OBAMA'S LATEST LEGACY OP

ISRAEL'S OUTLAW STATUS NOW TEMPORARILY CONFIRMED? With but a few weeks left in his term, President Obama authorized the US's abstention from vote against a resolution brought in the UN Security Council ordering Israel to stop its illegal settlements in Palestinian territory. Israel's government immediately denounced the resolution, which is merely the first of many such attempts including in the wider General Assembly, which have so far been blocked by the US. So the question is why now? Obama had 8 years to do something substantive to erode Israel's progressive theft of Palestinian land. He could have initiated such resolutions himself, but more importantly, taken tangible action to stop aiding, abetting and arming Israel in its actions which he understood perfectly well were 'changing the reality on the ground' - negating any possibility of the universally supported 'two-state solution' by building highways, walls, security fences and otherwise stripping the disputed territories of all precious resources including water and arable land. Like predecessor Bush, Obama sent a shipload of weapons to Israel to commit genocide in Gaza. Netanyahu's position is on the record for several years - that 'there already is a Palestinian state - Jordan'. So why now this essentially symbolic resolution? Is it because Obama knows that the Palestinian state will die unborn, since Israel already has stolen more than 80% of Palestine? Or because he knows that his successor Trump is going to overturn this resolution as soon as he can, and proceed with more dramatic moves supporting Israel's thefts by moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem? Back in 2008, before his election to the White House, Obama had already (according to an Israeli journalist) 'broken all records for fawning' before the Jewish community in Florida, assuring them that Jerusalem would remain in Jewish hands, knowing perfectly well that without a share of Jerusalem (even without the 'Bantustanization' of the remaining 20% of Palestinian land) - there could be no viable Palestinian state. The Israeli government's response to this resolution of course shows its utter contempt for world opinion. After all, 'God promised Israel to the Jews'... Having benefited from the single super-power's help in just about every way from 1967 on, it knows it is safe, also possessing hundreds of nuclear weapons launchable from land, sea and air, and the latest conventional and biological/chemical weapons. The 'Christians' who settled America also believed it was the 'promised land', the 'New Zion'; so there is a logical consistency that American should aid and abet the settlement of the 'old' Zion. Some years ago, Naomi Klein described how Western states notably the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel, boycotted the Durban conferences because they raised real issues for example of theft of human capital (slavery) and compensation for them. All of these were 'settler-colonial' states, who not only stole countries and continents, but virtually eliminated local populations under various pretexts ('savages' - precursors of today's 'terrorists') and forcibly kidnapped millions of slaves. These 'real debts' cannot be recognized by the perpetrators, while comparatively fake debts of electronically printed money by the Federal Reserve, IMF and ECB are used to destroy nations such as Argentina, Greece and others through austerity programs. No austerity is needed for the US - the world's greatest debtor nation, in accordance with its own 'supreme outlaw' status. After the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Obama made a photo op to the Louisiana bayou to lecture oil companies who promised a cleanup. Once he left, the ships supposed to carry out the cleanup also did - replaced by airplanes that simply sprayed the oil slick with chemicals to break it up into smaller invisible pieces that are still destroying the Bayou's ecosystem. Like that photo op, this latest 'legacy op' at the UN, seems classic Obama.