitic pastor Rev. Jeremy Wright who has a penchant for supporting to the Muslim Brotherhood, broke with 40 years of US bipartisan policy of protecting the Jewish state from the wolves at the United Nations.
His action as a lame duck president was a last ditch effort aimed at undermining his successor’s intended policies, carried out with the understanding that it is virtually impossible to rescind a Security Council resolution. At the end of his eight years in office he exhibited an unprecedented abuse of power, knowing that in his last month he would be unaccountable, despite the fact that his vindictive initiative was totally opposed by Congress, the American people and by many members of his own party.
European countries represented on the Security Council voted in favor of this abominable Resolution 2334 which was essentially drafted and orchestrated by the US and ultimately initiated by New Zealand, a Western country whose foreign policy is largely determined by the extent that it promotes export of lamb. Its co-sponsors were the rogue states of Venezuela, Malaysia and Senegal.
The resolution, passed during the week that Aleppo was conquered by President Assad in the midst of brutal torture and massacres of thousands of innocent civilians, highlights the duplicity and hypocrisy of the United Nations, a body dominated by anti-Israel and rogue states, with democracies groveling in an effort to appease the dominant Muslim nations.
It will serve as an instrument for Israel’s adversaries to further promote boycott, divestment and sanctions, and the International Criminal Court will be encouraged to define Israel as a criminal state.
It officially nullifies the disastrous Oslo Accords, negates Security Council Resolution 242 and repudiates the concept of defensible borders. It paves the way for criminalizing all settlers, including those in the major blocs that will always remain part of Israel, and even Jews resident in Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem. It actually defines the Old City of Jerusalem and the Kotel (Western Wall) as occupied Palestinian territory.
In this context the Palestinians will demand that any negotiations accept these bizarre territorial definitions as opening benchmarks – a status that no Israeli government would ever contemplate accepting. The UN resolution has effectively negated the concept of direct negotiations, thus ensuring that a peaceful solution to the conflict is more remote than ever.
In this poisonous anti-Israel international climate, we should not be influenced by the prophets of doom in our midst.
We are more powerful today than ever before and in the course of our history we have successfully overcome far greater threats to our existence than the United Nations. Now is a time for us to display unity and strength.
Despite the many initial concerns, we should thank the Almighty that the American people elected Donald Trump as president. Were we faced with a Clinton Democratic administration, which in all likelihood would retain Obama’s policies, we would be confronting a real nightmare.
In this context, if the proclaimed decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem is implemented it will send the world a powerful message. To his credit, Trump used all his weight as an incoming president in efforts to ward off the UN resolution, albeit unsuccessfully. He described the UN “just as a club for people to have a good time” and stressed that after January 20 “things at the UN will be different.” In the wake of his selection of pro-Israel David Friedman as ambassador to Israel he appointed another pro-Israel man from his team, Jason Greenblatt, as his point man for Middle East negotiations.
He also demonstratively refused to grant an audience to retiring UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
In light of these developments most of the mainstream US Jewish leaders who were in denial over eight years should share a deep sense of guilt and shame.
They remained silent as Obama treated Israel as a rogue state whilst he groveled to the ayatollah. They continued voting for him, and we now see how he repaid them. The only consistent critic was the indefatigable Morton Klein, head of the Zionist Organization of America, who has been more than vindicated.
Individual American Jews are free to express their personal political opinions in any manner they deem fit, but mainstream Jewish organizations are obliged to avoid activity which reflects political bias. The disgusting behavior of liberal mainstream leaders exploiting their positions to promote a partisan bias against Trump, including accusations of antisemitism against him and his co-workers before and during the elections, stands out as being utterly unethical and outrageous.
After the elections the Anti-Defamation League and the Conservative and Reform moment leaders all issued statements conveying their anguish and even mourning the results. Some of these publicly supported the election to the Democratic Party leadership of the Muslim extreme left-wing anti-Israeli congressman Keith Ellison whilst bitterly protesting Trump’s appointment of a pro-Israel ambassador. Others even protested that moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem would harm the peace process.
The climax was the almost comic but bizarre boycott by major liberal mainstream Jewish organizations of a Hanukka celebration in Washington co-hosted by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and the Azerbaijani Embassy, because it was being held in a Trump-owned hotel.
But now is the time for us to look forward and unite. This UN resolution was not just about settlements. It was designed to undermine the security of the state and pave the way for antisemitic boycotts and sanctions by those seeking Israel’s demise.
The resolution employing Obama’s malevolent views made no distinction between isolated outposts and settlements in outlying regions, and Jewish neighborhoods and suburbs of Jerusalem and the Western Wall.
Any Jew who endorses the view that Judaism’s most sacred site – formerly occupied by the Jordanians who denied Jews access – is occupied territory is reminiscent of medieval mosers (informers), who were ostracized from the religious and social life of the community. Those in J Street, the New Israel Fund and other far-left Jewish groups who consider Jewish districts of Jerusalem and Judaism’s holiest site to be “occupied territories” should be regarded as renegades and treated as such.
The immediate challenge is to encourage the Trump administration to salvage what it can from Obama’s betrayal of Israel.
There are grounds for hoping that when the extremism of this resolution is fully comprehended, some countries will have a change of heart. Besides, if current trends prevail, many European countries will follow the pattern of America and elect governments which will be far more pro-Israel than those appeasing the Muslims.
But above all, we must be optimistic that if president Trump will stand by his recent statements, Israel may enjoy the closest relationship it has ever had with the United States – which could more than compensate for the UN whose rogue actions have encouraged Trump to display open contempt for the body. This is relevant when taking into account that the US funds 22% of the UN budget.
Most important to note is that the moderate Sunni countries of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states will be desperate to ally themselves with Trump and are hardly likely to do more than express formal protests if and when the US treats Israel as a genuine ally.
But for this to be effective, Israel must tread cautiously and not provoke the incoming administration by seeking to impose arrangements without consultation.
Naftali Bennett and other right-wing elements should be silenced and Prime Minister Netanyahu must be enabled to determine the attitude of the new administration. They should also realize that whilst there is close to a consensus for ultimately annexing the settlement blocs and creating defensible borders, most Israelis do not seek to affiliate Judea and Samaria in their entirety, because this would effectively lead to the demise of a Jewish state and its substitution by a binational state which would be swallowed up by the Arab world.
The recent statements and settlement policies certainly provided Obama with additional ammunition to justify his perfidious initiative.
But it is almost certain that he would have acted no differently had the government not been engaged in any public discussion, because his prime intent, since the day of his inauguration, has been to impose such a settlement on Israel.
The reality is that all political parties – other than the Joint List and Meretz – are no less opposed to this resolution than the government.
This is surely a time for all political parties to set aside parochial squabbles and act in the national interest by displaying strength and unity.
This will not be the first time that we overcame major challenges and emerged stronger than ever.
Despite this despicable UN resolution, the Trump administration could lead to major changes in the global arena which may have dramatic positive repercussions for Israel and so gives us cause to be confident and optimistic.
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