By John F. Di Leo -
On December 28, 2016, the outgoing Secretary of State of the outgoing Obama administration held a press conference. He spoke to the cameras for almost an hour and a half, hoping to wear down his opposition on one of the great political miscalculations of modern times.
The prior week, the Obama administration’s representative at the United Nations – Ambassador Samantha Power – engineered the passage of a remarkably anti-Israel resolution at the UN. The resolution condemns Israel for building housing units on its own land, and grants legal status (to the extent that the United Nations has such power, which of course is dubious) to the Palestinian Authority, a terrorist organization guilty of a decades-long crime wave on that very soil.
After several days of a constant barrage from all sides in the United States – including attacks from fellow Democrats, though these were primarily just for show – failed to show signs of letting up, Secretary John Kerry (D-Cervelo) took to the airwaves to justify the administration’s actions.
The Resolution
Let’s begin by clarifying what this latest resolution means. The kleptocrats, one-worlders, pedophiles and other petty criminals who make up the United Nations are well known for their anti-Jewish bias; the organization has been a hotbed of anti-Semitism for as long as it has existed (see Pedro Sanjuan’s splendid book, The U.N. Gang, for details). The U.N. is always writing new resolutions and reawakening old ones, to act out their ancient bigotry.
The United States has a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, so a part of the U.S. Ambassador’s job has, for decades, been to veto all the stupid, shortsighted, anti-American, and anti-Semitic resolutions that his or her fellow ambassadors propose. Since the U.S. has the power to veto anything the U.N. proposes, for this to have passed proves that the Obama administration approved it.
More than that, however, intelligence indicates that the Obama administration was actually behind this particular resolution. The Democratic Party knows they could not survive voting for it, but if they let it be known that they would pass on the resolution and not use their veto, there would be nothing to stop another country from proposing it, so that’s exactly what happened.
Resolution 2334 – as John Kerry explained with pride – finally deals with the problem of the ages: the fact that Israel has been building housing units on land that it won fifty years ago, some 30,000 apartments and homes over the past few years, despite the fact that the U.N. never gave its permission to do so (as if such permission should be needed!). Resolution 2334 declares this land – Judea and Samaria, East Jerusalem, and Gaza – to be the proper land of the Palestinian Authority, off-limits to Israel. Kerry maintains that the U.N. had no choice but to cede this land to the Palestinian Authority, and that we shouldn’t accuse the Obama administration of anti-Semitism for it, because after all, the administration has sometimes defended Israel in the past.
A weak argument, and an odd justification, when it is abundantly clear that this one action renders irrelevant any good that the administration had done in the U.N. during the last eight years. Israel is utterly undefendable without Judea and Samaria. The Palestinian Authority has been nothing but a terrorist organization, raising its children to hate non-muslims, sending suicide bombers against Israeli civilians, even shooting rockets and other weapons into Israel, often on a daily basis.
And this – the Palestinian Authority – is the entity that the Obama administration chooses to reward, by orchestrating what is intended to be a death sentence for the majority-Jewish state of Israel.
The Two-State Solution
All this foolishness is based on a warped political theory, one which has been presented to the West for 50 years, but which is utterly unfounded: it is known as the Two-State Solution.
The idea – which both the Republican and Democratic Parties of the United States have long supported – is that after World War II ended, and the horrific attempted genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of Germany’s National Socialists (NAZIs) was fully understood, the area of the Middle East known as Palestine ought to be split into two countries, one for the palestinian muslims who had been there for centuries, and one as a homeland for the world’s Jews.
And the claim – central to the Leftist and islamist position – is that this split has never happened… that the Israelis have refused to abide by the deal, and have instead denied these decent, honorable palestinian arabs their half of the country.
The problem is that it’s all a lie… three key lies, in fact:
- The palestinian muslims have never dealt with Israel in good faith. They started out by joining Israel’s neighbors in attacking Israel the day Israel became an independent nation in 1948. Every agreement with them has led to a return to violence; the palestinian muslim leadership has uniformly cheered on its member groups – first the PLO, then Hamas, then Fatah, and others – every time they’ve performed a suicide bombing or rocket attack. Treaty or no treaty, the palestinian muslims have been a terrorist organization, nothing more. Not exactly the kind of people whom any sane arbiter would choose to empower with their own nation.
