Do We Own the Decision?

America entered into a frantic race with Israel to reject Palestine’s acceptance into UNESCO as a full member; in this race to rejection, America has far surpassed Israel. The White House statement that Palestine’s acceptance would damage the peace process and impact the future of the region doesn’t just mock the memories of the entire world, but also the memory of the White House itself. President Obama and his administration — backed by the European Union, internally divided over the process of voting and the Quartet on the Middle East — have failed to force Netanyahu to take a single serious step toward peace, or even to stop the settlement movement. The president has forgotten all his pledges and promises, retreating from his repeatedly-stated hopes to establish a Palestinian state in November of the present year with strange ease, twisting himself around so as to flip his administration’s position into a total rejection of Palestine’s admittance into one of the U.N. organizations. And this even though the membership has no tangible meaning other than as a moral victory.

The U.S. government overstepped its bounds even further when it spasmodically announced that it would cease funding to UNESCO as a penalty. America’s position does more to harm itself than it does to help Israel. Voices inside of America have demanded that it reverse this decision, which is based on legislation passed in the 1990s banning the funding of any organization that accepts Palestine as a member. These people are eager for America to retain its authority and fear that America could lose its influence on the states of the United Nations, as well as its role in job creation, investment and the imposition of global security and peace policies.

It’s clear that Congress is a faithful servant of Israeli interests. When this legislation was proposed all they considered was Israel’s interest, pushing aside America’s own interests, reputation and stature.

It’s clear that President Barack Obama and his administration, when they rushed to reject UNESCO’s decision and withdraw funding, were connecting their interests to those of Israel — especially since America’s elections are on the horizon, and Obama needs the votes of the Jews and their supporters to ensure he wins a second term.

And it’s clear that the American government does not attach much importance to the Arab states, despite its significant interests in their land; neither does it care about the votes of Arab-Americans.

This position leads us to some questions, the first of which seems to lead to the kind of pointless argument where neither side can win. It is an old question renewed: Who leads whom, and who controls whom? Does America lead its spoiled child, or is it the child, which lives off the American taxpayer, who dominates the world superpower? America’s position makes the answer clear, but the important question is how the Arabs will react to America’s contempt for them and their rights, whether they will cover the international organization’s financial deficit — whether they’re prepared to do so and whether they’re prepared for America’s arrogant response to their slaughter. But the bigger question is whether the Arab states possess the will to do so, especially given that the only reactions so far have been from the Jordanian parliament and the general secretary of the Arab League. And if they do possess it, do they own the decision?