Trump vows changes at UN as Israel fumes
Donald Trump has vowed to change things at the United Nations when he takes over at the White House next month, after the UN Security Council's vote in favour of a resolution demanding the halt of settlement activity by Israel in occupied Palestinian territory.
"As to the UN, things will be different after Jan 20th," he said on Twitter, referring to the date of his inauguration.
The tweet came after the United States refrained from vetoing the adoption of a Security Council measure calling on Israel -- its closest Middle East ally -- to halt settlement activities in Palestinian territory.
The rare step by the US allowed the measure to pass by a vote of 14 in favor in the 15-member council.
Trump, who campaigned on a promise to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, had bluntly said Thursday that Washington should use its veto to block the resolution.
Trump has chosen as ambassador to Israel the hardliner David Friedman, who has said Washington will not pressure Israel to curtail settlement building in the occupied West Bank.
The resolution was put forward at the 15-member council for a vote on Friday by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal a day after Egypt withdrew it under pressure from Israel and US president-elect Trump.
It is the first resolution the Security Council has adopted on Israel and the Palestinians in nearly eight years.
The resolution demands that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem”, pointing out that the international community views any Israeli construction over the agreed 1967 Green Line as illegal.
While it will not have any practical impact, the resolution is a “significant step” in reconfirming the UN's hopes for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, outgoing Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said on Friday.
Settlement building - which has accelerated year on year under current right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - is viewed as one of the major stumbling blocks to a lasting peace deal.
Israel has said it will not abide by the measures set out in the document.
In Jerusalem, Netanyahu immediately recalled Israel's ambassadors to New Zealand and Senegal, who were ordered to return for consultations. All current aid to Senegal was to be suspended, the Prime Minister's office said, and an upcoming visit from Senegal's Foreign Minister Mankeur Ndiaye cancelled.
"Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the UN and will not abide by its terms," a statement from Netanyahu's office said.
"The Obama administration not only failed to protect Israel against this gang-up at the UN, it colluded with it behind the scenes," it said.
"Israel looks forward to working with President-elect (Donald) Trump and with all our friends in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to negate the harmful effects of this absurd resolution."
"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'."
Israel does not have diplomatic relations with either Malaysia or Venezuela.
Defending New Zealand's vote yesterday, the country's Foreign Minister Murray McCully said: “We have been very open about our view that the [UN Security Council] should be doing more to support the Middle East peace process and the position we adopted today is totally in line with our long established policy on the Palestinian question.”
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called the resolution a "big blow for Israeli policies."
Saeb Erekat, a former peace negotiator and the number two in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), spoke of a "historic day".
"December 23 is a historic day and a victory for international legitimacy, international law and international documents," said Erekat.
Sharif Nashashibi, a London-based analyst of Arab political affairs, told Al Jazeera: "It's historic in the sense that it's been decades since the US has done that [abstained].
"But, in my opinion, it's merely symbolic precisely for that reason, because there are already UN Security Council resolutions in existence that call for pretty much the same thing that this resolution has done.
"These resolutions are decades old and they are just gathering dust. Israel has been allowed to flout them. My fear is that this will just be one of those resolutions that Israel can flout," Nashashibi said.
"We don't have any mechanism to put tangible pressure on Israel to abide by this resolution, so I fear that despite the passing of this resolution, the Security Council has still proved itself largely irrelevant to this conflict," he added.
The resolution demands that "Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem."
It states that Israeli settlements have "no legal validity" and are "dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-state solution" that would see an independent Palestine co-exist alongside Israel.
Some 430,000 Israeli settlers currently live in the occupied West Bank and another 200,000 in annexed east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians see as the capital of their future state.
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