In his meeting with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in New York Sept. 25, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed to get out of her what he failed to extract from the serving president, Barack Obama. He got her to promise that she would oppose any attempt by “external forces” to force a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, including any resolution by the United Nations Security Council.

That was the sole purpose of their meeting, at least as far as Netanyahu was concerned. His feelings about Clinton are well-known. He would do anything to make sure that she doesn’t get to the White House. Since it really isn’t up to him, however, the prime minister took advantage of this sensitive time, right before the first televised debated between Clinton and Donald Trump, to use the Democratic candidate to keep Obama in check, as Obama continues to debate about what to do about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict before he leaves the White House.

Concern in Jerusalem grew considerably after Netanyahu’s most recent meeting with Obama Sept. 21 in New York. In what can only be considered unusual, the meeting did not include an intimate, closed-door session involving just the two leaders, as is customary in meetings of this sort. In interviews after the event, Netanyahu confirmed that the issue of a possible presidential initiative during Obama’s final weeks in office did not come up in their meeting.

The person most responsible for increasing Israeli paranoia is long-serving US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro. In an interview with Channel 10 after the meeting, he tossed around rather explicit hints about the options now facing the president. He said that the question that Obama is asking himself now is what the United States can contribute to preserve the two-state solution as a realistic objective, which the next administration might be able to achieve. Shapiro then added that the question — about which no decision has been made yet — is whether an initiative in the UN or some other international forum could contribute to the effort, which would continue under the next administration. The ambassador stressed that the Obama administration will certainly not support any decision that goes against Israel.