Ratcheting Up the Pressure?

A BBC report notes the possibility that the US might abstain on, rather than veto, a possible Security Council Resolution on construction in Jerusalem. That's an interesting development if true. From 1945 until 1970, the US never used the veto and made Cold War propaganda over the USSR's reliance on it. But beginning in the 1970s it has used the veto some 82 times, most commonly to block unilateral condemnations of Israel that do not also condemn Palestinian attacks.

Certainly there is a new willingness on the part of the Obama Administration to apply pressure on the Netanyahu Government. Even the dovish Ha'aretz has quoted Israeli sources as being concerned that the US might be thinking of an imposed Israeli-Palestinian settlement, not to mention Laura Rozen's column over the weekend which suggested a split between George Mitchell and his team and Dennis Ross over how to deal with Netanyahu. (The link includes the updates with denials, but the column has sparked a lot of blogosphere debate with its suggestion that Ross is more sensitive to Netanyahu's political considerations than to US interests.)

This might actually be getting interesting.