(Bloomberg) -- While the world remains fixated on the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, the Obama administration is facing another foreign policy showdown in the United Nations Security Council.

The administration has signaled that it might abandon the decades-long U.S. policy of protecting Israel at the UN and back a Security Council resolution laying out terms for a two-state solution to the almost 67-year-old dispute between the Jewish state and the Palestinians.

Robert Malley, the Middle East director for President Barack Obama’s National Security Council, told at least one European nation two weeks ago that the administration is more willing than it has ever been to work on a Security Council resolution defining the parameters for a Mideast peace agreement, according to a report on the conversation to superiors by a Washington-based European diplomat. A copy of the report was viewed by Bloomberg News.

The reported comments by Malley are “completely false,” Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said in an e-mail. “Rob has not had any conversation on this topic with any European diplomats then or since.”

Obama, though, has left no doubt that he’s considering whether to bend the U.S. policy of vetoing UN resolutions that Israel opposes and, in the process, punish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for pledging that he will ensure that no Palestinian state is created anytime soon. Netanyahu also opposes the talks with Iran, warning Tuesday that the deal the U.S. seeks would “pave the way” for the Islamic Republic to develop nuclear weapons.

Obama’s Evaluation

“We have to do an evaluation of where we are” on Mideast peace efforts, Obama said at a news conference on March 24.

Past U.S. Security Council vetoes were “predicated on this idea that the two-state solution is the best outcome,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest has said. “Now our ally in these talks has said that they are no longer committed to that solution. That means we need to reevaluate our position.”

Obama said he’ll wait for Netanyahu to form his new coalition government by the preliminary April 22 deadline before announcing the conclusions of his Mideast peace policy reassessment.

While Palestinians and Europeans are excited by the prospect of U.S. support for a two-state solution, they remain wary of how much political and diplomatic latitude Obama has to follow through.

Republican lawmakers are promising to fight back if Obama qualifies U.S. support for Israel at the UN. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has warned of a “violent backlash by the Congress, bipartisan in nature,” if Obama lets a Security Council resolution defining the terms of a peace agreement go forward without first getting both sides to agree.

Purse Strings

“The last thing I want is to be put in a box where I have to take the UN on,” Graham told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on March 23, reminding the audience that as chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, he has the power to suspend America’s $654 million annual contribution to the world body.

UN diplomats and Obama’s former Mideast peace negotiators say the president has two realistic options.

First, the U.S. could back a French plan to draft a Security Council resolution that would set a binding timeframe in which to define the parameters of a two-state solution based on Israel’s 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as their shared capital, said two knowledgeable Security Council diplomats.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on March 27 that in the “coming weeks” France will restart discussions on such a text, which ended in December due to U.S. objections.

Cornerstone Resolution

Robert Serry, the UN’s departing Mideast peace envoy, urged the Security Council last week to update its 1967 Resolution 242, which has been a cornerstone of almost 50 years of diplomatic efforts. It was adopted after Israel captured East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights and Gaza from its Arab enemies in the Six-Day War that year. Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt after the two countries signed a peace treaty in 1979.

Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt, said “a carefully crafted resolution on parameters” is the most realistic option for the U.S. to take, “provided that it is balanced and doesn’t go into so much detail as to prejudge negotiations.”

The biggest challenges will be whether to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, which the Palestinians and the French oppose, and what security arrangements should be included to ensure that a new Palestinian state couldn’t be a launching pad for attacks against Israel, said the two diplomats.

The second U.S. option is to introduce a new draft Security Council resolution that outlines no parameters. It would call on both parties to make progress toward resuming negotiations and condemn activities such as Israel’s settlement-building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank for obstructing the path to peace, said an Arab diplomat at the UN who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pressuring Israel

While such a resolution is unlikely to be adopted, a draft would pressure Israel and Netanyahu to at least freeze settlement construction, said three Security Council diplomats who asked not to be named commenting on sensitive matters.

Such actions also might help deter the Palestinians, at least for a time, from seeking full statehood recognition from the Security Council and membership in international treaties, or from pursuing its request that the International Criminal Court probe alleged Israeli war crimes, said the three diplomats.

