UN votes to disarm Israel - maybe
By BRET STEPHENS, WSJ, looks into the future
Jan. 20, 2010
NEW YORK—When American diplomats sat down for the first in a series of face-to-face talks with their Iranian counterparts last October in Geneva, few would have predicted that what began as a negotiation over Tehran’s nuclear programs would wind up in a stunning demand by the Security Council that Israel give up its atomic weapons.
Yet that’s just what the U.N. body did this morning, in a resolution that was as striking for the way member states voted as it was for its substance. All 10 non permanent members voted for the resolution, along with permanent members Russia, China and the United Kingdom. France and the United States abstained. By U.N. rules, that means the resolution passes.
The U.S. abstention is sending shock waves through the international community, which has long been accustomed to the U.S. acting as Israel’s de facto protector on the Council. It also appears to reverse a decades-old understanding between Washington and Tel Aviv that the U.S. would acquiesce in Israel’s nuclear arsenal as long as that arsenal remained undeclared. The Jewish state is believed to possess as many as 200 weapons.
Tehran reacted positively to the U.S. abstention. “For a long time we have said about Mr. Obama that we see change but no improvement,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. “Now we can say there has been an improvement.”
The resolution calls for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. It also demands that Israel sign the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and submit its nuclear facilities to international inspection. Two similar, albeit nonbinding, resolutions were approved last September by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
At the time, the U.S. opposed a resolution focused on Israel but abstained from a more general motion calling for regional disarmament. “We are very pleased with the agreed approach reflected here today,” said then-U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA Glyn Davies.
Since then, however, relations between the Obama administration and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, never warm to begin with, have cooled dramatically. The administration accused Tel Aviv of using “disproportionate force” following a Nov. 13 Israeli aerial attack on an apparent munitions depot in Gaza City, in which more than a dozen young children were killed.
Mr. Netanyahu also provoked the administration’s ire after he was inadvertently caught on an open microphone calling Mr. Obama “worse than Chamberlain.” The comment followed the president’s historic Dec. 21 summit meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Geneva, the first time leaders of the two countries have met since the Carter administration.
But the factors that chiefly seemed to drive the administration’s decision to abstain from this morning’s vote were more strategic than personal. Western negotiators have been pressing Iran to make good on its previous agreement in principle to ship its nuclear fuel to third countries so it could be rendered usable in Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities. The Iranians, in turn, have been adamant that they would not do so unless progress were made on international disarmament.
“The Iranians have a point,” said one senior administration official. “The U.S. can’t forever be the enforcer of a double standard where Israel gets a nuclear free ride but Iran has to abide by every letter in the NPT. President Obama has put the issue of nuclear disarmament at the center of his foreign policy agenda. His credibility is at stake and so is U.S. credibility in the Muslim world. How can we tell Tehran that they’re better off without nukes if we won’t make the same point to our Israeli friends?”
Also factoring into the administration’s thinking are reports that the Israelis are in the final stages of planning an attack on Iran’s nuclear installations. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who met with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak in Paris last week, has been outspoken in his opposition to such a strike. The Jerusalem Post has reported that Mr. Gates warned Mr. Barak that the U.S. would “actively stand in the way” of any Israeli strike.
“The Israelis need to look at this U.N. vote as a shot across their bow,” said a senior Pentagon official. “If they want to start a shooting war with Iran, we won’t have their backs on the Security Council.”
An Israeli diplomat observed bitterly that Jan. 20 was the 68th anniversary of the Wannsee conference, which historians believe is where Nazi Germany planned the extermination of European Jewry. An administration spokesman said the timing of the vote was “purely coincidental.”
This article is all too plausible.
Fortunately, The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution on Tuesday condemning the Goldstone Report, that accuses Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza, and calling on the Obama administration to oppose its endorsement.
334 representatives voted for the resolution while only 36 voted against and 22 abstained.
Just in case any diplomatic genius is thinking this way… could it be… um… because the Israelis wouldn’t be better off without nukes (assuming of course that they actually have them).
Comment by keelie — November 4, 2009 @ 1:16 pm
If anything Israel needs to arm herself to the teeth. Beef up the military and hardware with all nukes on alert.
Forget the U.N., Israel needs to think Israel first. Protecting her people and sovereignty regardless of what the U.N. or any other government entity thinks.
Comment by rongrand — November 4, 2009 @ 3:09 pm
The Real Agenda: Dimona
by Moshe Dann
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/8986
Amidst all of the distortions and inaccuracies of Pres. Obama’s speech in Cairo, this paragraph sends chills through Israel’s intelligence community. His reference was not just to Iranian nuclear weapons, but “any nation” that has or acquires them. That includes Israel.
Obama’s emphasis on a commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is a direct threat to Israel’s security. Israel has refused to agree to that treaty because it means opening all of its facilities to inspection - including its top secret plant in Dimona. Aware of Israel’s long-standing policy in this matter, Obama shifts the attack.
