Barack Obama assumed office in January 2009 amid public euphoria and high expectations of greater racial harmony and reduced gun violence at home and a more stable and peaceful international order.
Settlements are illegal on occupied territory. They undermine the widely acknowledged right of Palestine to statehood. Yet Israel violates international law with near impunity.
Demographic changes have made the idea of a two-state solution obsolete. The Israeli population is becoming more religious and more conservative. That makes the army more difficult to command.
Israeli goods produced in settlements will have to be labelled as such. Israel is calling this a boycott and raising the spectre of European anti-semitism.
Twenty years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin – the man who ushered in the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians – was assassinated. Today’s Israel is a very different place.
The Israeli PM’s ‘big lie’ about Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was of a piece with Netanyahu’s history of making false and misleading claims.