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Trump Pressures Obama Over U.N. Resolution on Israeli Settlements Trump Pressures Obama Over U.N. Resolution on Israeli Settlements
(about 7 hours later)
UNITED NATIONS — President-elect Donald J. Trump publicly pressured President Obama on Thursday to veto a United Nations resolution critical of Israel, the newly elected leader’s most direct intervention in foreign policy during his transition to power. JERUSALEM — President-elect Donald J. Trump thrust himself into one of the world’s most polarizing debates on Thursday by pressuring President Obama to veto a United Nations resolution critical of Israel, the newly elected leader’s most direct intervention in foreign policy during his transition to power.
Mr. Trump called on the president to use the United States’ veto in the United Nations Security Council to block the Arab-sponsored resolution, which condemned the “construction and expansion” of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Obama administration, which vetoed a similar resolution in 2011, had withheld judgment over the latest measure. Mr. Trump spoke out after Israeli officials contacted his team for help in blocking the draft resolution condemning settlement construction even as they lobbied its sponsor, Egypt. Within a couple of hours, Egypt withdrew the resolution, at least temporarily, and its president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, called Mr. Trump to discuss how “to establish true peace in the Middle East,” according to an aide to the president-elect.
With the United States’ position publicly in doubt, the resolution was pulled by its sponsor, Egypt, on Thursday morning, hours before the Council was scheduled to vote, and it was unclear when or even if it would be brought back up. But Mr. Trump’s forceful insertion into the matter reflected an unusual public split between incoming and departing presidents, and it highlighted the stark shift on Middle East policy ahead when the new administration takes over in a month. Mr. Trump’s forceful intervention into the matter amounted to a rare effort by a new president to shape international events even before taking office. While new presidents typically refrain from weighing in on current issues during the interregnum between their election and inauguration, Mr. Trump’s statement underscored that he does not plan to wait for the swearing in.
Mr. Obama, frustrated by two failed efforts to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians during his tenure, has been considering an effort to lay out an American framework during his final days in office. Palestinian leaders and their allies had hoped he would allow the anti-settlement resolution at the United Nations to pass as an expression of frustration at Israeli policies he considers unconstructive. He has already upended decades of American policy by speaking directly with Taiwan’s leader and he has spoken out regularly on events like this week’s terrorist attack in Germany. But his push to stop a United Nations resolution criticizing Israel was more directly aimed at decisions still being made by his predecessor in his final days in office.
Mr. Trump, who last week nominated as ambassador to Israel a bankruptcy lawyer who heads a fund-raising effort for a West Bank settlement, made clear on Thursday that he would not wait for his inauguration to weigh in. In a statement, he said bluntly that the resolution should be vetoed. The move also highlighted the stark shift on Middle East policy ahead when the new administration takes over in a month. Combined with his pledge to move the United States Embassy to Jerusalem and his selection of a pro-settlement ambassador to Israel, Mr. Trump’s involvement Thursday signaled an intent to play an active role in Middle East peace issues as a strong ally of Israel’s.
“As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations,” the statement said. “This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis.” The Egyptian-sponsored resolution would have condemned Israeli housing construction in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank as a “flagrant violation under international law” that was “dangerously imperiling the viability” of a future peace settlement establishing a Palestinian state. The United States has routinely used its veto at the Security Council to block similar measures, including under Mr. Obama in 2011. But Mr. Obama refused to commit to doing so again this time.
Mr. Trump amplified his position by posting the statement on Facebook and Twitter as well. Mr. Trump said flatly that he should. “As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations,” the president-elect said. “This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis.”
His words closely echoed the positions expressed by Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has welcomed Mr. Trump’s election as a breath of fresh air after years of clashes with Mr. Obama. Mr. Trump amplified his position by posting the statement on Facebook and Twitter as well, but a transition official insisted on anonymity to confirm the president-elect’s conversation with Mr. Sisi because of the sensitivity of the matter. Mr. Trump’s words echoed the positions expressed by Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has welcomed Mr. Trump’s election as a breath of fresh air after years of clashes with Mr. Obama.
