So I’ve given a sort of take on the UN/Kerry speech slap down of Israel - short form - these people are leftist ideologues free from constraints of having to win another election and therefore preaching at Israel in the way you’d expect leftist ideologues to do - short form of that: Israel bad [ie America bad], Palestinians victims of this badness, must make common cause with ‘victims’ of American/Israeli badness if only because the optics of it are just so flattering to our egos - so let’s see if we can shame Israel into accepting the dictates of a progressive worldview that embraces this kind of simple-minded, solipsistic, self-righteous, self-indulgent, sentimental, ideologically cloistered thinking. Or something like that.
But I guess one could say that misguided ideological preening is not explanation enough - or argue there’s value to be added by going beyond the mere manifested stupidity of progressives - or at least why not what the hell ask: is this just an ideologically driven hissy fit by Dear Leader et al - or maybe a badly executed bit of theatre that sort of got out of hand - or do these people imagine themselves having a plan?
The story is the planning for this goes back several months, when everyone thought Hillary was gonna win - the thinking seemed to be that Obama gets to get some revenge on Bibi while making a ‘big’ statement about ‘principles’ that makes him look like the sage enlightened guy looking to do good - and then after Hillary wins she gets to come in and play ‘good cop’, reel things back in a bit but ostensibly now in a better position to ‘force’ Israel into making significant compromises [as if they already haven’t]. I suppose that’s plausible - question, why continue on with it once Trump had pushed Hillary aside?
Certainly, the idea that the Obama administration didn’t orchestrate the whole UN vote is utter bull shit - the notion that they just showed up for a vote and, surprised by how ‘moderate’ the language of the resolution was [!!!] decided to what the heck abstain is patently absurd - Obama wanted to do something like this and therefore there’s nothing about this that wasn’t planned and pre-arranged - I’m sure back in his Hyde Park days he and all his radical leftist friends would sit around for hours riffing on all the awful things they’d do to Israel if they ever got the chance - with no more elections to win, he got - rather, orchestrated his chance and there ya go - infamous anti-Semite rev Wright must be so proud of his protege.
Still, once the fail safe of Hillary coming in as the ‘good cop’ had been undone, why continue on with the game? Well, I think I’ve already answered that, partially at least - he really wanted to do it - sure, without Hillary being around it became a much riskier move - but so was trusting Iran, empowering Russia in Syria, giving China free rein in the China Sea etc etc - foreign policy dangers have increased across the board under Obama in his push to marginalize American power and influence - what’s one more? As I’ve said before, if Obama is convinced this move is right and serves the progressive worldview's agenda - and ideologues are always convinced the things they do are ‘right’ - then rationalizing your way around the ‘risks’ is easy. If this leads to bad outcomes does anyone believe for a second Obama will blame himself or that any who think like him will hold him at fault? No fucking way. It will all be the fault of the Israeli right, even though the settlements have pretty broad based bipartisan support in Israel. Indeed, the whole point of this may be to enrage the Israeli right, thereby goading them into some extreme rhetoric, and that rhetoric will then be used to justify the next move, something that may show up in Paris in January in the form of another UN resolution, this one recognizing a Palestinian state.
If that turns out to be true, the astounding thing about this is that an outgoing President will have deliberately manufactured a foreign policy crisis for an incoming President - that’s astounding. Immediately on taking the oath Trump could be saddled with a significant crisis deliberately set in motion by his predecessor - set like a trap - I mean, what are the words one would use to describe behavior like that? Mutinous comes to mind - subversive - frighteningly arrogant. Certainly in keeping with the way a progressive zealot would behave.
