Update: The United States cast the lone dissenting vote, vetoing this resolution Feb. 18.
As the winds of revolution are sweeping the Middle East, the UN Security council is getting down to business-as-usual – condemning Israel – according to Pajamas Media's The Rosett Report. However, this time the United States may be joining the China, Lebanon, and others in condemning the Israelis.
"For the Islamic despotisms of the Middle East, it's an old rule of thumb. When things get tough, or confusing, or frustrating, or when you simply want to deflect anger in the direction of a communal scapegoat, go on the offensive and blame the Jews," writes Claudia Rosett. Others UN branches, like the Human Rights Council, have bypassed chronic violators of human rights like China and Zimbabwe to devote approximately 70% of their resolutions to bashing the Middle East's only liberal democracy.
The United States, traditionally Israel's only ally in the UN's hostile halls, may participate in the latest attack on the isolated nation. "So, according to a Foreign Policy report by Colum Lynch, the Obama administration has been haggling behind the scenes - not to use America's clout to persuade the Security Council members to drop the entire thing, but to hash out with Arab regimes a Security Council "statement" that attacks Israel," Rosett notes.
ABC News reporter Jake Tapper asked new White House spokesman Jay Carney about the prospective resolution Thursday. Carney did not provide a direct answer saying no resolution has been put forward. But he did criticize Israeli settlements.
"But I would also say that I'm not going to get into details of ongoing private diplomatic discussions in New York, the United Nations, regarding this matter," Carney said. "We, like every administration for decades, do not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity. We believe their continued expansion is corrosive not only to peace efforts and a two-state solution, which we strongly support, but to Israel's future itself."
Rosett finds the timing of such U.S. pressure misguided.
"Israel, a democratic ally of the U.S., is right now quite beleaguered enough," she writes. "[W]hen the going gets tricky, never mind the real problems and the real dangers. Go along with the free-riders of the Security Council, placate Nigeria, bow to Russia and China, follow the lead of Lebanon - and slam Israel. Is that really what Americans want?"