Three months after the Palestinians were voted down at the UN Security Council after offering a draft resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and the establishment of a Palestinian state by late 2017, France will pick up where the Palestinians left off. The result this time might be far different from that of last December. The measure in December fell one vote shy of the required nine-vote majority. Israel's No 1 ally the US did not have to employ its veto, as it had promised, to kill it. But although there has been no change in the prospects for peace since, much has changed since the December vote, most noteworthy America's position with regard to Israel. This time the US might support the French resolution - an incredible turnaround in world politics. US-Israeli relations have dropped to historic lows in recent weeks, largely because of disagreement over a nuclear deal with Iran and due to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's campaign remarks that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch if he were to be re-elected. Try as he might to backtrack on his campaign pledge, the damage has been done. President Obama said there would have to be a reassessment of US-Israeli relations. And what better place for the US to reassess the diplomatic cover Israel has enjoyed for decades from Washington than at the UN, just in time for a French resolution that would set out the steps for a negotiated end of Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and a solution to the nearly 70-year-old Middle East conflict. How the US might vote on a new resolution is a matter of intense speculation. History is totally on Israel's side. Successive Democratic and Republican administrations have vetoed dozens of Security Council resolutions critical of Israel. One example of the lengths Washington will go to in order to protect Israel is when the Obama administration vetoed a Security Council resolution in 2011 that declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal, even though the US opposes such settlements. Netanyahu's campaign remarks, which also included a racist slur on Israeli Arabs and a determination to build more settlements, challenged not only the US but the UN after UN Middle East envoy Robert Serry told the Security Council that continued settlement building may have already killed a possible two-state solution. France had voted in favor of the Palestinian draft, angering Israel. It looks like it will upset Israel one more time. But this time it might have the backing of the US. France had put off a previous attempt at a council resolution to wait for the results of Israel's election earlier this month. The result is that nothing has moved forward. The Palestinians are in a more difficult situation, a status quo that cannot be sustained. It is unclear whether Paris plans to push for a new resolution or simply revise the resolution it drafted in December. The important thing, and the hope, according to French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, is that those who were reluctant to support it the first time will vote in favor the second time. If the US this time votes for the French resolution, that will definitely encourage other council members to vote in support as well, pretty much ensuring a Palestinian victory. This is a good first test of Obama's reassessment toward Israel after Netanyahu's remarks. The Security Council is the place to act. There can be no other solution but a new resolution.
