Zbigniew Brzezinski: US, Israel Should Have Voted For Palestinian Statehood

It's hardly a surprise, coming from the man who counseled the United States to shoot down Israeli planes should they seek to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.  But just for the record, Zbigniew Brzezinski has opined that the US and, yes, Israel itself, should have voted in favor of last week's UN resolution granting “non-member observer statehood” to Palestinians living in the West Bank of Israel.

Brzezinski stated his view on today's Morning Joe.  He did say something that was probably true, when expressing skepticism that, despite their public utterances, President Obama and Susan Rice truly opposed the resolution.  Brzezinski suggested their opposition was more a matter of going along with "a line," done for domestic political purposes. View the video after the jump.

Watch Brzezinksi's lastest anti-Israel broadside.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: You've written in Foreign Policy an article on foreign policy, where you're talking about how the President seizes the initiative back. How does he do it in this case where obviously he believes, Susan Rice said she believed, that this was actually a step back for peace, having this vote for the Palestinians?

ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: Well, first of all, that's a question of judgment whether they really believed it or not, but they went along with the line. And that line was probably domestically more popular, and certainly more popular with certain influential people in Congress.

SCARBOROUGH: You disagreed with that?

BRZEZINSKI: Yes I do, because I don't think it really makes that much difference. I think it would have been much smarter as someone did propose, I think, I forget who said that but someone very prominent said he wished both Israel and the United States had voted for it. It would have been far more  effective. In fact it wouldn't have altered the outcome but it would have given a totally different spin. This way we now find Israel defying the UN by adopting certain steps on the settlements and then the European allies reacting strongly. I think Israel is more isolated today than ever before. Not to mention the vote which was, you know, 188 and only eight against it.

Mark Finkelstein
Mark Finkelstein is a contributing editor for NewsBusters.