One of the best articles explaining the history and consequences of the recent abstention vote by America at the U.N. was posted at PJMedia on Saturday. The article was written by Claudia Rosett.
The article reports:
To President Obama‘s legacy of foreign policy debacles, we can now add his landmark betrayal of Israel, carried out Dec. 23rd at the United Nations. By declining to wield the U.S. veto at the Security Council, by choosing instead to abstain — by Vanishing-from-Behind — Obama allowed the passage, by a vote of 14 in favor, 1 abstaining, of Resolution 2334. In the guise of condemning Israeli settlements, this resolution is configured to delegitimize and imperil Israel itself, America’s longtime ally and the only democracy in the Middle East.
With that signal abstention, Obama abandoned decades of U.S. practice of defending Israel against the bigots and thug governments that routinely sit on the Security Council, including permanent members Russia and China, and their rotating sidekicks, such as Venezuela. As a Wall Street Journal editorial accurately put it, referring to the U.S. abstention: “What it reveals clearly is the Obama administration’s animus against the state of Israel itself. No longer needing Jewish votes, Mr. Obama was free, finally, to punish the Jewish state in a way no previous president has done.”
This can be undone, although it will be difficult. There is the possibility that this will result in the end of any relevancy the U.N. might have had. I suspect President Trump will give the U.N. a choice–undo the resolution or lose the financial support of America. Since America provides about a quarter of the funding for the U.N., that could be interesting. The fly in the ointment might be that the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation), which has become a major power bloc in the U.N., might decide to use some of the oil money America supplies to their countries to fund the U.N. This is another reason America needs to become energy independent. Because the U.N. has advanced the cause of Sharia Law and terrorism by its refusal to condemn the violence against Christians and Jews in the Middle East by Muslims, the OIC might be willing to keep the U.N. funded. This could get very interesting as soon as Donald Trump takes office.
One of the highlights of the article is a reference to an article by Jeane Kirkpatrick, a former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
The article explains:
In 1989, Kirkpatrick published in Commentary magazine an essay of scorching clarity, on “How the PLO Was Legitimized.” Kirkpatrick described Yasir Arafat and the PLO as “attempting to come to power through international diplomacy — reinforced by murder.”
In richly documented detail, Kirkpatrick explained how the UN had become the prime vehicle for this odyssey. She wrote about the duplicities this entailed, and the dangers:
The long march through the UN has produced many benefits for the PLO. It has created a people where there was none; a claim where there was none. Now the PLO is seeking to create a state where there already is one. That will take more than resolutions and more than an ‘international peace conference.’ But having succeeded so well over the years in its campaign to delegitimize Israel, the PLO might yet also succeed in bringing the campaign to a triumphant conclusion, with consequences for the Jewish state that would be nothing short of catastrophic.
Plenty has happened in the 27 years since Kirkpatrick wrote those words. But the Palestinian duplicities, diplomatic manipulations and acts of terror persist, including the campaign — with UN complicity, now abetted by Obama — to delegitimize Israel.
I suspect history will not be kind to President Obama.