The American inability to fashion a consensus on this issue among its closest allies, much less on the world stage, stands in stark contrast to the role Washington had been able to play only two decades ago. One recalls the unarguably impressive performance of George H. W. Bush in 1990 in constructing a U.N.-backed international alliance, including the Arab League, for the purpose of the Gulf War. In part, the failure derives from declining economic and political clout. The U.S. economy is only 20 percent of the world gross domestic product now, down from 25 percent in 1990 (and down from 50 percent in 1945), and America has powerful new economic challengers such as China, which could overtake it in a decade.
But in large part, Washington’s current difficulties derive from adopting a position contrary to international law and to basic human decency. Israel’s creeping annexation of the West Bank looks suspiciously like Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait—both being land-grabs that violate the United Nations Charter, Article 2.4. The stateless Palestinians ultimately have no individual rights. No national courts uphold their property deeds or rights to resources such as water. At least if they are recognized by the vast majority of U.N. member states, the Palestinians may gain the standing to sue in national and international courts to stop the ongoing torts being committed against them by the Israeli settler-industrial complex. In standing against this attempt to right an epochal historical wrong to an entire people, Obama puts the United States on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of world opinion. Neither is likely to forgive him.
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