Israel announced the latest in a long line of such expansions on Sunday, and it has been roundly criticized by virtually every nation on the planet, with European Union officials in particular warning the move harmed the prospect of peace talks.

The US termed the UN Security Council divided, by which of course they meant a 14-1 division between the US and the rest of the world. Israel issued a statement condemning the UN Security Council for almost criticizing them and demanded that they instead focus on Iran.

There have been no peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority since September 2010, when the partial freeze on settlement expansion ended. Since then Israel has announced several massive expansions in the occupied West Bank, with the most recent ones couched as “punishment” for the Palestinians for seeking UN recognition.

Cantor went on to praise Israel, saying that “if Palestinians want to live in a state of their own they must demonstrate they are worthy of a state.” He did not make it clear what makes people worthy of statehood.

The Palestinian issue has become a major one in the Republican Party primaries recently, after Newt Gingrich insisted that they were an “invented” people with no right to a state, and other candidates lashed him for making the comments without first getting permission from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Cantor’s comments appear aimed at cashing in on what many Republicans see as a ticket to winning more Jewish votes: denouncing the Palestinians as a matter of course more than a matter of any particular issue.

Cantor went on in his comments to condemn the “so-called Arab Spring,” insisting that the pro-democracy movements across the Middle East “brought disappointment and Islamism” and that they “present challenges for interests to the US.”

Clocking in at just under 50 minutes, the president started with his usual self-congratulatory tone, launching into a rundown of how great his assorted wars are going and again went on record promising the Iraq War would be over in December. A promise made to be broken, and it won’t be the first time.

Segueing from America’s assorted military conquests (which again, he assured, were going swimmingly), Obama decided to tackle the Arab Spring, praising it unequivocally, and proudly declaring that “more individuals are claiming their universal right to live in freedom and dignity.” Oh, sure, he praised Bahrain for crushing its protests with the help of Saudi troops then offering largely illusory “reforms,” but the soundbite is always what people remember.

And it was his celebration of people wanting to live in “freedom and dignity” that ran afoul of the whole reason for the speech, which was insisting that the Palestinians cannot be allowed independence and must remain under Israeli occupation until Israel says otherwise.

Only last year, at the same UN General Assembly, Obama was predicting that the peace talks between Israel and Palestinian Authority officials, which everyone knew would collapse four days after his speech when Israel ended their settlement freeze, would mean that this year the UN would be voting to welcome an independent Palestine as a member nation.

The talks didn’t happen, but the UN vote still is, and most of the world is still on board with 2010-Obama’s vision of an independent Palestine. Except for 2011-Obama, who has promised to veto it.

The “why” of this, at least from the speech perspective, was some multi-paragraph ramble about the burden of the Jewish people and the memories of the Holocaust, and something to do with Iran’s nuclear program. Not only did this convince no one, but it left many, including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, with their faces buried in their palms shaking their heads.

The real, ever-unspoken reason, is political. Former President Bill Clinton blamed a recent Democratic loss in the House on Obama not being a sufficient shill for Israel internationally, and possible opponents in the 2012 Presidential Election are already focusing their foreign policy campaigns on really sticking it to the Palestinians. This has convinced the president that the road to a second term is paved with hypocrisy. How lucky for him he has no shortage of that?

Read more about this at the New York Times

The bill would halt aid to certain Israeli “elite forces” units, including the Shayetet 13 unit involved in the attack on the Mavi Marmara aid ship, over growing evidence that the units are responsible for major human rights violations in the occupied territories.

The proposal had Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak holding secret meetings with Leahy earlier this month, during which Barak demanded that the bill be withdrawn from consideration. It does not appear that it was successful.

Barak’s argument, apparently, was that Israel’s military has “broader powers” than the judiciary within the US military and that Palestinians are supposed to approach the military advocate general with complaints of abuse.

Leahy’s bill would oblige Israel to set up some system to ensure that its armed forces are not committing human rights violations. This restriction has been applied to Egypt, Pakistan and Jordan in US aid bills previously.

Yesterday’s vote gave way quickly to reactions domestically, as opposition groups plan to contest the constitutionality of the new law in Israel’s high court. At the same time, the current far-right government is moving forward with another bill that would start formal inquiries against the opposition.

