President Obama’s expected veto of a Palestinian bid for full United Nations membership may not be as catastrophic for America as so widely predicted — especially if the administration can continue showing gumption and drop its effort to “unite” the world.
After all, Obama’s hopey-changey UN speech last year helped create this mess. Back last September, he told world leaders gathered at the General Assembly: “When we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations — an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.”
His listeners — especially Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas — ignored the condition Obama set (“an agreement”), and the clock started ticking.
On Friday, Abbas invoked Obama’s “promise” as one reason he’s decided to go to the Security Council this week to ask for full UN membership — even though, in the last few weeks, US officials have made clear they’d veto the bid, which threatens to completely derail the peace process.
Sure, it might be too late. Former UN Ambassador John Bolton tells me the Obama administration “up until recently has done precious little” to combat the impression that America isn’t really opposed to the Palestinian UN move.
But better late than never. For weeks now, US envoys have gone to Ramallah to beg, threaten and cajole Abbas to abandon the gambit. Even yesterday, high-level officials from America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations — known by peace processors as “the Quartet” — were seeking a last-minute formula to avert a US collision with Abbas at the UN.
Ho-hum. As one of Abbas’ closest aides, Yasser Abed Rabbo, explained here Friday, “The last thing we need now is another statement from the quartet.” The Palestinians seek “equal footing” with Israel, and the UN is a better arena for them that the quartet or direct negotiations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
So the dreaded showdown could come in days.
Then, after the expected veto, the General Assembly will vote (probably next month) to make Palestine a nonmember “state” — which will allow Ramallah to join the Hague-based International Criminal Court and launch trials there against Israeli officials for alleged war crimes committed on the soil of their “state.”
“For us, an ICC trial against Netanyahu will be embarrassing — to say the least,” an ambassador from a leading European country told reporters last week.
Growing numbers of European and other democracies are finally coming to understand the pitfalls of the Palestinian maneuvering. UN Ambassador Susan Rice and other US officials are doing their best to gather what Netanyahu calls an opposing “moral minority” at the Assembly against the move.
It won’t stop the Palestinians, who dream of the day the ICC can be as obsessed with Israel as, say, the Human Rights Council. But on Friday, France joined Britain, America and others in boycotting this week’s HRC-sponsored anti-Semitic “Durban 3” gathering. If the Palestinians get their way at the ICC, they may just end up turning the court into as sad a joke as the rights council.
Another fear is that a veto would isolate America in world opinion and turn Arab-Springers against us. Some realism would help here. America has defended Israel at the United Nations all by its lonely self for decades, and we still have plenty of friends.
As for the Arab Spring, if the Mideast’s would-be democrats can get sidetracked again from seeking their own freedom into pointless Israel-bashing, then they were never going to be much use to America, democracy or themselves.
As the late Israeli statesman Abba Eban said in 1967, “If the Arab League made a motion at the UN Assembly that the world was flat, they would get [enough] votes for it.” The region’s tyrants have long used the General Assembly to paint the Mideast’s sole democracy as its worst evil. The Obama administration is now part of the US tradition of denying that lie.
In fact, let’s hope that at the UN on Wednesday, Obama utters some truths that will draw hisses at the UN hall. A leader shouldn’t expect everyone to love him. But, as the heightened European skepticism over the Palestinian bid shows, when you lead, others may follow.
If Obama continues on the path he has set in the last few weeks, he may drop some fair-weather friends at Turtle Bay, but he’ll win over many Americans. By next year, who knows — he may even carry New York’s Ninth Congressional District.