Earlier today, I noted the diplomatic “tsunami” that was supposed to engulf Israel as a result of the Palestinian drive to get the United Nations to recognize their independence without first making peace with Israel was fizzling out. They have failed to get the requisite nine votes on the UN Security Council that would even force the United States to veto their request. And now they have waved the white flag on another diplomatic front only days after they won their only success in this campaign.
On Monday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voted to admit “Palestine” as a member state. But rather than follow up on this victory, the Palestinians have indicated they will not try to win the same recognition from other UN agencies as they had promised earlier in the week. After the Obama administration was forced to obey U.S. law and revoke funding to UNESCO, the Palestinians got a loud message from the rest of the international community: back off. Faced with a choice between gratifying the Palestinian desire to evade the peace process and the prospect of an end to American aid to every UN agency that followed UNESCO’s lead, the Palestinians were told in no uncertain times their little gambit had become too expensive for the world body to tolerate any longer.
The fact that international antipathy to Israel and devotion to the Palestinian cause does not outweigh the monetary considerations of the UN and its Third World cheering section is one important point to be gleaned from this episode. But just as if not more important is that the rapid Palestinian surrender on this issue clearly indicates the correct path for the United States to pursue in countering Arab efforts to avoid recognition of Israel’s existence and to diminish America’s influence in the Middle East.
Rather than seeking to pressure Israel to make further concessions that effectively robs Israel of all of its diplomatic chips prior to negotiations just to entice Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to return to talks, the United States needs to remember that it is still the funder of the PA and the UN and not the other way around. Abbas has been acting for the past few months as if he is doing the United States a favor by allowing it to send him hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, part of which he spends on paying pensions to convicted terrorists, including some of the murderers who were released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange. But if President Obama wants Abbas to return to the negotiating table that he has spurned over the last three years (including the 10 months when Israel agreed to a 10-month building freeze in the West Bank in order to please the Palestinians), then he need only give him the same message that UNESCO heard loud and clear: that he is about to lose his U.S. taxpayer funded subsidy.
For too long, foreign policy wise men have been telling us it is not feasible for the U.S. to use its financial leverage over both the Palestinians and the UN in order to avoid having its foreign policy objectives thwarted. The Obama administration, which is besotted with the UN and its agencies, has echoed this line. But, though it was against their will, the law requiring Washington to stop giving a cent to UNESCO has proved both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrong.
Rather than continuing a policy of attempted appeasement of the Palestinians and pressure on the Jewish state, it is high time the administration told Abbas the American payola will cease to flow if he continues to refuse to sit down with the Israelis or pushes for UN recognition.
The only question is whether Obama and his foreign policy team are too wedded to their own failed ideology to realize they have just proved, albeit unwillingly, they have the power to make the Palestinians give in.
Making peace with the devil is not an EZ thing and 20 years+ dealing with the arrogant incorrigibles of Israel has been proof enough. n nTheAZCowBoy nTombstone, AZ.
And your horse and your cowboy boots will back you up on that!
Have you checked the public record? No, no, not the US Jewish owned and operated media – the public record.
And AZCowBoy checks the pubic record daily. What a load of horse's bollocks.
Sec'y Clinton has spoken of the "smart" use of soft power in diplomacy (as an alternative to the "hard" power of the military), yet so rarely does the US leverage the power it has. The US is the largest provider of funds to the UN, the UNRWA, and the PA. It also provides more aid to Egypt, the Palestinians, Jordan, and Lebanon than it does to Israel. Even Turkey gets substantial funding from the US. Yet the country seems ever reticent to leverage that funding to promote US interests. n nWere it up to Obama or Clinton, they would have found an excuse not to cut funding to UNESCO, but the law as it stands (wisely) didn't give them that option. All previous "urging" these bodies to take US positions seriously were for naught. But a cutoff of funds? Yes, that got their attention.
Perhaps the US cut off of funding for that 1/2 acre of Zionist hell, DBA: Eretz Ysriol, might also get the attention of the criminal state of Israel too, me thinks.
As a fighter pilot I was taught to always give the vanquished enemy an honorable way out. of his predicament. Let us pray that when a Paki nuke appears in Irans' arsenal to complement their al-Shahab III IRBM's that they will reciprcate this way.
