US abstains as UN demands end to Israeli settlements

The United States on Friday allowed a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction to be adopted, defying extraordinary pressure from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in alliance with President-elect Donald Trump.

The Security Council approved the resolution with 14 votes, with the US abstaining. There was applause in the chamber following the vote, which represented perhaps the final bitter chapter in the years of antagonism between President Barack Obama’s administration and Netanyahu’s government.

In an intense flurry of diplomacy that unfolded in the two days before the vote, a senior Israeli official had accused the United States of abandoning the Jewish state with its refusal to block the resolution with a veto.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem on October 27.

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Netanyahu, right, sits with a friend at the entrance to his family home in Jerusalem on July 1, 1967. The Israeli prime minister was born October 21, 1949.

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Netanyahu, right, with a friend in the Judean Desert on May 1, 1968.

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Netanyahu serves in the Sayeret Matkal, an elite commando unit of the Israeli army, in 1971. He spent five years in the unit.

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Netanyahu shakes hands with Israeli President Zalman Shazar during a November 1972 ceremony honoring the Sayeret Matkal soldiers who freed hostages in a hijacking earlier that year.

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Netanyahu and his first wife, Miriam, in June 1980.

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Netanyahu and his daughter, Noa, in June 1980.

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Netanyahu speaks in July 1986 with Sorin Hershko, one of the Israeli soldiers wounded in Operation Entebbe. It was the 10th anniversary of Operation Entebbe, a dramatic rescue of Jewish hostages at Uganda's Entebbe Airport. Netanyahu's brother, Yonatan, was killed leading Operation Entebbe in 1976. Affected by his brother's death, Netanyahu organized two international conferences on ways to combat terrorism, one in 1979 and another in 1984.

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From 1984 to 1988, Netanyahu was Israel's ambassador to the United Nations.

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Netanyahu talks to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir on a stroll in New York's Central Park in November 1987.

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Netanyahu, as Israel's deputy foreign minister, goes through some papers as Government Secretary Elyakim Rubinstein recites morning prayers on a flight from New York to Washington in April 1989.

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Shamir speaks with Netanyahu at a Middle East peace conference in Madrid in October 1991.

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Netanyahu celebrates after being elected chairman of the right-wing Likud party on March 21, 1993.

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Netanyahu and former foreign minister David Levy sit in the Knesset during the vote for a new Israeli President on March 24, 1993.

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Netanyahu meets with King Hussein of Jordan, center, and Crown Prince Hassan in December 1994. It was Netanyahu's first visit to Jordan.

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Netanyahu shakes hands with outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres before taking the office himself in June 1996.

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Netanyahu meets with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the first time on September 4, 1996, at an Israeli army base at the Erez Checkpoint in Gaza.

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Netanyahu meets with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in Washington in February 1997.

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Netanyahu spends the day on the beach with his wife, Sara, and son Avner in Caesarea, Israel, on August 16, 1997.

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Actor Kirk Douglas holds the King David Award, presented to him by the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah during a dinner in Beverly Hills, California, on November 17, 1997. Douglas was honored for his inspirational commitment to Israel and the Jewish people and in recognition of his new book "Climbing the Mountain." Netanyahu is on the left. To the right is Rabbi Nachum Braverman, director of the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah.

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Netanyahu looks through binoculars during a tour of the West Bank with the Israeli Cabinet on December 28, 1997.

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Netanyahu and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan meet in Annan's office in New York on May 15, 1998.

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From left, Arafat, King Hussein, US President Bill Clinton and Netanyahu sign an interim Middle East peace agreement in October 1998.

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Netanyahu thanks a crowd of supporters in Tel Aviv, Israel, at a Likud party meeting in May 1999. The outgoing Prime Minister announced that he was quitting the Knesset and stepping down as party leader 10 days after being defeated in elections.

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Netanyahu testifies before the US House Government Reform Committee on September 20, 2001. The committee was conducting hearings on terrorism following the September 11 attacks.

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Netanyahu, as Israel's foreign minister, laughs with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the start of a Likud convention in Tel Aviv on November 12, 2002.

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Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, are seen at a polling station in Jerusalem on August 14, 2007. He was re-elected as head of the Likud party.

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Netanyahu shakes hands with Israeli President Shimon Peres in February 2009 after Netanyahu won backing from the Israeli parliament to become Prime Minister again. A close election between Netanyahu and rival Tzipi Livni had left the results unclear until the parliament's decision.

