UN: Netanyahu says Israel “will not abide by its terms”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin have commented on the the UN resolution condemning Israel’s continued settlements.
Benjamin Netanyahu Photo: GPO/Kobi Gideon
Netanyahu said: “Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the UN and will not abide by its terms.
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.”
The Obama administration not only failed to protect Israel against this gang-up at the UN, it colluded with it behind the scenes.
Israel looks forward to working with President-elect Trump and with all our friends in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to negate the harmful effects of this absurd resolution.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a series of diplomatic steps against the countries who cosponsored the anti-Israeli resolution in the Security Council and with whom Israel has diplomatic relations.
- Instructed Israel’s ambassadors in New Zealand and Senegal to immediately return to Israel for consultations.
- Ordered the cancellation of the planned visit to Israel of the Senegalese foreign minister in three weeks.
- Instructed the Foreign Ministry to cancel all aid programs to Senegal.
- Ordered the cancellation of visits in Israel of the non-resident ambassadors of Senegal and New Zealand.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop meets Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin
President Reuven Rivlin said on the UNSC vote: “United Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel and so it will remain. There is no international body with the power to revoke this status.
Dr. Danny Lamm, President of the Zionist Federation of Australia, added: “The United States under the outgoing administration in its “lame duck” period has failed to veto a United Nations Security Council Resolution which effectively declares the 1967 lines to be sacrosanct and any building beyond those lines including in the Old City of Jerusalem illegal.
The resolution cuts across the 1967 UNSC Resolution 242 and its call for a negotiated settlement of the conflict between Israel and its neighbours “within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force” and will inevitably make diplomatic efforts to bring about peace more difficult to achieve in the future.
The current Palestinian leadership which has consistently refused to sit down at the negotiation table with Israel in recent years now has absolutely no incentive to do so as a result of the passing of this resolution and will continue to incite its people to violence in spite of it.
In the past two decades, Israel alone has tried to advance the two state solution and resolve final status issues such as the settlements in 2000-2001 and again in 2008 only to be rebuffed by the Palestinian leadership. Yet Israel alone is condemned by the Security Council for a situation which cannot be ended without direct and meaningful negotiations.
In the words of American jurist Alan Dershowitz the failure by President Obama to veto the resolution at this time is “counterproductive to peace and undemocratic in nature,” and should rightly be repudiated.”
Isn’t former NZ PM Key a Hebrew?
Israel has rightfully received a set back by the USA abstaining in the UN over occupied Palestine but the USA sold F35 fighters to Israel recently so perhaps that decision needs review. However this is unlikely with Trump about to become US President.