"A looming Donald Trump presidency would make it more likely for lame-duck US President Barack Obama to support a United Nations Security Council resolution laying down the basic parameters for the creation of Palestinian state, a former top US official said Sunday.
'I suspect that if Trump wins, the president would be more inclined to go for a Security Council resolution to try to do something that binds, creates standards for the future that the next president couldn't undo,' Dennis Ross said at a conference on the future of Zionism and the US-Israel relationship. 'If Clinton wins, I suspect he [Obama] would be more sensitive to her concerns as to whether this helps or hurt her.'...
Jerusalem has for decades relied on a tacit US policy of shielding Israel from resolutions at the UN Security Council, which are often described as one-sided.
While Obama's possible move would not reverse that stance, it would mark a significant departure, Ross noted. What Obama decides to do, though, he said, will likely be heavily influenced by the outcome of the presidential race. Once the dust has settled following elections on November 8, Obama may use the opportunity as a lame duck to deliver a speech laying out parameters for a peace arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians, or even suggest a Security Council resolution defining those parameters, either to be proposed by the US or another country, Ross speculated...
But any Security Council resolution introduced by another country would very likely emphasize the Palestinian demands over Israeli concerns, he said. 'Then the question becomes: if someone else introduces this as a resolution and it waters down the essence of what the president has offered, which would have been balanced between the two, does the US then veto it? That is going to be heavily influenced by the outcome of the election,' Ross said.
'I'm guessing he would be much more inclined to try to be proactive in terms of presenting something that could create standards for the future that the next president couldn't undo,' he continued..."