THE United States pointedly refused take the floor at the main United Nations human rights forum yesterday during the annual debate on violations committed in the Palestinian territories.

Such a step is unprecedented at the forum, in which Washington has hitherto unfailingly defended Israel.It follows continuing signals that the Obama administration is undertaking a “reassessment” of relations with Israel.

“The US delegation will not be speaking about Palestine today,” a US spokesman said in Geneva, declining any further comment.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s allies acknowledged on Sunday that his election-eve disavowal of a Palestinian state had caused a rift with the White House, but blamed US President Barack Obama’s unprecedented criticism on a misunderstanding.

But, with Mr  Obama under no personal pressure to humour the powerful Israel lobby in Washington since he cannot stand for a further term, his administration was showing its displeasure at slights dished out by the Israeli rightwinger.

Mr Obama has warned that the Israeli leader’s remarks in the closing days of his re-election campaign upended the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

“It is going to be hard to find a path where people seriously believe negotiations are possible,” he said.

Mr Netanyahu pledged on the eve of his re-election victory last week that there would never be a Palestinian state while he was prime minister.

Meanwhile, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin began the formal process of inviting Mr Netanyahu to form a new government.

His ability to do so is not in doubt, since the new Kulanu party gave its nod to him yesterday, giving him 61 backers out of the 120 MPs in the Knesset.

He appears poised to set up a coalition, with Kulanu and several religious and ultra-Orthodox parties jumping into bed with his right-wing Likud party.

Opposition Zionist Union senior leader Eitan Cabel has told the president that its 24 new Knesset members had “no intention” of being part of the coalition.

And the Joint List slate of Arab parties told the president they had no recommendation.“We see in Benjamin Netanyahu a dangerous person, dangerous to democracy,” said spokesman Ayman Odeh.

by Our Foreign Desk