U.S. Protects Israel at U.N.

David Streeter — April 1, 2010 – 3:59 pm | Barack Obama | Foreign Policy | Israel Comments (1) Add a comment

Last week, the United States used its vote in the United Nations Human Rights Council to defend Israel against biased resolutions. From Politico:

The U.S. was alone in voting against a resolution on “the human rights situation in the occupied Syrian Golan” on which 31 countries at the Geneva body voted in favor, 1 (the U.S.) against, and 15 countries abstained. The U.S. was entirely alone in voting against a resolution affirming “the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination,” for which 45 other countries voted in favor, with zero abstentions. And the U.S. was again entirely alone in voting against a resolution criticizing “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syria Golan,” for which 46 countries voted in favor, the U.S. voted against, and there were zero abstentions.

(On a fourth resolution, condemning “the grave human rights violations by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem,” the U.S. had a little company: 31 countries voted in favor, 9 against - the U.S., France, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, and the U.K., and there were 7 abstentions.)

As with the Goldstone Report and the Durban conference, President Barack Obama, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, and other members of America’s delegation to the U.N. have not missed an opportunity to defend Israel when it faces biased resolutions from hostile forces.

Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren have repeatedly said that the relationship between the United States and Israel remains solid. This is just another example of that fact.

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