The Obama administration has struggled to position itself during the Arab Spring and its aftermath. Some would say we waited too long to voice our support for the Egyptian protestors. Even more people would say our support for the Bahraini government during that country’s protest period transparently revealed the U.S.’s protection of our economic and diplomatic interests, despite whatever grand pro-democracy ideology we might want to articulate. Call it prudence, call it lack of clarity, the fact is that the U.S. has conspicuously lacked courage when it comes to resolving our conflicting visions and pragmatic interests in the Middle East. It’s that untenable balancing act that a U.N. General Assembly vote on Palestine would disrupt. Approval for Palestine as a state would only expose and formalize the marginal role the U.S. now plays in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, a role of our own making.

Aaron David Miller, Middle East advisor to six administrations, emphasizes in his book The Much Too Promised Land that if the U.S. is to have any meaningful impact on this conflict it must start with full ownership and commitment on the part of the American president. Regardless of whether American voters preferred Clinton’s hands-on negotiation or Bush’s intransigent pro-Israel stance, Obama’s relative passivity suffers by comparison. At this point, neither Israelis nor Palestinians trust the U.S. as an honest broker for the peace process.

Regardless of whether the U.S. is able to enact a procedural delay or convince the Palestinians to hold off on proposing the vote, our flat-footedness on this issue only reinforces a narrative of weakness. Parallel to countless domestic policy frustrations, our foreign policy on this issue has deferred to the conflicting parties, hoping to diligently craft a masterwork of compromise behind the scenes, ultimately appearing complacent and untrustworthy to all sides.