Brooklyn

I’m in New York, and the hotels are jammed with diplomats and bureaucrats associated with the U.N. General Assembly session, which opened yesterday. Overhearing various conversations at breakfast, I was reminded of John Bolton’s comment that "The secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference." In fact, it seems to me, the loss would be a considerable improvement. And in light of next week’s likely U.N. vote in favor of statehood for a terror-friendly Palestinian entity, surely Congress will want to reconsider the U.S. taxpayer money going to that august organization.

But New York is more than the hotels and boutiques of Manhattan. It’s also the fine citizens of Queens and Brooklyn. Last night, the voters in New York’s Ninth Congressional District, having supported candidate Obama in 2008 in part because they believed his assurances that he’d be a pro-Israel president, registered their disapproval of his policies. Bridge-and-tunnel New Yorkers, like most Americans, understand that the Obama administration’s efforts to distance the U.S. from Israel have done nothing but embolden Israel’s enemies. They don’t like that, and they’re right not to. They understand that weakening Israel weakens the U.S. as well.

Of course, the diplomats here in Manhattan understand that, too. The difference is, they approve of this result.

I’m stuck for the day in meetings in Manhattan. But in spirit, I’m in Brooklyn and Queens.