Just Saying | Israel’s perplexing hold over America allows it to treat global opinion with contempt

This one little nation’s supreme sense of prerogative and immunity is on full display now as it chastises the 12 member-states of the UN Security Council who last week passed a resolution urging Israel to stop building settlements on Palestinian land, a long-practised illegal policy set to escalate under the most right-wing government in the Jewish state’s history.

The unthinkable happened, despite the stink that US President-elect Donald Trump raised against his own side at Israel’s behest.

What was remarkable – apart from Trump upending protocol as an incoming president to interfere and undermine the incumbent – was that the US chose to abstain from voting, rather than dutifully veto the resolution. President Barack Obama broke with decades of tradition in refusing to kowtow to America’s Best Friend Forever in the Middle East.

If this is a natural culmination of the off-and-on feud between Obama and ultra-hardline Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, I’d still hold off on lionising the first such display of guts – even if only in parting – by an American president.

The fact is Obama has done more to mollycoddle Israel at the UN than any of his predecessors, and holds the dubious distinction of gifting the Jewish state with its biggest military aid package ever.