Europe Further Curses Itself

Our neighbors across the pond are in a collision course headed for disaster.  They have shut God out of their lives.  Europeans have so few children that they are being taken over by the Muslims who have large families.  God has basically thrown them to the wolves -- the Islamic wolves at that.  My God will not force Himself on anyone who rejects Him which is what the Europeans have done.

If that isn't bad enough, add anti-Semitism to their sins.  You would have thought they would have learned their lesson after the Holocaust, but sadly old bigotry is surfacing once again.  We got a taste of it last week when the Palestinians came before the UN seeking non-member status.  One lousy European country stood with Israel  -- the Czech Republic.   Three cheers for this country for having the guts to do what was right while surrounded by a whole host of nations eager to throw the Israelis to the wolves --  the Islamic wolves.

For once, Barack Obama came out on the right side of things.  But, don't you think for a moment that his disdain for Israel has lessened.  Of course, our neighbor to the north, Canada, proved itself loyal to Israel.  Interesting how Canada's economy is in much better shape than ours.  Now, Czech Republic can share in God's blessings for its willingness to bless the Jewish people.  I'd say the same for the U.S., but I've been following Obama too closely for too long to not know that Obama still has some tricks up his sleeve intended to harm Israel.  So, I'll withhold any promise of blessing upon the U.S.

Read more about the vote at the UN from the American Thinker:

Palestinian 'Statehood': The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

By Leo Rennert

Given that the venue was the notoriously anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian U.N. General Assembly, it came as no surprise that the vote to upgrade "Palestine" to non-member observer "state" sailed through by a lopsided majority -- 138 for, nine against, and 41 abstentions.

Still, the roll-call did have some importance in that it sorted out Israel's genuine supporters from fair-weather friends and, worse, those willing to throw Israel under the bus.

So, herewith find the breakdown of some nations that ended up in the GOOD column, or the BAD column, or the downright UGLY column.

The GOOD guys:

First and foremost Canada, which pulled no punches in its strong support of Israel before casting a firm "no" vote.  A nod also to the Czech Republic, the only European country to vote against the resolution.  Give also credit to Panama and four tiny Pacific island nations who stood with Israel.

The BAD guys:

Those who ducked, ran for cover, and ended up abstaining.  Most prominently, Australia and Germany had been widely expected to oppose the resolution but didn't.  Both apparently became enmeshed in domestic politics and beat a retreat.  Germany's abstention demonstrates that it's not ready yet to take its place as the pre-eminent leader on the European scene.  Britain ended up in this column from the other end -- ready to support the resolution if it received assurances that the Palestinians wouldn't use their new status to haul Israel before the International Criminal Court.  With no such guarantees forthcoming, the U.K. abstained and washed its hands of the whole thing.  Other European countries that went into hiding with abstentions included Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, and Romania.

The UGLY guys:

First and most prominent at the head of the line of supporters of the resolution was France -- the France of Socialist President François Hollande, the France with the largest Muslim population in Europe.  Also in this column were Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, and Sweden.

Finally, the POISON PILL in the resolution.  While it may be a largely symbolic bow to Palestinian national aspirations, the resolution contains language on final borders that would require Israel to withdraw from the entire West Bank, all of Gaza, and all of East Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, Mt. Scopus, the Mount of Olives, and the Old City of Jerusalem, including its Jewish Quarter.

The resolution's language is in complete sync with Mahmoud Abbas's declaration from the General Assembly's rostrum that "we will accept no less than the independence of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on all the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967."  No mutually agreed land swaps. 

But what about the resolution also urging direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on final-status issues, including borders?  Doesn't this mean that borders still have to be negotiated?  Well, the U.N. is well-known for double-speak.  It adopts a resolution that determines final borders while urging negotiations on this very topic.  Welcome to Turtle Bay.

And while we're still in the UGLY column, let's not forget Mahmoud Abbas, who pulled out the full range of incendiary slanders to tar Israel.  This was no Anwar Sadat moment of high statesmanship.  The world instead was treated to an old brawler spewing hatred.

