One of the ripple effects of the Obama administration’s decision to allow adoption of a U.N. resolution condemning Israel is that it sends a message some Palestinians understand as an authorization for violence.
That’s according to Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist in Jerusalem writing for the Gatestone Institute in New York.
The U.N. resolution, including the U.S. refusal to exercise its veto, has generated a firestorm of criticism of the international body.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says the U.S. should take the billions of dollars it now gives to the U.N. and instead give it to American soldiers who served “under the U.S. flag.”
While the U.N. vote blasts Israel for Jewish communities in territory recaptured by Israel in the 1967 war launched by its Arab neighbors, the fight really is over the fact that while Israel repeatedly has offered negotiations, Palestinian leaders have refused even to recognize Israel’s right to exist.
Huckabee is just one of a number of figures who have criticized the Obama administration for its part in the U.N. resolution. An online petition urges Congress and President-elect Donald Trump not only to defund the U.N.’s operations, including at its headquarters in New York, but also to withdraw from the global body and even expel it from America.
Wrote Toameh: “Palestinian leaders are now threatening to step up their diplomatic warfare against Israel – a move that is sure to sabotage any future effort to revive the moribund peace process. Other Palestinians, meanwhile, view the resolution as license to escalate ‘resistance’ attacks on Israel. By ‘resistance,’ of course, they mean terror attacks against Israel.”
He explained the U.N. resolution told Palestinians: “Forget about negotiating with Israel. Just pressure the international community to force Israel to comply with the resolution and surrender up all that you demand.”
He said that already Palestinians are trying to capitalize on the vote.
For example, the Palestinian Liberation Organization has convened its executive committee and announced a decision to appeal to the International Criminal Court to start an “immediate judicial investigation into Israeli colonial settlements on the land of the independent state of Palestine.”
That’s even though “Palestine” as a state doesn’t exist.
“Another decision envisages asking Switzerland to convene a meeting to look into ways of forcing Israel to apply the Fourth Geneva Convention to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. The Geneva Convention, adopted in 1949, defines ‘humanitarian protections for civilians in a war zone,” Toameh wrote.
Such moves are intended to “internationalize” the fight,” he wrote.
The PLO has renewed “its call to the world countries for a comprehensive and full boycott of Israeli colonialist settlements in all fields, as well as all companies working in or dealing with these settlements.”
The report continued: “One of Abbas’s close associates, Mohamed Shtayyeh, hinted that the UNSC resolution should be regarded as a green light not only to boycott Israel, but also to use violence against it. He said that this is the time to ‘bolster the popular resistance’ against Israel. ‘Popular resistance’ is code for throwing stones and petrol bombs and carrying out stabbing and car-ramming attacks against Israelis.”
Noteworthy were the comments from groups recognized for terror, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The resolution, they stated, now authorizes them to step up “resistance” in pursuit of the liberation “of all Palestine.”
Toameh said: “When Hamas talks about ‘resistance,’ it means launching suicide bombings and rockets against Israel. The Islamist movement does not believe in ‘light’ terrorism such as stones and knife stabbings against Jews.”
Huckabee’s comments came in an interview with the Fox News Channel’s Eric Bolling on “The O’Reilly Factor.” He referenced the massive funding in the U.S. budget for the international organization.
“We should eliminate it, and I’ll tell you something,” said Huckabee, a candidate for president in 2012 and 2016.
“We ought to take that money that’s going to the U.N. and make it available to veterans who have served under the U.S. flag and make sure they get the benefits they need,” he said.
“We are getting zero benefits” from the U.N., he continued. “And we are getting embarrassed by the actions of the U.N.
Here are Huckabee’s comments:
if(typeof(jQuery)==”function”){(function($){$.fn.fitVids=function(){}})(jQuery)};
jwplayer(‘jwplayer_dKx9rjPG_pszPfxYQ_div’).setup(
{“playlist”:”http://ift.tt/2hSkgBw”}
);
Others just a day earlier had predicted that the conflict would end up in a “war” between the U.N. and the U.S.
Josh Rogin, who writes on international issues for the Washington Post, on Wednesday started out with the headline, “Inside the coming war between the United States and the United Nations.”
He explained that Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., already has started work on ways to keep U.S. money away from the U.N., because, “the U.N. has made it impossible for us to continue with business as usual.”
The senator said Republicans in Congress likely “will feel like this is a betrayal of Israel and the only response that we have is the power of the purse.”
Obama had the option, since the U.S. is one of the permanent members of the group, to veto the resolution, but decided not to.
Already, Rogin reported, “three Republican senators and their staffs have been working up options behind the scenes for how to convert their threat into action: Graham, Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.). They believe they will have support for quick Senate action from both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and incoming Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a strong support of Israel.”
