Assembly votes to blast Trump’s Jerusalem edict

The UN General Assembly voted 128-9 on Thursday in favor of a resolution condemning President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. There were 35 abstentions.

Under the nonbinding measure, any decision to change the status of Jerusalem is null and void, has no legal effect and must be rescinded. It also calls on member countries not to set up diplomatic missions in Jerusalem.

A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the vote “a victory for Palestine,” while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he “completely rejects this preposterous resolution.”

“Jerusalem is our capital. Always was, always will be. But I do appreciate the fact that a growing number of countries refuse to participate in this theater of the absurd,” he said in a video posted on Facebook.

“So I appreciate that, and especially I want to again express our thanks to President Trump and [UN] Ambassador [Nikki] Haley for their stalwart defense of Israel and their stalwart defense of the truth.”

Haley was defiant ahead of the vote, insisting that the US would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem no matter how the vote turned out.

“No vote in the UN will make any difference on that,” she said.

In addition to the US and Israel, Guatemala, Honduras, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Togo voted against the resolution.

Among the countries that voted in favor were India, Russia and China. Abstaining nations included Canada, Mexico, Australia, Poland, Hungary, Croatia and the Czech Republic.

Trump’s threat this week to cut off US funding to countries that oppose his Dec. 6 decision — which reversed decades of US policy and sparked violent protests across Israel and the rest of the world — appeared to have had an impact.

Support for the resolution among the General Assembly’s 193 members was lower than its supporters hoped for, with many predicting at least 150 “yes” votes, CBS News reported.

Among the countries that voted for the measure were Egypt and Jordan, which, according to The Washington Post, are the only two countries besides Israel that receive more than $1 billion in US aid annually.

The vote followed stinging words from Haley, who reminded the assembly that the US was “by far the single largest contributor to the UN” and warned that the US might also cut funding to the world body itself.

“We’ll be honest with you, when we make generous contributions to the UN, we also have a legitimate expectation that our goodwill is recognized and respected,” Haley said.

“The United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation,” she added.

“We will remember it when we are called upon to once again make the world’s largest contribution to the United Nations, and we will remember it when so many countries come calling on us, as they so often do, to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit.”

The resolution went to the assembly after the US vetoed it at the Security Council on Monday, although all other 14 council members voted in favor.

Netanyahu blasted the UN earlier in the day as a “house of lies,” saying Israel “rejects outright this vote, even before it passes.”

At the assembly, Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon held up a coin that he said dated to 67 AD and bore the words, in Hebrew, “Freedom of Zion.”

He called the coin “clear evidence . . . that proves the ancient connection of Jews to Jerusalem,” CBS reported.

Israel, which captured the eastern part of Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War, considers the city to be its eternal, undivided capital.

Palestinians want to make East Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state.

President Trump and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley’s warnings that Washington would take action against nations that oppose the United States in the General Assembly clearly had their intended effect.

Yes, Thursday’s vote declaring Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital “null and void” was predictably lopsided: The final tally was 128-9.

But 35 nations abstained, including five members of the European Union who broke with the EU consensus and several in Latin America. Another 21 nations just didn’t show up for the vote.

That’s far more than were originally expected before Haley warned that “the US will be taking names.”

After all, the nonbinding resolution was aimed as much at America as at Israel: Without naming Trump, it called for recent decisions on Jerusalem to be “rescinded.”

This, when, as Haley noted (in remarks excerpted on the opposite page), America has been paying the lion’s share of the UN budget ever since its founding. Without the US and its aid, there is no United Nations.

And, as she also stressed, “when a nation is singled out for attack, that nation is disrespected” — especially when it’s then called on to pay for the “privilege.”

So the United States “will remember this day when it was singled out for attack,” particularly “when so many countries come calling on us, as they so often do, to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit.”

Such blunt talk, hearkening back to such outspoken ambassadors as Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick, was long overdue.

It sends the important message that Washington won’t tailor its policies against its own interests in the name of international consensus and avoiding confrontation.

Americans — who, after all, pay the bills — have a right to expect, as Haley said, that “our good will is recognized and respected.” And those who refuse to do so can expect to face the consequences.