World: Trump threatens UN on Jerusalem vote

General Assembly resolution calls for negotiations to resolve capital issue

UN member states will vote Thursday on a motion rejecting US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, with President Donald Trump threatening to cut funding to countries that back the measure.

At an emergency session, the UN General Assembly will decide on a draft resolution reaffirming that Jerusalem is an issue that must be resolved through negotiations and that any decision on its status has no legal effect and must be rescinded.

The measure was sent to the General Assembly after it was vetoed by the United States at the Security Council on Monday, although all other 14 council members voted in favor.

The status of the Holy City is one of the most thorny issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with both sides claiming it as their capital.

Trump’s decision on December 6 to recognize the city as Israel’s capital broke with international consensus and unleashed protests across the Muslim world, prompting a flurry of appeals to the United Nations.

But Trump warned that Washington would closely watch how nations voted, suggesting there could even be reprisals for countries that back the motion which was put forward by Yemen and Turkey on behalf of Arab and Muslim countries.

“They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars and then they vote against us,” Trump said at the White House.

“Well, we’re watching those votes. Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care.”

The draft resolution mirrors the text that was vetoed on Monday, and although it does not mention Trump’s decision, it expresses “deep regret at recent decisions” concerning the city’s status.

Ahead of the vote, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the UN as a “house of lies,” saying Israel “rejects outright this vote, even before it passes.”

“The attitude to Israel of many nations in the world, in all the continents, is changing outside of the UN walls, and will eventually filter into the UN as well – the house of lies,” he said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday called on UN member states not to be swayed by US leader Donald Trump’s threat to cut funding, during a key vote on a motion rejecting US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

“I am calling on the whole world: never sell your democratic will in return for petty dollars,” he said in a televised speech in Ankara.

Israel seized the largely-Arab eastern sector of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it, claiming both sides of the city as its “eternal and undivided capital.”

But the Palestinians want the eastern sector as capital of their future state and fiercely oppose any Israeli attempt to extend sovereignty there.

Several UN resolutions call on Israel to withdraw from territory seized in 1967 and the draft resolution contains the same language as past motions adopted by the assembly.