Mr. Netanyahu treated the impending United Nations vote as a crisis, staying up late into the night discussing it with aides and posting on his own Twitter account, at 3:28 a.m. local time, a message urging Mr. Obama to veto what he called the “anti-Israel” resolution. He then canceled a public appearance later in the day and called a meeting of security cabinet ministers to address the matter. According to Security Council Report, an independent research organization, the United States has vetoed 30 resolutions regarding Israel and the Palestinians, plus a dozen more regarding Israel and Lebanon or Syria, more than half of its 77 vetoes since the United Nations was founded in 1946. Mr. Netanyahu cited that history on Thursday. “I hope the U.S. won’t abandon this policy,” he said. “I hope it will abide by the principles set by President Obama himself in his speech in the U.N. in 2011 — that peace will come not through U.N. resolutions, but only through direct negotiations between the parties.”
“The Israelis leaned on the Egyptians this morning to postpone the vote, and the Egyptians basically caved,” said a Western official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic delicacy of the matter. Frustrated by two failed efforts to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians during his tenure, Mr. Obama has been considering an effort to lay out an American framework during his final days in office. Palestinian leaders and their allies had hoped he would allow the anti-settlement resolution at the United Nations to pass as an expression of frustration at Israeli policies.
The Egyptian Mission to the United Nations could not be reached for an immediate comment. A Palestinian delegation traveled to Washington this month to urge Mr. Obama’s team to support the anti-settlement resolution or at least abstain. Mr. Obama’s advisers did not disclose a position and were holding out until the vote to watch how the matter developed. The Palestinians were unable to meet with Mr. Trump’s aides and expressed disappointment on Thursday with his position. “A veto means support of settlement activities,” Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, said after the resolution was pulled. “A veto means abandoning the two-state solution and peace efforts.”
Asked about Mr. Trump’s comments, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, who was visibly upset, said: “He is acting on behalf of Netanyahu.” Asked about Mr. Trump’s comments, a visibly upset Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, said, “He is acting on behalf of Netanyahu.”
Mr. Mansour said Arab ambassadors had met Thursday and endorsed the draft, and that a committee of the Arab League was due to meet in Cairo to discuss the text. The return of the Palestinian cause to the world stage could serve the interests of some Arab leaders eager to turn public attention away from troubles at home. The government of Mr. Sisi, which sponsored the resolution as the Arab representative on the Security Council, faces domestic challenges stemming from a deteriorating economy, a persistent Islamic terrorist insurgency and this month’s bombing of a Coptic Christian cathedral.
If the White House had let the resolution pass, it would have been a symbolic blow to the diplomatic shield that the United States has always offered Israel. It would also have sent a strong signal of international disapproval over the construction of settlements, which are widely regarded as illegal under international law. At the same time, it could distract from Mr. Netanyahu’s efforts to forge stronger relations with Sunni Arab states on the basis of shared antipathy toward Iran, dominated by a Shiite theocracy that has threatened Israel’s existence and challenged Arab interests in the region. Arab leaders, who have largely overlooked the Palestinian issue in recent years, may feel pressured to distance themselves from Israel again if their own publics are angered at the treatment of Palestinians.
The draft resolution, offered by Egypt in its role as the Arab representative to the Council, called settlements “a flagrant violation under international law” and “a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution.” It called on Israel to “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities” in the occupied West Bank. Egypt backed off on the resolution after Mr. Netanyahu’s government put pressure on Mr. Sisi’s government to withdraw it, shortly before Arab ambassadors meeting at the United Nations endorsed it.
