An Egyptian Foreign Ministry source told Al-Monitor about Cairo’s disappointment over the United States' rejection on Dec. 31 of the Jordanian proposal on Palestinian statehood at the UN Security Council. "The United States probably does not understand how important the progress on the Palestinian track is to our continued participation at the anti-Islamic State [IS] coalition," the source said. "Our ability to participate stems also from the mood in the street — which the US has probably never fully understood. Egyptians, mainly the youth, follow on a daily basis the state of their Palestinian brethren under Israeli occupation."
Indeed, Egyptian officials also contributed to the Jordanian effort to reach an accepted compromise formula with the French on the UN Security Council bid. According to the Cairo official, his government was dismayed by the fact that the United States did not issue a declaration in favor of the proposed timeline for negotiations and of the 1967 lines: “We, as well as our Jordanian counterparts, feel that the US administration is dancing to the tune of [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu, despite his anti-peace policies.”