Palestinians Aim To Take Advantage of Widening Washington-Jerusalem Rift

Encouraged by Washington’s public rebuke of Israel, the Palestinian Authority is promoting a resolution at the United Nations to condemn Jerusalem and isolate Prime Minister Netanyahu on the world stage. A proposed UN Security Council resolution is being circulated among the body’s 15 members, for a possible vote on Monday. The proposed text, which was obtained by the Sun, would “condemn” Israel’s settlement policies and “demand” an end to all settlement activities in what it calls the “occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.” Diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Sun that in its current form, the text would likely be vetoed by America. Yet, Washington may agree to a joint council statement on Israeli settlements. Such statements require no vote. Instead, they are agreed on during closed-door consultations of all council members and are then read by the council’s president. They carry less weight than formal resolutions. In December 2016, during President Obama’s final days in office, America allowed the passage of a Security Council resolution that declared Israeli presence in the West Bank and Jerusalem illegal under international law. Diplomats admitted at the time that while America abstained from the final vote, it in fact helped to write the resolution, and encouraged other council members to support it. Prior to Mr. Obama’s decision to depart from a long-established American policy of vetoing council resolutions on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, Israelis complained that their American colleagues kept them in the dark. “They won’t talk to us, and that is very unusual,” a senior Jerusalem diplomat told the Sun at the time. In contrast, as this week’s negotiations over a new measure at the council are ongoing, there are “open lines of communication” between American and Israeli diplomats, according to several UN sources who asked not to be identified. Yet, this week Secretary Blinken and foreign ministers from France, Germany, Italy, and Britain, issued a joint statement expressing concern over the Israeli government’s latest measures in the West Bank. The joint statement followed Jerusalem’s announcement of a plan to build 10,000 housing units in the West Bank and to normalize nine outposts that were previously deemed illegal by Israeli courts. The foreign ministers said that they are “deeply troubled by the Israeli government’s announcement,” adding that they “strongly oppose these unilateral actions.”Unlike that statement, the proposed Palestinian text for a Security Council resolution mentions no particular Israeli government policy. Instead, it issues a condemnation on settlement policies that all Israeli governments have enacted since the West Bank was captured in Israel’s defensive war of 1967. The proposed new resolution condemns “all attempts at annexation, including decisions and measures by Israel regarding settlements, including settlement outposts, and calls for their immediate reversal.” It also demands that “Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”Even as various American presidents have been at odds with Israel over West Bank policies, they by and large agreed with Israel that dealing with these issues at the UN, and specifically at the Security Council, is unproductive. Yet, an American council veto is far from guaranteed, as Mr. Obama’s 2016 case shows.Current Israeli-American relations are fast cooling off, as, beyond the dispute with the Palestinians, Mr. Netanyahu’s domestic policies are seen as irksome among members of President Biden’s administration. When Mr. Netanyahu presented his new right-wing government in late December, Mr. Biden said in a statement, “I look forward to working with Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has been my friend for decades.” Yet, a planned invitation for the Israeli premier to visit White House has been placed on ice. In addition to Mr. Blinken’s public rebuke on settlements, Mr. Biden interjected himself into an internal Israeli debate over the balance between the courts and the legislative body, after being egged on by a New York Times columnist. All that does not necessarily mean that America would once again join the Palestinian Authority’s strategy of using the UN and other international bodies in its war against Israel. Yet, the rift between Messrs. Netayahu and Biden appears to be widening. Along with it, traditional diplomatic rituals — including the delicate dance that leads to American vetoes at the UN — could fall by the wayside.

Palestinians Aim To Take Advantage of Widening Washington-Jerusalem Rift

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