26 December, 2016
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his country will reassess its ties with the United Nations after the Security Council adopted a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building.
Speaking to Fox News, Netanyahu's spokesman, David Keyes, said: 'We have rather ironclad information from sources in both the Arab world and internationally that this was a deliberate push by the United States and in fact they helped create the resolution in the first place'.
The resolution said Israel's settlements in lands the Palestinians want to include in their future state have "no legal validity".
In addition, Foreign Ministry officials said that a scheduled meeting this week by Ukraine's Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman was canceled because Ukraine voted for the resolution.
The UN Security Council was put forward at the 15-member council for a vote on Friday by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal.
Trump vowed that once he comes into office there would be a change to US policy. While the immediate practical impact is unclear, the resolution could strengthen the movement to boycott Israel and open the door for lawsuits against Israel in worldwide bodies.
Then, in a series of scenes that could have been scripted by George Orwell, Obama's senior functionaries blurred, fudged or outright lied about what his administration had just done.
President-elect Donald Trump joined Netanyahu in condemning the Security Council vote, calling it a "big loss for Israel" that "will make it much harder to negotiate peace".
"It's a resolution that shouldn't surprise anyone as such", Mr Mekelberg told i.
While many Palestinians viewed the U.S. abstention as a victory, Jarrar regarded it as a deceptive impression of support for the Palestinian cause. The peace process has been long frozen, and a last attempt, led by the United States and supported by several global bodies, collapsed in 2014. "The reality is there is not a single country in the world that supports Israeli settlements". Israel disagrees, citing biblical and historical connections to the West Bank and Jerusalem as well as security interests. This includes countries such as Russia, China, Britain, France, Spain and Japan.
"The Western Wall is not occupied". President-elect Donald Trump urged Obama to veto this resolution. "This is a lasting legacy".
Meanwhile, Mr Trump, who will be inaugurated on 20 January, tweeted after the vote: "As to the United Nations, things will be different after Jan. 20th". He earlier encouraged the council to reject the motion. Over the past six months, Israel has announced plans to add hundreds of units to existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, each time drawing rebuke from the White House.
To President Obama's legacy of foreign policy debacles, we can now add his landmark betrayal of Israel, carried out December 23rd at the United Nations. "And frankly, if these current trends continue, the two-state solution is going to be impossible", Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said Friday.
