Amidst talk of what was once unthinkable, e.g., ‘Swedish model’ banking, the largest government spending bill in the history of the republic and a stock market that continues to slide, three specific headlines may have escaped your notice this week.

Together, they will beget other, bloodier ones that will have a far larger impact than any of the money stuff, though they will impact that too, even as they eclipse it in the headlines.

1) The Obama administration’s shameful dalliance with anti-Semitic thugs, under the auspices of the UN “Human Rights” Council (the name of which is about as accurate as the ‘Fairness Doctrine’). You’d be excused for missing the coverage. Obama’s State Department released the news Saturday at 7PM.  The Bush administration wisely chose not to join. Middle-of-the-road Colin Powell, when he headed State, pulled out in disgust from the UNHRC’s Durban Review Conference, the main focus of which was Israel-bashing. The article is about Durban II:

The preparatory committee is chaired by Libya. Vice chairs include Iran and Cuba, which does double duty as the committee ‘rapporteur’… The draft also calls “on states to develop, and where appropriate to incorporate, permissible limitations on the exercise of the right to freedom of expression into national legislation.” Yes, you read that right. The transparent purpose is to criminalize all criticism of Islam, a.k.a. “Islamophobia.” There is also a not-so-sly effort to extract reparations for the long-banned trans-Atlantic slave trade: States that “have not yet condemned, apologized and paid reparations” for the trade are urged “to do so at the earliest.” [Hmm... various Islamic countries (e.g., Darfur in Sudan) hold slaves now... I wonder why that is not mentioned?] The Obama Administration knows all of this. [Nonetheless, it is sending a delegation to Geneva.]

Why is this important? Obama is beginning to show his cards as someone who, at best, has a worldview of moral equivalence when it comes to Israel and its enemies and at worst is actively behind them.

2) The likely formation of a stable, solidly right-leaning government in Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu after far-right, ‘ultra-nationalist’ leader Avigdor Lieberman threw his weight behind Netanyahu on Thursday. Almost simultaneously, Shimon Peres (once moderate to dovish) admitted he had been wrong to be soft on Gaza in the past, and explained why.

I don’t have time to unpack what right-leaning implies in this context, to dig for all of the links to this that I have skimmed this week, or to speculate about the myriad possibilities this creates. I’ll try to back-fill over the weekend if I have time.

Suffice it to say, without judgment, that in the last 36 hours, events have conspired to push Israel as far off center in one direction as Obama appears to have gone in the other.

3) The Obama administration sent John Kerry to Gaza yesterday to assure Hamas terrorists that we like them and that they don’t have to fear the bad old U.S.A. that was headed by that mean man George Bush.

“This is part of a new era regarding Hamas in the international community,” said Mushir al-Massri, a Hamas spokesman and parliament member, speaking from Gaza.

[Note what is conspicuously absent: any assurances, even pro forma ones, that Hamas' murderous tactics or its goal of eliminating Israel have changed or will be likely to.]

Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, yesterday became the most senior U.S. government official to enter Gaza since 2000.

To sum up:

1. Obama cozies up in the dark of night while nobody is watching, to the arch-enemies of the U.S., Israel and, frankly, all that Western Civilization has held dear for centuries.
2. Israel understandably girds its loins now that it has no ally in us, or any other nation. (I find it hard not to credit the thought that Israeli voters took that into account last week. Those with nothing to lose tend to bet big.)
3. Obama actively courts favor with, and tacitly validates an unrepentant terrorist group.

The U.S.’ about-face on Israel was predictable. Still, it is staggering to see the sad, sick, sorry details begin to play out. (Some may still believe the head-fake of the campaign. It’s called dissembling.) If you are still in the moral equivalence camp based on Israeli overreaching, I urge you to take a long, hard look at the history of the region from a variety of different sources.

I continue to be amazed by the degree to which well-read, left-leaning friends (most notably but not exclusively the Jewish ones) have absolutely no knowledge of any of these developments and no sense of their strategic significance, much less any hint of their apocalyptic significance. I remain stunned at how many of them still imagine Obama as somehow sympathetic to the national lifeboat that rescued their parents and grandparents from Hitler’s Holocaust.