Why Obama Will Ignore Israel
The last week of November 2012 was a
big one on the Israeli-Palestinian front. On the 65th anniversary of
the partition resolution that created a Jewish state, the United Nations
recognized a Palestinian one. Israel retaliated with the West Bank
equivalent of sequestration: announcing it would move toward building
settlements in an area east of Jerusalem called E1, which many observers
believe would kill the two-state solution. European governments
responded by threatening to withdraw their ambassadors.
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| As Palestinians protested Israeli settlement moves, the U.S. response was “half-assed,” one source said. (Abbas Momani / Getty Images-AFP) |
And
the United States? It mostly watched. In 2011, when the Palestinians
first sought a U.N. status upgrade, the Obama diplomatic corps lobbied
so hard against it that one State Department official joked that
“sometimes I feel like I work for the Israeli government.” This time, by
contrast, the U.S. largely went through the motions. It was
“half-assed,” observes a Middle East insider close to the
administration. “They didn’t really lobby hard ... [The attitude was] if
Israel ends up with a big embarrassment, who gives a s--t.”
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