The United States on Tuesday voted against the unilateral Palestinian resolution submitted to the Security Council at the United Nations. Nine votes were needed, and the PA got eight aye votes, two nays, and five abstentions. If the PA would have garnered nine votes, the US would have vetoed the resolution. On Monday, State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke telling reporters that the Palestinian draft proposal failed “to account for Israel’s legitimate security needs, and the satisfaction of those needs, of course, integral to a sustainable settlement.”
On Tuesday, UN Ambassador Samantha Power told the press that the resolution was “deeply imbalanced.” She also criticized the Council for putting the resolution to a vote without any debate–an unusual move for the Council. She said, “We voted against it because we know what everyone here knows as well: Peace will come from hard choices and compromises that must come at the negotiating table. This text addresses the concerns of only one side. It would undermine efforts to get back to an atmosphere that achieves two states for two peoples.” The PA deadlines, she said, “take no account of Israel’s legitimate security concerns.”
Rathke blasted the resolution for “set[ting] arbitrary deadlines for reaching a peace agreement and for Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank.” On Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry had, in a phone call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, hinted that Washington would veto the proposal and consider imposing economic sanctions on the Palestinians should Ramallah move forward with the bid. Foreign Policy earlier this month assessed growing tensions between Palestinian officials and the administration, noting that a unilateral statehood bid “risks a serious rupture with the United States.”
The administration has long opposed Palestinian moves that aim to prejudge the outcome of direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which violate among other things Oslo Accords and Wye Agreement obligations and risk triggering U.S. legislation that conditions assistance on the Palestinians meeting treaty requirements banning unilateralism.
