A few hours ago a Foreign Policy columnist revealed in an article that the U.S. made an offer to Arab governments where they agreed to support a proposed U.N. statement that would rebuke Israel’s ongoing construction of new settlements. According to Foreign Policy, the specific language of the proposed U.N. statement stated the following:
The U.N. Security Council “expresses its strong opposition to any unilateral actions by any party, which cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community, and reaffirms, that it does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, which is a serious obstacle to the peace process"
The article states that the U.S.’s offer was an attempt to avoid a situation where they would have to veto an Palestinian-backed U.N. statement that condemned/labeled Israel’s construction activity as “illegal”. The Palestinians rejected the offer and plan to push the Palestinian-backed U.N. statement that labels Israel's construction of new settlements as "illegal" this Friday with the help of Lebanon, a member of the U.N. Security Council.
The U.S.'s decision to offer a rebuke of Israel is a major shift in the U.S.’s stance towards Israel. The U.S. has historically been a major supporter of Israel through good times and bad times. It appears the U.S. is now willing to adopt an adversarial position towards Israel when supporting Israel is unpopular thing to do. The leaders of Israel cannot be happy about the news that was released tonight…
- This news comes after a day where Iran sought to provoke Israel by attempting to send two warships through the Suez Canal in the first time in several decades, a new member of the Jordanian government labeled Israel as a “terrorist state that will be destroyed”, and the leader of Hezbollah suggested that Hezbollah may someday conquer the Sea of Galilee. It was a bad day for Israel that was made much worse by this latest news.
I’m very interested in seeing whether the U.S. will veto the U.N. statement that will call Israel’s settlement construction “illegal”. If the U.S. does issue a veto, the amount of damage to U.S.-Israeli relations following this latest news could be kept somewhat limited. However, if the U.S. abstains from vetoing the U.N. statement it could be a huge setback in U.S.-Israeli relations and could potentially lead to something worse... Unfortunately, at the minimum, Israel’s leaders can no longer count on the U.S.’s unconditional support in the future since the U.S. has now shown a willingness to oppose them...
