UPDATE-2 :: US abstains, Israeli settlement resolution passes at UN Security Council | Ynet News |
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon criticized the decision, saying, “Neither the Security Council nor UNESCO will rewrite history and to sever the link between the people of Israel and the land of Israel.
Danon addressed the American move saying, “Israel would expect her biggest friend to act in accordance with long-standing policy and veto the unilateral decision.” Furthermore, Danon added that, “No doubt the change of US administration will bring a new era.”
Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said on Friday the United States had abandoned Israel by abstaining from the vote.
“This is not a resolution against settlements, it is an anti-Israel resolution, against the Jewish people and the state of the Jews. The United States tonight has simply abandoned its only friend in the Middle East,” said Steinitz, who is close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
UPDATE-1 :: BREAKING NEWS
Security Council: UN to demand end to Israeli settlements as US abstains | The Guardian |
The United States has delivered a blow to its relations with Israel after abstaining in a vote that allowed the UN security council to demand an end to Israeli settlements.
The vote came in defiance of pressure from the president-elect, Donald Trump, as well as Israel and several US senators who urged Washington to use its veto.
The resolution was put forward at the 15-member council by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal a day after Egypt withdrew it under pressure from Israel and Trump. They then called on the US to veto the measure.
It was adopted with 14 votes in favour, to a round of applause. It is the first resolution the security council has adopted on Israel and the Palestinians in nearly eight years.
The US abstention was a relatively rare step by Washington, which usually shields Israel from such action, and is regarded as a parting shot by the outgoing president, Barack Obama, who has had an acrimonious relationship with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The resolution demanded that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem” and said the establishment of settlements by Israel had “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law”.
Israel slams Obama over UN vote | NY Post |
An Israeli official on Friday accused President Barack Obama of colluding with the Palestinians in a “shameful move against Israel at the UN” after learning the White House did not intend to veto a Security Council resolution condemning settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem the day before.
“President Obama and Secretary Kerry are behind this shameful move against Israel at the UN,” the official said. “The US administration secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme anti-Israeli resolution behind Israel’s back which would be a tail wind for terror and boycotts and effectively make the Western Wall occupied Palestinian territory,” he said, calling it “an abandonment of Israel which breaks decades of US policy of protecting Israel at the UN.”
Earlier he said Israel’s prime minister turned to President-elect Donald Trump to help head off the critical UN resolution.
…
On Friday, Egypt said its president had received a call from Trump in which they agreed to give the incoming US administration a chance to try to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The call came hours after Egypt indefinitely postponed the UN vote.A statement from the Egyptian presidency said the two men spoke by phone early Friday and agreed on “the importance of giving a chance for the new American administration to deal in a comprehensive way with the different aspects of the Palestinian issue with the aim of achieving a comprehensive and a final resolution.”
A senior Palestinian official, speaking anonymously according to protocol, said Egypt didn’t consult with the Palestinians about delaying the vote and it was a “complete shock” for them. Egypt represents Arab states on the Security Council.
Trump Casts First U.S. Veto in UN-and He’s Not Even President! | Tikun Olam |
That headline was too good not to steal. It’s from the NY Post (with a few modifications), which appears to dislike Trump as much as I do. As anyone knows who reads this blog, Israel doesn’t stand on ceremony. Nor does it obey diplomatic or democratic niceties like respecting the office of sitting presidents. It reminds me of the old song: “What Lola wants, Lola gets.” But of course Israel is not a desirable femme fatale in a popular song. It is a rapacious, hegemonic power seeking its own interests by hook or by crook.
Egypt has offered a perennial UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements, which have proceeded apace despite the supposed pause Bibi called during the interregnum before Trump takes office. Though of course, the government is making a big show of relocating the Amona settlers after a Supreme Court decree demanded their ouster from privately owned (and stolen) Palestinian land. By the way, the Court, ever the wilting flower in the face of Likudist will, just gave the government another 45-days to enforce its ruling. That, will bring the decision into Donald Trump’s presidency, which begins January 20th. It seems likely that Trump will, or perhaps has already told the Israelis he doesn’t care what they do in Amona or anywhere else in Palestine. It will be open settler season for Israeli expansionism.
The Security Council was scheduled to hear the resolution this week and vote on it. After the Israeli rightist government appealed to their old friends, the Americans, to veto the resolution, as they’ve done countless times before-thus covering their Israeli ass. But the response this time was different-or indifferent, to be exact. Obama refused to promise a veto. Bibi realized he was in hot water.
So he turned to a friendlier venue -Trumpland. Ron Dermer met with Trump’s inner circle and begged them to stop the resolution. He probably appealed to the Trump camp’s natural hatred of Obama, telling them that without Trump’s intervention, Obama would shame Israel on the world stage.
Trump naturally wanted to help. Keep in mind, he recently conducted secret talks with Israel’s Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen in New York. If one could be a fly on the wall, one could imagine the Israeli offered Trump evidence that might torpedo the Iran nuclear deal painstakingly constructed by the P5+1 powers.
Donald Trump’s Israel ambassador is hardline pro-settler lawyer | The Guardian |
David Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer who represented the president-elect over his failing hotels in Atlantic City, served Trump’s advisory team on the Middle East. He has set out a number of hardline positions on Israeli-Palestinian relations, including fervent opposition to the two-state solution and strong support for an undivided Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
He has called President Barack Obama an antisemite and suggested that US Jews who oppose the Israeli occupation of the West Bank are worse than kapos, Nazi-era prisoners who served as concentration camp guards.
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Trumps meets al-Sisi at Palace Hotel in New York, joined by national security advisor Mike Flynn
and Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson (Credit: AFP - Getty Images)Liberal Jewish groups in the US denounced the appointment as “reckless” and described Friedman – a man with no experience of foreign service – as the “least experienced pick” ever for a US ambassador to Israel.
Yossi Dagan, a prominent Israeli settler leader and friend of Friedman, welcomed the news, describing him as “a true friend and partner of the state of Israel and the settlements”. Morton Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, said Friedman had “the potential to be the greatest US ambassador to Israel ever”.
An indication of how Friedman views Israel came in a 16-point action plan he issued with another Trump adviser in November. It included “ensur[ing] that Israel receives maximum military, strategic and tactical cooperation from the United States” and a declaration of war on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and pro-Palestinian campus activism.
Perhaps the generals of CENTCOM with partner NATO should not take regime change in Washington DC off the table …
○ Donald Trump’s Mansions and Saddam Hussein’s Palaces Are Basically the Same