海角大神

The Israeli government requested that US President-elect Donald Trump push to postpone the UN's vote on a resolution criticizing Israel's settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem after learning that the Obama administration was planning to let the measure pass, an official said Friday.

The United States, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has made a habit of vetoing resolutions of the sort. This time, the Obama administration 鈥撀爓hich has been at odds with that of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of the Iran nuclear deal聽鈥撀爄ntended to abstain from voting on the Egypt-sponsored resolution, all but guaranteeing its passage, two Western officials told Reuters.

The resolution would have urged a halt to Israel鈥檚 settlement activities in occupied territories claimed by Palestinians and declared that existing settlements had 鈥渘o legal validity,鈥� according to the Associated Press.

Israeli officials reached out to Trump after realizing that the Obama administration had made a decision to "ambush" Israel on the issue, one Israeli official told Reuters, calling it "a violation of a core commitment to protect Israel at the UN."

Mr. Trump spoke by phone with the president of Egypt, whose delegation abruptly postponed the vote earlier Friday.聽

Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi agreed on聽"the importance of giving a chance for the new American administration to deal in a comprehensive way with the different aspects of the Palestinian issue with the aim of achieving a comprehensive and a final resolution," according to an Egyptian statement.

Absent some other last-minute gesture by President Obama, the maneuvering may cap off a period of strained relations between the US and Israel, and inaugurate one of greater warmth 鈥撀爐hat may upend the two-state peace solution that has until recently been the bipartisan consensus in the US.

Trump's election聽has brought on 鈥渘othing short of euphoria鈥� for Israeli conservatives, as 海角大神 reported in November.

"The right is convinced that anything is possible now," Shlomi Eldar, a columnist for Al Monitor Israeli Pulse, told the Monitor. "The two-state solution can be erased, there will be no problem building in the settlements 鈥� the Messiah has come."

Trump鈥檚 pick for ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, is a hardline supporter of the settlements, and the incoming president has also vowed to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in what could upset regional US allies like Saudi Arabia, as the Monitor reported this week.

Netanyahu himself has sometimes been caught between the Israeli far-right and the US, but has done little to pursue a two-state solution in recent years, as West Bank settlements continue to multiply. But Trump's presidency could actually put the Israeli prime minister in a new bind, according to Nathan Sachs, a fellow in the聽Center for Middle East Policy聽at the Brookings Institution.聽

鈥淪o far, Netanyahu has played a two-level game: blaming Obama for the halt in settlement construction when talking to settlers, and blaming the settlers for the defunct [peace] negotiations when talking to the Americans,鈥� Mr. Sachs told the Monitor earlier this week.

鈥淚鈥檓 not sure that Netanyahu himself is interested in unfettered settlement expansion, and without international pressure to blame he will have to provide some answers to the question 鈥� what does he really want? What is his solution to the conflict? Right now, it doesn鈥檛 seem like he can provide those positive, long-term answers.鈥�

Palestinian leaders did not immediately react to the diplomatic fracas.

"Despite the Israeli occupation,鈥� said Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in聽a Christmas greeting聽on Friday, according to the AP, "our presence in our homeland and the preservation of our cultural and national heritage are the most important form of resistance in the face of the darkness of a foreign colonialist occupying power."

This report contains material from Reuters and the Associated Press.