David Lowe's Book Review. Move U.N To The Moon. Obama Moon's Israel and Lies In The Process. Keep Your Doctor, I Have Your Back.

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This book review was written by a friend and fellow memo reader who, also, is the brother of one of my closest friends and fellow memo readers and a Savannah native.  His brother recently retired and is one of the brighter minds. (See 1 below.)
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More commentary about Obama's dishonesty and the U.N matter. (See 2 below.)
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My friend writes about the world's indifference when it comes to morality and Christian lives.

If Toameh's op ed does anything it simply reaffirms how worthless the U.N. is and that it has morphed into a manipulated organization which fools support only to be shown how foolish they really are.

The U.N. should be moved to the moon. (See 2  and 2a below)
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This is what neither Obama and Hillary understand. (See 3 below)
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Israel's former Amb. to The U.S., Dore Gold, chimes in regrading settlements. (See 4 below.)

Nothing new about Obama being a liar unless you want to believe he did not say things off mike to The President of Russia, did not pay ransom to Iran, and said  You can Keep Your Doctor! (See 4a below.)
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Dick
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1)

Book Review | Ike’s Gamble: America’s Rise to Dominance in the Middle East

By David Lowe

In 2013, shortly after his nomination for US Defense Secretary, then Senator Chuck Hagel purchased three dozen copies of a book about President Dwight Eisenhower’s handling of the 1956 Suez Crisis. He gave copies to his new boss, President Barack Obama, as well as to Vice President Joe Biden and to his predecessor at the Pentagon, then Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The Suez Crisis had been precipitated by the invasion of Egypt by three US allies – Britain, France, and Israel – in response to Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser’s seizure of the Suez Canal – and subsequently nationalizing it and cutting it off to Israeli shipping.

To Hagel and the book’s author David Nichols, Eisenhower displayed heroic leadership by pressuring the countries to retreat, motivated, in the words of The Economist, ‘by an anti-imperialism rooted in the attitudes that had made Americans break free from the British Empire’. Historians tend to agree that Eisenhower was more than justified in the heavy-handed tactics he employed to force Britain and France to withdraw immediately, which included the imposition of crippling sanctions, while taking his demands for withdrawal to the UN. As for Israel, the president not only threatened sanctions but also convinced France, then Israel’s chief supplier of arms, to pressure Prime Minister  David Ben-Gurion to withdraw his troops from the Sinai Peninsula. The Economist would later describe the Suez Crisis as ‘the last incident in which America was to take strong action’ against the Jewish state.

As history has shown, Eisenhower was no starry-eyed idealist. Indeed, one of his deepest concerns – shared by his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles at the height of the Cold War – was that the Soviets not gain a foothold in one of the world’s most strategic regions. Preventing this required gaining the support of the Arab world to back US policy in the region. Eisenhower and Dulles believed the best way to achieve this goal was to play the role of ‘honest broker’ between our regional allies and Arab nationalists; particularly the latter’s most charismatic figure.

Who was he? An officer in the 1952 coup that deposed Egypt’s King Faruq, the year ‘Ike’ (as Eisenhower was often referred to) was elected President, Nasser emerged as the militant voice of the pan-Arab movement, whose main features consisted of a confrontational anti-colonialism and a relentless hostility to the young State of Israel that included the incitement of terrorist attacks against it. What made Nasser so attractive to the Eisenhower administration was the belief that he was the sole leader in the region capable of uniting it and delivering it to the US and its allies. Through what Doran describes as a ‘campaign of deception,’  Nasser successfully disguised his hostility to the West, even as he was developing a close relationship with the Soviets and filling the Middle East with anti-Western and anti-Israel propaganda delivered through state-of-the-art broadcast equipment he obtained courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

As Doran points out in Ike’s Gamble, his well-documented account of this period, with the Suez Crisis – the events leading up to it, and their impact on future US policy in the region, evident even at the time of the invasion – Eisenhower had begun to put distance between the US and the Egyptian strongman, much to the dismay of US Ambassador to Egypt Henry Byroade and other Arabists in the State Department. This included quietly cutting back assistance to Egypt while extending it to Nasser’s regional rivals. What caused this change of direction?

