John Bolton: Obama Dropped Ball on U.N. Palestine Vote

Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton says Obama could have stopped the U.N. vote to grant statehood to Palestine, but he didn’t take it seriously. 

As a result, Palestine now enjoys an elevated status in the eyes of the U.N. and internationalists everywhere, and they are in a position to start to use the leverage of statehood in their war against Israel.

Bolton says they will most likely use this leverage by “[exceeding] to the International Criminal Court Treaty to engage in ‘lawfare’ against Israel.”

Bolton also made it clear that we need to avoid the trap of thinking the statehood of Palestine is the result of a failure “in the past couple of weeks.” Rather, this is indicative “of an ongoing failure in the Obama administration to take this issue seriously.” 

He says this lack of seriousness was demonstrated clearly last October, when “the Palestinian Authority was made a member of the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), when it never should have been.”

Bolton believes there will now be serious calls for de-funding the U.N. by men like Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and others.