When 14 members of the United Nations Security Council voted in 2011 for a resolution condemning the expansion of Israeli settlements as illegal, the Obama administration exercised the United States’s veto power to block its passage. Opposition to settlements beyond Israel’s borders established in 1967 has been longstanding U.S. policy, and then-U.N. ambassador Susan Rice confirmed in a statement that the administration rejected “in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity.”

But, Rice continued, “Every potential action must be measured against one overriding standard: will it move the parties closer to negotiations and an agreement? Unfortunately, this draft resolution risks hardening the positions of both sides. It could encourage the parties to stay out of negotiations and, if and when they did resume, to return to the Security Council whenever they reach an impasse.” The decision to veto the resolution reflected another longstanding American position: defending Israel against those international bodies like the United Nations that seek to punish or destroy the Jewish state every chance they get.