According to Doran, the key turning point in Eisenhower’s thinking about Nasser’s intentions of the region was brought about by insights provided by Nasser himself. Dispatched to explore a peace deal with Israel in the early months of 1956, Presidential Envoy Robert Anderson learned from Nasser that he was far less concerned with Israel than he was with inter-Arab politics regarding the Baghdad Pact, a US initiative to unite moderate Middle East regimes in alliance with the West, which he saw as a threat to his aspirations for regional dominance. Any agreement with Israel, he believed, would further weaken his position.

The administration’s about face came in 1958, when Eisenhower dispatched 14,000 troops to Lebanon to shore up its fragile regime, then under threat from the United Arab Republic (UAR) – the newly created union of Egypt and Syria. By then, Nasser had inspired a violent overthrow of the monarchy in Iraq, America’s major regional ally, and King Hussein of Jordan was appealing to his British patrons when he saw his own regime imperiled. There was more than a bit of irony in the coordination between the American and British militaries in their respective defense of these two regional allies. CIA Director Allen Dulles warned Eisenhower that his action would be perceived as ‘simply doing what we stopped the British and the French from doing at the time of the Suez crisis’.

Doran quotes from Eisenhower’s diary, in which he wrote that doing nothing in the face of the threats to Lebanon and to Jordan was the worst of all alternatives, even if it meant incurring the wrath of the Arab world or even risking war with the Soviets. He had come full circle from his position during the Suez Crisis. Doran writes: ‘Somehow, risking war with the Soviet Union was no longer unthinkable. Somehow, thoughts that had been preposterous in 1956 had now become prudent.’

The change in thinking also affected the views of both the president and his secretary of state on Israel, which they began to consider as a strategic asset in the effort to contain Nasser and his Syrian partners. The transformation was particularly noteworthy in the case of Dulles, who had placed the blame for Nasser’s growing relationship with the Soviet Union squarely on the Truman policy toward Israel, whose purpose he believed was ‘to meet the wishes of the Zionists in this country’.  By 1958 he was singing a different tune, telling Turkey’s foreign minister it might be a good thing if the UAR feared Israel, and approved the sale of helicopters and antitank rifles to the Jewish state.

Doran cites several instances in later years in which Eisenhower expressed regret for his Suez policy.

The advent of a new administration in Washington is a good time to review the assumptions that drive US foreign policy. For the past eight years, it has been believed at the highest levels that credibility in the Muslim world can be gained by distancing ourselves from our allies and cultivating our enemies. But as Eisenhower learned, neither is likely to advance US national security. Future US defense secretaries can do themselves a favour by buying Ike’s Gamble and giving it their superiors in the White House. The book is an excellent case study of how decision makers can learn from the results of mistaken assumptions and not be deterred from making the necessary corrections.

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2) This is so outrageous, that it makes one sick to read about it.

Here are the Christians in the Middle East being slaughtered in another Holocaust, and what is said about it by the UN, the EU, the Pope, and most mainstream US churches;

Nothing, Nada

All they can complain about is that an Israeli is building a home on Israeli Territory.

Palestinians: The Nightmare of Christians

by Khaled Abu Toameh  

• For the past four decades, Samir Qumsieh, who hails from a large and well-respected Christian family in the town of Bet Sahour, near Bethlehem, has fought for the rights of the region's miniscule Palestinian Christian minority. He has even dared to speak out against the subjugation of Christians living under the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
• He regularly receives death threats, and he has been the target of a petrol bomb attack.
• "The solution to extremism starts with the kindergarten, with elementary school. It begins with the churches, with the mosques and the school curricula. Curricula are very important – Jewish, Christian and Muslim ones. They should concentrate on accepting the 'other.' If this idea is adopted, the future generation will be liberal and open-minded." — Samir Qumsieh.
• "Every day we hear and see some radical Muslim clerics speaking strongly against Christians. Just recently, one of the sheiks was saying that Christian Copts should be slaughtered like sheep. Where is the Egyptian security? If I were in charge of Egyptian security, I would have this sheikh arrested immediately, and have him rot in a dark underground cell." — Samir Qumsieh.
• "To understand the severity of the situation is, let us recall that in the 1950s about 86% of the population of the Bethlehem area was Christian. Today, we are only 12%. In Israel, by contrast, we have 133,000 Christians and the figure is stable. Of course, I am worried about the future of Christians here." — Samir Qumsieh.
• "I fear the day will come when our churches will become museums. is my nightmare." — Samir Qumsieh.

