Palestinians to ‘boycott US’ over UN veto -Khaled Abu Toameh
The Palestinians stepped up their protest against Washington following, calling for a boycott of the US.
At the request of Fatah, several Palestinian local councils in the Jerusalem area announced that they would boycott the US in protest against the veto. The boycott includes US government officials and American journalists.
Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials have also called for a “day of rage” against the US and President Barack Obama.
Fatah supporters staged a demonstration in east Jerusalem in protest against the Security Council veto. Similar demonstrations have taken place in a number of Palestinian cities, where Fatah supporters chanted slogans denouncing Obama as a “despicable” man.
Hatem Abdel Kader, a senior Fatah official and former PA minister for Jerusalem affairs, told The Jerusalem Post that he has called on Hamas and other Palestinian factions to join the anti-US boycott.
PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad announced that he was ready to go to the Gaza Strip to talk with Hamas about the formation of a Palestinian unity government.
[Jerusalem Post]
Playing Israel's Good Hand -Caroline Glick
Israelis received our first taste of the new Middle East with the missile strikes on Beersheba. Iran's Palestinian proxy, the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood known as Hamas, carried out its latest war crime right after Iran's battleships entered Syria's Latakia port. Their voyage through the Suez Canal to Syria was an unadulterated triumph for the mullahs. For the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran's warships sailed across the canal without even being inspected by the Egyptian, US or Israeli navies.
On the diplomatic front, the Iranian-dominated new Middle East has had a pronounced impact on the Western-backed Fatah-led Palestinian Authority's political posture towards the US. The PA picked a fight with America just after the Obama administration forced Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to surrender power.
The shift in the regional power balance following Mubarak's fall has caused Fatah leaders to view their ties to the US as a strategic liability. If they wish to survive, they must cut a deal with Hamas. And to convince Hamas to cut a deal, they need to abandon the US. And so they have.
Fatah's first significant move to part company with Washington came with its relentless bid to force a vote on a resolution condemning Israeli construction in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria at the UN Security Council. In an attempt to avert a vote on the resolution that the US public expected him to veto, Obama spent 50 minutes on the phone with Mahmoud Abbas begging him to set the resolution aside. Obama promised to take unprecedented steps against Israel in return for Abbas's agreement to stand down. But Abbas rejected his appeal.
Not only did Abbas defy the wishes of the most pro-Palestinian president ever to occupy the White House, Abbas told the whole world about how he defied Obama.
Abbas's humiliation of Obama was only the first volley in the Fatah leader's campaign against the US. Abbas, Salam Fayyad and their PA ministers have sent paid demonstrators into the street to protest against America. They announced a boycott of American diplomats and journalists. They have called for a boycott of American products. They have scheduled a "Day of Rage" against America for Friday after mosque prayers.
At the same time as he publicly beseeched Hamas to join forces with Fatah, Fayyad announced that the PA is willing to forgo US financial assistance if that assistance continues to come with political strings attached. The only real string attached to US aid is the stipulation that no US financial assistance can be used to finance Hamas.
[The Jerusalem Post]
Another Peace Process Trifecta -Rick Richman
The U.S. traditionally vetoes one-sided UN resolutions. [But] you don't single out settlements as an alleged "obstacle to peace" without also mentioning the Palestinian ones.
At the UN, the [US] administration tried to replace an anti-Israel resolution with an anti-Israel presidential statement and then issued an anti-Israel ambassadorial statement.
It is hard to remember the last time anyone achieved the trifecta of offending each side while embarrassing oneself in the process.
(Commentary)
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