There are but days left in the eight-year administration of United States President Barack Obama and the reality now is that it and its allies have come up empty when it comes to the question of Palestine. Any doubt that Palestine and the plight of its people merited anything other than a passing thought at most is evident by the words that Secretary of State John Kerry uttered on Wednesday when he opined that the two-state solution for solving the vexing and decades-old question of Palestine and Israel is now in serious doubt. His words were forced by the realisation now that the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been unmasked as a result of its furious reaction to the United Nations Security Council passing Resolution 2334 last Friday.

That ground-breaking resolution finally condemned Israel for its policies of colonisation which have resulted in decades of repression and subversion of the Palestinian people. Its passing was only made possible by the Obama administration deciding to waive its veto on the Security Council — and the very fact that the 44th US president instructed his officials to abstain from the key vote is significant. Clearly, after eight years of dancing with Netanyahu, Obama decided the date wasn’t right, the mood was unsettling and the extensive Jewish lobby in Washington was finally too much. In other words, the Oval Office was free of the odious necessity of toeing the Israeli line. The condemnation was a rare rebuke of Israel by Washington.

Netanyahu’s reaction has been to cry foul to President-elect Donald Trump, downgrade relations of UN Security Council member-nations, treat diplomats as if they are door mats and defy world opinion by sanctioning the construction of even more colonies.

The concerns expressed by Kerry over the two-state solution are sadly all too real. So too is the fact that it took seven years and 11 months for the Obama administration to remember that Palestine exists, that it needs allies and its very future is threatened by the policies and politics of the rabble of right – wing rabbis who pull Netanyahu strings.With Trump in the White House and Netanyahu in Knesset, Obama Kerry and others have reason to be worried for the Palestinian people. But it smacks of too little, too late now.