Obama administration was hypocritical on UN's Israeli settlements vote

"On Friday, the Obama administration decided not to veto a UN Security Council resolution harshly criticizing Israel and calling its settlement activity illegal. The decision not to veto was cowardly, hypocritical, wrong, and yet, thankfully, ultimately ineffectual.

Do not be misled -- the decision to abstain was not the thoughtful action of a principled leader determined to make peace no matter what the cost. At worst, it was the cowardly move of alame-duck politician who waited until there was absolutely zero political accountability before reversing his previously held position on vetoing anti-Israel Security Council resolutions (despite bipartisan calls from congressional leadership for him to stay the course) in order to take a symbolic parting shot at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and President-elect Donald Trump.

At best, it was another failed attempt by President Obama to impose his will by any means available on a situation that he has never fully understood -- despite the fact that the entire time he had any political accountability he explicitly said that he would never sink to use these means, which he acknowledged are ineffective, and in fact even counterproductive because they encourage the parties to harden their positions and refrain from further direct negotiations.

That is why the decision Friday was so troublingly hypocritical - to quote from President Obama himself, in a speech at the United Nations itself in 2011 (when he did veto a similar proposal, right in the midst of his reelection campaign):

'Peace is hard work. Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations -- if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now. Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians who must live side by side. Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians -- not us --- who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and on security, on refugees and Jerusalem.'...

Anti-Israel bias at UN

In his last speech to the Security Council just this month, outgoing Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon admitted that there has been an anti-Israel bias at the United Nations, noting that, 'Decades of political maneuverings have created a disproportionate volume of resolutions, reports and conferences criticizing Israel.' In her abstention statement Friday, US Ambassador Samantha Powers said that, 'One need only look at the 18 resolutions against Israel adopted during the UN General Assembly in September; or the 12 Israel-specific resolutions adopted this year in the Human Rights Council -- more than those focused on Syria, North Korea, Iran, and South Sudan put together -- to see that in 2016 Israel continues to be treated differently from other Member States.' And yet Powers abstained, and Ban wholeheartedly welcomed the resolution. Neither of them seemed to notice that once again Israel was being singled out for disparate treatment.

The settlements issue is actually a good example of this phenomenon: While the resolution condemned Israeli settlements as 'illegal' and obstacles to peace, the fact that the EU has been funding the building of Palestinian settlements in the disputed territories somehow was not even mentioned, let alone condemned as illegal, or an obstacle to peace. Most of the new Palestinian settlements have been built in Area C of the West Bank, territory which, according to the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 between the Israeli and the Palestinians, 'falls under full Israeli civil and security control,' according to the Times of Israel. So when Ban Ki-Moon calls the Israeli settlements illegal, he is not just legally wrong, but also deeply hypocritical...

As President Obama once famously explained, resolutions are not the way to make peace, negotiations are. And as former UN Ambassador for the United States Susan Rice explained when she vetoed the 2011 vote, all these resolutions do is make negotiations that much harder.

So long as institutions like the United Nations continue to issue one-sided statements that ignore foundational concepts in international law, pressuring Israeli leadership to concede more and more while ignoring their previous concessions (i.e. like the ripping up of Jewish settlements in Gaza, which led not to peace but to Hamas terror tunnels and rockets, or the fact that Israel has already returned roughly 95 percent of the territory it legitimately regained in 1967) and failing to hold Palestinian leadership accountable for their actions (inciting hatred) and statements (refusing to recognize Israel's right to exist), real peace cannot happen.

These resolutions are annoying and sad -- they incentivize Palestinian leadership to try and play end games around Israel instead of engaging directly with their bargaining opponent, and they leave Israel less inclined to even try..."