Yesterday [Oct. 25], Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the merger of his ruling Likud Party with its coalition partner "Israel is Our House” (Israel Beitanu), headed by foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman. The deal gives Netanayhu a lock on the premiership in the election scheduled for early 2013, and cements in place an Israeli government committed to settlement expansion and the enfeeblement of the tottering Palestinian Authority headed by the long-suffering Mahmoud Abbas.  

This is the distressing, unanticipated legacy of the administration of President Barack Obama and its failed effort to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. 

The president’s selection soon after his election in 2008 of former senator George Mitchell as special envoy and the articulate and forceful focus on the need for a “freeze” in Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were widely viewed as clear indications of Obama’s commitment to lead the parties to an agreement that reflected the vital national security interests of the United States — the creation of two states, Israel and Palestine, at peace with each other and secure within recognized borders.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton set the aggressive tone for this initiative in May 2009 when she said, “[President Obama] wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions. That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly.”