Netanyahu seeks to rally Israelis around him in anti-Obama assault

OCCUPIED AL-QUDS: Benjamin Netanyahu has been unrelenting in his criticism of the Obama administration over what he condemned as its "shameful" decision not to veto a UN Security Council resolution calling for a halt to Israeli settlement-building.

But with the clock ticking down on Barack Obama´s presidency, a possibly more amenable Republican Donald Trump waiting in the wings and a $38 billion US military aid package to Israel a done deal, it´s all a calculated risk for the four-term, right-wing Israeli prime minister.

Netanyahu, after what critics are calling a stinging defeat on the international stage, is already manoeuvring to mine deep-seated feelings among many Israelis that their country and its policies towards the Palestinians are overly criticised in a world where deadlier conflicts rage.

He has tried to rally Israelis around him by attempting to portray the anti-settlement resolution as a challenge to Israel´s claimed sovereignty over all of Occupied al-Quds.

That was hammered home with an unscheduled Hanukkah holiday visit to the Western Wall, one of Judaism´s holiest sites, which is located in Occupied al-Quds Old City in the eastern sector captured along with the West Bank in a 1967 war.

That all of Occupied al-Quds is their country´s capital is a consensus view among Israelis, including those who otherwise have doubts about the wisdom of Netanyahu´s support for settlements on the West Bank.

Palestinians claim eastern Occupied al-Quds as their capital, and Washington has in the past accepted an international view that the city´s status must be determined at future peace talks.

But Trump has promised to reverse decades of US policy by moving the US embassy to Occupied al-Quds from Tel Aviv.

"I did not plan to be here this evening but in light of the UN resolution I thought that there was no better place to light the second Hanukkah candle than the Western Wall," Netanyahu said during the event.

"I ask those same countries that wish us a Happy Hanukkah how they could vote for a UN resolution which says that this place, in which we are now celebrating Hanukkah, is occupied territory?"

Some 570,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Occupied al-Quds, which Palestinians want as part of a future state.

At the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu brushed aside a White House denial and again accused the Obama administration of colluding with the Palestinians in the UN move against the settlements, which are considered illegal by most countries and described as illegitimate by Washington.

Disputing this, Israel cites biblical, historical and political links to the West Bank and Occupied al-Quds, as well as security concerns.

The diplomatic drama unfolded over the Christmas holiday, with twists and turns unusual even for the serpentine path followed by Netanyahu´s relationship with a Democratic president who opposes settlement building.