But hold on: where in all this is the United States?  Good question.  It actually figures in all three columns -- the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY.

The GOOD grade is for the Obama's administration solid support of Israel in this regard over the last year or so.  From the outset of Abbas's quest to get U.N. statehood recognition, Washington was firm in opposing it.  Kudos also for the White House's strong security and intelligence cooperation with Israel.  And for helping to finance Israel's Iron Dome missile-defense system, which saved countless lives during the recent eight-day war with Hamas.

The Obama administration, however also earns a BAD grade for misjudging Abbas as a genuine peace partner and never demanding some responsibility and accountability from him while showering him with billions in aid.  In doing so, the Obama administration became Abbas's enabler to make  an end-run around Washington on the pernicious rationale that he had to be propped up at all costs, given that he still is better than Hamas.  U.S. diplomacy ended up paying a high price for this delusional strategy.

And why also position the U.S. side in the UGLY column?  Again, because at the outset of his first term, President Obama, while on a charm campaign to the Muslim world, tried to strong-arm Israel to make one-sided concessions -- an enormous diplomatic error which opened the way to the lopsided support for Palestinian statehood at the U.N.  Time for Obama to regroup and reconsider.

Check out the map showing how the various nations voted, as well as an analysis of the votes, via Israel Matzav:

Who lost Europe?

It was common knowledge long before last Thursday that the automatic majority in the UN General Assembly would give the 'Palestinians' whatever they wanted. What was surprising was that the Europeans voted so overwhelmingly in favor. Only the Czech Republic voted against the 'Palestinians.' Jonathan Schanzer and Benny Weinthal offer up two different theories of why that happened. This is from the first link. 

Israel, for its part, made no diplomatic overtures to counter Abbas's whirlwind tour of European capitals over the last two years, which included multiple visits to multiple capitals, including Berlin. The Israelis produced no tangible alternative to persuade European leaders from voting for the upgrade. Abbas badly outflanked Netanyahu, while Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who remains widely reviled among Europeans, did not exercise the diplomatic finesse necessary to keep Israel's continental allies at his side.

In fairness, Israel always faced an uphill battle in Europe, where Muslim populations are on the rise and pro-Palestinian sentiments continue to gain traction. From the EU's perspective, Israel's long-standing recalcitrance over settlements and the rise of Hamas probably made support for Abbas inevitable.

But for Netanyahu to find himself all alone, with only a reluctant partner in Washington and seven other countries by his side, must surely have come as a shock.

Read the whole thing.  His basic theory is that Germany and France were upset about 'settlements' and that they pulled Italy, Spain and Portugal along with them.

Benny Weinthal has a different view. 

President Obama’s cherished multilateral foreign-policy strategy appears to be in shambles. Put simply, the United States could not even mobilize its major European allies — Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, and France — to oppose the PLO’s dramatic undercutting of the Oslo accords.

My own view is that neither Israel nor the United States put a high priority on stopping this move. Unlike last year's move, which would have required a Security Council veto by the US to stop it, this year's move could not be stopped by any one country individually. Once it was proposed, it was clear that it would pass. The only question was whether the US or the Europeans would go along with it. For Obama, who does not feel particularly warmly toward Israel, he wasn't going to vote in favor because that would cause him problems domestically, but he wasn't going to go all out to oppose the move.

In Israel, people don't generally take the UN seriously, because it is so obviously biased against us from the get-go on every issue. Additionally, Netanyahu has spent the last four years convincing everyone that Iran is the big priority - surely you don't expect him to suddenly decide that preventing the 'Palestinians' from getting statehood at the UN is important, do you?  So now, he's not going to spend a lot of tax money and time and effort trying to defeat a vote he had no chance of defeating. Netanyahu was UN ambassador 30 years ago during Operation Peace for Galilee and he knows exactly how the UN works.

Was it worth spending a lot of effort to stop the Europeans from voting against us? What difference would it have made?