The Biden Administration May Compromise America’s Veto Power at the UN

Today, the United States co-sponsored a UN General Assembly resolution that may weaken the force of its veto on the Security Council. Elliott Abrams argues that this seemingly innocuous measure is intended to be the first step toward either abolishing permanent Security Council members’ veto power altogether or granting the General Assembly the authority to override a veto.

A moment’s thought shows how damaging this might be to U.S. interests. The United States is a global power that has been involved in military activities repeatedly. Without our veto power, the Security Council could do literally anything: subject American troops to International Criminal Court jurisdiction; subject the United States to new international treaties or agreements that impose standards to which we object and outlaw military activities we consider vital to our national security; and outside the area of national security, adopt standards relating to parents, children, family law, and gender rules that we find objectionable, or impose rules against “insults to religion” that clearly violate the First Amendment. Without the veto there is simply no way to protect against limitless actions against our national interest.

Moreover, the long list of U.S. vetoes of resolutions reflects the terrible, long-lasting bias of the United Nations against Israel. . . . The United States has used its veto in the UN Security Council fourteen times since 2000, and twelve of those fourteen were exercised to protect Israel from biased and destructive resolutions. . . . . Of course those who specialize in attacking Israel, and U.S. support for Israel, want the veto eliminated—and that is another very good explanation of why it must be maintained. Delegitimizing the veto is a step toward delegitimizing Israel.

Read more at Pressure Points

More about: Joseph Biden, United Nations, US-Israel relations

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society