The women are both tough and beautiful. And, most of all, Israelis persevere.
Still, I find arguments about Israel incredibly tedious. What I mean is my position on Israel is pretty close to my position on, say, Great Britain, Japan, or Australia. It’s a democratic country. It respects the rule of law. It’s a strategic ally. And, that’s sort of about it.
.. Also, because I find so many anti-Israeli arguments and politics so fundamentally dishonest, flawed, and — quite often — repugnant, it’s easy to get really worked up on the topic.
.. I love how Israel’s critics make such a fuss about Israel’s military superiority as if it has nothing to worry about. If you’re walking into a saloon where everybody wants to kill you, you might walk in better armed than everybody else. If Israel loses a single war, it loses everything.
.. Even if we “lost” WWII, the idea that the Germans or Japanese would or could conquer North America is highly debatable. I would like to think that our culture could stay as free and democratic as Israel’s if we were under constant threat of military annihilation.
.. Whenever Israel is attacked, her critics bemoan the heavy-handedness of its military responses. Even in the bad cases, I tend to marvel at Israel’s restraint. Israel is a perfect example of how lefties shout “Violence never solves anything!” only when the good guys use violence.
.. It needs to be remembered that the U.N. hates Israel because it is in the political interests of member states, particularly Arab states, which use Palestinians as a distraction from their own despotisms, to hate Israel. Think of all the horrors and crimes committed by evil governments around the world. Now think about the fact that from 2006 to 2015 alone the U.N. has condemned Israel 62 times. All of the other nations combinedhave received 55 condemnations. Iran? Five. The genocidal Sudanese? Zero. Anarchic Somalia? Zero. Saudi Arabia? Zero. Pakistan? Zero. China? Zero. Russia? Zero.
The U.N., more than any other player save the Palestinian leadership itself, is responsible for the horrible plight of the Palestinians because it is in its institutional interest to keep the issue alive. After World War II, there were untold millions of refugees all around the world; they all found homes and settled down — except for the Palestinians.
John Kerry and Israel: Too Little and Too Late
During Mr. Obama’s eight years in office, the illegal Israeli settler population has swelled by 100,000, to well over 600,000. Simultaneously, for eight years Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has directed a barrage of calculated slights, insults and acts of disrespect at the president of the United States. The Obama administration has finally reacted with Mr. Kerry’s speech and by allowing Resolution 2334, which condemns Israeli settlement expansion, to pass in the United Nations Security Council. By doing so, the United States simply acted in accordance with international law and the global consensus of nearly 50 years.
.. A recent poll conducted by the Brookings Institution found that 46 percent of Americans believed that their government should impose sanctions against Israel over the construction of new settlements; the figure rises to 60 percent among Democrats.
.. He has accused the Obama administration of a “shameful ambush,” as if the resolution were a dirty trick instead of a statement in line with longstanding American policy and international law. And his government has vowed to press forward with plans to build even more settlements.
What’s really bugging Trump about Obama
Trump and his closest advisers are bothered by Obama’s critical comments and what they see as an effort to undermine the president-elect with last-minute policy changes.
Donald Trump can’t decide whether he thinks the transition of power is going well or not.
But he knows he doesn’t like how much attention Barack Obama is getting and is also bothered by what Trump and his closest advisers see as an active effort to poke the president-elect and undermine the incoming administration with last-minute policy changes on his way out of office
.. Most of all, though, Trump is frustrated with how Obama has poked him, by claiming in a podcast interview with former adviser David Axelrod that he could have beaten Trump had he been eligible to run again. (The president made that claim as part of an insistence that his kind of positive, hopeful campaign would have resonated with Americans, despite what Trump successfully tapped into.)
.. Trump was also irritated by Obama’s comments at Pearl Harbor on Tuesday afternoon in which he said, “even when hatred burns hottest, even when the tug of tribalism is at its most primal, we must resist the urge to turn inward. We must resist the urge to demonize those who are different.” These felt to Trump like direct criticism of the president-elect, according to two people close to Trump.
.. A senior administration official said Trump is wrong if he thinks Obama’s aim is to disrupt the transition by highlighting Russia’s role in the campaign, ordering the abstention on the Security Council vote on the Israel resolution and laying out his more globalist worldview as part of a speech at Pearl Harbor that was meant to address the right-wing nationalism going on all over the world.
“That is not evidence of a flawed transition,” the official said Wednesday afternoon. “That is evidence that we have starkly different opinions.”
.. The White House team is also frustrated with Trump’s policy statements — not just over what he did in regard to Israel, but by his hosting of a meeting with the Japanese prime minister in November, speaking by phone with the Taiwanese president despite the objections of China and beginning to map out a new framework of a relationship with Vladimir Putin.
Not only were these arranged without first informing the current administration, but they’ve created a level of confusion about American policy appearing to be driven by two different leaders at once.
Obama’s Parting Betrayal of Israel
Trump must ensure there are consequences for supporting U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334.
Last Friday, on the eve of Hanukkah and Christmas, Barack Obama stabbed Israel in the front. The departing president refused to veto United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334—a measure ostensibly about Israeli settlement policy, but clearly intended to tip the peace process toward the Palestinians.
.. Instead, the president has essentially endorsed the Palestinian politico-legal narrative
.. Resolution 2334 implicitly repeals the iconic Resolution 242, which affirmed, in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, that all affected nations, obviously including Israel, had a “right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.” It provided further that Israel should withdraw “from territories occupied in the recent conflict”—but did not require withdrawal from “the” or “all” territories, thereby countenancing less-than-total withdrawal. In this way Resolution 242 embodied the “land for peace” theory central to America’s policy in the Middle East ever since.
.. This is a hunting license to ostracize Israel from the international economic system, exposing it and its citizens to incalculable personal and financial risk.
.. Mr. Obama has made this significantly harder by rendering America complicit in assaulting Israel.
.. there must be consequences for the adoption of Resolution 2334. The Trump administration should move to repeal the resolution, giving the 14 countries that supported it a chance to correct their error. Nations that affirm their votes should have their relations with Washington adjusted accordingly. In some cases this might involve vigorous diplomatic protests. But the main perpetrators in particular should face more tangible consequences.
.. if this mistake is not fixed the U.S. should withhold at least its assessed contributions to the U.N.—which amount to about $3 billion annually or 22%-25% of its total regular and peacekeeping budgets.
.. Mr. Trump should unambiguously reject Mr. Obama’s view that Resolution 2334 is justified to save the “two-state solution.” That goal, at best, has been on life-support for years. After Mr. Obama’s provocation, its life expectancy might now be only until Jan. 20. And good riddance.
.. Far better to essay a “three-state solution,” returning Gaza to Egypt and giving those parts of the West Bank that Israel is prepared to cede to Jordan.