We were dismayed by the news that the United States is apparently undecided as to whether it will veto a resolution the Palestinians plan to have introduced at the UN Security Council providing for an arbitrary time frame in which Israel should withdraw from East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
To be sure, there are signs the Obama administration will try to redirect the thrust of the resolution, and it is not at all clear that the resolution would garner a majority on the Security Council, so a U.S. veto may not even be necessary to defeat the measure.
But it is disconcerting that the U.S. will not unequivocally commit to doing what has to be done to defeat an effort that upends the longstanding position of both the U.S. and Israel – namely, no Palestinian state unless it is the end result of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
U.S. uncertainty on this issue is something new. For the past six years President Obama has consistently deplored all Palestinian efforts to end-run negotiations in search of a UN-imposed agreement on Israel. He would regularly declare that peace could only come from negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, a process that would address the concerns of both sides.
But there is more to this than just a possible change of course for the president. An American retreat on what had been a core diplomatic principle would be a further indication to the Palestinians that there is no rush for them to return to negotiations since they likely will get what they want from Israel without having to make any concessions.
Far more important, it would send a message to the world, the Arab part of it in particular, that the United States, in seeking to pursue its own security interests, will taking a more casual approach to its alliance with Israel.
The truth is, despite all of the friction between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, when push came to shove at the UN this administration has always looked after Israel’s interests, at times single-handedly blocking efforts to paint Israel as an international outcast. So if the U.S. chose not back Israel in a UN showdown with the Palestinians this time around, it would be a very big deal indeed.