According to recent reports, since 2006 the United Nation’s Human Rights
Council has condemned Israel 32 times by resolutions, amounting to 48
percent of that body's resolutions. Compare that with Sudan’s
human-rights abuses, about which it has expressed "deep concern" but no
condemnation. Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan admitted that the
council's actions created a "credibility deficit."
A day of destiny approaches in Israel: Jan. 22, when the Knesset reforms
to new cultural contours. A critical article by Lisa Goldman and Mairav
Zonszein reveals the ascending paradigm: “The settlement movement
registered major victories this year on various fronts. Its
representatives are reaching new heights in politics, the judiciary and
the media. One out of five residents east of the Green Line is a
settler. The expansion of settlements continues unabated, and – most
importantly – settlers are in full control of the Israel national
narrative. In 2012, as more and more observers declared the death of the
two-state solution, the settler became the new normal.”
Unless
Bibi falls — and Israeli pundits say he is weakening — it may go
unnoticed in America and in the MSM that a systemic change is occurring
in Israel.
I thought that was a pretty effective and well-crafted speech that President Obama delivered just now to the U.N. General Assembly on the perils of political extremism.
In the middle of the presidential campaign, it wasn’t a campaign speech, apart from the strong words on Iran, whose leadership was warned that time is “not unlimited” and that the United States will “do what we must” to stop Iran gaining a nuclear weapon.
But on the “politics of anger,” it was an interesting plea for tolerance. He won’t have done himself any favors with his Republican rival for invoking Gandhi.
Reading the pundits, you would have thought that Mitt Romney said something wrong about the failed Obama Middle East policy.
However, the predictable reaction from the left shows us that in fact, Romney hit the nail on the head.
Obama’s policy of overthrowing stable governments that kept the lid on the radical Islamists in their own country in favor of the mob on the street has led to a more unstable, dangerous time in the region. Team Obama preened and crowed about the Arab Spring; now they own it.
Bloggers, be careful what you wish for. A year ago the Obama administration was triumphantly celebrating its role in the Arab Spring. In the process the USA failed to support its longtime Egyptian allies, President Hosni Mubarak and the Egyptian military. Instead it tacitly supported the devil it didn't know. It was obvious that the likely winners of any Egyptian election would have been the Muslim Brotherhood. The United States’ policies at the time naively supported the devil that they would soon get to know.
Everyone remembers former President Bush’s famous "axis" jab with a conciliatory gesture toward North Korea, calling for North Korea to open its borders and pursue normal relations with its neighbors. To this day the radical communist state remains bordered by barbed wire, landmines and a standing army of 1 million, an enduring hangover from the Cold War. Now that its leader Kim Jong-il has passed away, from exhaustion no less, can the United States finally work with North Korea as “a friend and partner” in the rebuilding of their country?
Iran’s ransacking of the British embassy in Tehran, which prompted the recall of all British embassy staff and the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from London, means that the chances of miscalculation by both sides in this spiraling crisis have suddenly intensified.
Iran has deliberately set itself on a path of isolation, even though Britain, long considered the “little Satan” in Iran alongside the American “Great Satan,” says that it is not severing diplomatic ties. But cutting channels of communication with Tehran, where radicals were already in the ascendant, contains other dangers at a time when Iran’s nuclear program is back in the diplomatic foreground.
