Soccer Dad

The bush administration's un strategy

While the Bush administration has been falling down in regards to its handling of the PA, it has been doing something that escaped the attention of many. As IRIS notes that, (recess appointed) Amb Bolton has been telling the UN to stop obsessing so much about Israel:

Today brings news that he is the first reformer to attempt to scale back the UN's obsessive focus on Palestinians to the exclusion of all other refugees and to the exclusion of most other world problems as well. He is turning out to be a typically excellent appointee for the first MBA president. I believe history should judge Bush as the best president in terms of selecting subordinates.

Daled Amos covers some of the same ground as IRIS and adds that at least one of his adversaries, admires Bolton:

"He's an intelligent person," says Ambassador Munir Akram of Pakistan, a Bolton opponent on any number of issues, most critically now over U.N. management reform. "He's articulate, and he's a tough negotiator. As far as I'm concerned, he's quite okay."

Mr. Akram then pays Mr. Bolton the greatest compliment possible from within the ranks of diplomats deeply suspicious of his motives for wanting the U.N, job in the first place. "I have no reason to believe he's here to destroy the institution," the Pakistani envoy says. "I can work with him."

This week, Mediacrity notes that Bolton blasted the Security Council for failing to condemn the terror attack in Netanya. (Smooth Stone noticed this too.)

(In answer to Mediacrity's question, the Washington Post reports that Bolton objected to a firing at the UN, but nothing of the Security Council's failure to condemn the Netanya terror attack. The NY Times apparently didn't cover Bolton's criticism either.)

But this approach to the U.N. is not new for the Bush administration. It has adopted a policy, described by Evelyn Gordon in "The Frequent Abstainers Club" (Jerusalem Post, 10/12/2004):

For years the US has vetoed resolutions it deemed too biased against Israel. But during the late 1980s and 1990s Washington was unable to sway any other council member to its side: With monotonous regularity such resolutions failed by a vote of 14-1.

Over the last four years, however, there has been a shift. While no country has yet joined the US in voting "no," there have consistently been two to four abstentions - usually from Europe, occasionally from Africa as well.

Since Security Council resolutions need nine votes to pass, this means that the council has been inching toward a situation in which anti-Israel resolutions could be defeated even without an American veto.

Bush achieved this shift by setting a clear, consistent standard for what constitutes bias: Condemnations of Israel are biased unless the resolution also condemns anti-Israel terror.

And, more importantly, vague condemnations of "all violence against civilians" do not qualify. The resolution must explicitly condemn Palestinian perpetrators such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Aksa Martyrs Brigades.

Perhaps no one has put the Bush Adminstration's view into such sharp focus as then-Amb John Danforth did back in October 2004:

Now consider what this resolution does not say. It does not mention even one of the 450 Qassam rocket attacks launched against Israel over the past two years. It does not mention two hundred rockets launched this year alone. It does not mention the two Israeli children who were outside playing last week when a rocket suddenly crashed into their young bodies. It does not mention the undisputed fact that Qassam rockets have no military purpose-that they are crude, imprecise devices of terror designed to kill civilians. It does not mention that Hamas took “credit” for killing these Israeli children and maiming many other Israeli civilians-calling these deaths and woundings a “victory.” It does not mention that the terrorists hide among Palestinian civilians, provoking their deaths, and then use those deaths as fodder for their hatred, lawlessness, and efforts to derail the peace process. It does not mention the complete failure of the Palestinian authority to meet its commitments to establish security among its people. It does not mention any of these facts, nor does it acknowledge the legitimate need for Israel to defend itself. The resolution is totally lacking in balance.

There is an old saying that silence indicates consent. The silence here today is deafening. I said yesterday, and I reiterate today, that when the rest of the world gangs up on Israel with insidious silence about terrorism, it does not advance the cause of peace. It encourages both sides to dig in; it makes Israel feel isolated and backed into a corner, and it discourages dialogue.

When it comes to the Middle East the Bush administration leaves a lot to be desired. However on Turtle Bay, its approach is forcing the world away from its rote condemnations of Israel.

Technorati Tags: Israel, United Nations.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.