I’m 51 years old. I’ve had a reasonably good education. I’m no genius, but I’m smarter than the average bear.

And I will freely admit I haven’t had a firm grasp on the fuss about Israel and her borders. Like many, I have had a vague understanding of it, mostly boiling down to “They’re surrounded by people who want to kill them. They’re the only western democracy in a sea of anti-western sh*tholes. I’m with them.”

Here’s your fix. It’s part of a larger article editorial at NRO I heartily recommend, Obama’s Shameful Parting Shot at Israel, but here’s your pull quote:

In short, the lines informally agreed upon when Israel became a country were never made formal and they’ve been fighting about it ever since. What’s not said here is what I heard Charles Krauthammer say on Fox last night. It really captures the insidious evil of what Obama just engineered at the United Nations Security Council on Friday, December 23rd:

To give you an idea of how appalling this resolution is, it declares that any Jew who lives in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem, the Jewish quarter, inhabited for 1,000 years, is illegal, breaking international law, essentially an outlaw, can be hauled into the international criminal court and international courts in Europe, which is one of the consequences. The Jewish quarter has been populated by Jews for 1,000 years. In the war of Independence in 1948, the Arabs invaded Israel to wipe it out. They did not succeed, but the Arab Legion succeeded in conquering the Jewish quarter. They expelled all the Jews. They destroyed all the synagogues and all the homes. For 19 years, no Jew could go there. The Israelis got it back in the Six-Day War. Now it’s declared that this is not Jewish territory. Remember, it’s called “the Jewish quarter,” but it belongs to other people. And any Jew who lives there is an outlaw. That’s exactly what we supported. The resolution is explicit in saying settlements in the occupied territories and in east Jerusalem.

It’s worth reading the entire text of Krauthammer’s Take: Abstention on Anti-Israel Vote a Disgrace: ‘U.S. Joined the Jackals at the U.N.’  here.

There. Now if you encounter someone over the holidays who says, “Isn’t that awful what Obama did at the U.N. the other day?” you’ll be able to do something other than, “Oh! I see your drink needs refilling. Can I get you another?”

⇒ Exit Question: If Obama were a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, what would he have done differently?

I’ve long said if he isn’t technically Muslim (I actually believe Obama’s only true God is himself) he’s at least functionally Muslim. Let’s remember: he was raised until 10 in Indonesia, where he attended a Muslim school – those are critically formative years.  Then from 10 to 18 was mentored by the (literal!) card-carrying Communist Frank Marshall Davis at the behest of his white grandfather in Hawaii, who felt he needed a black male “role model.” This guy didn’t live in the lower-48 until he went to college at 18, having spent half his life in Muslim Indonesia and the other half in a state-still-with-that-new-car-smell tropical paradise in the middle of the Pacific. He did not marinade in mom, the flag, and apple pie. White picket fences and 4th of July parades did not become “normal” for him until he was 18. Think about it…