But the boycott law itself is the current issue, and to that end a lawsuit is already moving forward, with Soviet-born MP Alex Miller (Yisrael Beiteinu) announcing plans to sue opposition MP Ahmed Tibi for comments supporting a boycott of the West Bank settlement of Ariel.

There is, of course, no evidence that Tibi’s comments did any economic damage to Ariel in general, let alone Miller, but that is the point of the new law: no evidence is needed for the lawsuit.

Perhaps the most interesting criticism of the new law came from the US State Department, which insisted that the anti-boycott law amounted to a violation of the “basic democratic right” of freedom to protest. This is interesting because while not broadly enforced, the US already has its own law banning boycotts of Israel, passed in 1977, which goes even farther than Israel’s own government dared to attempt. The US law actually allows for decade-long prison sentences for boycotting Israel or aiding in the boycott.

But of course the Israeli government isn’t trying to make peace with the US Congress – and the indications are that they won’t get far with the Palestinians on the basis of this speech. Netanyahu’s speech was met with uniform condemnation from Israel’s left and right and top Palestinian officials.

Israeli opposition MPs referred to it as an “election commercial,” while the settlers who back the right-far-right coalition government condemned the suggestion that Israel might even end the occupation of even a fraction of the nation’s 1967 conquests.

Palestinian leadership insisted that the prime minister’s comments, despite being couched as part of a march toward peace, actually made even more onerous demands on the Palestinians, and make the situation even more difficult.

A particular issue is the Palestinian unity government, which Netanyahu demanded be split up. Israeli officials have repeatedly insisted they could not negotiate peace with the Palestinians since they were split up. but now insist that united they are unacceptable.

Another key obstacle is Netanyahu’s demand that all of Jerusalem, including the occupied East Jerusalem, remain eternally part of Israel. He insisted only Israel allows all religions access to the holy sites in the region. This netted massive applause, but came just a week after Israel severely curbed access to the Muslim holy sites in the city to prevent public protests.

According to Kohr, treating both sides equally would mean “Israel is authomatically at a disadvantage” and that it would put “Palestinians and Arabs” in a better position. The comments echo Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s angry condemnation of the notion of a return to the 1967 borders.

Of course in yesterday’s speech, Obama already completely disavowed his previous comments about the 1967 borders. Prime Minister Netanyahu likewise insisted that Obama’s furious backpedal was acceptable to him. This Kohr’s rebuke of Obama seem like kicking a man when he’s down.

Kohr went on to insist that even the suggestion of equal treatment by the US in brokering a peace deal would make such a deal impossible, and that only by insisting the US and Israel have identical positions would the Palestinians ever agree to a deal. The talks ended in September after Israel refused to pause expanding settlements into the territory of a potential Palestinian state.

The comments were, by and large, a dramatic backpedal from the previous speech, declaring his undying support for Israel and promising that his mention of the 1967 borders didn’t really mean a literal end to the occupation of the lands Israel conquered in 1967.

Netanyahu wasn’t the only one condemning Obama in the wake of his previous comments, as a number of US politicians sought to establish themselves ahead of the 2012 elections by condemning Obama’s “betrayal” of Israel, which is to say his suggestion that maybe the occupation should be reversed at least partially through negotiation.

Netanyahu insisted that the comments today by Obama were “befitting” and that he was satisfied that the “clarification” was sincere. The peace talks, as always, are an afterthought and will remain frozen.

So he did what politicians trying to satisfy the pro-Israel lobby have been doing from time immemorial – he condemned Iran. Midway through a comparatively short speech, he promised the US would continue to escalate “pressure” on Iran, and accused the nation of trying to make nuclear weapons.

“We remain committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,” Obama declared, to thunderous applause. He then went on to accuse Iran of “hypocrisy” for criticizing the violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Bahrain. Obama declared earlier in the week that the US was committed to supporting the Bahrani regime and that the crackdowns showed they simply wanted a return to the “rule of law.”

Going to the Iran well is likely a cynical attempt to placate a potentially hostile lobby, and the thunderous applause suggest it did its job. The allegations against Iran, despite being identical to allegations made for years past, are not backed up by any hard evidence.