Congress can’t do anything about reversing the Obama administration’s abandonment of Israel at the United Nations Security Council in December. The House and Senate resolutions that are being put forward that condemn UNSC 2334, which specifically labeled Jewish settlements in the West Bank as well as Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem as illegal, are symbolic and will have no impact on the international community’s ongoing efforts to isolate Israel. While the real questions about the future of U.S. Middle East policy will be answered by the incoming Trump administration once it gets down to business, an overwhelming vote to implicitly rebuke President Obama for his decision to let the Security Council attack Israel is not without importance. At a time when liberal critics of the Jewish state have been assuring us that it is losing the support of the American people, the bipartisan push on this issue and the inability of the Obama cheering squad and the left-wing J Street lobbying group to muster any effective effort to back the administration tells a very different story.

The only debate in Congress about Obama’s parting shot at Israel has centered on whether condemnations of his action would also reiterate support for a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Some House Republicans have expressed support for competing resolutions that not only condemned the U.S. abstention but also failed to mention two states–an echo of their party’s 2016 platform. The House Republican leadership has, however, wisely chosen to go with a version co-sponsored by Representatives Ed Royce and Eliot Engel (the GOP chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Democrat ranking member) that ensures the largest possible support from Democrats. In the Senate, a similar resolution also has bipartisan backing but, in a departure from tradition, is being co-sponsored by the majority and minority leaders. Both Republican Mitch McConnell and Democrat Chuck Schumer chose to identify themselves with a slap at Obama.

Critics of Israel will dismiss the measures more as a function of effective lobbying by AIPAC than a groundswell of pro-Israel opinion. Schumer’s participation will be interpreted as a concession to local New York politics. But the larger story is that groups like J Street, which supports Obama’s stand and can claim to represent the views of the Bernie Sanders/Keith Ellison wing of the Democratic Party, have even less influence in the 115th Congress than they had before.

Obama’s lame duck betrayal will encourage some on the left to continue their efforts to distance the party from its former stance as a staunch backer of the Jewish state. But as much as they like to think that the future of the party is theirs, they remain effectively marginalized. As a minority, the party has bigger priorities than pursuing the former president’s vendetta against Prime Minister Netanyahu. Though many party activists have little affinity for Israel, most House and Senate Democrats still don’t wish to follow Sanders and Ellison down the anti-Israel rabbit hole.

Obama’s popularity and power were enough to force Democrats to treat support for the Iran nuclear deal as a litmus test of loyalty to both the party and the White House despite the opposition of the pro-Israel community. But once he and Secretary of State Kerry leave office this month, there will be little reason for Democrats—especially those already worried about the 2018 midterms—to buck public support for Israel.

Nor will Trump’s ardent embrace of Israel help J Street mobilize Congressional Democrats to back their cause. There will be plenty of better opportunities for the minority party to push back against Trump’s initiatives on health care and a host of other issues. Any attempt to obstruct a move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem or to prevent the new administration from reversing Obama’s effort to back international pressure on Israel will bring few rewards and come at a high price for Democrats. The dismay expressed by Haim Saban and other top donors about the UN vote is a reminder of just how much damage the president might have done to the party’s prospects.

Ellison’s campaign to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee will be the next big test of the strength of the left. But Congress’s rebuke of the departing Obama and Kerry is just one more sign that J Street and its allies are losing rather than gaining ground in 2017.