OPINION:
President Obama continues his long march to the rear, where he imagines leadership should reside, and last week enabled the worst elements of the United Nations to condemn Israel once more for its settlements on the West Bank.
A succession of American administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have prevented such one-sided resolutions from getting through the Security Council. But by abstaining from either vote or veto, the United States enabled the Security Council to adopt the resolution by a 14 to 0 vote.
Republican outrage was joined for once by leading Democrats. House Speaker Paul Ryan’s outrage was typical. He called the abstention by the United States “absolutely shameful.” The vote, he said, “is a blow to peace that sets a dangerous precedent for further diplomatic efforts to isolate and demonize Israel. Our unified Republican government will work to reverse the damage done by this administration, and rebuild our alliance with Israel.”
Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, who will be the Senate’s Democratic leader in the new Congress, was no less outraged. He found it “extremely frustrating, disappointing and confounding that the [Obama] administration has failed to veto this resolution. Whatever one’s views are on settlements, the United Nations is the wrong forum to settle those issues. The U.N. has been a fervently anti-Israel body since the days [it said] ’Zionism is racism,’ and that fervor has never diminished.
“Knowing this, past administrations — both Democrat and Republican — have protected Israel from the vagaries of this biased institution. Unfortunately, [the Obama] administration has not followed that path and its actions will move us further from peace in the Middle East.”
The man who will get the last word, beginning in just over three weeks’ time, inevitably tweeted what was on his mind, and what was on his mind was clear and relevant: “As to the U.N.,” quoth Donald Trump, “things will be different after Jan. 20th.”
President Obama, perhaps in anticipation of the day soon to arrive when he will no longer feel any constraints on speaking his mind, is revealing in the last days of his administration what he actually thinks, and has thought, about a lot of things. The president who went to the Middle East in the first days of his presidency to apologize for what he imagines was America’s abuse of the Islamic world, finishes his eight years in the White House to say clearly that he doesn’t think very much of one of America’s most faithful friends. In this he clearly does not speak for America.
By standing with the sworn enemies of Israel to enable the passage of this destructive, one-sided, anti-Israel rant and tirade — sentiments that the United States had resisted for decades — Mr. Obama shows his colors: He just doesn’t like the Israelis very much. He has shown this by word, deed, gesture and inflection in a hundred ways on dozens of occasions, and now that he is about to become a private citizen bereft of the presidential megaphone, he is eager to show his true feelings one last time. Sad, as betrayals always are.
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