It was pretty predictable that America would increasingly be out of step in relation to settling the interminable Palestinian-Israel conflict. With the presidential elections looming take it as a given that the US won't be doing or saying anything which might, even remotely, upset the all-powerful Israel lobby in America.
This piece, "America's Growing Isolation" on Information Clearing House, notes a recent UN resolution which has gained little media attention.
"A longer headline would have added the words because of President Obama’s grovelling for Jewish campaign funding and votes.
On 19 December, in the Jewish Daily Forward, Josh Nathan-Kazis wrote this:
“Top-level Jewish fundraisers from President Obama’s 2008 campaign are sticking with the president in 2012.
“Despite reports that President Obama faces a loss of Jewish funders due to his Middle East policy, analysis of a list of elite bundlers from his 2008 race shows no defections among the president’s top Jewish supporters in 2012.”
That’s not good news for the would-be presidents on the Republican side who are grovelling for Jewish campaign funds and votes.
On the same day, in what the BBC’s Barbara Plett called “a highly unusual move”, all the regional and political groupings on the UN Security Council sharply criticised Israeli settlement activities. They said in their statements that “continued settlement building threatened the chances of a future Palestinian state.” They also expressed dismay at rising settler violence. (“They” were the envoys representing the European Union, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab Group and a loose coalition of emerging states known as IBSA).
It was UK Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant who read the statement of the EU group.
“Israel’s continuing announcements to accelerate the construction of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, (1000 new housing units tendered for last week), send a devastating message. We believe that Israel’s security and the realisation of the Palestinians’ right to statehood are not opposing goals. On the contrary they are mutually reinforcing objectives. But they will not be achieved while settlement building and settler violence continues.”
As Barbara Plett noted,
“Despite the unanimity of views, the envoys did not try to draft a single Security Council statement because they knew the US would veto it.” She also noted that the Obama administration’s stance was that “anything to do with Israeli-Palestinian peace talks belongs in a US-led bilateral process, not at the UN.”
It could be said, and I do say, that such criticism of Israel’s settlement activities is 44 years too late. So what, really, is its significance?
My answer is in three parts.
The first is that it’s a strong indication of America’s growing isolation because of the Obama administration’s unconditional support for Zionism’s monster child.
The second, related, is that it seems to confirm what I have been saying and writing for several months – that behind closed doors almost all of the governments of the world, European governments in particular, are more than fed up with Israel’s contempt for and defiance of international law.
The third is that the governments of most of the member states of the UN have come to terms with the fact that Zionism’s assertion that a Palestinian state on the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip could and would pose a threat to Israel’s existence is propaganda nonsense of the highest order. (This, of course, is only of academic interest because the two-state solution has long been dead if not yet buried)."
This piece, "America's Growing Isolation" on Information Clearing House, notes a recent UN resolution which has gained little media attention.
"A longer headline would have added the words because of President Obama’s grovelling for Jewish campaign funding and votes.
On 19 December, in the Jewish Daily Forward, Josh Nathan-Kazis wrote this:
“Top-level Jewish fundraisers from President Obama’s 2008 campaign are sticking with the president in 2012.
“Despite reports that President Obama faces a loss of Jewish funders due to his Middle East policy, analysis of a list of elite bundlers from his 2008 race shows no defections among the president’s top Jewish supporters in 2012.”
That’s not good news for the would-be presidents on the Republican side who are grovelling for Jewish campaign funds and votes.
On the same day, in what the BBC’s Barbara Plett called “a highly unusual move”, all the regional and political groupings on the UN Security Council sharply criticised Israeli settlement activities. They said in their statements that “continued settlement building threatened the chances of a future Palestinian state.” They also expressed dismay at rising settler violence. (“They” were the envoys representing the European Union, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab Group and a loose coalition of emerging states known as IBSA).
It was UK Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant who read the statement of the EU group.
“Israel’s continuing announcements to accelerate the construction of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, (1000 new housing units tendered for last week), send a devastating message. We believe that Israel’s security and the realisation of the Palestinians’ right to statehood are not opposing goals. On the contrary they are mutually reinforcing objectives. But they will not be achieved while settlement building and settler violence continues.”
As Barbara Plett noted,
“Despite the unanimity of views, the envoys did not try to draft a single Security Council statement because they knew the US would veto it.” She also noted that the Obama administration’s stance was that “anything to do with Israeli-Palestinian peace talks belongs in a US-led bilateral process, not at the UN.”
It could be said, and I do say, that such criticism of Israel’s settlement activities is 44 years too late. So what, really, is its significance?
My answer is in three parts.
The first is that it’s a strong indication of America’s growing isolation because of the Obama administration’s unconditional support for Zionism’s monster child.
The second, related, is that it seems to confirm what I have been saying and writing for several months – that behind closed doors almost all of the governments of the world, European governments in particular, are more than fed up with Israel’s contempt for and defiance of international law.
The third is that the governments of most of the member states of the UN have come to terms with the fact that Zionism’s assertion that a Palestinian state on the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip could and would pose a threat to Israel’s existence is propaganda nonsense of the highest order. (This, of course, is only of academic interest because the two-state solution has long been dead if not yet buried)."
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