Our policies toward Israel are pretty messed up. Unlike the reciprocal relations we have with pretty much every other country, Israel pretty much calls the tune. We have tremendous potential leverage with Israel, but no practical leverage because of the nature of our politics.
The Palestinians have said they are going to apply to become a member of the UN. Israel, of course, is against this. This means that we are, of course, against this. Just about any OTHER ethnic/national minority in the world, and we would be sympathetic. Southern Sudan? East Timor? Kosovo? Sign us up! Palestine? Not so much.
Israel has gone from being plucky underdog to regional bully. And they are a bully who survives not only because of their own strength - which is considerable - but because of their somewhat one sided relationship with the US. One of the reasons the Neo-Cons wanted to invade Iraq was because of Saddam's sponsorship of Palestinian terrorists. You can argue the only people who benefitted from our invasion were the Iranians and the Likud Party.
Israel will never have peace without a Palestinian state. It simply won't happen. And that won't happen, because we won't force Israel to make necessary concessions.
And so, the US will use its veto power - not to extract concessions from Netanyahu's intransigent government - but to prevent Palestine from getting a seat in an International Debate Society.
Given the changes in Egypt, this is not going to make things easy for us or for Israel with the one nation that could conceivably harm Israel. There will be no restraint from the new Egyptian leadership. The leader of Al Qaeda is, of course, Egyptian.
This is not a smart move for the US. But we will make it anyway.
And because the GOP won a relatively safe Democratic seat on Long Island, at least in part because of Israel-related issues, any spine that Obama showed at times towards Netanyahu will quickly melt away.
Lather, Rinse the blood out, Repeat
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