- The claim that Palestinian muslims had been there for centuries is utter hogwash. By the mid 1800s, the area known as the Palestinian Mandate in the first half of the 20th century was largely empty. Mid-19th century travelogues such as those of Mark Twain reported how barren the area we call the Holy Land was at the time. There were still Jewish towns, certainly, as there had been for millennia, but arabs tended to live to the west, in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and beyond, and to the east, in Lebanon, Persia and beyond. Only after the global Zionist movement started a return of the Jews in the late 1800s did muslims start moving into the area again, in search of jobs. For the most part, the palestinian muslims who claim to have been displaced since 1948 had only been there a generation or two themselves.
- Most importantly, the Two State Solution has already been done; it is already in place! In 1948, the old British Mandate was split into two countries; Israel to the west, and the Kingdom of Transjordan, now simply known as Jordan, to the east. As the homeland for native palestinians, Jordan got the lion’s share of the land; Israel hardly got any. But Israel accepted it, and tried its best to make do with the fraction of land left to it. Both Jordan and Israel exist to this day, some 68 years later.
So when the islamists and their stooges in Washington claim they favor a two-state solution, they are lying: What they really favor is a three-state solution, because they want to leave Jordan alone, and just split Israel in half to create yet another country for the Palestinians.
And where would that leave the region? In peace? There would be no peace after such a split. With Israel returned to undefendable borders, and with the Palestinian terrorists empowered by U.N. endorsement, it would be 1948 all over again; the arabs would be sure to start another war, or at least another intifada.
Because in fact, the goal is not a two-state solution at all… or a three-state solution, or even a four-state solution. There are currently over 23 muslim nations in that region, and even that isn’t enough for them. Their goal has nothing to do with how many muslim nations there are. Their goal is to change the number of Jewish states there are.
Make no mistake: what the islamists really want has never changed; they demand a No State Solution for the Jews.
The Palestinians and the Israelis
If there is one thing we should be sure of, from our vantage point in the West, it is that “people are people”… at birth. Blessed by the marvelous arrangement our Founders set in place for us, we enjoy equality under the law and equal opportunities for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the United States… regardless of whether one is born rich or poor, black or white, Hispanic or Asian, white collar or blue collar.
Once one is born, however, the changes begin. Environment plays a role. Even here in America, the child born into a Welfare State existence is likely to remain in it… the child born into a crime gang is likely to adopt the affiliation of his parents… the blue collar child may grow up a hard worker in the factories, the white collar child may grow up an equally hard-working entrepreneur or professional. We are all alike in the womb, but once the doctor welcomes us with that first spank, environment takes over.
By the same token, the environments of the Israelis and the palestinians are critically different. However much two children may be alike before they’re born, the few miles that separate a Fatah neighborhood from a Likud neighborhood make all the difference in the world.
Israeli children – Jewish, Christian, or muslim – are raised with an appreciation of republican government, a fondness for the free market, a mutual respect for people of different faiths and ethnicities. By contrast, the palestinian children raised in the lands controlled by Fatah and Hamas are raised with jealousy, hatred, and bigotry. The Palestinian Authority has ensured there would be madrassahs and community centers to indoctrinate their youth from birth, to believe that suicide bombings and other such terrorist acts are the godliest of acts, the very ticket out of this world and into Paradise.
Where on earth can one find middle ground between two such groups? And what kind of a politician could be so suicidal as to empower these Palestinians with the tacit approval of having their own nation?
The Israeli-American Relationship
Middle East relations represent the problem with the American Left’s worldview in a microcosm.
Clearly, there are differences between cultures – some are good, some are bad, some are mixed. There are cultures that are utterly destructive and abusive to women, to other races, to minority religions and castes. And there are cultures that at least make an honest effort to treat both men and women with respect, both the young and old with respect, both the majority and minority religions and occupations with respect.
