Try as he might this late in the game, President Barack Obama's Israel policy should go down in history as a failure.

Although some of the worst accusations against him claim that the president's failure is intentional, because he hates Israel itself, the weight of the evidence suggests a less sensational problem. In keeping with a broader pattern, the White House has expected Israel to accept its judgments on the largest matters, such as Iran, and then has become frustrated when Israel reacts poorly to its judgments on smaller ones, such as the status of settlements.

That is why the administration has gotten so little political mileage out of its fresh military aid package with Israel, offering nearly $40 billion over the next 10 years. Obama pledged it would make “a significant contribution to Israel's security in what remains a dangerous neighborhood,” helping protect it “from all manner of threats.”

On that basis, the White House has guided its team to push hard for what the president has long believed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is too irresolute and weak to achieve: the ground-level preconditions for the so-called “two-state solution,” which would place a recognized territorial Palestinian regime side by side, “in peace,” with Israel. Obama seems to have reasoned that Israel is strong enough and safe enough to wipe out any excuse for slow-walking peace.

Here, the White House has only made matters worse for Israel, which is why Israel and its U.S. supporters have taken such offense to its Israel policy as a whole, and its last-minute push against settlements in particular. Even some of Obama's defenders must admit that elevating settlements to a first-tier issue underscores the absurdity and futility of the president's long-term approach.

Had Obama taken a more focused tack years ago, in concert with a far different approach to Iran and its proxies, the sentiments and stakes surrounding settlements would be considerably different. Had Obama accepted that the results of his Mideast policy have been controversial and mixed, at best, he could have adopted a posture toward Israel that could have succeeded.

He did not, and it has not, and no diplomatic spasm this month can change that.

—The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.)

The president-elect should break with those in his inner circle who are hostile to gay rights.Among the many constituencies viewing the presidency of Donald Trump with apprehension are gay, lesbian and transgender Americans, who are disturbed by what they've heard from members of the president-elect's inner circle and by language in the Republican platform.Of course, party platforms don't bind presidents. And Trump himself has sounded an encouragingly different note in discussing issues of importance to gay, lesbian and transgender Americans.In his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, he referred to the attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando and promised: “As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.”In response to applause he added: “And I have to say, as a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said.”The new president can resolve any confusion by taking action early in his administration to demonstrate that he was serious when he reached out to gay, lesbian and transgender people.Trump should lend his support to perennial efforts in Congress to protect private sector employees from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.If he meant what he said about protecting “our LGBTQ citizens,” he can do no less. Protecting gay, lesbian and transgender Americans means affording them a right to earn a living without fear of discrimination.—Los Angeles Times