On December 23, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2334 with fourteen affirmative votes, no negative votes, and Washington’s abstention. By withholding its veto, the United States allowed the resolution to be adopted. The resolution declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be in “flagrant violation” of international law and demanded that all settlement activities “immediately and completely cease.”
Strong words. But they were entirely toothless.
The resolution neither provided nor threatened consequences should Israel violate the resolution — just as the US government made sure that no consequences have resulted from Israel’s continual violation of similar Security Council resolutions from as far back as 1979 or from its flouting of the 2004 opinion of the International Court of Justice. [...]
If Obama had wanted to make a clear statement on behalf of Palestinian rights, he could have followed the lead of 137 UN members and the urging of former president Jimmy Carter and recognized the state of Palestine. Or, less symbolically, he could have put forward a resolution declaring that all states should refrain from supplying military aid to Israel as long as its illegal settlements remain — which, of course, would apply mainly to the United States. Just three months ago, President Obama approved an unprecedented $38 billion in military aid over ten years to Israel. [...]
In 2011, the Security Council considered a resolution calling for a settlement freeze. The fourteen affirmative votes (and the wishes of the resolution’s 120 co-sponsors) were overridden by the Obama administration’s veto. Though this was Obama’s only UN veto, the ever-present threat of a US veto assured that his was the only presidency since 1967 under which there was not a single Security Council resolution critical of Israel.
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