Today the UN Security Council voted to condemn Israeli settlements. Applause broke out in the 15-member Security Council’s chambers after the vote on the measure, which passed 14 to 0, with the United States ambassador, Samantha Power, raising her hand as the lone abstention. It broke with 36 years of accepted US Policy. Israel’s ambassador, Danny Danon, denounced the measure, and castigated the council members who had approved it.
In abstaining, the U.S. brushed aside calls for a veto by president-elect Donald Trump who, in an unprecedented move, managed to delay the vote a day by weighing in with Egypt, the initial sponsor of the resolution. Egypt then withdrew its support.
Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, defended the move to abstain, saying “one cannot champion” both settlements and a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The settlement problem has gotten so much worse,” Power said after the vote, which had been delayed from Thursday. She added that “our vote today does not diminish” the country’s “steadfast” commitment to Israel. The decision to abstain highlighted the increasingly frayed relationship between the Obama administration and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Netanyahu’s office, in a statement after the vote, rejected the resolution and said the Obama administration secretly plotted to undermine Israel by not vetoing the proposal. The White House rejected the accusation.
“The Obama administration not only failed to protect Israel against this gang-up at the UN, it colluded with it behind the scenes,” Netanyahu’s office said in the statement.
Israel argues the final status of the territories should be determined in any future talks on Palestinian statehood. “President Obama and Secretary Kerry are behind this shameful move against Israel at the UN,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was discussing behind-the-scenes diplomatic activity. “The US administration secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme anti-Israeli resolution behind Israel’s back.” He called it “an abandonment of Israel, which breaks decades of US policy of protecting Israel at the UN”.
The measure demands Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.” It declares the establishment of settlements by Israel has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.” While the resolution does not call for sanctions on Israel, it amounts to a high-profile rebuke of the Israeli government and could hamper Israel’s negotiating position in future peace talks. Palestinians argue that the expansion of settlements on the disputed land makes a peace deal even less likely.
Under international law, Israeli settlements — built on Palestinian land occupied by Israel — are considered to be illegal. Some 600,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem and on the West Bank, which the Palestinians seek as part of a future independent state. Israel captured both areas in the 1967 Mideast war. Putting the West Wall – Israel’s Holiest site in Palestinian lands is unthinkable.
President-elect Donald Trump and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer had all called on the Obama administration to veto the resolution before the vote. “Today’s vote is a blow to peace that sets a dangerous precedent for further diplomatic efforts to isolate and demonize Israel,” Paul Ryan said. “Our unified Republican government will work to reverse the damage done by this administration and rebuild our alliance with Israel.”
In a tweet following the vote, Trump said: “As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th.”
Palestinian Reaction
Palestinian leaders, meanwhile, welcomed the resolution’s passage. The office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement issued in Arabic that the move is “a big blow for the Israeli political policy, a condemnation for settlements and consensus by the international community and a support for the two-state solution.”
Ruling party Fatah spokesman Osama Qowasma called the vote a “historic victory for the Palestinian people, and it inaugurates a new stage in the conflict.”
A time is coming when the whole world will condemn Israel and the US Veto that protected them will be withdrawn. If it had not been for the US Veto and US Arms during the 1967 and the emergency shipments during the 1973 war, there would be no Israel today.
While Donald Trump may be a temporary change – America will abandon her ally and throw Israel to her enemies. The 14-0 vote is but the beginning. Like the Nazi era where harsh anti-Semitic laws were passed on the eve of Holy Days, so this Chanukah echoes of an earlier time.
Israel fears that the United States and France want to advance another move on the Israeli-Palestinian issue before the Obama administration wraps up its term. The international foreign ministers’ meeting is scheduled for January 15 in Paris as part of the French peace initiative, a series of decisions on the peace process will be made. These will immediately be brought to the UN Security Council for a vote and will be adopted there before January 20.
God is clear. Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, whoever curses Israel will be cursed. America, under Barack Obama’s leadership, has now, for the very first time actively cursed Israel. A red line has been crossed.
All that we can now do, is wait for the judgment that will now fall. It will fall on the United States corporately, and there is nothing that Donald Trump can do to stop it.