Samir Qumsieh.

Without question, Samir Qumsieh is one of the most courageous Christian leaders in the Middle East. Qumsieh is one of the few willing to risk his life to speak out against Muslim persecution of Christians in the Palestinian territories and the Middle East, generally.

For the past four decades, Samir Qumsieh, who hails from a large and well-respected Christian family in the town of Bet Sahour, near Bethlehem, has fought for the rights of the region's miniscule Palestinian Christian minority. He has even dared to speak out against the subjugation of Christians living under the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

2a) Rejecting 2334’s false notion that Israel is occupier

This lie whitewashes violence against Israeli Jews, and leads directly to the antisemitic delegitimization of Israel. 

By: Rep. ALAN CLEMMONS 

The UN Security Council’s passage of Resolution 2334, an outrageous act of hostility personally engineered by President Obama against the State of Israel, has rightly evoked great anger across all parts of the American political spectrum.

This past summer, the Republican Party’s platform section expressing our unequivocal support for Israel, included a key statement made in anticipation of President Obama’s betrayal of our great ally: “We reject the false notion that Israel is an occupier…” Given the anticipated effects of Resolution 2334, this policy statement is critical, as it represents the central tenet of what will now unquestionably be the policy of the Trump Administration and the pro-Israel community.

“Occupier” is nothing more than a polite way of calling Israel a thief, suggesting that Jewish invaders colonized territory belonging to the Arabs, and which therefore must be restored to its rightful, victimized owners. The term is intentionally misused against Israel in order to shape negative misperceptions of her history and legitimacy, while perpetuating a sense of Palestinian-Arab victimhood. To suggest that the Jews are occupiers in a region that has been known as Judea for over 3000-plus years is no less ridiculous than to suggest that Arabs are occupiers in Arabia.

“Occupier” is a legal term whose definition does not apply to Israel under the law. Israel’s legal title and rights to all of its present territory stem directly from an act of international law made in the post-WWI San Remo Agreement, which was then further recognized and incorporated in subsequent binding acts, from the Covenant of the League of Nations all the way through Article 80 of the United Nations’ charter. None of the national and political rights thereby recognized as inherit in the Jewish People have ever been revoked, nullified or superseded by a subsequent act of international law.

The lie of occupation has become essential to anti-Israel forces in the Mideast and around the world, as they persist in efforts to deny and undermine the rights – and indeed the very existence – of the Jewish national home. It is no coincidence, therefore, that Resolution 2334 was entirely predicated on this vicious lie.

The lie of occupation also gives Israel’s enemies a basis to justify terrorism as merely “resistance to occupation.” The antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) uses the word as often as possible in its messaging, as it carries out acts of political and economic warfare upon Israel and her supporters. Thus, it is clear that promoting the common misrepresentation of the Jewish State of Israel as an occupier in the Land of Israel has become the primary antisemitic canard of the present generation, inherently accusing the Jewish People of territorial thievery. This lie whitewashes violence against Israeli Jews, and leads directly to the antisemitic delegitimization and demonization of, and application of double standards to Israel.

The peace process aimed at ending the Arab war on Israel was originally motivated by the basic idea that two incompatible peoples have unfortunately found themselves residing in the same space, and that it is desirable to see them disengaged for the sake of peace. This was the intention of President George W. Bush, and those Israeli prime ministers who chose the path of proposing a two-state solution.

Those who listen carefully will find that, unfortunately, hostile actors have emerged, who exploit support for the peace process in order to promote the lie of occupation. This is the tactic of J Street, President Obama and most member states of the United Nations, who regularly speak of Israel as an occupier and wrongly refer to parts of Israel as being territorially illegitimate.

It is one thing to advocate the two-state solution as a matter of seeking peace, and entirely another when argued as a matter of belief in the lie of occupation. The difficulty in grasping this distinction has escaped far too many supporters of Israel, who unfortunately tend to believe that all who propose the same solution are relative and equivalent in their intentions. They are not. The forwarding of the two-state solution by those who support the lie of occupation, like Barack Obama, simultaneously signals an inherent indictment of Israel as a criminally guilty party.

Donald Trump rejects the false notion that Israel is an occupier, and wholeheartedly helped lead the important expression of policy made by the Republican Party Platform on the matter. He has repeatedly made the promise that as president he will recognize Jerusalem as the eternal and indivisible capitol of Israel.

