Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton has ripped the Obama administration and Secretary of State John Kerry for creating the international political environment which allowed a Jordanian resolution on Palestinian statehood to fail by a margin of just one vote in the U.N. Security Council.
And, Bolton
writes in The Wall Street Journal, because of coming changes in the makeup of the Security Council, the measure looks more likely to pass in the near future unless the Obama administration threatens a veto.
Bolton, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a Fox News commentator, wrote: "It is precisely the Obama administration’s audible heart palpitations about negative Arab reactions to a possible U.S. veto that encouraged the Palestinian Authority and its supporters to plunge ahead. Mr. Obama neither prevented the resolution from going forward nor prevailed decisively enough to discourage the Palestinians from trying again within months or even weeks."
Only the U.S. and Australia voted against the measure, which would have mandated that Israel and Palestine settle their differences within one year, that Israel withdraw to its pre-1967 borders, that East Jerusalem become the capital of a Palestinian state and that Israel cease building settlements and release Palestinian prisoners,
Reuters reports.
The proposal required nine votes for passage. The vote results were two against, five abstentions and eight in favor, the Journal notes.
"Absent more effective U.S. diplomacy, the Obama administration could soon face making a choice that it would dearly like to avoid: whether to veto a biased, anti-Israel resolution," Bolton wrote.
"A firmer U.S. strategy might have prevented the dilemma from arising. The White House’s opening diplomatic error was in sending strong signals to the media and U.S. allies that Mr. Obama, wary of offending Arab countries, was reluctant to veto any resolution favoring a Palestinian state.
"Secretary of State John Kerry took pains not to offer a view of the resolution before it was taken up. Such equivocation was a mistake because even this administration asserts that a permanent resolution of the Israeli-Arab conflict requires direct negotiations and agreements among the parties themselves," Bolton wrote.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly thanked the U.S. and Australia for their votes, as well as Rwanda and Nigeria for abstaining,
The Jerusalem Post reports.
Former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren told the Jerusalem Post: "The Palestinian leadership proved once again that it's not interested in peace with its attempt to force a state on us, via the U.N."
Bolton wrote in the Journal: "The Obama administration can only prevent what it dreads by openly embracing a veto strategy, hoping thereby to dissuade pro-Palestinian states from directly confronting the U.S.
"If the administration had courage enough to make clear that a veto was inevitable, it would minimize whatever collateral damage might ensue in Arab lands.
"But don’t hold your breath."
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