Jerusalem/United Nations: US President-elect Donald Trump echoed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in urging the Obama administration to veto a UN Security Council draft resolution that calls for an immediate halt to settlement building on occupied land Palestinians seek for a state.
Netanyahu took to Twitter in the dead of night in Israel to make the appeal, in a sign of concern that President Barack Obama might take a parting shot at a policy he has long opposed and at a right-wing Israeli leader with whom he has had a rocky relationship.
Hours later, Trump, posting on Twitter and Facebook, backed fellow conservative Netanyahu on one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the pursuit - effectively stalled since 2014 - of a two-state solution.
“The resolution being considered at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel should be vetoed,” Trump said. “As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations.
“This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis,” he wrote.
After Trump’s statement, a U.S. administration official said: “We have no comment at this time.”
Egypt circulated the draft on Wednesday evening and the 15-member council was due to vote at 3 p.m. ET (2000 GMT), diplomats said. It was unclear, they said, how the United States, which has protected Israel from UN action, would vote.
The resolution would demand Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem”.