‘Best Option’

Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Wilson Center in Washington who served as a Middle East negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations, said Obama first must determine his goals for the remainder of his term before exploring the U.S. options at the Security Council.

“The real question is, what is the best option for the administration to pursue in the next two months?” Miller said.

Adopting a UN resolution before any agreement is reached between the two parties would be useless unless the administration is ready to try to force Israel to accept a two-state solution by cutting U.S. aid to Israel, recognizing Palestine or pushing the Europeans to sanction Israel and reduce trade, Miller said.

“But I see no indication whatsoever that this administration is ready to do that,” he said.

His face twisted in fury, Abase Hussen punches his fist into the air and launches into an Islamic war cry.

‘Burn, burn USA,’ he yells from his prime spot at the front of one of the most notorious rallies in recent times.

Once the crowd is whipped into a fever, an American flag is set on fire and held aloft by a fanatic. Video footage shows Mr Hussen desperately trying to hold the burning flag as the chanting behind him intensifies.

He manages to grab the flag briefly before being forced to drop it because of the power of the smoke and flames.

As the remainder of the flag burns on the ground, Mr Hussen chants ‘Allahu Akbar’.

He pushes the palm of his hand repeatedly toward the embers, rejoicing at the destruction of the stars and stripes.

Mr Hussen – the father of one of the three schoolgirls who fled Britain to join Islamic State – then turns his attention to a burning Israeli flag on the floor and begins to chant and gesture toward it.

He is one of a dozen fanatics standing behind a banner which proclaims: ‘The followers of Mohammed will conquer America.’ Behind him, hundreds of fanatics repeatedly chant incendiary slogans while holding menacing black jihadi flags.

Among the rabble-rousers was notorious hate preacher Anjem Choudary, who has led a number of Islamist groups that were subsequently banned.

Alongside him stood Michael Adebowale, one of the two Muslim converts who murdered and almost beheaded Fusilier Lee Rigby in the name of Allah eight months later.

Abu Izzadeen, infamous for heckling former Home Secretary John Reid in 2006, also led some of the chanting.

But last month Mr Hussen gave evidence to Parliament refusing to accept any responsibility for the three schoolgirls’ actions, instead seeking to blame the police, teachers, Turkish officials and others.

In an extraordinary exchange at the home affairs select committee, Mr Hussen, who was with the families of the other two girls, denied even knowing what Islamic radicalisation was.

‘As for me, I don’t know the symptoms even — what radicalisation is,’ he told MPs.

Mr Hussen also repeatedly blasted the Metropolitan Police for handing a letter to his daughter requesting parental permission to speak to the girls about a friend who had earlier travelled to Syria. He said police officers should have given it directly to the families.

He said: ‘I strongly disagree with the letter being given to 15-year-old girls. The word “police” by itself and “terrorism” or “counter-terrorism”, as global issues – it is a heavy burden for a 15-year-old to deal with that. We also feel that we are neglected as parents.

‘We are supposed to know these things. We are the guardians. The letter destructs our daughter, destructs our family and terrorises our children. What we want to know is: apart from this letter, what was the verbal conversation with this child? I know my daughter. She is the kind of girl who, if it is sunset, she will call me to pick her up.

‘How on earth she travelled abroad to join ISIS, is a very difficult question for us to answer – even to predicate. The letter terrified my daughter.’

The families were led by their lawyer Tasnime Akunjee, once the representative of a close associate of the Woolwich killers, who repeatedly demanded an apology.

Mr Akunjee, who has posted extremist views on his Facebook page, accused Scotland Yard of a catalogue of errors in its handling of the disappearance of the trio in February and their close friend in December.

In a 45-minute grilling in front of the families, Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe was forced to apologise for failing to communicate more directly with the families. Giving evidence to the committee, Mr Hussen claimed he did not know that his daughter Amira might have been exposed to radical views.

Chairman Keith Vaz pressed him on this point, asking him: ‘Did it come to your attention in any way that they were involved in the kinds of things that it is alleged that they were involved in following this becoming public?’ Mr Hussen replied: ‘Not at all. Nothing.’