The muslim countries of the world, especially the most sharia-based ones, the ones ruled by the islamists as theocracies, fall into the abusive category of cultures. They may be a great place in which to be a mullah, or a huge landowner, or a businessman, but they are a terrible place to be a woman, an Indian, a Bahai’i, Christian or Jew. It’s not just about voting rights, but about the protection of the rule of law, the right to practice one’s religion or to speak, write, or assemble freely. Such lands are virtual prisons for the wives, children and slaves their society abuses.
By contrast, Israel is a western republic, with voting rights for all citizens – Jewish, Christian, muslim, Hindu, etc. Muslims serve in the Knesset, and serve as mayors and aldermen all over the country. (Try naming a majority-muslim country in which Jews can say the same)…
Israel’s freedoms of press and assembly would be recognizable to any student of the American Founding Fathers; Israel respects property rights, the sanctity of contract, the duties inherent in signed treaties… Israel is so like the United States, in so many ways, that two of their prime ministers were raised here; both Golda Meir and Binyamin Netanyahu spent their childhoods in the United States.
For this reason, we have a special relationship with Israel, a relationship based not on the friendship between a couple of ambassadors or heads of state, but a relationship based on similar worldviews.
The American dream – in foreign policy terms – has long been for a replication of the Israeli model across the Middle East. We have dreamed of other countries seeing Israel’s success, and copying that form of government, that engine of entrepreneurship, that open and respectful society.
And the United States Ambassador to the United Nations has always known that his or her job is to use the bully pulpit of the UN to encourage such a spread of the freedom philosophy around the world.
Until now.
The Democrats
The Democratic Party has long danced a dangerous dance. They abandoned principle – years ago, perhaps generations ago – in support of their desire for electoral victories. They built an array of wedge issues to win donor blocks and voting blocks... and it usually worked.
But the Obama administration went too far, and exposed the dirty secret: for decades, Democrats had been building ties with very anti-American interests: the Wahabi islamists of Saudi Arabia may build a lot of radical mosques, but their money is green. The Chinese communists may practice bribery at the highest levels at election time, blatantly violating Federal Election Campaign law, but their money is green. The Russians may want control of our uranium mines; the Chinese may want to build our power turbines; the Iranians may want planes and satellites that could be used for either civilian or military purposes, but hey, their money is green too.
The need to win elections drove the Democrats to sell out our country and our allies, again and again, and again in recent years. Their regulations and taxes have killed tens of millions of manufacturing jobs; they’ve supervised the migration of whole industries to foreign shores. And they’ve weakened our friends in Europe and Israel, leaving them susceptible from attack by enemies that we – through the Obama administration – have empowered.
It’s been going on for years, but only in the final weeks of the Obama administration has the tarp been torn back, revealing the true heart of the modern Democratic party. They will sell out their own people, their alleged friends and supporters, their nation and its allies, for the resources that help them win elections. And their joy at Barack Obama’s back-to-back national victories blinded them to the reality of how destructive his policies have been.
Barack Obama – and his foreign policy staff – have undone decades of efforts by better administrations to bring peace to the world. This current crop of Democrats has empowered our enemies, and our allies’ enemies, and sat back as churches and synagogues burn, as thousands are slaughtered, as whole nations weaken and cultures diminish.
The Obama administration has one final parting shot still – they have set the chess pieces in place for a January 2017 summit to recognize statehood for their terrorist friends in the palestinian authority. What is their endgame? To provoke a war with Israel? To disrupt the policy agenda of the incoming Trump administration? To endorse and enable the spread of sharia across the United States?
Whatever their intended endgame, one thing is certain: the modern Democratic Party has demonstrated its utter moral bankruptcy for all to see. That party must never again be trusted with the reins of power.
January 20 cannot come soon enough.
Copyright 2016 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicago-based international trade expert, writer and actor. His columns are regularly found in Illinois Review. Permission is hereby granted to forward freely, provided it is uncut and the IR URL and byline are included.