Among the top priorities of President-elect Trump in his first 100 days will be the passage of a major bill regulating against commercial discrimination aimed at Israel and its territories, following the lead of 15 states that have already done so. The new administration is clearly prepared to defend the American economy by preventing financial engagement with parties who would at the same time inflict economic harm upon Israeli and American businesses via discrimination promoted by the likes of Resolution 2334 and the BDS Movement.

The most immediate means of disarming the malicious intent of President Obama’s Resolution 2334 is by supporting President Trump and the incoming Congress’s efforts to pass such legislation with overwhelming non-partisan support. Israel, and many of our other democratic allies around the world, are counting on us.

Alan Clemmons is a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives. He was the primary author of the current GOP Platform section regarding Israel. In 2015, he was the originating sponsor of the Country’s first state anti-BDS legislation.

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3)The difference between legal and illegal. 

This is something everyone in America should read.

VIETNAMESE IMMIGRANT

It looks like we did some good after all!

On  Saturday, July 24th, 2010 the town of Prescott Valley, AZ, hosted a  Freedom Rally. Quang Nguyen was asked to speak on his experience of coming  to America and what it means. He spoke the following in dedication to all Vietnam Veterans. Thought you might enjoy hearing what he had to say:

Start quote:35 years ago, if  you were to tell me that I am going to stand up here speaking to a couple thousand patriots, in English, I'd laugh at you. Man, every morning I wake up thanking God for putting me and my family in the greatest country on earth.  I just want you all to know that the American dream does exist and I am living the American dream. I was asked to speak to you  about my experience as a first generation Vietnamese-American, but I'd  rather speak to you as an American.  If you hadn't noticed, I am not white and I feel pretty comfortable with my people.  I am a proud U.S. citizen and here is my proof.  

It took me 8 years to get it, waiting in endless lines, but I got it, and I am very proud of it.

I still remember the images of the Tet offensive in 1968, I was six years old. Now you might want to question how a 6-year-old boy could remember anything.  Trust me, those images can never be erased.  I can't even imagine what it was like for young American soldiers, 10,000 miles away from home, fighting on my behalf.  35 years ago, I left South Vietnam for political asylum. The war had ended.  At the age of 13, I left with the understanding that I may or may not ever get to see my siblings or parents  again.  I was one of the first lucky 100,000 Vietnamese allowed to come to  the U.S. Somehow, my family and I were reunited 5 months later, amazingly,  in California. It was a miracle from God.

If you haven't heard lately that this is the greatest country on earth, I am telling you that right now. It was the freedom and the opportunities presented to me that put me here with all of youtonight.  I also remember the barriers that I  had to overcome every step of the way. My high school counselor told me that I cannot make it to college due to my poor communication skills. I  proved him wrong.  I finished college. You see, all you have to do is to give this little boy an opportunity and encourage him to take and run with  it.  Well, I took the opportunity and here I am.

This person  standing tonight in front of you could not exist under a socialist/communist environment. By the way, if you think socialism is the way to go, I am sure many people here will chip in to get you a one-way ticket out of here. And if you didn't know, the only difference between socialism and communism is an AK-47 aimed at your head. That was my experience.

In 1982, I stood with a thousand new immigrants, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and listening to the National Anthem for the first time as an American. To this day, I can't remember anything sweeter and more patriotic than that moment in my life.

Fast forwarding, somehow I finished high school, finished college, and like any other goofball 21 year old kid, I was having a great time with my life. I  had a nice job and a nice apartment in Southern California. In some way and somehow, I had forgotten how I got here and why I was here.  One day I was at a gas station, I saw a veteran pumping gas on the other side of the island. I don't know what made me do it, but I walked over and asked if he had served in Vietnam. He smiled and said yes. I shook and held his hand. The grown man began to well up. I walked away as fast as I could and at that very moment, I was emotionally rocked. This was a profound moment in my life. I knew something had to change in my life. It was time for me to learn how to be a good citizen. It was time for me to give back.

You see, America is not just a place on the map, it isn't just a physical location. It is an ideal, a concept. And if you are an American, you must understand the concept, you must accept this concept, and most importantly, you have to fight and defend this concept.  This is about Freedom and not free stuff. And that is why I am standing up here.

