Secretary Global-Test's final sprint toward a legacy of evil

The arrogance, the West-hatred and the ignorance of history's lessons in his speech about Israel yesterday were absolutely breathtaking.

Lots of talk about "settlement activity" (residential construction) and how Israeli politics have been given over to "right-wing extremism," but not a word about the 1967 or 1973 wars or their causes, not a word about the intifadas or the barrages of rockets into southern Israel since Israel gave Gaza to Hamas, not a a word about the maps in Palestinian classrooms on which the nation-state of Israel is absent, not a word about the town squares in Judea and Samaria named after "martyred" terrorists.

And the lecturing tone was rich indeed, particularly as manifested in the statement that if there is no two-state solution, Israel will have to decide between democracy and a Jewish identity.

Andrew McCarthy schools Global-Test on two fairly recent acts of participation by his own State Department in the crafting of documents that are predicated on nation-states being able to assume both democratic status and a religious identity:

I thought it might be interesting, then, to review the Constitution of Afghanistan, which the State Department had a major role in drafting. Here are Articles One through Three:

Article One: Afghanistan shall be an Islamic Republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state.

Article Two: The sacred religion of Islam is the religion of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Followers of other faiths shall be free within the bounds of law in the exercise and performance of their religious rituals.

Article Three: No law shall contravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion of Islam in Afghanistan.

Then there’s Article Six:

The state shall be obligated to create a prosperous and progressive society based on social justice, preservation of human dignity, protection of human rights, realization of democracy, attainment of national unity as well as equality between all peoples and tribes and balance development of all areas of the country. [Emphasis added.]

A “progressive society based on social justice” that is both Islamic and democratic? According to the State Department, no problem.

Then there is the Constitution of Iraq, the drafting of which the State Department similarly oversaw. Its preamble and first article assert that the nation is “looking with confidence to the future through a republican, federal, democratic, pluralistic system,” and that the Republic of Iraq’s “system of government is republican, representative, Parliamentary, and democratic.” There follows Article 2:

First: Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a fundamental source of legislation:

A. No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.

B. No law that contradicts the principles of democracy may be established.

C. No law that contradicts the rights and basic freedoms stipulated in this constitution may be established.

Second: This Constitution guarantees the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and guarantees the full religious rights of all individuals to freedom of religious belief and practice such as Christians, Yazedis, and Mandi Sabeans.

Note that second clause carefully. It assures that Iraq will maintain its Islamic identity no matter what. It further reaffirms that, when it comes to an Islamic country, the State Department believes a country can be fiercely Muslim in character, yet be a democratic republic that respects the rights of religious minorities.

Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute lays all the areas in which the premise of Global-Test's speech is wrong, wrong, wrong:

 Intransigence: Who is holding up peace? After long and careful negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority brokered by the United States and the broader international community, Israeli leaders offered their Palestinian counterparts peace deals in 2000 and 2008. Both the late Palestinian chairman Yasser Arafat and his successor Mahmoud Abbas rejected the offers and walked away, without offering a counter proposal. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu froze settlement construction upon Obama’s request, Abbas again refused for nine months to even talk to the Israelis.

Diplomacy: The Palestinian Authority was created as a result of the Oslo Accords. By walking away from that agreement, both in terms rejecting terrorism and acting unilaterally, the Palestinian Authority have done away with the foundational document which legalizes their existence. By acquiescing to unilateral Palestinian actions and revising the basis of Palestinian-Israeli peace, Kerry has shown that U.S. diplomacy and commitments can never be trusted.

Law: The West Bank and Jerusalem are technically disputed territories, rather than occupied Palestinian land. That is why the Oslo Accords called for bilateral negotiations. While Kerry talks about the “1967 lines,” he means the 1949 Armistice lines. (When complaining about Israeli resorts on the Dead Sea, Kerry appears not to realize the 1949 Armistice lines make Israel littoral to the Dead Sea). This reflects ignorance among diplomats rising to the very top. Kerry is also confused about settlements. If it is illegal to build on disputed land, then all building, be it by Israelis or Palestinians, should be treated similarly. To suggest Jews cannot live in disputed land, as Kerry does, is akin to supporting religious apartheid. Kerry’s notion of mutuality when it comes to “natural growth” is bizarre. Israel is a sovereign state. The Palestinians are not.

Demography: Underlying Kerry’s argument is that peace is necessary to keep Israel Jewish and democratic. To support this argument, Kerry appears to be relying on a false understanding of Palestinian demography. The numbers he appear to rely on are false: The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics double-counts Arabs in Jerusalem, continues to count emigrants, and regularly adjusts its counts across censuses to confirm to the Palestinian Authority’s arguments. Kerry also appears not to recognize that Israel does not occupy the Gaza Strip. And while Kerry is talking Gaza and its plight, remember how much better off it is than so many other places: Turkey, Bosnia, and Brazil, for example.

Context: Neither Obama nor Kerry are students of history. With last week’s U.N. Security Council Resolution 2234, Obama and Kerry for the first time have denied Israel’s rights to the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site. Kerry appears unaware that Jordan — which occupied the Old City of Jerusalem but whose possession was not internationally recognized — had blown up synagogues and religiously cleansed the city. What Obama and Kerry do is legitimize this.

Motivation for terrorism: Is terrorism caused by the Israel-Palestinian conflict? If so, why did the U.S. intelligence community identify Islamist ideology as motivating terrorism a year before the partition of Palestine and two years before Israel’s independence?

U.S. credibility: Everyone can see what a final agreement looks like — both Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush helped negotiate it. Why can’t we impose that and just offer guarantees? Here’s the problem: It’s hard to talk about the ability of any state in the region to trust American security guarantees or red lines given Obama and Kerry’s reversal on the Syria chemical weapons red line.

We have seen, with the Most Equal Comrade's Christmas-week imposition of yet more coal-industry regs, his use of an obscure sentence in a 1953 law about offshore and outer continental shelf drilling to put large quantities of Arctic oil off-limits, and then Samantha Power's abstaining from a vote on the UN's vile condemnation of Israel, and now this speech by G-T, that this regime is on a hyper-drive damage spree in its remaining days.

These people hate America, Western civilization, human advancement and God.