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So once again, Obama's public statements are not backed up by his actions. His representatives to the Durban II conference appear to be willing to go along with the general idea behind the Durban Declaration and not change the direction, though how they expected to do that when the whole thing is being run by delegates from Libya, Iran, and Cuba. Hopefully Congress will refuse to ratify anything Obama submits from this farce of an anti-racism convention.
Technorati: Government, Racism, UN
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
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6 comments:
I don't understand how Obama is getting away with being so weak on his Israel support. I fear that Hamas will become legitimized simply by hanging around. I don't understand how this can be tolerated.
When I was in High School, I was big on Model UN, even ran my own conference, but my big thrill was being a delegate at another conference. The issue in 1990 for the security council at the conference was how to structure democratic elections for Cambodia. There was a whole wing of people, mostly Arab and hostile Arab nations but lead (oddly) by Poland (oh high school delegates not representing their country's polity) that the Khmer Rouge must be allowed to put forth candidates in free elections. At first the swing votes (liberal nations) objected on practical grounds (intimidation) but the "principle of representative democracy" argument was made by Poland and it looked like the amendment was going to get added to the resolution. Then I took the floor (as China) and gave a speach where the hook was "The KHMER ROUGE IS EVIL!" It took restating this obvious truth over and over again before the other countries started to shift in their chairs. The amendment failed 14-1 (stupid poland)
I have four points here:
a) It was a big mistake to let Hamas participate in the Palestinean elections because the Khmer Rouge is evil.
b) Repeating a catch phrase is a very annoying but extremely effective way to win arguments. US Politicians in both parties do it, but its strictly small ball compared to the Ham-fisted approach of these international conferences.
c) Hamas can never be negotiated with and the nations which support them must be pressured on all fronts because the Khmer Rouge is evil.
d) The wavering support for Israel is why Joe Lieberman fled the democratic party this past election cycle. He's basically still a democrat but when it comes to Israel is is afraid that Obama may not realize that the Khmer Rouge is evil.
It shouldn't be a surprise... during the campaign, his foreign policy team had people like Samantha Power on it who are fairly stridently anti-Israel. He also spoke of talking with Iran and other enemies of Israel in a fairly casual way, as though they weren't our enemies.
He also talked a lot about repairing our reputation with the world and cooperating with other nations and given that the UN and many other countries are anti-Israel, he's only keeping that promise (one of the few).
Somehow, I don't think that even if he does throw Israel under the bus, the rest of the world will suddenly love us.
Oh, he's getting away with it because many Liberals and Democrats are anti-Israel. He's pandering to his base.
I just don't believe that being anti-Israel is a mainstream Democratic party position. Sometimes its unclear to me if you can distinguish between that and wacky fringe liberals. In any case, I don't think that being anti-israel is a particularly liberal position either, although I can certainly understand how a very conservative view of engagement with Iran (which is your view) could be viewed as anti-Israel. I do, however, believe that many liberals (both the wacky fringe and regular kind) are so militant in their pacificism that they oppose the so-called "Israeli Conservatives".
I have so say though, Bollie, W wasn't all that impressive with his support of Israel either.
I carefully capitalized "Liberal" as being anti-Israel is hardly "liberal"... but among modern American Liberals, it's pretty common to sympathize more with the Palestinians than it is to support Israel. The Democratic Party isn't officially anti-Israel but is also a lot more sympathetic to Palestine and the "peace process" and in opposing all violence.
Bush did okay until the last few years when he decided that he needed to solve the Israel-Palestine problem by the end of his term and threw out his sensible positions (no negotiation until AFTER the attacks stop) to desperately negotiate peace. Then everything went downhill.
Well, I couldn't disagree more about the worthiness of pursuing all means for your foreign policy ends, which would include diplomatic and economic pressure. But I do agree that our UN team messed up big time. In general it is necessary to reform the UN from within the UN but the countries that are outright hostile to the US are not going to be swayed by US magnimity. Rather its the confused and complicit countries that need straightening out. Republicans and Democrats are capable of doing this. Hillary Clinton is also capable od doing this and is very pro-Israel, although not as much as her husband was. Anyhow, I reread your NRO article and think that this isn't the bellweather you think it is. Let's see how the US responds when Benjamin Netenyahu puts together a coalition that wants more military confrontations with terrorists.
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