General News UN Security Council condemns Israeli Settlements 14-0 - US abstains

Aussie792 · Dec 23, 2016

The New York Times said:

Defying extraordinary pressure from President-elect Donald J. Trump and furious lobbying by Israel, the Obama administration on Friday allowed the United Nations Security Council to adopt a resolution that condemned Israeli settlement construction.

The administration’s decision not to veto the measure reflected its growing frustration over Israeli settlements, and broke a longstanding American policy of serving as Israel’s sturdiest diplomatic shield at the United Nations.

While the measure is not expected to have any practical impact on the ground, it is regarded as a major rebuff to Israel, one that could increase its isolation over the paralyzed peace process with Israel’s Palestinian neighbors, who have sought to establish their own state on territory held by Israel.

Applause broke out in the 15-member Security Council’s chambers following the vote on the measure, which passed 14-0, with the United States abstaining. Israel’s ambassador, Danny Danon, denounced the measure and castigated the council members who had approved it.

“Would you ban the French from building in Paris?” he told them.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who had scrambled in recent days to stop the measure from coming to a vote, released a blistering denunciation afterward:

“Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the U.N. and will not abide by its terms,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement. “At a time when the Security Council does nothing to stop the slaughter of half a million people in Syria, it disgracefully gangs up on the one true democracy in the Middle East, Israel, and calls the Western Wall ‘occupied territory.’”

The vote came a day after Mr. Trump personally intervened to keep the measure, proposed by Egypt, from coming up for a vote on Thursday, as scheduled. Mr. Trump’s aides said he had spoken to Mr. Netanyahu. Both men also spoke to the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Egypt postponed the vote.

But in a show of mounting exasperation, four other countries on the Security Council — Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal and Venezuela — all of them relatively powerless temporary members with rotating two-year seats, snatched the resolution away from Egypt and put it up for a vote Friday afternoon.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/w...n-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Israeli encroachments on Palestinian land destabilise peace, delegitimise Israeli democracy (a democracy for the Jews and a Jewish state for the Arabs, as many an angry Israeli has lamented) and are a blatant violation of the terms by which Israel has come into existence and secured peace in the past. The United States' enabling this pattern of violating law, undermining regional stability and alienating the Arab world does harm to everyone except the most belligerent, expansionist Israelis.

The United States did the right thing in declining to veto. The rest of the member states did a better thing in actively condemning Israel's hypocrisy and open contempt for the law.

KyleD · Dec 23, 2016

I like Israel and I think they are the only respectable country in the Middle East but they have a terrible Prime Minister. This is not about being anti-Israel but about what is just and right.

PatrickUK · Dec 24, 2016

Israel cannot hide behind the protection of the United States indefinitely and Benjamin Netanyahu should take stock, following this resolution, rather than launching into a petulant tirade against the Security Council. It's a sign of growing exasperation that Israel's long standing allies refused to vote against the resolution.

General News UN Security Council condemns Israeli Settlements 14-0 - US abstains

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General News UN Security Council condemns Israeli Settlements 14-0 - US abstains

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