Matt Yglesias

Is Mary Robinson Bad for the Jews?

Mary Robinson has had a long and interesting career. As the White House press office noted when explaining Barack Obama’s decision to grant her a Presidential Medal of Freedom:

Mary Robinson was the first female President of Ireland (1990 – 1997) and a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997 – 2002), a post that required her to end her presidency four months early. Robinson served as a prominent member of the Irish Senate prior to her election as President. She continues to bring attention to international issues as Honorary President of Oxfam International, and Chairs the Board of Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI Alliance). Since 2002 she has been President of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, based in New York, which is an organization she founded to make human rights the compass which charts a course for globalization that is fair, just and benefits all.

Naturally, Abe Foxman sees an insidious plot against the Jewish people:

Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, today issued a statement saying that Robinson has “anti-Israel bias” and calling the decision to bestow America’s highest civilian honor upon Robinson as an agent of change “ill-advised.”

James Besser explains the case, such as it is, against Robinson. You see, back in 2001:

Robinson didn’t support the anti-Semitic outbursts at Durban, but a credible case can be made that she didn’t do enough to prevent them – or speak up loudly enough after the debacle.

I think it takes a pretty serious case of narcissism to reach the conclusion that this bill of particulars ought to outweigh a person’s entire career.

My sense is that what’s really going on here is the same as what’s happening with pro-Israel groups’ years-long campaign against Human Rights Watch. It’s simply not possible to do a credible job of international human rights monitoring without criticizing Israeli behavior now and again. Exercising sovereign authority over the lives of millions of stateless persons is a human rights fiasco waiting to happen. But a lot of Jewish organizations in the United States seem to take the view that because Israel’s human rights record is better than, say, Sudan’s (and it sure is better) that any criticism of Israel amounts to anti-Israel bias.

Everything Working as it Should

The blog is mostly to criticize, but for a moment let’s offer some praise. The UN Security Council has voted to authorize a multinational military mission to try to bring the Somalia piracy situation under control. And it seems the mission is going to be led by China. And it seems that rather than freaking out, the US Navy is happy to see the spirit of international cooperation at work. Good job all around! This is international relations and international security at its best.

Now if only we hadn’t screwed Somalia up in the first place….

Bolton v. Rice

The new regime in Washington is leading to an unprecedented flowering of political power for men with mustaches, so you might think John Bolton would be happy. On the other hand, his views on foreign policy are so nutty that even George Bush doesn’t find them credible. But as Ben Armbuster observes, plenty of media outlets can think of no better person than Bolton to provide commentary on Susan Rice’s elevation to the post of UN Ambassador and the President-Elect’s decision to restore that post to cabinet rank.

For the record, media figures looking to cite non-dead, non-crazy former UN Ambassadors might want to look up the following:

1. Thomas Pickering
2. Edward Perkins
3. Madeleine Albright
4. Bill Richardson
5. Richard Holbrooke
6. John Negroponte
7. John Danforth
8. Zalmay Khalilzad

I’m sure any of those individuals might have some interesting perspective to share on the nature of the job and the role of the United Nations in American foreign policy.

Cabinet Rank

Some people I know were less-than-thrilled to hear that Susan Rice would be heading to New York as our UN Ambassador since they would have rather seen her take a post in DC where she could help ensure that the Gates/Jones/Clinton “team of rivals” doesn’t manage to lock out all of the younger longtime Obama supporters from midcareer posts in the national security bureaucracy. But at the same time, folks I know who work on UN issues were thrilled for what amounts to the same reason — Rice has a longstanding relationship with the President-Elect and sending a close adviser to Turtle Bay signals an intention to upgrade the priority given to that suite of issues. It also makes it much more likely that our UN Ambassador will be able to get the White House’s attention than was the case in the Bush years.

Today’s New York Times mini-profile on Rice indicates that Obama intends to formalize this hoped-up elevation of the priority of UN issues by restoring the UN Ambassador post to its “cabinet rank” status. Since no modern president actually governs via cabinet meetings, the practical upshot of these “rank” decisions isn’t huge, but it’s an important tool presidents use to signal their priorities and I think it’s certainly a step in the right direction.