Brothers and sisters, to be a real American, the very least you must do is to learn English and understand it well. In my humble  opinion, you cannot be a faithful patriotic citizen if you can't speak the language of the country you live in. Take this document of 46 pages - last I looked on the Internet, there wasn't a Vietnamese translation of the U.S. Constitution. It took me a long time to get to the point of being able to converse and until this day, I still struggle to come up with the right words. It's not easy, but if it's too easy, it's not worth doing.  Before I knew this 46-page document, I learned of the 500,000 Americans who fought for this little boy. I learned of the 58,000 names scribed on the black wall at the Vietnam Memorial. You are my heroes. You are my founders.  At this time, I would like to ask all the Vietnam veterans to please stand. I thank you for my life. I thank you for your sacrifices, and I thank you for giving me the freedom and liberty I have today. I now ask all veterans, firefighters, and police officers, to please stand. 

On behalf of all first generation immigrants, I thank you for your services and may God bless you all.

Quang Nguyen Creative Director/Founder

Caddis Advertising,  LLC

"God Bless America "

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4)

How Did Israeli Settlements Become a Legally Contentious Issue at the UN?

ByDore Gold

The US and its allies wanted to prevent a repetition of the practice of the Axis powers who evicted the populations from the areas that came under their control and forcibly transferred their own populations into those very same territories.  For this reason, the Allies drafted the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention in the way that they did. But this is not what is occurring with Israeli settlement activity, as Israel has argued for decades.

There is one place, however, where this scenario is taking place right now – and it is not in the West Bank. It is occurring in Syria, where Sunni Arabs are being systematically replaced by Shiites from Iraq and other countries in order to alter the demographic makeup of the Syrian state, in accordance with the interests of Iran. Tehran wants a Shiite belt from its western border to the Mediterranean in order to establish its hegemony in the Middle East.

And what is the UN doing about this? It is deliberating over a new draft resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity, while ignoring the mass transfer of populations transpiring across the entire Levant. As usual, it is obsessed with Israel while ignoring the dangerous actions of Iran.

The Palestinians themselves agreed in the 1995 Interim Agreement that the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank should be addressed as an item for negotiation between the parties. It is not tenable for the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to repeatedly refuse to negotiate with Israel and then expect the UN Security Council to take up his concerns in his place.  The US, which signed the Interim Agreement as a witness, should veto the proposed draft resolution on settlements.

The UN, for its part, should take measures to halt the ethnic cleansing of Sunni populations across the Middle East that is occurring today. But that would require standing up to Iran and its allies, which many states sitting in the Security Council are plainly reluctant to do.

Ambassador Dore Gold has served as President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs since 2000. From June 2015 until October 2016 he served as Director-General of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Previously he served as Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN (1997-1999), and as an advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

4a) Official: 'Rather ironclad' intel shows Obama behind UN vote

Citing Arab and Western sources, Netanyahu spokesperson says anti-settlement resolution ‘a deliberate push by the United States’

US President Barack Obama (right) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, November 9, 2015. (AFP/Saul Loeb)

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said Israel has “rather ironclad information” that US President Barack Obama played an active role in both formulating and pushing for the UN Security Council resolution lambasting settlement construction, which passed on Friday after Washington decided not to exercise its veto and abstained.

Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, David Keyes said Arab sources, among others, had informed Jerusalem of Obama’s alleged involvement in advancing the resolution.

“We have rather ironclad information from sources in both the Arab world and internationally that this was a deliberate push by the United States and in fact they helped create the resolution in the first place,” Keyes told the US media outlet.

The White House has adamantly denied “cooking up” the resolution, rejecting accusations by Netanyahu to that effect.

“We did not draft this resolution; we did not introduce this resolution. We made this decision when it came up for a vote,” said Obama’s deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes on Friday. But because of its opposition to settlement activity and concern for what it could mean for the region, the US “could not in good conscience veto,” he added.

David Keyes, executive director of Advancing Human Rights (Courtesy)

Netanyahu held a 40-minute meeting with US Ambassador Dan Shapiro on Sunday evening, having summoned the envoy to explain why the US abstained in the vote on Resolution 2334, enabling it to pass 14-0, rather than vetoing it. He had earlier summoned the envoys of the 12 nations with representatives in Israel that voted for the resolution for a dressing-down at the Foreign Ministry.

