Seriously?

A few days ago, in a post about the recent unrest in the Middle East, I wrote:

Are we on the verge of a broader Middle East war, perhaps within the next year or two? Or will the alarm and unrest pass? The winds seem ominous to me, but again, I'm not sufficiently educated or even armed with enough facts to speculate.

Tonight, as I read reports of Iranian ships seeking passage through the Suez Canal en route to Syria, reports that the new foreign minister of Jordan (which has a peace treaty with Israel) calling Israel an "enemy and terrorist state," and reports of continued unrest in Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen … I can't help but to think that the timeline to the next Israeli war is much shorter than we think. And then I read this:

The U.S. informed Arab governments Friday that it will support a U.N. Security Council statement reaffirming that the 15-nation body "does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity," a move aimed at avoiding the prospect of having to veto a stronger Palestinian resolution calling the settlements illegal.

Seriously? This is the response from our government? To join an anti-Israel bias in the U.N. condemning their right to build settlements within their own recognized territory? Here is Israel, being visibly hemmed in on all sides, with open hostilities a real possibility, and we're going to pile on by rebuking our ally for building apartments?

This article does go on to imply that this is just a "diplomatic ploy" to keep from having to issue a rare Security Council veto. Perhaps I'm being too naïve to expect us to take a honorable, principled position - but condemning an ally simply to make ourselves "look better" to the Arab world is nothing short of an act of fear. I'm not buying the spin that we need to do this to be perceived as an "honest broker." I'm not suggesting we blindly support the internal policies of our allies, necessarily. But when the lone representative democracy in the region is facing a truly existential threat, you would think that the only major superpower in the world would have the moral courage to stand up in support. At a minimum. A strong statement of support would do more to stabilize the situation than playing shell games with U.N. resolutions.

Israel is running short on friends these days. I used to think the U.S. was one of them. Now I'm not so sure.

Update 2/17: Iranian Ships Cancel Trip Through Suez.