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Abbas confirms liaised with US before UN resolution
The President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) has confirmed in an interview with Israeli media that a draft of last week’s UN Security Council resolution was sent to US officials before it was submitted.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas spoke to Yediot Ahronot, his first interview since last week’s resolution, which condemned Israeli settlements, and Wednesday’s speech by US Secretary of State John Kerry, which criticised Israel’s government and its policies.
Abbas said that although there was “no direct coordination” with Washington, “the Americans received the draft resolution… we have been talking to the Americans for a long time about passing a resolution on stopping settlement [activity]”.
He also said that Washington’s abstention at last week’s UN vote and Kerry’s speech were examples of the US acting “as a true friend, which wants to save Israel”.
Asked by the reporter if he would recognise Israel as a Jewish state, Abbas said: “It’s not our role or our business [to decide] how you define yourselves. What do you want from us?”
Recognising Israel as a Jewish state has long been demanded by Netanyahu’s government as part of the two states for two peoples formula, and was set out by Kerry in his speech this week as one of the principles he believes is required for progress to be made.
Also yesterday, US Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes confirmed that the Obama administration will not allow any further UN resolutions critical of Israel to be passed at the Security Council before the end of its term. Rhodes told CNN’s Jake Tapper that any future resolutions would be vetoed. Israeli officials have feared that Kerry’s speech would be codified into an additional resolution.
Rhodes was also interviewed by Haaretz where he defended Washington’s decision to abstain, rather than veto, last week’s motion.
Rhodes said: “This is not how the resolution would look if we were in fact drafting it. We would have liked to see more balance in the resolution, and this is why we abstained rather than voting in favour.”