Earlier on Sunday, addressing the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Netanyahu reiterated his staunch opposition to Friday’s passage of the resolution, which condemns Israeli settlements and all forms of terrorism and incitement, and blamed Obama for not only withholding a veto but for having been a driving force behind its passing.

“We have no doubt that the Obama administration initiated it, stood behind it, coordinated its versions and insisted upon its passage,” he said.

Netanyahu is now reaching out to the incoming Trump administration, which takes office on January 20, and to friends in Congress, in the hope of “deterring” what he sees as further potential Obama administration-led diplomatic action against Israel, a report by Channel 2 said. His aim is for the Trump team to make plain that his administration will “economically hurt” those countries that voted against Israel in the UN and that do so in the future.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) arrives for the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on December 25, 2016.(AFP Photo/ AP and Pool/ Dan Balilty)

Netanyahu’s fear is that Secretary of State John Kerry will set out principles or parameters for a Palestinian state in a speech that he has said he will deliver in the next few days on his Middle East vision. The prime minister fears that, in its final days, the Obama administration will seek to have a resolution enshrining those parameters adopted by the UN Security Council, the report said.

On Saturday, Netanyahu, who also serves as foreign minister, canceled the upcoming visit to Israel of the Ukrainian prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, as a punitive measure against the country’s vote. He also ordered a series of punitive measures against New Zealand and Senegal, two of the four countries that co-sponsored the resolution. Netanyahu recalled Israel’s ambassadors in New Zealand and Senegal to Jerusalem for consultations. He canceled the upcoming visit to Israel of the Senegalese foreign minister and instructed the Foreign Ministry to cancel all aid programs to the African country. He also ordered the cancellation of visits in Israel of the nonresident ambassadors of Senegal and New Zealand.

4b) Obama's UN betrayal of Israel is only the tip of the iceberg

By Mike Konrad

President Obama's been exercising a scorched earth policy as he retreats to the public sector.  Not just the U.N. vote, but he also banned oil exploration in the Atlantic and Alaskan waters.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday banned new oil and gas drilling in federal waters in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, in a push to leave his stamp on the environment before Republican Donald Trump takes office next month.  – Fortune

It is the recent U.N. vote abstention – which has hurt Israel – that has produced the most shock.  Unlike Obama's federal shenanigans, which can be undone when Trump comes into power, the damage in the U.N. may be irreversible.  Russia and China would surely veto any recision of the resolution.

On Thursday, after Trump and Netanyahu persuaded the Egyptians to shelve their proposal, and had won what turned out to only be a temporary victory, many, including myself, assumed that the crisis was averted.  Nor was I the only one.

A Tweet From Trump and Pressure on Egyptians: How Israel Blocked UN Vote on Settlements – Haaretz

After the Israeli victory, one has to assume that many frenzied calls were made from a Hawaiian golf course to revitalize the project.  New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela, and Senegal re-introduced the resolution.

So who are the members of the Security Council that­ voted for this?

With the first (5) being the permanent members with veto power, they are:

China

*France

Russia

*United Kingdom

*United States

Angola

Egypt

*Japan

Malaysia

*New Zealand

Senegal

*Spain

Ukraine

Uruguay

Venezuela

Six of those nations are clearly aligned with the West.  Ukraine wants to be part of the West, and a quid pro quo could have been communicated to her.  Egypt depends on Western subsidies.  A bit of backroom dealing should have easily sunk this resolution.

Yet the vote was 14-0-1.

What were France, the U.K., Japan, and Spain thinking?

What possessed New Zealand to reintroduce the resolution?

The problem here is much deeper than Obama.  The West has collapsed on this issue.  Totally collapsed.  France's left is expecting a drubbing soon.  Maybe Hollande wanted to cut a swath of destruction, as Obama is doing.  But the Conservatives rule Britain now.  What were they thinking?  New Zealand is run by a center-right coalition, and they spearheaded this folly.

Anyone familiar with U.S. history knows that in 1947, the State Department worked against Truman's recognition of Israel, at one point going so far as to vote opposite to his wishes in the United Nations.  Even at that early date, the sludge at the Foggy Bottom swamp was well established.  The bureaucrats answer to no one but themselves.

