Anti-American UN General Assembly vote presents Trump an opportunity to turn a loss into a win

Legal Insurrection

"Shrink the size of the UN bureaucracy, and undo Obama’s legacy of leveraging the UN against America and Israel."

. . . "Needless to say, the Palestinian leadership, which funnels an enormous percentage of its budget to paying rewards to terrorists and their families, declared it a big victory:

“The vote is a victory for Palestine,” said Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah. “We will continue our efforts in the United Nations and at all international forums to put an end to this occupation and to establish our Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.”

"Anti-Israel extremist group “Jewish Voice for Peace” portrayed it as a loss for Trump’s alleged evangelical Christian base:

The number of countries that voted with Palestine today affirms that a U.S. foreign policy designed to bolster Trump’s donors and evangelical Christian base will only serve to further isolate both the U.S. and Israel and inspire a global movement to realize Palestinian rights.

"A more sober view is that while it was a loss for the U.S. and Trump, it wasn’t as big a loss as Israel usually received in the General Assembly. Raphael Ahrens at The Times of Israel writes, Why Israel’s massive defeat at the UN isn’t quite as bad as it looks:

In Israeli diplomacy, everything is relative.

Was the outcome of Thursday’s vote at the United Nations General Assembly on the status of Jerusalem a stinging loss or a surprising success for Israel? Depends on how you look at it. But it certainly wasn’t as bad as many expected.

Palestinian officials, naturally, emphasized the fact that there were a whopping 128 yays and only 9 nays….

Israeli officials, however, chose to look at the other side of the coin, focusing on those that countries that did not support the resolution….

The fact that a total of 65 nations did not actively vote against US President Donald Trump’s December 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and his announced intention to move the US embassy to the holy city was “hugely significant,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nachshon cheered.

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