Turnbull castigates UN stance on Israel

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has launched a heavy rebuke against the United Nations, over a New Zealand-led Security Council resolution accusing Israel of the ‘‘flagrant violation of international law’’ over its settlement actions.

Turnbull’s words came in a stinging opinion piece published in The Australian, timed to welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who begins a state visit to Australia today.

And while Netanyahu will be making the trip to be Israel’s first sitting Prime Minister to visit Australia, Prime Minister Bill English has confirmed no attempts to hold discussions with his officials while in the region have been made by New Zealand.

UN resolution 2334 condemned Israel’s continued settlements in occupied Palestinian territories as a ‘‘flagrant violation of international law’’, which undermined efforts to reach a two-state solution.

In his piece, Turnbull criticised countries who had ‘‘chastised Israel alone’’, for the failure of the peace process.

‘‘My government will not support one-sided resolutions criticising Israel of the kind recently adopted by the UN Security Council and we deplore the boycott campaigns designed to delegitimise the Jewish state.

‘‘At the same time, we recognise that Israel and the Palestinians need to come to a settlement and we support a directly negotiated two-state solution so that Palestinians will have their own state and the people of Israel can be secure within agreed borders,’’ Turnbull wrote.

English confirmed Turnbull raised his displeasure when he hosted his Australian counterpart in Queenstown last Friday.

‘‘We had some discussion about it. New Zealand was involved with sponsoring the resolution. I think the Australian Government probably disagrees with that.

‘‘But we want a constructive relationship with Israel and we intend to work on that relationship. We stand by the resolution, but we also respect the right of Israel to have a strong view, to protect itself and to articulate its views,’’ English said.

There had been no diplomatic communications between New Zealand and Israel in recent weeks, but English said he expected communication would resume over time.

‘‘We understand the extent to which the resolution upset Israel they had quite strong views about it - and we’ll be communicating with them about our focus on a positive relationship.’’

In December, New Zealand along with Malaysia, Senegal and

"We stand by the resolution, but we also respect the right of Israel to have a strong view ..." Prime Minister Bill English

Venezuela sponsored the resolution after Egypt - the original sponsor - dropped it, following pressure from then President-elect Donald Trump.

It reiterated a demand that Israel ‘‘immediately and completely’’ cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory.

It passed with 14 votes in favour and one abstention - former US representative Samantha Power abstained in a symbolic break with past US policy.

The diplomatic fallout has seen Israel ban New Zealand’s ambassador from entering the country, and recall its own from Wellington.

Israel has also placed severe sanctions on the other sponsoring countries.

While Israel still operates an embassy in Wellington, Netanyahu has sought to remove diplomatic links at the top level.

English said there was ‘‘no indication’’ ambassadorial links would be reinstated in the near future.