Nor is acting financially the only option open to Congress.
Fox News noted other punitive actions by Congress “could include expelling Palestinian diplomats from U.S. soil and scaling back ties with foreign nations that voted in favor of the controversial measure.”
Rogin wasn’t the only to charge that the Obama administration was creating a “war.”
Giulio Meotti, a Italian journalist and commentator, wrote at the Gatestone Institute that this year has been a good one for “anti-Semites” at the U.N.
The resolution, No. 2334, “is a cultural genocide that is no less dangerous than terror attacks. It is based on anti-Semitic lies and creates the atmosphere not for achieving ‘peace,’ as disingenuously claimed, but for perpetuating war.”
“According to the liars at the United Nations, the most evil country in the world is Israel,” he wrote. “The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad, and Jordan’s Prince Seid al Hussein are sponsoring even now a ‘blacklist’ of international companies that have ties with Israeli companies in Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, to facilitate boycotting Israel in the evidence hope of economically exterminating the only democracy and pluralistic nation in the region: the Jewish State.”
The new online petition calls for the U.S. to cease all payments to the U.N., withdraw, and “expel it from American soil.”
“We further urge President-elect Donald J. Trump and the Republican Congress to declare all United Nations resolutions, treaties and other explicit and implicit commitments to be no longer binding on the United States and violations of American sovereignty. … We urge President-elect Donald J. Trump and the Republican Congress to use all available means to encourage allies of the United States and Israel to withdraw from the United Nations and withhold all funding and official recognition from that organization.”
David Greenfield at FrontPage Magazine wrote, “The United Nations does only two things consistently and effectively: waste money and bash Israel. Sometimes it manages to do both at the same time.”
He pointed out for its money, the U.S. gets a U.N. email system that was “used to distribute child pornography … U.N. staff members have smuggled drugs, attacked each other with knives and pool cues, not to mention a tractor.” Greenfield also mentioned bribery cases.
Defunding? “It’s something that we and every sane country should have done decades ago. If you give money to the U.N., it will end up anywhere and everywhere except where it’s supposed to go. But defunding the U.N. isn’t enough. There is no reason for us to remain there at all.”
He finished: “We should defund and withdraw. … The billions we waste on the U.N. will go toward taking care of our people. And once we are free of the U.N., we will actually be able to promote real human rights instead of pandering to the dictators and Islamists of the United Nations.”
“The U.N. is a massively corrupt and hopelessly broken institution,” said Joseph Farah, founder, editor and CEO of WND. “If ever there was a time and the right opportunity to put this on the front burner of a new administration that clearly opposes the kind of globalist vision that the U.N. offers and promotes, this is it. Enough is a enough! Why are we supporting this twisted, anti-Israel rogues gallery with our tax dollars and debt? Why do we continue to permit them to operate within our country? If Donald Trump and the U.S. Congress don’t seize this moment, a future administration will undoubtedly humiliate the U.S. and our allies, again, through the auspices of the United Nuisances.”
The petition continues: “It is outrageous an organization hosted on American soil, protected by American arms, funded by American tax dollars and built upon a global order sustained by the United States seemingly spends all its time attacking America and its ally Israel. It an insult to global decency that Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, is continuously targeted with the most outrageous slander and vitriolic attack as the United Nations allows some of the worst tyrannies on the planet to sit in judgment. Finally, as an independent republic, the United States of America has a responsibility to itself and to the world to cease subsidizing an institution which has not only proven hostile to the sovereignty of the United States and the security of Israel, but which has also shown itself to be a breeding ground of anti-Semitism and support for Islamic extremism.”
What do YOU think? Should the U.S. pull out of the U.N.? Sound off in today’s WND poll!
A report released last year said the U.S. pays about $3 billion year to the general budget and its peacekeeping efforts.
It’s more than what 185 other countries combined are paying.
“The 35 countries contributing the least will pay just $28,269 each,” the report said.
Al the while demanding Western nations accept millions of Muslim “refugees,” who could include terrorists, the U.N. “has deliberately sought to undermine American sovereignty and independence through global initiatives such as the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ and ‘New Urban Agenda.’”
Bipartisan support already is in evidence, from “Republican President-elect Donald J. Trump and Democratic senators Chuck Schumer, Joe Manchin, Bob Casey, Richard Blumenthal, Mark Warner and Chris Coons.”
It continues, “American [Republican] senators including Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz have already called for cessation in funding for the United Nations until that organization becomes more responsible.”
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/12/30/obamas-u-n-move-seen-as-ok-for-violence-by-palestinians/
from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2016/12/30/obamas-u-n-move-seen-as-ok-for-violence-by-palestinians/
No comments:
Post a Comment