THE UN, ANTI -SEMITISM and OBAMA, NETANYAHU, TRUMP

The United Nations, once again, was the proxy battleground between the Israelis and the Palestinians. What is left of Obama’s America cut loose from its protective role of Israel by failing to use its veto on Security Council Resolution 2234 condemning Israeli settlements. The Obama action was denounced by the almost POTUS Trump tweeting that the world was about to change - so Bibi just stick around a while longer. Netanyahu, predictably, went ballistic to the point of losing it. From the ensuing reaction from both within and without the United Nations there is little doubt that this resolution will have a profound impact in the transforming world that was witness to it. 

The resolution once again focused on the UNO preoccupation with Israel and once again brings into focus the viability of the world body in the new Trump world. It also once again focussed attention of the specter of anti semitism which abomination is once again sweeping across the world. Predictably 2234 has stirred up passions in Israel between those who agree that the settler policy of Netanyahu is counterproductive, immoral and illegal and the majority who claim it is the right of the Israeli nation. Ironically, there is very little new in the resolution - America has always been against the settlements. What has irked is the inclusion of the Western Wall and East Jerusalem as being “illegal”, the failure to mention Hamas terrorism and the fact that America failed, (not for the first time), to veto a resolution against Israel.

UN’S SECRETARY GENERAL ACKNOWLEDGES ANTI ISRAEL BIAS

While the passage of Resolution 2234 raised a host of questions about the motives and culpability of all the players, the modus operandi of the UNO lends itself to bias and dysfunction. The latter fact was acknowledged by no lessor person than the outgoing Secretary General of the World Body, Bang Ki - moon who stated in a devastating interview:

“The UN’s anti Israel bias has foiled the ability of the UN to fulfill its role. The anti Israel bias exuded has detrimentally effected the way the organization handles international affairs. The number of resolutions passed by the organization have disproportionately gone against Israel. Over the last decade, I have argued that we cannot have a bias against Israel at the UN. Decades of political maneuvering have created a disproportionate number of resolutions, reports and committees against Israel. In many cases, instead of helping the Palestinian issue, this reality has foiled the ability of the UN to fulfill its role effectively.” 

Bang Ki-moon, who throughout his ten year term epitomized the double standards he was bewailing, but for whatever reasons, has told it as it is,

FACTS SUPPORT ANTI ISRAEL BIAS

Now it didn’t need the Secretary General to tell it as it is as the output of the UN Assembly speaks for itself. In 2105 the General Assembly passed twenty - three resolutions condemning nations’ actions and twenty of them were against Israel. Between 1947 and 1991 there were over 300 Assembly Resolutions against Israel. No other nation other than the apartheid South African regime has come remotely close to that infamy. In the last 10 years the General Assembly censored Israel two hundred and twenty three times and Syria eight times. Since Israel’s inception in 1947 till 2010 the UN Security Council aimed seventy - seven resolutions at it. This story repeats itself in related UN Committees and Bodies. One of the ironies is that Israel and not Syria, Russia or Iran for example that is being investigated for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

So the Secretary General’s contention of UNO bias against Israel is supported by the facts.

IS THE UNO ATTITUDE ANTI SEMITIC?- SACKS ON ANTI SEMITISM

Former Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the internationally recognized religious leader who has been accorded numerous awards, including the prestigious Templeton prize, (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the spiritual domain), has a theory as to the causes of anti semitism throughout the ages. He outlines this in his recent best seller, “Not In God’s Name - Confronting Religious Violence”, where he endeavors to defuse the chasm between the Islamic and the Abrahamic religions and to provide an answer to religious inspired terrorism. 

The celebrated rabbinical author maintains that anti semites never admit to being such. Rather they use some justification or argument that has as the objective of the elimination of Jews. He argues that anti semitism has mutated through the ages. Initially it was on the basis of religion, so if the Jewish heathens converted to Christianity or Islam they were “saved” and not slaughtered. Then came prejudice based on social Darwinism - race. Here there was no salvation as Hitler’s death camps illustrated. The “cure” for the inferior race, which was responsible for all the ills of the world, was its elimination. Sacks believes that anti semitism has now mutated to attack those who allegedly abrogate and violate human rights and/or perpetrate crimes against humanity. Thus attacks on Israel are justified by equating Zionism with racism and apartheid, for example.

Israel and Israel alone of the one hundred and ninety - three Nation States of UNO, is systematically attacked and charged with perpetrating these atrocities against mankind. Israel is, inter alia, repeatedly assailed as having no right to be a nation, allegedly having usurped the land belonging to others. (Hypocritically, Iran’s repeated threat to wipe Israel of the face of the earth does not merit Assembly opprobrium). The Israelis are said to be guilty of the most heinous crimes against humanity often likened unto those of apartheid South Africa and even of Nazi Germany. 

So the hypothetical argument of the one hundred and ninety - three nations in the UNO as to why they single out Israel might be, “We are not anti semitic we are just upholding what is right in terms of nation hood and crimes against humanity.” (By way of clarification the former Chief Rabbi has not in any of his writings labelled the UNO as an anti semitic organization).

