You know those bets that you wish you had lost? Just a few weeks ago, popping canapés at the social function of mutual friends, a senior Israeli official and I together contemplated the twilight of the Obama Administration. My interlocutor, a man who has logged innumerable face-time hours with Prime Minister Netanyahu, asserted confidently that there would be no concluding shot across Israel’s bow before Donald Trump was inaugurated. Respectfully disagreeing, I countered that the rancor of the past eight years would likely spark Team Obama, now freed of its electoral shackles, to somehow air its gut feelings on core disputes with Israel. Let’s just say that last weekend’s drama at the United Nations has given new credence to my children’s refrain that their father “may not be as stupid as he looks.”

For many long-time students and practitioners of the Israeli-American relationship, myself included, the U.S. abstention on UNSC resolution 2334—with its demand that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory”—did not come as a shock. This stands completely detached from my view on whether the move was sensible or productive; it was neither, but more on that later.President Obama has never left any room for speculation about his attitude toward Israeli settlement in areas contested by the Palestinians: He sees them as the destructive linchpin of his peace efforts. A mere two days after being sworn-in, he personally joined Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the State Department to announce the appointment of former senator George Mitchell as envoy to the region. No ambiguity here: This was same Mitchell whose 2001 Sharm El-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee had called on the Israeli government to “freeze all settlement activity, including the ‘natural growth’ of existing settlements.”

Read the full article at The American Interest.