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News & Analysis

UN General Assembly Slaps Trump over Jerusalem

Despite Trump’s pit bull at the UN, world unites on Jerusalem
Waseem Shehzad

Only by using its veto power on December 18 did the US escape censure at the UN Security Council for its ill-conceived and dangerous declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The other 14 members of the council were adamantly opposed to Donald Trump’s December 6 announcement that amounted to throwing a match into a stack of hay.

It was, however, a different matter at the UN General Assembly three days later. More accurately reflective of global public opinion, the General Assembly on December 21 delivered a tight slap on Trump’s face. It rejected by 128–9 his illegal and dangerous declaration over Jerusalem.

The motion presented by Egypt and co-sponsored by Pakistan, though largely symbolic because general assembly votes are not legally binding unless passed by a two-third majority, demonstrated that sometimes symbolism is more important than legality. Trump’s December 6 announcement to recognize Jerusa-lem as Israel’s capital was also symbolic; no country has opened its embassy in Jerusalem and it is not expected many will follow the US decision. Several countries do not even recognize Israel, rightly considering it a colonial squatter entity that has illegally occupied the land of the Palestinian people, much less Jerusalem as its capital.

At the General Assembly vote, there were 35 abstentions including Canada that prides itself on being a country that promotes multiculturalism at home and peace abroad. Similarly, Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was born in blood and tears after a brutal war in 1991–1995, abstained. Contrast this with Serbia and Macedonia that voted against the US.

There were 21 countries that made themselves absent in order not to arouse Trump’s ire because he had crudely threatened to cut off aid to countries that support the motion. Interestingly the two countries that sponsored the motion — Egypt and Pakistan — have both been recipients of American aid in the past, although Pakistan has in recent weeks developed some spine and has rejected America’s insulting demands especially vis-à-vis Afghanistan.

What great powers stood with the two international pariahs (the US and Israel) in voting against the motion at the UN? The list includes such military and economic “giants” as Guatemala and Honduras (both virtual US colonies), Togo (an African basket case), and Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. Readers could be forgiven if they have not heard of the last four. They are not really states but islands inhabited by indigenous natives, some of which have been known to indulge in cannibalism. In that sense they are in good company with the imperialists and Zionists who have shed the blood of millions of innocent people in recent decades.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley in a not-so-veiled threat to the world community that, except for the cowards who abstained, almost unanimously rejected America’s designation of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, New York, 12-21-2017. It’s telling to see how the notion of sovereignty is leveraged to satisfy the geostrategic interests of the power club in the world. North Korea is a sovereign nation that wants to have its own independent nuclear program; Iran is a sovereign nation that wants to have an independent foreign policy and a peaceful nuclear program; Syria is a sovereign country that has never accepted the colonization of the Holy Land; and Yemen is a sovereign country that wants to have a representative government free of outside interference, and yet the sovereignty of not one of these nations is respected, honored, or acknowledged as they have all been singled out for attack by the United States and its proxies around the world, not innocuously just at the UN, but with real bombs that kill, private armies that terrorize, economic embargoes that starve, psychological warfare that intimidates, and media propaganda that demonizes.

“The United States will remember this day,” US Ambassador Nikki Haley hissed into the microphone at the UN General Assembly. The daughter of Sikh immigrant parents (her given name is Nimrata Kaur Randhawa but having no self-esteem in the presence of her slave masters, she “conked” her name to Nikki Haley) is trying to ingratiate herself to the Zionists — the real masters of America. She follows in the tradition of her notorious predecessors, whether white or black: Madeleine Albright, Susan Rice, and Samantha Power. All of them specialized in crude rhetoric, were vicious, and reflected deep antipathy toward Muslims while being shamelessly servile to the Zionists. Add to that John Bolton, a pit bull who was let loose in the UN and one can begin to understand why the US is so hated globally.

“America will put our embassy in Jerusalem,” Haley thundered. “No vote in the United Nations will make any difference on that,” contemptuously dismissing concerns even from close allies Britain, Germany, and France. “But this vote will make a difference on how Americans look at the UN and on how we look at countries who disrespect us in the UN,” she threatened adding that the US pays the bulk of UN budget and expects respect in return.

This was a brazen display of American hubris and a shameless attempt at blackmailing countries into towing the US line regardless of how ill-conceived Trump’s decision is. “When we make generous contributions to the UN we also have a legitimate expectation that our goodwill is recognized and respected,” Haley added. Trump was even more blunt in his pronouncements about terminating aid to countries that refuse to toe the American line. Prior to the vote, Trump had warned the 193-member assembly, “We are watching.” Watch he did but his threats did not deter the overwhelming majority of UN member-states from repudiating his illegal and immoral decision.

Trump would not have acted without first lining up the pathetic Arabian rulers behind him. Led by Saudi Arabia, they were joined by such other illegitimate rulers as those in Bahrain (that serves as a brothel for US troops and the profligate Saudis), the putative Emirati potentates, and others of their ilk. It was apparent from their reaction — or non-reaction — to Trump’s announcement. Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman did not even bother to mention Jerusalem with a visiting American delegation a day after Trump’s announcement. It was the Americans that forced the issue but despite this, Bin Salman shrugged it off and moved on to other topics.

Robert Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) was in Riyadh as part of an American delegation. He had an 80-minute meeting with Bin Salman who not once raised the issue of Jerusalem. A week later (December 14, 2017) Satloff published an article on WINEP’s website titled “Mohammed bin Salman Doesn’t Want to Talk About Jerusalem.”

He wrote, “If we hadn’t asked him directly about Trump’s announcement, it may never have come up… He limited himself to a single word of disappointment about the President’s decision — literally — and then quickly turned to where Riyadh and Washington could work together to limit the fallout and restore hope to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”

That a pro-Zionist think tank like WINEP with close links to the even more rabidly Zionist outfit, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), would force Bin Salman to address the issue of Jerusalem speaks volumes about the latter’s priorities. AIPAC is a Zionist attack dog that rips any politician or official that dares oppose Israeli policy even if it is to the detriment of the interests of the US.

Despite overbearing pressure and canvassing from the White House before the vote in the General Assembly, more than 120 countries defied US President Donald Trump on 12-21-2017, voting in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for the United States to drop its recent recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Of the member-nations, 128 countries voted in favor of the UNGA resolution, nine countries voted against, and 35 countries abstained.
The text of the resolution, “Affirms that any decisions and actions which purport to have altered, the character, status, or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void…” The document also calls upon UN members to “…refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the Holy City of Jerusalem.” Confronted with the possibility of a diplomatic setback for the US, Trump adopted a defiant tone that he and his advisors will at some point turn into policy, “Well, we’re watching those votes… Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care. But this isn’t like it used to be where they could vote against you and then you pay them hundreds of millions of dollars and no-body knows what they’re doing.” And who keeps an eye on the US?

The fact that the meeting at which Satloff was present happened just after Trump’s declaration on Jerusalem, that it lasted over an hour, and that BS only mentioned Jerusalem after prompting from Satloff, makes it even more remarkable.

The Saudis’ Bahraini slaves were similarly dismissive with the tiny island’s Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmad Al Khalifah calling it a “side-issue” in a December 20 tweet. He went on, “It’s not helpful to pick a fight with the USA over side issues while we together fight the clear and present danger [of Iran].”

Can the Arabian potentates stoop any lower? Not surprisingly, they get kicked in the teeth so frequently.


Article from

Crescent International Vol. 46, No. 11

Rabi' al-Thani 13, 14392018-01-01


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