U.S. Vetoes Palestinian Bid at UN to Halt Israeli Settlements

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Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. today vetoed a draft resolution in the United Nations Security Council that would have declared Israel’s settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be illegal and demanded a halt to such activity.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice sought until the final hours before the vote to reach agreement with Palestinian and Arab diplomats on a compromise statement that would have increased pressure on Israel to cease settlement construction, while stopping short of calling it illegal or demanding a moratorium.

Rice was alone in opposing the measure on the 15-member council, the UN’s principal policy making panel. It was the Obama administration’s first veto of a UN resolution and marked the 10th time in the past 11 years that the U.S. has voted against a text considered to be critical of Israel.

The veto, coming amid widespread protests against autocratic rulers in the Middle East and North Africa, may divert attention toward anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiments in the region and complicate Obama administration efforts to mediate Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

“The U.S. has a long history of trying to prevent the United Nations from becoming an instrument to coerce Israel, but I think in normal circumstances the U.S. veto would be less uncomfortable,” Stewart Patrick, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said in an interview. “They have a huge priority not to change the subject of the conversation from oppression of Arabs and Muslims by their own autocratic governments.”

Veto Impact

The peace talks, which broke down in September after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to extend a 10-month partial construction freeze in the West Bank, will be more difficult for the U.S. to restart following the veto, according to Robert Danin, onetime aide to former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Middle East envoy for the Quartet, which is comprised of the U.S., the UN, Russia and the European Union.

“The administration will feel they offered a very strong package in the form of a statement critical of Israel and instead were forced to cast the veto, something they did not want to do,” Danin said in an interview. “There will be a lot of frustration with the Palestinians, and with Israel for not having been helpful on the settlements issue.”

Palestinian Authority Ambassador Riyad Mansour said Rice offered U.S. support for stronger statements on settlement construction and other issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the Security Council and the Quartet, and suggested the U.S. would consider backing a proposed Security Council trip to the Middle East.

Arab Rejection

The Arabs and Palestinian Authority rejected the deal, saying their resolution incorporated previous language on settlements used by the U.S. government and the Security Council. The Press Trust of India reported today that in a phone conversation yesterday President Barack Obama told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas there would be “repercussions” for the U.S.-Palestinian relationship in the event the resolution was put to a vote.

The U.S. takes the position that while the settlements aren’t “legitimate,” the issue shouldn’t be taken to the Security Council. “The best forum for making progress in the negotiations, in the peace process, is in direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said yesterday.

Congressional Criticism

The negotiations over a U.S.-drafted statement ignited a flurry of criticism of the administration from some Congressional Republicans and Democrats.

“Support for this anti-Israel statement is a major concession to enemies of the Jewish State and other free democracies,” Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican of Florida and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said. “It telegraphs that the U.S. can be bullied into abandoning critical democratic allies and core U.S. principles.”

Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, said the “UN is a hotbed of anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment, and the U.S. must not act to further such hatred in any way or to help inject the UN into what should be decided in direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.”

A letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from 110 Democrats and Republicans decried “back door deals, of any sort, that weaken the strategic interests of any ally -- let alone one of our closest allies.”

Incentives for Israel

Obama last year offered Israel a package of incentives to halt settlements that included a pledge to block such proposed resolutions in the Security Council, and then abandoned attempts in December to broker a freeze on construction after Israel refused to halt building.

About 500,000 Jews have moved to the West Bank and East Jerusalem since Israel captured the territories in the 1967 Middle East war. The UN says the settlements are illegal, and the International Committee of the Red Cross says they breach the Fourth Geneva Convention governing actions on occupied territory.

Israel says the settlements don’t fall under the convention because the territory wasn’t recognized as belonging to anyone before the 1967 war, in which Israel prevailed, and therefore isn’t occupied.