Dubai – Envoy: Palestinians May Seek U.N. Assembly Support If U.S. Vetoes Jerusalem Resolution

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    Protesters rally at a demonstration organized by the US Council of Muslim Organizations in opposition to U.S. president Donald Trump's announced intention to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, at the Ellipse near the White House in Washington, U.S., December 16, 2017. REUTERS/James Lawler DugganDubai – The Palestinian leadership may turn to the U.N. General Assembly if Washington vetoes a draft U.N. Security Council resolution to reaffirm Jerusalem’s status as unresolved, after President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize it as Israel’s capital.

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    The Palestinian United Nations envoy raised this option in remarks published in Saudi daily Arab News on Monday, ahead of a Security Council vote on an Egyptian-drafted resolution about Jerusalem’s status which the United States is expected to veto.

    The draft says any “decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded”.

    Trump’s Dec. 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to move the U.S. Embassy to the city has provoked widespread anger and protests among Palestinians as well as broad international criticism, including from top U.S. allies.

    Israel says Jerusalem is its indivisible capital. It captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in a move never recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state they seek in territory Israel captured a half century ago.

    Arab News quoted Ambassador Riyad Mansour as saying that the Palestinians and Egyptians have worked closely with Security Council members while drafting the resolution to ensure that it gets overwhelming support.

    “The Europeans in particular asked us to avoid terms like ‘denounce’ and ‘condemn,’ and not to mention the U.S. by name,” it quoted Mansour as saying. “We acceded to their request but kept the active clauses rejecting all changes to Jerusalem and the reaffirmation of previous decisions.”

    Israel has long accused the United Nations of bias against it in its conflict with the Palestinians and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s move again on Sunday.

    The Palestinians have the option of invoking a rarely-used article of the U.N. Charter that calls for parties to a dispute not to cast a veto, Arab News said. But, it said, they are more likely to take the issue to the General Assembly under Resolution 377A, known as the “Uniting for Peace” resolution.

    Resolution 377A was passed in 1950 and used to authorize the deployment of U.S. troops to fight in the Korean war.

    Mansour said Palestinians resorted to the “Uniting for Peace” resolution in the 1990s after Israel began building a settlement on Jabal Abut Ghnaim, a hilltop on occupied West Bank land south of Jerusalem, but left that session in suspension. However, they could seek a resumption of the session, he said.

    “If the resolution is vetoed, the Palestinian delegation can send a letter to the U.N. Secretary General and ask him to resume the emergency session,” he said, according to Arab News.


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    21 Comments
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    hashomer
    hashomer
    6 years ago

    Good to know that herr trumpf’s royal screw up has directly led to the outpouring of love for the palees and the soon recognition of paleestein. What will he screw up next?

    yonasonw
    Member
    yonasonw
    6 years ago

    As many a friend of Israel would have predicted over the past 50 years, what Trump has done essentially is to “…bite the tail of a sleeping lion, and leave him with a terrible resolve…” – and little if anything more.

    Shkoyach to all of you armchair Yiddishe Rambos. Hail Victory

    6 years ago

    I beg to differ with many here. I think yonasonw is educated and intellectual. But who cares? Why does the buck stop at being educated? What happened to common sense? And some of the most anti jewish anti israel and hateful cultures are festered at college campuses. Is it a kuns to be educated at Berkely? The hippies were educated too.

    Education is lehvadil like torah in a sense. Its a means to help you swim and provides tools to our daily lives. But one must apply his tools correctly. Education is not a means for itself. (Of course our torah is alot more than education. Its our life.)