Security Council Vote on Israeli Settlements Postponed Indefinitely

Four U.N. Security Council members said they would bring to a vote a draft resolution on Israeli settlements instead of the one being stalled by Egypt under pressure from Israel and president elect Donald Trump.

Defying heavy pressure from long-time ally Israel and President-elect Donald Trump for Washington to use its veto, the United States abstained in the Security Council decision, which passed with 14 votes in favour.

Netanyahu has instructed Israel’s ambassadors in New Zealand and Senegal to return to Israel for consultations, his spokesman said on Friday, in response to a United Nations resolution on settlements.

From the perspective of Prime Minister Netanyahu, Trump’s embrace of pro-settlement politics are a welcome change from President Obama, who pushed hard for Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in the early aughts of his presidency.

It says that the Israeli settlements have “no legal validity” and are “dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-state solution” that envisions the co-existence of an independent Palestine alongside Israel.

“The settlement problem has gotten so much worse that it is threatening the two-state solution”, she said.

A year ago, Trump told The Associated Press that he wanted to be “very neutral” on Israel-Palestinian issues, but his comments became much more pro-Israel as the race progressed and he took a sharp tone against the Palestinians.

With that dichotomy firmly in place Saturday, Netanyahu made clear that his government looked forward to working with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump “to negate the harmful effects of this absurd resolution”. Trump is again demanding a US veto, as are a number of high-ranking US Senators, though it is still expected that a rare US abstention will happen.

“While the Security Council does nothing to prevent the massacre of half a million people in Syria, it is shamefully singling out Israel – the only democracy in the middle east”.

It was unclear how the United States, which has traditionally protected Israel from UN action, would vote.

Trump said in a statement that Washington should use its veto power to block the resolution.

In a tweet, he said “things will be different after January 20th”.

“There is a very clear message from the global community here that they want peace, to end the violence, but at the same time they condemn the settlements preventing a two-state solution becoming a reality”.