The Latest American Betrayal

As the late Yale professor and former State Department chief of staff Charles Hill wrote at the time: “The first thing Obama did when entering office was to derail all hopes for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement by declaring all settlements to be illegal. Now, the last thing he’s done is to enshrine that anti-Israel position into international law in language that can be followed up with sanctions to delegitimize Israel’s existence itself.”

That resolution made it impossible for any Palestinian leader ever to make concessions to Israel regarding Jerusalem or on so-called “settlement blocs,” for to do so would be ceding “stolen Palestinian lands.” And Obama knew full well that Israel would never agree to return the Kosel or transfer over 750,000 citizens, including 300,000 in new neighborhoods of Jerusalem, or to return to the pre-1967 “Auschwitz borders.” (Then–vice president Joe Biden personally lobbied Ukrainian president Petro Proroshenko not to withdraw Ukrainian sponsorship of the resolution, after Egypt did so at Trump’s request.)

I predicted at the time that UNSC Resolution 2334 would legitimize the BDS movement and its repercussions would be felt on every college campus. How true that has proven. In addition, it vindicated the strategy outlined by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, as outlined in a 2009 meeting with the Washington Post editorial board: Eschew direct negotiations with Israel and rely exclusively on American pressure on Israel.

The March 25 “Ramadan cease-fire” resolution, and the American failure to veto it, was not as malevolent. But it was plenty bad enough, and similarly vindicated Hamas’s longtime strategy. David Brooks, in a lengthy essay in the New York Times, quotes MIT professor Barry Posen, who describes Hamas’s strategy as “human ammunition.” In other words, “maximize the number of Palestinians who die, and in that way build international pressure until Israel is forced to end the war before Hamas is wiped out.” In short, Hamas’s survival depends on “making this war as bloody as possible for civilians.”