International Affairs

This was a historic day at the United Nations, as the world watched Mahmoud Abbas waving a copy of the Palestinians’ application for U.N. membership as a full-fledged state to thunderous applause from delegates.

The application triggered a storm of international diplomatic activity culminating in a timetable from the Middle East Quartet, and an offer from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for talks “today, in the United Nations.”

This was always a gamble by Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president who decided to pursue a bid for statehood through the U.N. Security Council despite a public warning from Obama who lined up with Israel to declare from the U.N. podium this week that there could be no “shortcut” to peace.

Palestinian Authority efforts to secure statehood represent an abandonment of the very foundation of the peace process, which requires the Palestinians and Israelis to negotiate directly to resolve their conflict. The PA lusts for statehood despite its near-total reliance on foreign aid to prop up its frail economy and the government’s physical and political division between PA-controlled areas on the West Bank and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

So it’s official. The Palestinians are going to the U.N. Security Council next week to seek full membership of the United Nations for a Palestinian state.

They know they will face a U.S. veto and will have to take their case to the U.N. General Assembly, which cannot grant statehood. The 192-nation General Assembly would have to consider upgrading the Palestinians’ representation from an “entity” to a “non-member state” — a measure certain to be approved.

LAGOS, Nigeria — One of the things that has become of utmost importance in terms of the development of Africa (and people of African descent all over the world) is how they are depicted in the mainstream media. Certainly there is a profound disconnect between the Africa we know — an Africa bursting with human talent, ingenuity, wealth and opportunity — and the Africa that is usually depicted in the mainstream media in America and globally.

Where you actually do find a lot of coverage is usually in the sort of “National Geographic”-style programming, where typically European adventurers roam the last “wild frontier” on some trek or safari. It’s all about the wildlife, the trees, the rare and exotic beasts, and so on.

Who lost Egypt?

This week, soccer goons tore down walls surrounding the Israeli Embassy in Egypt, but Hillary opened the gate. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) calls for a no-confidence vote against Tim Geithner. Forget Geithner. History will deal with him. The House and Senate should call for a no-confidence resolution against Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the entire ludicrous and incompetent foreign policy establishment.

“Egypt is not going toward democracy, but toward Islamicization,” Eli Shaked, a former Israeli ambassador to Cairo, told The New York Times. “It is the same in Turkey and in Gaza. It is just like what happened in Iran in 1979.”

As one review explains it, actor Matt Damon looks on hopelessly when his wife returns from Hong Kong with a virus that will poison the world. Would that be the storied “Yellow Peril”? Not surprising that this movie previewed this past weekend in Venice, scene of Thomas Mann's masterful short novel Death in Venice (1911), in which a cholera epidemic in Venice stalks the Western soul. Mann's vision in the day of Freud and Nietzsche brought unconscious suggestion of something happening beneath the surface ("Why are they disinfecting the streets of Venice?") as futurism and fascism were beginning to bubble up in Italy and Lenin was brooding in Paris. In that more poetic day visionaries like Maud Gonne were dreaming of rivers flowing with blood.

I hope that the Libyan Transitional Council will continue to resist the siren song of the United Nations, which is preparing contingency plans for the post-Gadhafi era.

1. The Libyan rebels have won. If or when Moammar Gadhafi is captured or killed, it will be NATO firepower that has achieved it with the help of foreign training of the Libyan ragtag rebel army. Even if Gadhafi is ousted, he has sufficient armed supporters to carry on a civil war. As former Secretary of State Colin Powell famously said before the 2003 invasion of Iraq: “If you break it, you own it.” France, Britain and other NATO states have made it clear that they will remain “partners” with the new Libyan authorities and they will make sure that future Libyan policy is in line with their strategic objectives. With chaos looking the likeliest scenario for at least the short term, statements by President Obama and David Cameron, the British prime minister, that the future will be “Libyan owned” ring hollow.

A grieving father who calls for calm. A collection for an 89-year-old barber whose shop was ransacked. The spontaneous "neighborhood watch" groups springing up all over the country to protect their property and loved ones in the absence of the police.

These are the inspiring images of the last 24 hours after four consecutive nights of rioting across the U.K. They were in contrast to the pictures of burning buildings where youths trashed their own communities. The sight of a wounded young Malaysian student, who was robbed after youths pretended to comfort him, prompted Prime Minister David Cameron to denounce Britain’s “sick” society.

Italy has pulled its ambassador out of Damascus to protest the Syrian crackdown, but other countries have not. The Obama administration is inching its way toward calling for the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, to step down, but has not yet done so. The U.N. Security Council has condemned the Syrian crackdown, but Lebanon, the only Arab nation on the 15-member council, withheld its support.

Such is the international cacophony that has greeted Assad’s decision to send in tanks against his own people in Hama.