A more sophisticated Palestinian political leadership may well make the US decision to vote a new resolution in the Security Council more difficult to predict and achieve.
Legal and Political Observations on the Defeated Palestinian-Jordanian Draft Resolution
The December 30, 2014 vote in the Security Council is certainly an Israeli diplomatic victory, given the various resolutions of UN bodies of previous years and the resolutions that were adopted in recent months, for example, in several European parliaments. Whatever doubts existed as to how the US would handle the Palestinian move were removed by a very firm position during the weeks before the vote and the clarification, unquestionably conveyed to other members of the Security Council, that the US would veto even a softened version of the initial draft. However, the US vote should not mislead anyone as to the mood in Washington and the voices in the administration. The statement made by Britain's ambassador in explanation of the UK vote (abstention) that his country agreed with the content of the draft submitted and that it would like to see the revisiting of the idea of a "parameters resolution on the Middle East Peace Process in 2015" may very closely reflect other views circulating in Washington.
