Closing the book on the Obama years, President Barack Obama took his final shot against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, abstaining from a U.N. Resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Obama never understood or cared about the strategic importance of Israel to U.S. national security in a post Sept. 11 world. Letting the anti-Semitic U.N. crowd lash out at Israel, Obama joined the party, more for his personal reasons but continuing Democrats failed strategy of Mideast peacemaking. Obama listens to former President Jimmy Carter whose peacemaking with the 1979 Camp David Accords was built on obsolete U.N. Resolution 242, forcing Israel to trade land captured in the 1967 War for peace. Carter brought Israel a peace treaty with Egypt but never peace. Israel’s land concessions only brought about more war.
Obama’s decision to let U.N. Amb. Samatha Power to “abstain” in the U.N. Security Council pile on against Israel only pushes Mideast peace out of reach. Giving the Security Council more license to attack Israel weakens U.S. national security by de-legitimizing the No. 1 U.S. ally in the war against terror. Israel-Palestinian issues are the backburner of ongoing Mideast wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Obama spent nearly six years backing a failed strategy backing terrorist groups to topple the Shiite government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Barack’s covert proxy war against Syria backfired when Russian President Vladimir Putin decided Sept. 30, 2015 to defend Syria against a determined Saudi, U.S. and Turkey-backed proxy war to set up an Wahhabi-Sunni regime in Damascus. Joining the U.N. Security Council mob against Israel displayed Obama’s vindictiveness.
Obama wasn’t happy with Netanyahu when he accepted an invitation to speak to a joint session of Congress March 3, 2015 to oppose the Iran Nuke Deal. Turns out that Barack paid $1.7 billion in ransom to pull it off, whether or not it was good for either Israeli or U.S. national security. Netanyahu’s dramatic speech to joint session of Congress was well received Republicans but dismissed by some Democrats as breaching protocol. Obama’s lack of foreign policy savvy created tensions with Israel but, more importantly, drove U.S.-Russian relations to the lowest point since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Obama ignores his failed Syrian strategy pitting the U.S. against Moscow, something President-elect Donald Trump intends to fix. “Obama-Kerry foreign policy has gone from naïve and foolish to flat-out reckless. With friends like these #Israel doesn’t need enemies,” Tweeted Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
What makes Obama’s U.N. votes so egregious is that he’s desperate for relevance less than a month before his end. Democratic nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s loss to Trump Nov. 8 delivered a crushing blow to Obama’s legacy. Powers made a feeble argument that her abstention was consistent with generations of U.S. presidents recognizing that Israeli building in the West Bank or East Jerusalem violates U.N. Resolution 242. But with the Mideast aflame in terrorism, Israel can’t give back too much land without compromising its national security or that of the United States. “Shameful blow against Israel at the United States,” said Netanyahu, dumbfounded by Obama’s move. Obama knows many of the U.N. states have sympathies for Palestinians, regardless of whether they sponsor terrorism or use violence to achieve political ends.
Looking beyond Jan. 20, 2017, Obama hopes to improve his standing with foreign governments opposed to Israel. Going against the U.S.-Israeli establishment puts Obama in good stead with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States for contributions to his ambitions $2 billion presidential library. Obama now has the notoriety of the first African American president to defy the American-Israeli Jewish lobby. He’ll no doubt win friends in the Mideast and North Africa but certainly not in New York City where Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was speechless after Obama’s vote in the Security Council. “Extremely frustrating, disappointing & confounding that the administration failed to veto the resolution,” Tweeted Schumer, biting his tongue. Whatever Obama’s excuse for joining the anti-Israel crowd, it completely ignores terrorism in a post-Sept. 11 world.
Trump quickly responded to Obama’s anti-Israel vote in the Security Council. “As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th,” Trump tweeted, signaling to Netanyahu that he’ll have his back. Nothing could be more infuriating to the GOP concerned with U.S. national security after the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] Dec. 19 terrorist attack at a Christmas market in Berlin. Obama never understood U.S. foreign policy in a post-Sept. 11 world. Backing the Israel-haters, Barack showed he’s willing to support nations or groups that back terrorism as a political practice. With the U.S. in a seamless military alliance with Israel, condemning Israeli settlements harmed U.S. national security. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Majority Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised to do whatever was necessary to reverse Obama’s latest blow to U.S. foreign policy.