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From left, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Netanyahu, US President Barack Obama, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah II walk to the East Room of the White House to make statements on the Middle East peace process on September 1, 2010.

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Obama meets with Netanyahu at the White House in September 2010.

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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looks on as Abbas and Netanyahu shake hands in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, on September 14, 2010, during a second round of Middle East peace talks.

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British Prime Minister David Cameron welcomes Netanyahu to 10 Downing Street in London on May 4, 2011.

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Netanyahu address a joint session of the US Congress on May 24, 2011. He said that he was prepared to make "painful compromises" for a peace settlement with the Palestinians, but he repeated that Israel will not accept a return to its pre-1967 boundaries.

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Netanyahu uses a diagram of a bomb to describe Iran's nuclear program while delivering an address to the UN General Assembly on September 27, 2012. Netanyahu exhorted the General Assembly to draw "a clear red line" to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

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Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman of the Likud-Beiteinu coalition party greet supporters as they arrive onstage on election night in January 2013. The Likud-Beiteinu won 31 seats in the Knesset.

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Netanyahu speaks at the UN General Assembly on October 1, 2013. He accused Iranian President Hassan Rouhani of seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon and described him as "a wolf in sheep's clothing, a wolf who thinks he can pull the wool over the eyes of the international community."

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In December 2014, Netanyahu called for early elections as he fired two key ministers for opposing government policy.

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Netanyahu is greeted by members of US Congress as he arrives to speak in the House chamber in March 2015. He warned that a proposed agreement between world powers and Iran was "a bad deal" that would not stop Tehran from getting nuclear weapons — but would rather pave its way to getting lots of them and leave the Jewish State in grave peril.

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Netanyahu and his family take a vacation in southern Israel in April 2015.

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Netanyahu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel talk in Berlin in October 2015.

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Netanyahu speaks to the press in Tel Aviv, Israel, in June 2016. A day earlier, two attackers identified as Palestinians opened fire at a popular food and shopping complex near the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, killing four Israelis and sending other patrons scrambling to safety.

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Netanyahu stands next to US President Barack Obama as they attend the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres in September 2016.

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Netanyahu visits Moriah College in Sydney in February 2017. It was the first time an Israeli prime minister had visited Australia.

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Netanyahu speaks to US President Donald Trump in May 2017. Trump visited Israel and the West Bank during his first foreign trip as President.

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Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, pose for a photo at the Taj Mahal in Agra, India, in January 2018.

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Netanyahu, speaking at a security conference in Germany in February 2018, holds up what he claimed is a piece of an Iranian drone that was shot down after it flew over Israeli territory.

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Netanyahu, giving a speech at the Ministry of Defense in April 2018, accused Iran of "brazenly lying" over its nuclear ambitions. He said Israel had uncovered files that prove his allegation and that the Islamic republic is keeping an "atomic archive" at a secret compound. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called Netanyahu's comments "childish" and "laughable."

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From left, Netanyahu sits beside senior White House adviser Jared Kushner; President Trump's daughter, Ivanka; Israeli President Reuven Rivlin; and US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin during the opening of the new US Embassy in Jerusalem in May 2018.

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Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, pose for a photo with Russian President Vladimir Putin after talks in Moscow in February 2019.

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The Netanyahus cast their votes during Israel's parliamentary elections in April 2019. The election was seen as a referendum on Netanyahu's long tenure as prime minister.

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Netanyahu greets supporters in April 2019.

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An election banner on a Jerusalem building shows Netanyahu shaking hands with US President Donald Trump. Trump remains incredibly popular in Israel — far more popular than he is in the United States.

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Netanyahu meets with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London in September 2019.

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Netanyahu and Israeli Blue and White party chief Benny Gantz reach to shake hands during a state memorial ceremony for former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his wife Leah in Jerusalem on November 10. Exit polls for a repeat general election in September failed to give either of the political rivals a majority in the new parliament.

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Trump had also inserted himself in the diplomatic drama, in defiance of the convention that the United States has only one president at a time, by calling on the Obama administration to wield its Security Council veto.

Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, reacted angrily to the vote and issued a sharp parting shot at the Obama administration’s role.

“It was to be expected that Israel’s greatest ally would act in accordance with the values that we share and that they would have vetoed this disgraceful resolution. I have no doubt that the new US administration and the incoming UN Secretary General will usher in a new era in terms of the UN’s relationship with Israel,” he said.

In a statement, Netanyahu’s office accused the Obama administration of “colluding” with the UN and said it looked forward to working with Trump, as well as Israel-friendly members of Congress, “to negate the harmful effects of this absurd resolution.”

