As Israel announces thousands of new settlement units in the occupied West Bank, even President Trump’s usual extremely tepid criticism was nowhere to be seen. Officials would only say that Trump’s position on the settlements was unchanged.

Instead, the National Security Council issued a statement “welcoming” Israel’s position on the settlements, saying that they had promised to take US concerns into account at some point in the future.

That promise isn’t worth much, clearly, as Israel’s far-right government has been rapidly escalating settlement construction since Trump took office, approving over 10,000 homes in the occupied territories just since inauguration.

Previous administrations had actually been willing to criticize the settlements in a more robust way, and Israeli promises to take that into consideration never amounted to much. Trump, at most, has called the settlements “unhelpful,” but is loathe to condemn the settlement enterprise because of his determination to be the “most pro-Israel” president ever.