In the aftermath of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s big electoral win on Tuesday, the Obama administration reportedly seeks to use the United Nations as a club with which to beat those recalcitrant Jews into line.
According to Foreign Policy, the Obama administration may stop blocking United Nations efforts to “call for the resumption of political talks to conclude a final peace settlement” between Israelis and Palestinians. The fact that the United Nations wants to force Israel, a fully functioning diverse democracy, into negotiating with a terrorist regime led by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of the institution. But more importantly, it demonstrates that President Obama’s big power grab is just beginning.
When Obama took office, some on the conservative right worried deeply about the possibility of Obama utilizing the United Nations in order to cram down internationalist leftism on Americans. Books and articles emerged talking up the threat of Agenda 21, a non-binding plan from the United Nations designed to create “sustainable development” – code for dramatic regulation of anything that could impact the environment.
Many conservatives became concerned with UN Resolution 16/18, shepherded through the institution by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and designed to combat “the stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of people based on their religion.” The resolution represented a predicate for an “international blasphemy law,” as liberal law professor Jonathan Turley wrote.
Finally, conservatives fretted over the UN Arms Trade Treaty signed by the Obama administration. As National Rifle Association spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen said, “We are worried about an end-run around Congress. Barack Obama or a future anti-gun president could use ATT and international norms compliance to rationalize enacting gun control policies through executive actions, especially in the import and export realms.” Secretary of State Kerry blathered at the time, “Make no mistake, we would never think about supporting a treaty that is inconsistent with the rights of American citizens to be able to exercise their guaranteed rights under our constitution.”
Obviously, no domestic legislation has yet enacted this international regime of dangerous gibberish. But the danger of Obama utilizing international agreements to defeat domestic opposition seems to be growing.
Today, Obama floated the notion of going to the UN to build an international sanctions regime against our ally Israel. As Politico reported:
More provocative to Israel would be any softening of Obama’s opposition to Palestinian efforts to join the International Criminal Court, which the Palestinian Authority will formally join on April 1. Under a law passed by Congress, any Palestinian bid to bring war crimes charges against Israel at the court will automatically sever America’s $400 million in annual aid to the Palestinian Authority, although some experts suggested Obama could find indirect ways to continue some funding — even if only to prevent a dangerous collapse of the Palestinian governing body.
Meanwhile, Obama moves forward with his plans to unilaterally destroy the sanctions regime against Iran. Even as the Obama administration insists that the Iranian regime has broken nothing in the interim nuclear agreement (against all available evidence), Obama plans to sign a new executive agreement with Iran – and then go to the United Nations Security Council to relieve Iran of those sanctions, effectively destroying the possibility of sanctions by isolating Congress in pursuing them. If the European Union, China, Russia and the rest refuse to sanction Iran, nothing Congress does will make much of a difference, and Obama knows it.
At the same time, Obama likely is preparing another series of executive actions designed to implement United Nations climate change agreements. Typically, an executive agreement that has domestic impact must be accompanied by a piece of enabling legislation passed by Congress. Obama doesn’t care about such legalism. In September, he announced before the United Nations that he would tell all federal agencies to start including “climate resilience” into international development programs and investments. Today, Obama signed an executive order that would look to slash carbon emissions 40 percent compared to 2008 levels by 2025. As US News reported, “The president has made robust use of the Environmental Protection Agency, Energy Department and Interior Department to sidestep Republican opposition in Congress and act on global warming, increasing vehicle fuel economy standards, making cities more resilient to the effects of climate change and proposing cuts to carbon emissions from power plants.”
Obama’s move to browbeat Israel at the United Nations is part of a pattern: not just a pattern of dramatically anti-Israel activity, but a pattern of cutting America’s legislative body out of the loop in favor of monarchic action in collaboration with the World Community™. And that should scare everyone, not just advocates for the safety and security of the Jewish State.
Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the new book, The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration (Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.
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