The following article by Carol Morello and Ruth Eglash was posted on the Washington Post website December 21, 2017:
On Dec. 21, the United Nations voted 128-9 in favor of rejecting President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. (Reuters)
The U.N. General Assembly on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a measure rejecting the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which was repeatedly criticized as undermining prospects for peace.
Despite blunt warnings that U.S. aid to countries that backed the resolution and even funding for the United Nations itself may be cut, the resolution on “illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of occupied Palestinian territory” got 128 votes. Only nine countries — including the United States and Israel — voted against it. Another 35 countries abstained, and 21 were absent.
The vote was a pointed rebuke not only to President Trump but also to a U.S. pressure campaign to sway votes by threatening to cut funding. Although Trump said Wednesday that he would be “watching” for countries that receive a lot of U.S. aid and voted “against us,” the list of co-sponsors grew at the last minute to include Egypt and Jordan, the only two countries besides Israel that receive more than $1 billion in U.S. aid.
Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, set the stage for a future showdown over aid linked to U.N. votes.
“The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out in this assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation,” she said. “We will remember it when, once again, we are called up to make the world’s largest contribution to the U.N., and we will remember it when many countries come calling on us to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit.”
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said that the U.N. had singled out the U.S. for its decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. (Reuters)
Characterizing the United States as “disrespected,” Haley said the U.S. Embassy will be moved to Jerusalem regardless.
“No vote in the United Nations is going to make any difference on that,” she said. “But this vote will make a difference in how Americans look at the U.N. and how we look at countries that disrespect us at the U.N. And this vote will be remembered.”
Although the measure is nonbinding, it carries political resonance, particularly in the Middle East where the U.S. decision has sparked protests and been condemned by Arab governments. Underscoring the U.S. isolation on the issue, even many allies have publicly appealed to the administration to reverse its position and leave Jerusalem’s status undecided until Israelis and Palestinians negotiate terms.
On Monday, the United States exercised its Security Council veto to block the same resolution. All 14 other countries on the council, including U.S. allies Britain and France, supported it. Yemen and Turkey then submitted the resolution to the General Assembly, where the United States does not have veto power.
None of the countries that voted with the United States and Israel against the resolution are powerhouses — Guatemala, Honduras, Togo and the Pacific island states of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Nauru and Palau. Among those voting in favor were Russia, China and several U.S. allies, notably Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Japan and Turkey. The abstaining nations included Canada, Mexico, Australia, Colombia, Haiti, Poland and the Philippines.
But many of the countries that abstained said they would keep their embassies in Tel Aviv and pointedly insisted that the status of Jerusalem should be left to the final stage of negotiations.
“Mexico does not see it as positive or useful for a unilateral declaration to have taken place to recognize Jerusalem as the capital,” said Mexico’s ambassador, Juan José Gómez Camacho, adding that it was unnecessary to hold an emergency session to discuss it.
Although the vote was lopsided, there were more abstentions than in at least five previous resolutions related to Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians. A spokesman for the U.S. mission to the U.N. attributed the shift to Haley’s efforts, which included a warning that the administration would be “taking names” and a letter to ambassadors saying she would report the results to Trump.
“All of today’s no votes, abstentions and no-shows were in solidarity with the U.S. position, which is a testament not only to those countries’ priorities but also to the diplomatic outreach by Ambassador Haley and her team,” the spokesman said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that “Israel rejects the UN resolution and at the same time expresses satisfaction with the high number of countries that did not vote for the resolution.”
“Israel thanks President Trump for his unambiguous position in favor of Jerusalem and thanks the countries that voted together with Israel, together with the truth,” he said.
However, the remarks made in more than two hours of debate and another hour explaining votes suggested that the U.S. pressure campaign did not swing any other countries to support Trump’s decision and may have stiffened the spine of some countries that opposed it.
Haley had watched with her arms crossed over her chest as Yemen’s U.N. ambassador, Khaled Hussein Mohamed Alyemany, introduced the resolution and called Trump’s action “a blatant violation of the rights of the Palestinian people and the Arab nations, and all Muslims and Christians of the world.”
Some of the harshest criticism came from Turkey. “Mr. Trump, you cannot buy Turkey’s democratic will with your dollars,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tweeted before the debate.
Turkey’s foreign minister told the General Assembly: “We will not be intimidated. You can be strong, but this doesn’t make you right.”
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