Israeli Settlements - US Veto

Al Jazeera's top Political Analyst on the veto.

Three questions for Marwan Bishara - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

...
Moreover, settlements have been most damaging to the peace process, and its goal of a two states solution.

Since the start of this US-sponsored diplomatic process decades ago, the settlers have quadrupled in numbers from 75,000 to 300,000 scattered in about 200 settlements in the West Bank, and has doubled in cosmopolitan East Jerusalem, making it ever more improbable to separate Palestine from Israel, or establish a contiguous viable state.

Apart from the UN itself, Washington's other partners in the International Quartet -- the EU and Russia -- understand that all too well and hence decided to vote in favour of the draft resolution.

It's terribly embarrassing for the Obama administration that promised to integrate the US and improve its image around the world, to be seen to be so diplomatically isolated.

It's also humiliating not to be able to pressure Israel to freeze settlement activity and be forced to veto a resolution that was drafted in line with its own declarations. ...

And

... But the Obama administration finds itself all too often nowadays on the wrong side of history, embarrassingly supporting unpopular dictators and occupiers instead of people in their march to freedom.

Allowing Israeli colonisation of Palestine to go on unabated and with impunity in the age of de-colonisation doesn't bode well for wanting to be on the side of history.
...

And finally this (empahsis mine)

... When weighing in the costs and benefits of supporting such a resolution, the Obama administration seems to have concluded that angering Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, pales in comparison to angering Israeli premier Netanyahu and his allies in Washington and in Congress.

Israeli premier Netanyahu has more allies in Washington and Congress than the President? I guess that darned Israeli lobby has done its job. Who really determines our Middle-east policy?

Also,

I know many Americans will read this and think that AlJazeera is Arab media and is either anti-American or that its opinion doesn't really matter but this must be a more accurate depiction of how the average middle-eastern man-in-the street feels than we could get from a US news source.

tnb