It also included a nod to Israel and its backers by condemning “all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation, incitement and destruction.” That amounts to diplomatic scolding of Palestinian leaders, whom Israel accuses of encouraging attacks on Israeli civilians. Mr. Netanyahu treated the impending United Nations vote as a crisis, staying up late into the night discussing it with aides and posting on his own Twitter account, at 3:28 a.m. local time, a message urging Mr. Obama to veto what he called the “anti-Israel” resolution. “The Israelis leaned on the Egyptians this morning to postpone the vote, and the Egyptians basically caved,” said a Western official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the matter.
Egypt, one of Israel’s most reliable partners in the Middle East and a longtime United States ally, announced that it would put up the draft measure for a vote after extensive consultations with fellow Arab diplomats. The vote was scheduled for Thursday at 3 p.m. But by midmorning, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ordered his diplomats to pull the resolution. Arab officials met in Cairo on Thursday night to consider their next move. “The negotiations over the Arab proposal for the Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territories are still not finished at both the United Nations and the Arab League’s anti-occupation committee,” said Ahmed Abu Zeid, a spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, according to Egyptian state media.
The Obama administration vetoed a 2011 resolution condemning settlements, and in 2013, another resolution did not muster enough votes to pass. According to Security Council Report, an independent research organization, the United States has vetoed 30 resolutions regarding Israel and the Palestinians, plus a dozen more regarding Israel and Lebanon or Syria, more than half of its 77 vetoes since the United Nations was founded in 1946. If the White House had let the resolution pass, it would have been a symbolic blow to the diplomatic shield that the United States has always offered Israel. It would also have sent a strong signal of international disapproval over the construction of settlements, regarded by many as illegal under international law.
To be adopted, a resolution needs at least nine votes and no vetoes by the Council’s five permanent members: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States. Palestinian officials and other United Nations diplomats had said they thought the chances of passage were high. A top former Obama adviser suggested that the president should consider supporting the resolution because settlements represent an obstacle to peace and therefore the real damage to Israel. “The resolution is about settlements not negotiations,” Martin Indyk, a former special envoy under Mr. Obama, wrote on Twitter. “Vetoing would mean vetoing US policy on settlements.”
Part of the administration’s calculation is likely to be based on Israel’s own actions. Mr. Obama has not had a good relationship with Mr. Netanyahu, and the White House has consistently criticized Israel’s continued settlement activities. But Aaron David Miller, another former Middle East peace negotiator, said supporting the resolution would have plunged the administration into an issue that the past several administrations had avoided — the legality of the settlements.
The fight over the resolution comes amid another heated settlement battle unfolding in Israel. The government plans to relocate residents of Amona, a West Bank outpost that even Israel’s Supreme Court declared illegal, to a nearby hilltop that Palestinians and their supporters believe is equally problematic. The court on Thursday agreed to a 45-day delay in the evacuation of Amona, putting off that fight, too, for another time. “The problem with voting for this,” Mr. Miller said, “is that Trump will disavow it and U.S. credibility on the issue will again be undermined, not to mention what the Israelis might do on the ground in response, to which the new administration may acquiesce.”
The United Nations resolution also represents the Obama administration’s last chance to weigh in on the sharply deteriorating prospects for peace, and indeed the cornerstone of United States policy: a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
Mr. Trump’s ambassador-designate, David M. Friedman, has suggested that Israel annex the West Bank, has denounced the two-state solution, and has likened Jewish members of the lobbying group J Street to “kapos” that cooperated with the Nazis.
Mr. Friedman, an Orthodox Jew who has an apartment in Jerusalem, is also a major backer of settlements, serving as president of an American fund-raising group that supports a yeshiva in Beit El, a religious settlement deep in the West Bank.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Friedman have also said they plan to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, something counter to longstanding bipartisan policy that could yield ire throughout the Arab and Muslim world.
Israel considers Jerusalem, including territory it captured from Jordan in the 1967 war, as its undivided capital, but the Palestinians see the holy city as the capital of their future state. Washington has long insisted that Jerusalem’s status can only be determined through negotiations as part of a broader peace agreement.