Obama shafts Israel

Four weeks before he leaves the White House, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama betrayed the principles of peace, the State of Israel and America’s values by letting a lynch mob at the United Nations mug the only democracy in the Mideast with a resolution that calls for no Jews to live in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem or to pray at the Western Wall, the last remnant of the Second Temple of antiquity.

This obscenity, on the eve of Chanukah, when the ancient Israelites freed the Holy City and the Second Temple from pagans, should have been immediately vetoed by Israel’s ally, the United States. Instead, President Obama stood aside as the UN Security Council voted unanimously for a measure which has the force of international law.

Ostensibly aimed at Israeli settlements on the disputed West Bank, which should be subject to direct negotiations with the Palestinians, the text declaims that Israeli presence on “territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”

In the real world outside the Turtle Bay nuthouse dominated by dictators and tyrants, a “just, lasting and comprehensive peace” will come only when, after decades of avoiding talks, Palestinians sit down with Israel and cut a deal.

It’s going to be hard for both sides, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and all of his predecessors back to 1948 have waited for an Arab partner. Netanyahu is still waiting. Now, the Palestinians and their weak, corrupt leader, Abu Mazen, will believe they will never have to negotiate since the UN has already decided...