To utter frustration of Israel the United States has done something which it never did: It refused to veto a UN Security Council resolution that squarely condemns Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank. The US abstained allowing the resolution to pass, and in the process earned Prime Minister Netanyahu's stiff rebuke. According to him, it was a deliberate act on the part of the outgoing Obama administration. "From the information that we have, we have no doubt that the Obama administration initiated it, stood behind it, co-ordinated on the wording and demanded it passed," he says. Though President Obama had opposed the construction of settlements all through his tenure, but it would invariably veto the anti-Israel resolutions in the Security Council. But no more; it let pass the said resolution. Is it then the case that the Obama administration was provoked into taking this position as it found Israelis reaching out to the president-elect ahead of the UN resolution? Donald Trump says the UN vote is a "big loss" as it would make "much harder to negotiate peace". "Things will be different after January 20," he tweeted. Given the president-elect's peculiar way of conceiving things, last year he had promised to be "very neutral" on the Israeli-Palestinian issues. But that was in the past - the ambassador he now proposes to send to Tel Aviv is a diehard supporter of Israel. Following the vote the Israeli establishment has reacted with anger. It summoned ambassadors of the countries that have missions in Tel Aviv and had voted for the resolution and told them that the resolution was certainly "shameful", but it wouldn't damage Israel. No one thinks the said resolution would bring about any change in ground realities. But with Benjamin Netanyahu, it is a good enough stick to thrash the Obama administration and thus ensure that the successor administration in Washington doesn't follow the suit.

The UN Security Council Resolution as passed says the "Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have no legal validity, constitute a flagrant violation under the international law and a major obstacle to vision of two states living side-by-side in peace and security." It demands that Israel should "immediately and completely cease all the settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem". Over the last two decades or so, nearly half a million Israeli settlers have constructed 137 settlements throughout the occupied West Bank, which was captured by Israel in the 1967 war. These are in violation of the 4th Geneva Convention and have been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice. But Israel insists that this is an issue that should be settled in talks on the Palestinian statehood, though in actuality it is least interested to initiate any peace process. As to what this resolution means for the people of Palestine it is its symbolic value, and a hope that the United States too can rethink its so-far-inflexible pro-Israel stance. And then it tends to internationalize the conflict, much to the satisfaction of the Palestine government. Unsurprisingly then a spokesman for President Mahmud Abbas called the resolution a "big blow to Israeli policies". It is a "historic day" for the Palestinians because for the first time the United States withdrew its support to rulers in Tel Aviv. No one from Washington had ever taken the position in the United Nations as its chief delegate Samantha Power did by arguing that the American vote - in fact abstention from the voting in the Security Council on the resolution - was consistent with a bipartisan consensus. Will Donald Trump go by this bipartisan support?