• March 29, 2024

Obama Administration Secretly Worked with Palestinians – Crafted Shameful UN Resolution

An Israeli official told reporters on Friday, that the Obama administration secretly worked with the Palestinian Authority to craft a “shameful” United Nations resolution behind Israel’s back.

Behind the shameful move against Israel at the UN are President Obama and Secretary Kerry. The U.S. administration secretly cooked up, with the Palestinians, an extreme anti Israel resolution behind Israel’s back. It would be a tailwind of terror and boycotts and effectively make the Western Wall occupied Palestinian territory.

Four UN Security Council members met on Friday to discuss how to advance the anti-Israel resolution despite Egypt’s decision to delay the vote on the draft that it introduced. Originally scheduled for vote yesterday, the draft was delayed following criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President-elect Donald Trump.

The vote, diplomats said will move forward and is expected to take place Friday at around 3 p.m. Eastern or 10 p.m. in Jerusalem.

Until Israel captured the lands in a defensive war in 1967, Jordan occupied and annexed the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. Arab countries had been using the territories to launch attacks against the Jewish state. In 1988, Jordan officially renounced its claims to the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.

The text of the resolution, does however, that the Israeli settlement has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under International law.” It is said it is “a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”

It also calls for the “immediate and complete cease of all settlement activities in occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem” by Israel.

The Committee for Accuracy for Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) pointed out that international law does not make Israeli settlements illegal.

CAMERA notes:

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions, which is relied upon by those who claim the settlements are illegal, does not apply in the case of the West Bank. This is because the West Bank was never under self-rule by a nation that was a party to the Convention, and therefore there is no “partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party,” as Article 2 of the Convention specifies. Moreover, even if it did apply, by its plain terms, it applies only to forcible transfers and not to voluntary movement. Therefore, it can’t prohibit Jews from choosing to move to areas of great historical and religious significance to them.

If Obama fails to veto and the resolution is brought to a vote in its current form, the resolution would contradict a Bush administration commitment to allow some existing Jewish settlements to remain under a future Israeli-Palestinian deal.

The Obama administration has repeatedly violated the U.S commitment by condemning settlement activity, was reportedly a key element in Israel’s decision to unilaterally evacuate the Gaza Strip in 2005.

“Cessation of all Israeli settlement activities is essential for salvaging the two-State solution,” and it “calls for affirmative steps to be taken immediately to reverse the negative trends on the ground that are imperiling the two-State solution,” the UN draft resolution text states.

It is unrealistic to expect that Israel will not retain some Jewish settlements in a final-status deal with the Palestinians. President Bush issued a declarative letter In 2004, stating just prior to the Gaza evacuation.

The letter stated:

In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.

Abrams accused the Obama administration of “abandoning” those U.S.-Israel understandings by taking positions critical of all settlement activity.

The Deputy National Security Adviser for Global Democracy Strategy during Bush’s second term, Elliott Abrams, was instrumental in brokering understandings between the U.S. and Israel on settlements. Abrams accused the Obama administration of “abandoning” those U.S.-Israel understandings by taking positions critical of all settlement activity, in a June 2009 piece published by the Wall Street Journal.

Abrams wrote:

There were indeed agreements between Israel and the United States regarding the growth of Israeli settlements on the West Bank … principles that would permit some continuing growth. … They emerged from discussions with American officials and were discussed by Messrs. Sharon and Bush at their Aqaba meeting in June 2003. … The prime minister of Israel relied on them in undertaking a wrenching political reorientation – the dissolution of his government, the removal of every single Israeli citizen, settlement and military position in Gaza, and the removal of four small settlements in the West Bank. … For reasons that remain unclear, the Obama administration has decided to abandon the understandings about settlements reached by the previous administration with the Israeli government. We may be abandoning the deal now, but we cannot rewrite history and make believe it did not exist.

 

 

 

Related post