OPPOSITION TO NETANYAHU IS NOT ANTI SEMITISM

Sacks states the obvious, as does any rational person, that disagreeing with policies of the Israeli government does not constitute anti semitism. In fact one way or another about forty percent of the Israelis oppose Netanyahu.  Opposition Knesset members have blamed Resolution 2234 on Netanyahu’s arrogance rather than on anti semitism. Netanyahu is Premier by virtue of a coalition. His Likud Party  won only thirty of the one hundred and twenty seats in the most recent election. The leader of the opposition party, Zionist Union, twenty - four seats, chastised the Premier saying his foreign policy was in tatters. Opposition party, Yash Atid’s leader Lapid, nineteen seats, criticized Bibi  arguing that his response to 2234 was hysteria not policy.  The left wing newspaper Haaretz have run stories with the heading,”Its the Settler Policy Stupid”. 

So the smear so often used by pro Netanyahu supporters in the diaspora that opposition to the Premier is anti Israel is patent nonsense.

THE DRAMATIS PERSONAE IN THIS SECURITY COUNCIL  RESOLUTION 2234.

None of the players in this latest unfolding drama have come out with enhanced reputations. 

Bibi Netanyahu who has behaved deplorably having baited Obama up the ying yang adding his usual insults to injury to the outgoing POTUS calling him a liar to boot. (From POTUS Clinton onward there has been no love lost towards the Israeli Premier). In Netanyahu’s initial appeal to have the resolution aborted he snubbed Obama and went straight to Trump. Obama recently engineered a ten year payment to Israel of over thirty - eight billion dollars and paid for the defensive dome and then repairs to it.  Bibi reciprocated by openly canvassing, with the Republicans, in Congress, against the POTUS administration, on the Iran pact. Netanyahu is similarly disliked at the world body for his demeaning attitude to representatives of the nation states. In his last address to the Assembly he mocked  the participants saying because of Israel’s prowess very soon they will be instructed to vote differently. 

Bibi’s biggest fear is that on January 15, 2017  when, in Paris, the foreign ministers of seventy countries meet to discuss an Israeli - Palestinian peace the outcome will be further Security Council resolutions pressuring him to stop the settlements and pursue peace. He is responding by upping the anti with bluster, threatening those that voted in favor of 2234. He genuinely believes that Israel has so much to offer that at the end of the day all the nations will accept anything he does.

There is the distinct impression that Obama, who has otherwise opted out of the world, is using this issue as payback. This notwithstanding the fact that Obama has, as Netanyahu has acknowledged, provided "unprecedented" security support. With this veto Barak not only put the majority of Democrats in a bind, he has associated himself with the bias and dysfunction of the United Nations. He has weakened those forces within Israel that are striving against all odds for a two State solution as he has given red meat to Netanyahu to rally his base. All in all not Obama's finest moment and if it is shown that he did indeed caucus the motion then it will be an indelible stain.

As for Trump he was just Trump and had no shame in acting as President before January 20, 2017. As regards Israel, in spite of his professed undying commitment, the latter stance is incongruent with his support for Putin and his Iran axis, (Blog: Israel, Trump, Putin and the New Right). Nor does it jive with the overt anti semitism of the world wide populist movement which he claims he will lead. Trump professed to be canvassing like crazy in support of Israel to prevent this current resolution. If so he really needed to make only one phone call to his newest best friend Vladimir Putin and ask him to veto it. 

SO WHERE IS EVERYTHING AT NOW?

* While it is painfully obvious that the United Nations are not going to play a role in the resolution of the Palestinian conflict one wonders what Netanyahu’s end game is? Carrying on with settlements is a sure fire message that he is not really interested in negotiating a peace. At the same time Hamas, which is really calling the Palestinian shots has not shown the slightest inclination to end this impasse. While there are large constituencies in Israel that are campaigning for peace if similar support exists on Hamas’s side they are not evident. One fact for sure, regardless of who is right and who is wrong, is that if this stalemate continues Israel remains in a permanent state of war. 

* Now Donald Trump believes he can sort this out - “The Art of the Deal” and all that. He feels he can negotiate a settlement which Hamas has made it painfully obvious it does not want. In addition, at kindest, Trump is unreliable and has conflicting agendas to an unconditional support of Israel.

* There is a pressing argument that the UN’s focus on Israel for the past half a century is a new form of anti semitism. Obviously the penny dropped for outgoing Secretary General Bang Ki - moon. Those just blindly advocating that Israel has no right to exist and claim they are not anti semitic might well rethink their logic. 

• It would appear logical to at least obtain a commitment that Hamas agrees to a two state solution and wish to negotiate before holding endless meetings throughout the world to effect one. 

• There is an imperative for the Israeli Prime Minister to question his need to create settlements in territory, which by his own admission is “disputed”. In the process he should cool it as his histrionics will get him nowhere.

* Kerry made an eloquent last ditch stand for a two state solution. He believes failure will result in permanent war and a permanently "occupied" Palestine. He outlined what in fact was the Israeli opposition's arguments against the Netanyahu Settler dominated policy. While his gloomy assessment is sadly spot on Jay H. Ell is not quite sure how this justified the US vote. As frustrated as he was Kerry might have been more persuasive had the wording of the Security Council's missive been more evenhanded. 

* Obama's USA has one final bite of the cherry in Paris on January 15, 2017.