Condi Rice Attempts To Sandbag Israel At The UN

There's an amazing story behind the unprecedented U.S. withdrawal of a Security Council Resolution at the U.N. last week.

After the Annapolis gang rape of Israel last week, Condi Rice apparently decided to ramp things up even further by getting the UN Security Council involved in a closed door session to push through a resolution endorsing the Annapolis declaration of principles signed by Israel and the Palestinians and giving the UN a role in overseeing the process - without informing the Israelis.

Accordingly, American UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad received permission from the Security Council to present the text for approval in a closed door session.

Since Israel is the only UN member not ever allowed a seat on the Security Council, that meant that the Israelis would have no opportunity for a hearing or to dispute the language of the resolution, while Qatar, who sits on the Security Council was there to represent the Arab League and would be able to supplement the Annapolis declaration with additional clauses and language detrimental to Israel, and put it up for a Council vote...which, if it passed, would have cemented any additions with the force of a UN resolution

A Security Council endorsement would have brought the UN into the process as an overseer and arbitrator, and made the UN judge, jury and possibly executioner on compliance with `the process'...or, to put it another way, given the UN's strongly pro-Arab stance, it would have added another body on the Arab side of this particular tug of war against Israel.

It also would have set in stone the deadline of December 31st, 2008 for the end of negotiations, no matter how the Palestinians behave or comply with their part of the agreement. That's exactly what the Saudis demanded all along.

Apparently there's some nasty stuff even the Olmert government won't eat.

When Israeli Ambassador Danny Gillerman was alerted to the closed door meeting, he apparently contacted Olmert and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni immediately and alerted them to what was going on behind their backs.

I have no information on exactly what sort of language passed between the Bush Administration and the Israelis or what was said, but I imagine it was fairly strong, because the US withdrew the draft resolution in an embarrassing about face.

Ambassador Khalilzad was recalled to Washington, and was apparently willing to fall on his sword for this faux pas until some of Condi Rice's minions at the State Department accused him of `freelancing' and not consulting with Rice, his boss. At that point the Ambassador reiterated that he had fully consulted with Secretary Rice on this.

In view of the way the Israelis were treated at the conference, I'm inclined to believe him.

A lot has come out about the way things actually went down at Annapolis, and it isn't pretty. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but at Annapolis, the Americans essentially legitimized Arab hatred for Jews. The Saudis and some of the other Arabs objected to even walking through the same door as the Israelis, let alone shaking hands with them..so the Israelis had to enter through the service entrance. And the US acquiesced to the Arabs' demand not to appear in any photos with Jews.

Frankly, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that they had bathrooms marked `Jews Only'.

Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni was reduced to asking the Arabs, during an address at the conference, Why doesn't anyone want to shake my hand? "Why doesn't anyone want to be seen speaking to me?"

"She was saying 'Stop treating me as a pariah,' " said Frans Timmermans, the Dutch Minister for European Affairs, who was there. "They shun her like she is Count Dracula's younger sister."

When the Israeli delegates spoke, not only did most of the Arabs not bother with the customary polite applause, but many of them, including the entire Saudi delegation didn't even bother to put in their headphones to hear the translation while the Israelis spoke... a gesture of deliberate contempt conveying that nothing a representative of Israel could say was worth listening to.

Meanwhile Condi Rice made speeches about how she considered the Palestinians and the Israelis pain as `equal', and obscenely compared Israelis trying to defend themselves from Palestinian terrorism that deliberately targets civilians with white supremacists victimizing blacks in the Jim Crow south.

And this, believe or not, at a conference in which she presided over that was a modern example of segregation...against Jews.

The hypocrisy is mindboggling, and one can only imagine what other humiliations and pressures are in store for Israel in the next year.

This will come back to haunt us.