U.N. condemns U.S. decision on Jerusalem
Vote ignores Trump funding-cut threat
WASHINGTON — In a sharp reproach to the Trump administration, the United Nations overwhelmingly voted Thursday to condemn the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, ignoring President Donald Trump’s last-minute threats to punish countries that voted against the U.S. position.
The General Assembly approved the resolution 128-9, with 35 abstentions, in an emergency session. The resolution was nonbinding, but it was a powerful signal that the White House and Israel remain isolated on an issue of global concern that is popular with Trump’s base.
The vote marked the latest sign of how the Trump administration has roiled world affairs, challenging international efforts to combat climate change, to stem human rights abuses and to ease the nuclear standoff with
North Korea.
Diplomat after diplomat in the General Assembly said the status of Jerusalem had to be resolved in final peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. No other nation said it would follow the U.S. lead and move its embassy to Jerusalem.
The resolution says any decisions regarding the political status of Jerusalem “have no legal effect, are null and void” and should be rescinded. The text does not mention the United States but expresses “deep regret at recent decisions concerning the status of Jerusalem.”
On Wednesday, Trump had warned that he might cut U.S. aid to countries that voted for the resolution.
“They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars and they they vote against us,” he said. “Well, we are watching those votes. … Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care.”
It’s not clear if Trump intends to carry out his threat.
Veteran diplomats said doing so could alienate allies and reduce Washington’s ability to influence events at the U.N., which tends to support U.S. priorities. The final vote suggests many nations, including such Arab allies as Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, dismissed Trump’s talk as bluster, or were willing to risk his ire.
Trump’s Dec. 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem, and to order the State Department to ultimately move the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv, upended decades of U.S. policy and international consensus that the divided city’s status should be negotiated. Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state.
Major U.S. allies England, Germany, France and Japan, as well as America’s key allies in the Muslim world, voted in favor of the resolution, saying they were reaffirming previous Security Council resolutions on Jerusalem dating to 1967 that are still in force.
Canada and Mexico, both of which are entrenched in negotiations with Washington to reset terms of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, abstained. Australia, one of America’s closest allies, also abstained.
The 35 abstentions, plus 21 countries that did not turn up for the vote, was more than many diplomats had expected, suggesting that Trump’s tactics had partly worked.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Trump and praised the countries that abstained or didn’t show up to vote.
“I do appreciate the fact that a growing number of countries refused to participate in this theater of the absurd,” Netanyahu said on his Facebook account.
In a speech before the vote, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., emphasized that Trump’s decision on Jerusalem did not prejudge the city’s final status in a peace deal, or preclude a possible two-state solution.
But she reiterated Trump’s tough stance, saying the United States “will remember this day.”
The outcome was not a surprise. A similar resolution passed the U.N. Security Council 14-1 earlier this week but was vetoed by the United States. No country has a veto in the 193-member General Assembly.
Within hours of the U.N. vote, the Trump administration appeared to be gingerly backing away from its funding threats.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said cuts to countries that opposed the U.S. were not a foregone conclusion.
In addition to Israel and the United States, the nations that voted against the resolution were Guatemala and Honduras in Central America, the West African nation of Togo, and the tiny Pacific island states of Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru and Palau.