During the Six Day War, Israel fought against the Arab Nations and the State Department.  — Old Joke

The State Department has a long history of this, and not just concerning Israeli issues.  We have to assume that these are the same people in charge of Spain, France, the U.K., New Zealand, and Japan.  These are the globalists.  Nor are they embedded only in Washington.

The West, particularly the entrenched bureaucratic elite, has abandoned Israel, except for the USA, whose vote is not always reliable.

As furious as one may be at Obama, the American vote was the least anti-Israeli of the lot.  Nor was its vote the only critical vote.  France or Britain could have vetoed the resolution.  They are no less culpable.

One also has to assume that Britain and France were not called by Trump.  I suspect that Trump could have persuaded one of those two nations' leaders – or if not their leaders, who knows?  A few well placed phone calls to Marine Le Pen or Nicolas Sarkozy might have worked wonders.

Nor is Israel totally blameless on this.  France's former right-wing president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is part-Jewish and still detested Netanyahu.

Journalists covering last week's economic summit overheard French President Nicolas Sarkozy blasting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “liar” during a talk with U.S. President Barack Obama  – CNN

Israel is not projecting its point of view well.

If Israel wants to continue to build “settlements” – and I have no problem with that – then Israel has to offer a different vision other than the two-state solution, which the “settlements,” undercut.  And no amount of saying “settlements are not an obstacle” will fly anymore.  Where is Israel's vision?

Certainly Muslim insanity is the biggest obstacle to peace.  However, even though “settlements” may not be an obstacle to peace, they are an obstacle to any realistic two-state solution.  The “settlements” were intended to be an obstacle.

My many talks with Ariel Sharon — and my work with Ariel Sharon — there was a clear understanding, a very clear planning, of spreading the Jewish communities in the way that there will be no option for a Palestinian State in Judea and Samaria – Daniella Weiss, prominent Israeli “settler” leader, on Australia's Channel 4

I have no problem with Mrs. Weiss's viewpoint.  But if that is what is driving Israel policy, then Israel should admit it, rather than saying the communities are not an obstacle and coming across as dishonest.

Many conservatives would be fine with Israel saying “No!” to a Palestinian state if Israel would only stop with the charade of saying Israel wants a two-state solution.  Israel ends up looking as dishonest as the Muslim Arabs.  Israel has to finally declare that it will not accept a two-state solution and present a viable alternative.  In other words, Israel has to stop talking out of both sides of its mouth.  This is Israel's fault, and that cannot be denied.

A classic example of this is Israel's housing policies.  Israel wants to evict Jews, which is sheer lunacy.  Why?  I suspect in order to sustain a precedent to allow Israel to evict Arabs from contested residencies in the eastern side of Jerusalem.

The honest solution is to place a moratorium on all such evictions, no matter which side, retroactively give permits to all, demand payment of taxes, and assert total sovereignty over all areas.  But Israel won't make such a declaration of sovereignty.  Why?  This is weaseling.

This is what is disaffecting some of the West, not just anti-Semitism.

What the West should be doing is telling Israel, if the two-state solution is not acceptable, then what alternative does Israel suggest?

Alternatives could be a one-state solution, with enfranchisement offered to the Judean/Samarian Arabs, as Caroline Glick suggests.  If enfranchised Muslims scares Israel too much, then Martin Sherman suggests a buyout and relocation.  Others suggest a forced removal, though that would be ethnic cleansing.

– I blame the West, not just Obama, for abandoning Israel.

– I blame the West for insisting on the two-state solution as the only option and pressuring Israel to accept it.

– I blame Israel for not offering that alternative vision.  Israel tends to delay too much, in the hope that the no one will notice, and the problem will disappear.

– I blame Israel for using weasel words, pretending to abide by a two-state solution, when clearly Israel works against it.  (Note: I do not blame Israel for working against a two-state solution, but only for not admitting it.)

As for the Muslims: One does not blame a lunatic for being crazy.  It is futile to reason with them.  It was the West that failed this time, not just Obama.

And if Israel wants to build more Jewish communities, then go ahead.  Just stop any façade about working within the Oslo two-state framework, and offer an alternative.

In plain terms, if Israel wants Judea and Samaria, then annex them, not just area C.  Disband the P.A., and present options that are acceptable to the West.  Stop waffling.

The problem is more than Obama.

Mike Konrad is the pen name of an American who wishes he had availed himself more fully of the opportunity to learn Spanish in high school, lo those many decades ago.

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