U.N. condemns U.S. decision on Jerusalem
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 Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour observes preparations for Thusday’s vote at the United Nations. There were 35 countries that abstained, including Canada and Mexico. 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