What the MPs were not told was that Mr Hussen was caught on camera in one of a wave of demonstrations that took place across the world in September 2012.

Thousands had taken to the streets to protest against an obscure film called Innocence of Muslims, criticised for ridiculing Islam.

In London, more than 150 clashed with police outside the US embassy. They included Luton radicals Abu Rahin Aziz, who is fighting for Islamic State, and Saiful Islam, who was the subject of a Channel 4 exposé called Proud and Prejudiced.

Rahin Aziz has called for Theresa May to be executed, suggested that Islamic State-style executions take place in Trafalgar Square and threatened to blow up Big Ben.

Last night members of the Commons committee expressed their shock and astonishment over Mr Hussen’s activities.

Labour MP Ian Austin said: ‘It is extraordinary that this man blamed the police, the Government, the school, the Turkish government and everyone else for his daughter’s decision to go to Syria but failed to mention his own involvement in an appalling Islamist rally. Perhaps the committee should invite Mr Hussen back so he can explain what he was doing.’

Tory MP Michael Ellis, who also sits on the committee, said: ‘This will come as a surprise to those who heard criticism of the police and school. This raises serious questions about the potential negative influence on an impressionable young mind.’

Mr Vaz said: ‘It is clear that families and communities need to take greater responsibility for protecting young people who could be at risk of radicalisation.

‘Witnesses before the committee are responsible for their own statements. When Mr Hussen gave evidence, he said he had no idea that his daughter had been involved in radicalisation or had been radicalised.’

Amira fled with her friends Shamima Begum, 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, from their homes in east London to Syria last month.

The trio were following in the footsteps of Sharmeena Begum, who left their school, Bethnal Green Academy in East London, to go to Syria in December.

Scotland Yard said it would examine the footage to see if any offences had been committed.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland — With a negotiating deadline just two days away, Iranian officials on Sunday backed away from a critical element of a proposed nuclear agreement, saying they are no longer willing to ship their atomic fuel out of the country.

For months, Iran tentatively agreed that it would send a large portion of its stockpile of uranium to Russia, where it would not be accessible for use in any future weapons program. But on Sunday Iran’s deputy foreign minister made a surprise comment to Iranian reporters, ruling out an agreement that involved giving up a stockpile that Iran has spent years and billions of dollars to amass.

Lord Dannatt, formerly Britain’s Chief of General Staff, has warned that Conservative voters could defect to Ukip if defence spending is not maintained.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, he slammed Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond for reportedly saying there were “no votes in defence”, describing this as “wrong, complacent and dangerous”.

“It is wrong because in the past few weeks Cabinet Office polling shows that defence as an issue is moving up the general public’s consciousness. It is complacent because it assumes that election strategists are blinkered only to believe in their own previous judgments. And it is dangerous because it disregards the deteriorating worldwide security situation,” he wrote.

“Furthermore, it betrays an attitude that risks not only the security of our country and our citizens at home and abroad – the safeguarding of which is the accepted first duty of any government – but also European collective defence.”

He called for the UK to commit to spending 2 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product on defence, which all Nato members are supposed to do, although many do not.

“A commitment to spending 2 per cent of GDP by all 26 Nato members would significantly increase Western and central European collective defence capability at a time of rising threats on our eastern and southern flanks,” Lord Dannatt said. “While this judgment seems obvious to many security analysts and commentators, it is apparently being ignored by mainstream political decision-makers.”

The UK currently spends 2 per cent but Labour and the Conservatives have not committed to do so after the election. However, Ukip has and Lord Dannatt said this was “something that is attractive to Right-wing Tories who might just be tempted to switch their votes”.

“Surely that alone should catch the attention of Conservative Central Office?” he added.

He said the UK’s military had been reduced to “a surface fleet of just 19 frigates and destroyers, a regular army that will struggle to put a single division into the field and an air force with fewer squadrons than the fingers on two hands”.

