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The Damage Done to Israel at the UN
(Washington Post) Charles Krauthammer - People don't quite understand the damage done to Israel by the U.S. abstention that permitted passage of a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel over settlements. For the past 35 years, every U.S. administration, including Obama himself in 2011, has protected Israel with the U.S. veto because such a Security Council resolution gives immense legal ammunition to every boycotter, anti-Semite, and zealous European prosecutor to penalize and punish Israelis. The Security Council just declared the territories legally Palestinian - without the Palestinians having to concede anything, let alone peace. What incentive do the Palestinians have to negotiate when they can get the terms - and territory - they seek handed to them for free if they hold out long enough? America has acquiesced to a declaration that, as a matter of international law, the Jewish state has no claim on the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, indeed the entire Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. They belong to Palestine. At the very least, Obama should have insisted that any reference to Jerusalem be dropped from the resolution or face a U.S. veto.