Obama Tells Abbas U.S. Will Block U.N. Settlements Condemnation

The Obama administration is clearly desperate to avoid vetoing the United Nations Security Council Resolution condemning illegal Israel settlements.  And it's not hard to see why.

Given the turbulence in the Middle East, and the universal and strong opposition in the Arab and Muslim world to U.S. shilly-shallying on settlements, the last thing the administration wants to do is veto a resolution condemning them.  That is especially true with this resolution, sponsored by 122 nations, and which embodies long-stated U.S. policies.

But the administration has rejected that course.

The reason is obvious. AIPAC would go ballistic, along with its House and Senate (mostly House) cutouts.  Then the calls would start coming in from AIPAC-connected donors who would warn that they will not support the President's re-election if he does not veto.  And Prime Minister Netanyahu would do to President Obama what he did to former President Clinton - work with the Republicans (his favorite is former Speaker Newt Gingrich) to bring Obama down.

What's an administration to do?  It doesn't want to veto but it is afraid not to.

So yesterday, it floated a plan which would have the Security Council mildly criticize settlements in a statement (not a resolution). The plan was first reported in Al Hurra and then in Foreign Policy.   According to Foreign Policy, the statement:

expresses its strong opposition to any unilateral actions by any party, which cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community, and reaffirms, that it does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, which is a serious obstacle to the peace process." The statement also condemns "all forms of violence, including rocket fire from Gaza, and stresses the need for calm and security for both peoples.

Did you notice where settlements are mentioned?  Read slowly. It's there.

Reading the language, it is not hard to guess where the statement was drafted.  Rather than simply address settlements, it throws in such AIPAC pleasing irrelevancies as "rocket fire from Gaza" which has absolutely nothing to do with West Bank settlements.  In other words, it reads like an AIPAC-drafted House resolution, although it does leave out the "hooray for Israel" boilerplate which is standard in Congress but which the Security Council is unlikely to go for.

All this to avoid vetoing a resolution which expresses U.S. policy.  Needless to say, the U.S. plan is going nowhere. Hypocrisy only carries the day when it isn't transparent.

As I wrote earlier this week, this is what happens when donors and not diplomats are driving U.S. policy. 

NOTE: One of AIPAC's satellite organizations, The Israel Project, is already stirring up its troops not only in favor of a U.S. veto but also in hysterical opposition to its alternative, the weak and innocuous U.S. statement critical of settlements. Meanwhile, it is reported that President Obama phoned President Abbas to tell him that the United States will indeed veto the U.N. resolution.