“Talking tough with little of substance inside the mailed glove simply lays open the prospect of ridicule from the likes of Putin’s Russia and the so-called Islamic State [Isis], while a noticeable reduction in the forces that we can field brings a disappointed despair to our principal ally, the United States,” Lord Dannatt said.

“The British people have a right to decide their position in the world and the loser of the upcoming election might rue the judgment that there are no votes in defence.”

JERUSALEM — After a dozen reports by human rights groups charging that Israel had committed war crimes during its air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip last summer, Amnesty International on Thursday focused on the Islamist militant group Hamas and other armed factions in Gaza, which fired thousands of rockets at civilian population centers in Israel during the 50-day war.

Amnesty's conclusion: The military wing of Hamas committed war crimes, too, by indiscriminately firing unguided rockets and mortar rounds from civilian areas in Gaza at population centers in Israel.

The 70-page report found that rocket and mortar fire from the Palestinian militants also killed 13 Palestinians and six Israeli civilians.

Amnesty investigators report that a Palestinian projectile landed next to a supermarket in a refugee camp on July 28, killing 13 Palestinian civilians, 11 of them children playing in the street during a cease-fire.

In the immediate aftermath of the explosion at the al-Shati camp, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri blamed Israeli airstrikes. In a text message to journalists, Zuhri called it a “massacre” and vowed that “this crime will not break our will.”

A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces at the time denied firing at the neighborhood and attributed the explosions to a failed rocket launch from Gaza militants.

The Gaza war left more than 2,100 Palestinians dead; seven in 10 of them were civilians and more than 500 were children, according to Palestinian and U.N. officials. On the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and six civilians were killed, including one child.

Amnesty said the death of Daniel Tregerman, a 4-year-old Israeli boy, “clearly illustrates the tragic consequences of using imprecise weapons such as mortars on civilian areas.” His family's car was struck by a mortar round from Gaza, and he died from shrapnel wounds.

“Daniel’s little sister who was also present watched him die before her eyes,” wrote Amnesty, noting that the Hamas military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, asserted responsibility for the attack.

In Gaza, Hamas official Taher al-Nounou denied Amnesty's allegations, according to the Associated Press, saying the report relied on "the Israeli narrative." He told the news service that Hamas did not target civilians.

In the past, Hamas officials have pointed to the relatively low number of Israeli civilian deaths as proof that they did not target the general population. The Israelis attribute the low number of Israeli civilian fatalities to a combination of the U.S.-supplied Iron Dome air defense system, Israeli air raid sirens, and the small payloads and inexact aim of Hamas rockets.

The conclusions of the Amnesty report were not exactly news, especially in Israel.

After the report was released, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a top spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, tweeted, “Wow, self-proclaimed terrorist organization carried out war crimes. Big surprise there! #Hamas must be so ashamed.”

The Palestinian militias in Gaza fired more than 4,800 rockets and 1,700 mortar rounds toward Israel, according to counts by Israel and the United Nations. Most of the rockets were relatively crude, hand-made projectiles fashioned out of water pipes that cannot be guided after they leave their launch tubes. The mortars fire at a shorter range but are often more deadly.

Many Israelis felt world opinion singled out Israel for civilian deaths in Gaza while failing to appreciate how Hamas and other factions employed human shields.

The Amnesty team pointed out that there are no bomb shelters or warning sirens in the Gaza Strip (though it is unclear how much those would have helped against unannounced strikes by Israeli armed drones, F-16s and artillery when the time from launch to target is measured in seconds).

The report condemned Palestinian militias for storing munitions in, and launching rockets from, schools, mosques, a Greek Orthodox church and at least one hospital. Amnesty also reported that the militias launched attacks and stored rockets “very near locations where hundreds of displaced civilians were taking shelter.”

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz noted that Israeli authorities refuse to allow human rights monitors to enter Gaza, including from Amnesty, making it difficult to document war crimes.

Philip Luther of Amnesty International said in a statement that both Israel and the Palestinians must cooperate with U.N. and International Criminal Court probes “to end decades of impunity that have perpetuated a cycle of violations in which civilians on both sides have paid a heavy price.”