BloggeRhythms

This is an especial occasion for those of Christian and Jewish persuasion whereas it’s the first time in nearly 40 years, that the first night of Hanukkah fell on Christmas Eve.
 
And while those of both faiths were celebrating happily, observing seasonal traditions, exchanging gifts and extending their good will towards one another, Obama delivered the people of Israel a gift of his own.

For the first time ever, the U.S. broke with past practice by allowing the U.N. Security Council to condemn Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as a "flagrant violation" of international law.

Though opposing the settlements, rather than using U.S. Security Council veto power the U.S. has always said in the past that the disputes between Israel and the Palestinians must be resolved through negotiations. 

According to the Associated Press @ap.org/dynamic/stories yesterday, the veto was welcomed by the Palestinians, and although mostly symbolic, could hinder Israel's negotiating position in future peace talks. 

Trump condemned the U.N. vote by tweeting yesterday: “it will make it much harder to negotiate peace.” But, "we will get it done anyway." 

Israel’s Netanyahu said the U.S abstention was "in complete contrast" to U.S. commitments - including one that he said Obama made in 2011 - not to impose conditions for a final agreement on Israel at the Security Council. "The Obama administration conducted a shameful anti-Israel ambush at the U.N." 

While the White House declined to comment on Netanyahu's criticism, Netanyahu said: “The decision to abstain from vote was one of the biggest American rebukes of its long-standing ally in recent memory and marked a final chapter in the icy relations between Netanyahu and Obama over the last eight years.” 

Netanyahu went on to relate that he’d spoken with U.S leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, who vowed to fight the move, including he said, from Israel's "friend" in the incoming administration, the president-elect. 

Although the situation itself is quite remarkable, because of its break with the long-standing U.S./Israeli partnership and the major harm being done to it, there are other much closer, negative ramifications taking place. And they are primarily political in nature. 

In the overall, when Obama took office in 2009, Democrats had an effective 58-seat majority in the Senate, held 256 seats in the House along with 28 governorships. 

Since then, in 2010 they lost the House and the majority of governorships, and after Obama’s re-election, lost control of the Senate in 2014 and now control of the White House as well.

All told, under Obama Democrats have lost 63 House seats, 10 Senate seats and 12 governorships. 

What’s similarly interesting is that while Clinton lost the last election, she won the popular vote by at least 1.23 million, with Californians alone delivering 3.1 million votes. 

If you removed those California’s votes from the total, Trump would have beaten her in the popular vote 57,760,819 to 55,889,446. 

New York was similar where Clinton had a 1.5 million vote margin and Illinois where Clinton’s lead was 909,412 . 

Therefore, the statistics show that New York, California and Illinois are not only critically important to Democrats, but if the electoral college were eliminated, Democrat election wins would almost virtually be forever ensured. 

At the same time, and in line with today’s subject of the anti-Israeli U.N. vote, 2,064,300 Jews reside in the New York City area, Los Angeles is home to 617,480, and Chicago’s count is 294,280 more. 

The total comes to 2,976,060 American Jews, most of whom typically vote Democrat, and now have seen Israel “backstabbed” for the very first time in the U.N. as Obama's parting shot toward them.  

Add to that, Obama’s longtime pastor at Chicago’s Trinity United Church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and his support for the anti-Semitic “March to Jerusalem” at the end of March 2012.  

And then in 2014, John Kerry’s wife Teresa Heinz being caught donating $50,000 to the “Conflict Kitchen,’ a Pittsburgh, soup kitchen serving food on an anti-Zionism platform.

Obama’s also influenced by top aide, Valerie Jarrett who was born in Shiraz, Iran to American parents coming to the U.S. at age 5 in 1962, while Clinton’s compatriot Huma Abedin is the daughter of an Indian father and a Pakistani mother who was raised in Saudi Arabia and identifies as a practicing Muslim. 

And lastly, is the factor that, as remarked on by Newt Gingrich on Thursday, “What you're watching is a man who realizes all of a sudden that like 90 percent of his legacy's gonna disappear because he didn't do the hard work of passing legislation. He didn't reach out to work with the other side. Starting the opening day when Trump begins to repeal all these executive orders, it's gonna be like one of those balloons that deflates...and down to a core to 10 or 15 percent of what he originally did. The rest is all gonna disappear within a year."

Thus, putting all this together, after the elections in November, the Democrat party’s been decimated at every level nationwide due to Obama’s performance in office. The only remaining glimpse of hope for them being the enormous support found in the major city’s, primarily New York, LA and Chicago, all three combining to house the largest contingent of Jews in America. 

Yet, for what can only be assumed to be allegiance toward supporters closest to him, such as those noted above, the U.S. has now voted against Israel for the first time ever in the U.N.

Leaving the decision regarding the rationale to readers to determine for themselves, does it really appear that the benefits to the U.S. or the rest of the Middle-East, drove Obama to abandon Israel in the U.N., or was it something else of a far more personal nature?  
 
That's it for today folks. 

Adios