The Washington Post today:

Diplomatic Efforts Unable to Derail Palestinians' UN Gambit

"Gambit" is the kind of word that seems intended to send a certain message--as if there some kind of sneaky maneuver at work here.  That's especially true when it is contrasted with "diplomatic efforts."

In this case, the paper is referring to efforts by superpowers (like the United States) to tell people with very little power (Palestinians) to pipe down.  Whatever you think of Palestinian efforts to elevate their  status at the United Nations, an alternate headline--"U.S. Gambits Unlikely to Derail Palestinians' Diplomatic Efforts"--is hard to imagine.

The New York Times has a curious reference today concerning the White House's strategy on a United Nations Security Council resolution critical of Israeli settlements:

 The new White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said Thursday that he would not say whether the United States would invoke its rarely used veto power in the Council.

The United States vetoes Security Council resolutions more often than any other country. (The Soviet Union once racked up an impressive record in a short amount of time, but since 1970 or so the United States has led by a wide margin.)

Many of those vetoes concern resolutions critical of Israel--by now, this is fairly well-known, well-documented phenomenon. 

Is it opposite day?

UPDATE:

Phyllis Bennis writes (AlterNet, 2/18/11):

In fact, the U.S. veto in the Security Council was consistent with a long and sordid history. As of 2009, fully half of the vetoes ever cast were to protect Israel from being held accountable in the UN for violations of international law and human rights. Another one-third were to protect racist regimes in southern Africa -- South Africa and pre-independence South-West Africa -- from the same accountability. Taken together, fully five out of six, or more than 80 percent of U.S. vetoes, have been cast to protect Washington’s allies accused of apartheid practices.

The U.S. has drawn up a new round of proposed sanctions against Iran that they intend to present before the U.N. Security Council. This is obviously a rebuke of Brazil and Turkey for negotiating their own deal with Iran. The Washington Post refers to the countries as "two junior Security Council members" that " swooped in with their own deal with Iran to forestall new penalties on the Islamic republic." 

Brazil and Turkey are unsurprisingly upset at the U.S. move, and the Post tells us (5/19/10) that this reaction is of some concern:

The reaction signified potential difficulties ahead in winning unanimous approval for the resolution. Three previous sanctions resolutions on Iran were approved without any "no" votes--usually, a draft agreement among the five permanent members of the council faces little opposition from the 10 rotating members--and anything less than that would represent a fracturing of international unity on Iran.

 "International unity" means the small group of powerful nations that want to pursue sanctions against Iran. What the rest of the world actually thinks about all of this is apparently irrelevant.

PBS's NewsHour's  Gwen Ifill (9/15/09), quizzing Richard Goldstone on his U.N. fact-finding mission that found that both Israel and Palestinian fighters had committed war crimes in the Gaza conflict:

The term "even-handed" is the problem that Israel has with the conclusions in the report. Your criticism of Israel seems so much harsher than that of the Palestinians. Why is that?

CBS News (9/9/09), summarizing a report by Israel's leading human rights group:

Well over half of nearly 1,400 Palestinians killed in Israel's Gaza war were civilians, including 252 children younger than 16, a leading Israeli human rights groups said Wednesday, challenging Israel's claim that most of the dead were militants.... The Israeli rights group B'Tselem on Wednesday published figures it said were compiled in months of research, including visits to families of victims. It said 1,387 Gazans were killed, including 773 civilians and 330 combatants. Thirteen Israelis also died, including four civilians.

So why would the U.N. be more interested in the war crimes that killed nearly 200 times as many people? Thanks to Ifill and the NewsHour for challenging this strange moral reasoning.