The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, raised her hand to abstain in the chamber when the resolution was put to a vote.

Power argued after the vote that opposing settlement expansion was consistent with the bipartisan consensus accepted by every single US president of both parties since Ronald Reagan, in comments that could be seen as a criticism of Trump’s position.

“This resolution reflects trends that will permanent destroy the two state solution if they continue on their current course,” Power said in a speech before the chamber.

“Our vote today does not in any way diminish the United States’ steadfast and unparalleled commitment to the security of Israel,” Power said.

The Palestinians were delighted by their rare diplomatic coup.

“This is a victory for the people and for the cause, and it opens doors wide for the demand of sanctions on settlements,” said Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian leader.

“This is a bias towards justice and international law.”

But Trump – who has vowed to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and has nominated an ambassador in David Friedman who is supportive of settlers – pledged that the Palestinians would no longer have a platform at the UN when he is inaugurated next month.

“As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

On Saturday, Trump tweeted, “The big loss yesterday for Israel in the United Nations will make it much harder to negotiate peace. Too bad, but we will get it done anyway!”

The United States and most other nations consider Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as an obstacle to the hopes of a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians.

The Obama administration, which mounted two failed efforts to broker Middle East peace, became increasingly angry about continued Israeli settlement expansion over its eight years in the White House. The Palestinians accuse Israel of trying to establish facts on the ground by building on land they view as part of their future state.

“Today, the United States acted with one primary objective in mind: to preserve the possibility of the two state solution, which every US administration for decades has agreed is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement, adding that the US does not “agree with every aspect” of the resolution.

He added: “We cannot in good conscience stand in the way of a resolution at the United Nations that makes clear that both sides must act now to preserve the possibility of peace.”

‘Secretly cooked up’

Hours before the UN Security Council vote, the Israelis made clear their intense disappointment with the US over the resolution, which calls on Israel to “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”

“President Obama and Secretary Kerry are behind this shameful move against Israel at the UN,” a senior Israeli official told CNN.

“The US administration secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme anti-Israeli resolution behind Israel’s back which would be a tailwind for terror and boycotts and effectively make the Western Wall occupied Palestinian territory,” a senior Israeli official said.

Before the vote, a Palestinian official said, “We have nothing to say about this. No President has troubled Palestinians in the UN more than President Obama.”

The New York Times reported this week that Obama’s advisers did not disclose a position on how the US would vote and were holding out until the vote to see how the matter developed. Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security advisor, told reporters Friday that he wasn’t sure if Obama and Trump had spoken about this issue and added he was not aware of any particular conversation.

Rhodes said Obama made the decision this morning, adding that “there’s one president at a time.”

US and Palestinian officials denied the Israeli accusation of colluding on the UN vote. The resolution was originally put forward by Egypt but it was withdrawn under pressure from the Israelis. Four countries, New Zealand, Venezuela, Malaysia and Senegal, brought it up again for a vote on Friday.

Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to U.S. President Barack Obama during a bilateral meeting at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel, September 21, 2016 in New York City.

White House denies UN resolution was swipe at Netanyahu

A senior Obama administration official said, “To be clear: from the start, this was an Egyptian resolution. The Egyptians authored it, circulated it, and submitted it for a vote on Wednesday evening before asking for a delay and subsequently removing their sponsorship.

“Contrary to some claims, the administration was not involved in formulating the resolution nor have we promoted it.”

A senior Palestinian official told CNN they were not informed how the US would handle the Security Council vote when a delegation was in town earlier this month to urge the administration to support it. The Palestinian official said they did not know how the US would vote and called the Israeli allegation “totally untrue.”

Two senior US officials involved in this process vehemently also denied the Israel accusation and also said that the US itself didn’t really know how it was going to vote until Thursday morning. The official said Kerry himself was surprised that the Egyptians put the resolution forward so quickly. He was left scrambling to finish his speech and then left scrambling again when the Egyptians delayed the vote on Thursday.

“A veto means support of settlement activities,” Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, said after the resolution was pulled, according to the Times. “A veto means abandoning the two-state solution and peace efforts.”

The UN resolution – which calls on Israel to “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem” – was delayed by Egypt after Israeli pressure.

Raises tensions

The resolution exacerbated divisions between the outgoing Obama administration and incoming Trump administration.

The Obama administration had been weighing whether to support the UN measure or abstain from voting, which would have been a break from the US’s traditional practice of shielding Israel at the UN and other international organizations.

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