Alan Dershowitz writes at the Jerusalem Post:
The Egyptian decision to withdraw the one-sided anti-Israel Security Council resolution should not mask the sad reality that it is the Obama administration that has been pushing for the resolution to be enacted. The United States was trying to hide its active ‘behind the scenes’ roll by preparing to abstain rather than voting for the resolution. But in the context of the Security Council where only an American veto can prevent anti-Israel resolutions from automatically passing, an abstention is a vote for the resolution and because of this automatic majority, an anti-Israel resolution like this one cannot be reversed by a future American president. A veto once cast cannot be cast retroactively.
The effect, therefore of the Obama decision to push for, and abstain from, a vote on this resolution is to deliberately tie the hands of President Obama’s successors, most particularly President-elect Donald Trump. That is why Trump did the right thing in reaction to Obama’s provocation. Had the lame duck president not tried to tie the incoming president’s hands, Trump would not have intervened at this time. But if he had not urged the Egyptians to withdraw the resolution, he would have made it far more difficult for himself to try to bring about a negotiated resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Read Dershowitz’s full opinion piece here.
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