Israel resolution adds to record of US policy failure

President Obama’s UN move will have far-reaching consequences.

Barack Obama’s parting shot in countermanding four decades of bipartisan US support for Israel at the UN brings him no credit and will do nothing to help what slim prospects there are for a resumption of peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

His action has been attributed to personal pique, a desire to get even with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before he leaves the Oval Office. But his historic decision to abandon the defence of Israel at the UN Security Council is also, as The Wall Street Journal has pointed out, one of the most significant moments of the Obama presidency and one likely to have far-reaching consequences.

In his rage over Washington’s failure to cast its usual veto to block a resolution severely criticising Israel’s settlements policy as “a flagrant violation of international law”, Mr Netanyahu has lashed out at what he terms a “shameful ambush”. It would be hard to disagree. In the past, through successive Democratic and Republican administrations, Washington has been steadfast in vetoing such extremist resolutions.

Five years ago, when an almost identical resolution was proposed, Mr Obama had no difficulty using the veto. This time he told his representatives to abstain, allowing a resolution to be passed by the Security Council 14-0 that is certain to provide a major boost for the powerful, global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. In providing, for the first time, the world body’s imprimatur for the contention that Jewish settlements are an obstacle to peace and a “violation of international law”, the resolution will also establish a significant stumbling block to negotiations while doing nothing to stop Israeli settlement building.

The Palestinians have long made it clear they see the course to statehood through the UN rather than making the concessions needed in direct bilateral negotiations with Israel.

Mr Obama has been shortsighted. So, too, have countries such as New Zealand, incomprehensibly a co-sponsor of the UN resolution and one of 10 nations from which Mr Netanyahu has angrily withdrawn his ambassadors over their host country’s failure to defeat the vote. Israel’s opposition politicians agree with Mr Netanyanhu, describing the resolution as “dangerous and harmful”. So do powerful elements within the Democratic Party.

Mr Obama’s UN ambassador, Samantha Power, made a good point when, in explaining the US’s abstention, she said that while the world body was targeting Israel, it had done precious little about the appalling slaughter in Aleppo and elsewhere. The criticism should apply to her boss: his withdrawal of Washingon’s longstanding defence of Israel at the UN adds a far-reaching dimension to eight years of lamentable, profoundly costly and unremitting policy failure by his administration in the Middle East. They are failures of leadership Donald Trump must lose no time in fixing.