American Footprints

If, as a nation state, you find yourself casting about for a trustworthy United Nations ally to back your position on human rights, and your current raft of policies are of such a quality that China becomes the logical go-to partner, rather than pursue such a partnership with China on matters of human rights, perhaps you should reassess the policies that make such a union so attractive.  Especially when China’s penchant to intercede on behalf of North Korea and Iran are cited as evidence that you, too, can gain shelter under China’s umbrella.  Matt Yglesias opines:

Even very hawkish Israelis who don’t care at all about the welfare of Arabs do care about helping Israel to avoid international isolation. Israel’s not North Korea or Burma. Its citizens want to participate in robust social, cultural and economic ties for the world. This makes it a problem to do things like totally blow off the Goldstone Report.

Caroline Glick (a Senior Fellow at Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy and a frequent contributor to NRO), writing in the Jerusalem Post, has what she thinks is the solution to this a Sino-Israeli alliance against international human rights norms:

America’s behavior towards the UN today should serve as a reminder to Israel that we mustn’t put all our diplomatic eggs in America’s basket. If we wish to neutralize the threat the UN-based international community poses to our national interests, we must expand our international alliances.

In our efforts we have a potential ally in China. One of Beijing’s abiding positions is that it opposes UN sanctions on individual states. In the Chinese view, such sanctions diminish national rights to sovereignty. It is on the basis of this claim that China has justified opposing sanctions against rogue states like Iran and North Korea.

Israel should make the case to the Chinese that China should back Israel in international institutions, by among other things vetoing UN Security Council resolutions against Israel. If in defense of the principle of sovereignty China is willing to block sanctions against Iran and North Korea, then surely Beijing should be willing to take the far more benign step of supporting Israel.

Or, you know, you could work to make your human rights record less like states that need to turn to China for support on matters of human rights.  Just sayin’.

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2. The Threatening Storm, Part II
3. MC’s Should Know their Limitations
4. A Century of Fakers
5. I’m on the Edge of Something Shattering
6. I’ll Tell Them Anything at All, I Know I’ll Give Them More and More
7. Guest Post – China’s N-Reactor Sale: Will U.S. Protect Nonproliferation Regime?