I don't think that anti-Semitic rubes threatening to exterminate the Jewish state is something this website needs. Yes, shit on your boots denotes a certain authenticity but as Jewish reader I would rather have no comments than the illiterate animosity of Jew baiters.
It's the athiest Zionists that are making great progress in the extermination of Eretz Ysriol, sorry to say. In the 1970's I was in Israel training fighter pilots (Yup wore mi 'shit kicker' boots even then) and I found my 'chicks' great people. But, after summer of 1982 and the Lebanon massacres – they lost a friend forever!
Bull.
As TheZACowBoy demonstrates, the Big Lie is alive and well. I'm thinking Tobin has spoken too soon – the Palestinians have many friends in high (and low) places and while they may have suffered a temporary loss here you can be sure they are developing new and improved ways of building their genocidal state. n nThe increasing hatred of Israel is not going to be stymied by this little setback.
Apartheidnik Israel creates its own Dante's hell on a daily basis. Why blame it on anyone else? You cannot systematically destroy a race of people just because they prove an inconvenience to you. Didn't the Holocaust confirm that one?
'Genocidal State?" Jajaja, haven't you read the Goldstone Report (Excuse my dust) and did you discover who the real genociders really are? Who has the EU declared the biggest threat to world peace besides #1 & #2 – The US/Israel genocide twins.
Goldstone has partially retracted his original report and said that it is defamatory to call Israel an apartheid state, let alone a genocidal one. n nAdmittedly you are here not to read the content, nor to engage in actual debate, but to insult Jews and Israel. And the United States–from, we can guess, a neo-Nazi radical point of view. These kinds of posts raise the question as to the purpose and utility of an unmoderated Comments section.
I am the 'push to your 'shove' kimosabe. Does this bother you? After all, I'm not a Palestinian on the West Bank or Gaza guarding his Olive tree groove. You have to admit, 'I make you think, dah?). I mean, a gaggle of Jews telling each other that they can do no wrong may work your neurons – but, it's your brain that needs the work out. Me thinks anyway. n nI love the Jewish people. My Jewish Russian friends here are the ones I take food to and give them a few bucks for the electric bill. But, sadly the 'cheapo' Jewish Federations here only give them a sheet of paper telling them where they can go and apply for social benefits. Shame on these Jews – and you Jews have all the money too boot (Sorry, the devious TheAZCowBoy I had to throw in that 'boot' jajaja). n nShabbat Shalom
Nobody gives a flying fart.
The UN — and the Arab, African and other third world crapholes that dominate it — loves our money more than it hates Jews. We should use it as a club to beat it into submission. Why the current administration allows that unholy place to trample all over our interests is a mystery that many neve be solved.
Our increasingly worthless money you mean? Seems to me that the return of the colonistsand the United Snakes (US/Israel) to Iraq and now Libya had something to do with real tangibles – like oil, dah?
TheAZCowboy: n nFighter pilot? Yeah, sure. And I'm a Navy Seal. The great thing about the Internet is that anonymity allows you to claim to be anything. I highly doubt our finest institution would put an ignorant anti-American (never mind anti-Israel and probably anti-Semitic) fool like yourself in charge of a multi-million dollar piece of hardware. n nBTW, we are leaving Iraq. So much for your theory we were there to gobble up Iraqi oil. And,.perhpas you noticed but we didn't invade Libya. We "led from behind."
It is unacceptable to have a website of Jewish culture enabling the know-nothing nonsense of Jew-baiting followers of the Liberty Lobby and Stormfront. Better no comments than this.
Culture?!
Chiam yankel.
'We' is not Exxon-Mobile, BP and family. And 'we' are not leaving Iraq. Moqtada al-Sadar is kicking us out. n nBTW: It was $9m for the F-104C and some $22m for the F-16B. And never put a scratch on any of my rides. But, a Mig-25 did, Nasty AA-20 missile did it. n nYup, you're right, after 1.4m murdered civilians in Iraq I am not the patriot I used to be. And Operation Cast Lead has not endeared Israel to me – or the world. I mean killing civilians is one thing I taught my Jewish 'chicks' in Israel never to do. And then there comes Lebanon, 1982 and that's exactly what they did. So this is why I feel like I do about your '1/2 acre of Zionist hell.' – Sorry! n nShabott Shalom.
Yah. Sky pilot. Whatev.
Sweet Jesus, who let the mule chuffers in?