What do think about the United States agreeing to the UN resolution to condemn Israeli settlements
Well, I disagree that the US didn’t “agree”. Given that the U.S. had the opportunity to veto (as did Russia, China, France and the UK, who voted in favour), the decision to abstain was huge. It was a calculated vote that echoed what the Obama administration has been saying for eight years - the settlements and the “two-state” solution are mutually incompatible. Although it didn’t agree with the resolution, it essentially agreed that the rest of the Security Council had a valid point.

And, indeed, the settlements are indefensible if Palestine is supposed to be a sovereign state. It’s not like there aren’t other isolates in the world (like parts of Belgium inside the Netherlands) but in all of those cases, those are historical accidents from a time before sovereign borders existed. The settlements were all built in what used to be Jordanian territory that, officially, is still “occupied territory” from the 1967 war (that’s almost 50 years now) that even Israel will admit isn’t “officially” part of Israel. Israel has annexed part of the occupied territories (which, although imperfect, isn’t really more problematic than Russia re-annexing Crimea) but, technically speaking, neither the settlements nor the land between Israel “proper” is “Israeli territory”. It’s territory that Israel says will one day be Palestine.

Now, the problem with the settlements isn’t that they contain Israeli citizens. I would see no problem with a rule that Israelis can live wherever they want in Palestine (without citizenship rights) and Palestinians can live wherever they want in Israel (again, without citizenship rights). That’s the situation in the European Union right now. The problem with the settlements is that they insist they’re part of Israel and not part of Palestine (even though, technically, they’re in Palestine). It’s like if English people moved into Calais and started claiming that French claims over it were invalid. The settlers are there because they want Israel to annex the West Bank and they don’t want Palestinians there at all.

Now, the only reason this works is that Palestinian authorities know that, if they tried to dismantle a settlement, the IDF would be on them like white on rice. Israel has made it clear that they will defend Israeli citizens in the settlements. Israelis in those settlements know that, so they keep expanding the settlements with the tacit (if not explicit) approval of the Israeli government.

Ideally, all the Israelis in those settlements could be relocated into Israel proper. That’s not going to happen. The settlements are really nice, and a lot of time, money and effort have been invested in them. If, for some reason, the Israeli government tried to dismantle one, it might start a civil war. In fact, they’ve tried that with disastrous effects. It’s also clear that the fears of Israelis in the settlements about how they will be treated if Israel abandons them are very justified.

So, as long as the settlements exist and the Israeli government supports them, Palestinian sovereignty is meaningless. Everyone knows that. Israel knows that. However, Israel continues to officially maintain that Palestinian sovereignty is still possible despite the existence of the settlements.

As such, the UN is pushing again for a “one state” solution - one country with both Israelis and Palestinians with, perhaps, a federal system and strong local control. Belgium is a good model - half French Catholic and half Flemish Protestant with Flemish speaking cities in the French countryside, French speaking cities in the Flemish countryside and a single capital - Brussels - where numbers are roughly equal. Now, the French and Flemish in Belgium hate each other probably a little less than Jews and Arabs in the Middle East do, but federal systems have worked for diverse populations elsewhere - in Canada, in Switzerland, and even in the United States.

However, Israel has consistently rejected the possibility of a single state. They do have a point - the demographics are working against them (much as the demographics in the US are working against white people). However, they seem to want it both ways and, at present, there is very little pressure on them. Part of the reason is that the United States gives more foreign aid to Israel on both an absolute basis (it gets more than any other country) and a per capita basis. The U.S. isn’t about to cut off Israel any time soon (one reason, a lot of that money comes back to the United States for things like weapons). Furthermore, the U.S. is committed to making Israel viable (which it increasingly is). However, despite the fact that the U.S. has literally been working for forty years to find a workable solution, at present, things are arguably worse in that part of the world than they ever have been with no end in sight.

In truth, Israel has little to worry about. Trump is likely to be very supportive of Israel. The vote was largely symbolic. However, the Jewish vote on Israel is getting less important as time goes by. Jews supported Hillary Clinton by a larger margin than African-Americans did. Most Jews in the United States are not very supportive of Israel any more. That’s largely because Jews tend to be more liberal, are unlikely to have any direct connection to the country, or actually left Israel because they disagreed with their policies. Things could change drastically for Israel in a few short years (as they did for Cuban Americans in the last two) and if the U.S. government does finally say “enough” they had better come up with a cunning plan.. and fast.

hmmmm