By linking support for Israel against Iran with a halt to all settlement building, and establishing a second Arab Palestinian state, Obama has set the stage for his big prize: Dimona.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hillary Rotten Clinton changed her mind - again
Immediately after Israelis sighed with relief following Clinton’s comments that Obama is satisfied with the current limits on settlement construction, she issued a different statement in Cairo.
Now, Clinton wants the freeze to last “forever.” Unless she does not watch her words, this could only mean that Obama wants Israel to dismantle all settlements and leave 360,000 Jews homeless.
Clinton apparently changed her position in response to Palestinian refusal to negotiate with Israel until we freeze the construction.
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Obama won’t meet Netanyahu
The White House has refused Israel’s request for a meeting between Netanyahu and Obama next week in New York.
Obama’s refusal to meet the Israeli PM contrasts with his availability to Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and large political donors.
Obama is equally offended by Israeli and Palestinian rejections of his peace overtures.
Comment by yamit82 — November 4, 2009 @ 5:22 pm
PA: Netanyahu promised US settlement freeze
Palestinian sources tell Ynet Americans stressed that Israeli prime minister recently committed to construction freeze in settlements
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3800249,00.html
Comment by yamit82 — November 4, 2009 @ 6:01 pm
One year after US President Barack Obama won the presidential election and as criticism of his decisions and actions, or lack thereof, grows, Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren expressed an understanding and even appreciation of the careful workings of a leader with so much at risk, while ascertaining that Washington and Jerusalem did not undergo a recent “crisis” on issues such as a settlement freeze, but rather disagreements, and most of them were now “behind us.”
Israeli Ambassador to the US…
Oren: There was never US-Israel crisis
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1256799087068&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Obama began his tenure with very high expectations, and is facing a very difficult reality, with high unemployment at home and at times pernicious resistance to his health reform, Oren told Army Radio on Wednesday morning. He said that failing to make swift moves on such issues as how to proceed on the US military involvement in Afghanistan is not necessarily to the US president’s discredit.
“He is a very level-headed, intelligent man, not hasty and not in a rush to make [rash decisions],” Oren described Obama to the radio station.
The US president’s pre-election declarations of intent on the Middle East and Iran have also proved consistent with his actions in office, Oren continued, as Obama is evidently pushing forward with his aim of withdrawing US forces from Iraq, reaching out to Iran and promoting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
“There is a certain degree of obscurity on some of the issues,” Oren admitted after being confronted with the so-called zigzagging of the American administration regarding topics such as its insistence on Israel imposing a settlement freeze.
But at the same time, it is undeniable that “every administration undergoes a learning process; it is easy to declare stances before elections, and then you must adapt to reality,” the historian Oren continued, citing the discovery of the Qom reactor as a factor helping the US sway toward realizing that a nuclear Iran is not only Israel’s problem, but the world’s, thus promoting the option of sanctions against nuclear ambitious Teheran.
Asked about the apparently rocky relations between the US and Israel which some have described as undergoing a “crisis,” Oren insisted that “there never was one. There were disagreements on certain topics, but under the surface, the relations have breadth and depth, with cooperation spanning over strategic, security and cultural issues.”
“Most of the disagreements are behind us,” he added.
Comment by yamit82 — November 4, 2009 @ 6:16 pm
Cough
Comment by Shy Guy — November 4, 2009 @ 6:21 pm
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Israel should ignore the UN and treat anything the UN says with the deliberate, intentional, and willful contempt and lack of respect it deserves. The same applies to Barack Obama; after all, very few people in the United States respect or trust him. Most of us regard him as a sick practical joke that the more ignorant elements of our electorate played on our country last November, sort of like the horse that Caligula made a Roman Consul. At least the Romans got the entire horse.
I am on a mailing list for a Polish history group, and they do not think much of Obama either. They do not think Poland can rely on the United States as an ally, and they sent me a news article about Russia simulating a nuclear attack on Poland. The Poles probably think Barry would sell them out the way Roosevelt sold them out at Yalta, and they are probably right. Poland should withdraw from the NPT and acquire enough nuclear weapons to make any attack by Russia mean the end of Russia. The same goes for Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan with regard to China and North Korea. Our allies should realize, however, that the sick joke in the White House and his entourage of self-made sideshow freaks do not enjoy the trust, respect, or support of most of the country. His party will be cleaned out of Congress this November, and he will be a lame duck with more than two years of his term left. Then we will throw him out in 2012. (Maybe the Mayan calendar really means 2012 is the end of the world for the Democratic Party.)
Although Hillary Clinton would have been preferable to Obama, I have not forgotten her open association with Al Sharpton or her deliberate insults to General David Petraeus, so I could not have voted for her either had she won the nomination.
Re: #3
Don’t forget that racist and anti-Semitic pig Al Sharpton, whom Obama let into the White House.
Comment by Bill Levinson — November 4, 2009 @ 10:24 pm
If and when Israel is finally forced to turn over its nuclear weapons, the recipient will not like the means of delivery.
Comment by RandyTexas — November 5, 2009 @ 2:57 pm