The resolution failed to
achieve the 9-votes majority required to
pass. Eight countries voted in favor of the
motion - China, France, Russia, Argentina,
Chad, Chile, Jordan, Luxembourg - two
opposed - US and Australia - and five
abstained - UK, Lithuania, Nigeria, Korea,
Rwanda.
US Ambassador to the UN
Samantha Power said in comments after the
vote that: "Instead of giving voice to the
aspirations of both Palestinians and
Israelis, this text addresses only one
side."
Earlier on Tuesday,
representatives of the Arab countries in the
United Nations claimed that they have
managed to secure a majority of nine votes
at the UN Security Council needed to pass
the resolution.
According to the Arab
representatives, France and Luxemburg have
been persuaded to vote in favor of the draft
resolution re-submitted on Monday night,
alongside seven other countries. There are
15 members in the UN Security Council - 5
permanent members and 10 changing ones.
Jordan on Tuesday
circulated to the UN Security Council a
draft resolution prepared by the
Palestinians, who said they want it put to a
vote before Thursday. Washington and London
both said they could not support the draft
because it was not constructive and failed
to address Israel's security needs.
British UN Ambassador Mark
Lyall Grant was asked by reporters whether
his delegation could support the Palestinian
draft.
"Well no," he said.
"There's some difficulties with the text,
particularly language on time scales, new
language on refugees. So I think we would
have some difficulties."
Lyall Grant did not
explicitly threaten to use Britain's veto
power to help block the Palestinian text if
it is put to a vote.
All 22 Arab delegations
endorsed the Palestinian draft on Monday,
though Jordanian Ambassador Dina Kawar, the
sole Arab representative on the 15-nation
council, said she would personally have
liked more time to consult on the draft.
Israel has said a Security
Council vote, following the collapse in
April of US-brokered talks on Palestinian
statehood, would deepen the conflict. It
supports negotiations but rejects
third-party time lines. In a meeting with
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence on Monday, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that
"Israel will oppose conditions that endanger
our future."
"We expect the entire
international community - at least the
responsible members of that community - to
oppose vigorously this UN diktat, this UN
Security Council resolution. Because what we
need always is direct negotiations and not
imposed conditions," he told Pence in a
meeting in Jerusalem.
The Palestinians,
frustrated by the lack of progress on peace
talks, have sought to internationalize the
issue by seeking UN membership and
recognition of statehood via membership in
international organizations.
The United States,
Israel's closest ally, said Monday it is
opposed to the draft resolution. It has
insisted on a negotiated peace agreement
between Israel and the Palestinians, not an
imposed timetable.
Washington, council diplomats
say, has also made clear it does not want a
resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian issue
voted on before Israel's election in March.
It will therefore not hesitate use its veto
to strike down the Palestinian measure if
necessary, council diplomats said.
"We don't think this
resolution is constructive," State
Department spokesman Jeff Rathke told a news
briefing on Monday. "We think it sets
arbitrary deadlines for reaching a peace
agreement and for Israel's withdrawal from
the West Bank, and those are more likely to
curtail useful negotiations than to bring
them to a successful conclusion.
"Further, we think that
the resolution fails to account for Israel's
legitimate security needs, and the
satisfaction of those needs, of course,
integral to a sustainable settlement."
Riyad Mansour, the
Palestinian UN ambassador, told reporters
who asked why the Palestinians were pressing
for a vote in the face of a US veto that it
was time for the Security Council "to
shoulder its responsibility and to adopt
this resolution."
"If one party decides for
whatever reason that they do not want to go
along with this massive support by the
international community to find a just
solution to this conflict, to try to save
the two-state solution by asking for the end
of the occupation that started in 1967 ...
then nobody should blame us as Arabs and
Palestinians and Muslims ... and so many
others for not opening a door - a
responsible door for peace through the
Security Council," Mansour said.
The draft resolution
affirms the urgent need to achieve "a just,
lasting and comprehensive peaceful solution"
to the decades-old Palestinian-Israeli
conflict within 12 months and sets a Dec.
31, 2017 deadline for "Israel's occupation"
to end. It calls for an independent state of
Palestine to be established within 1967
borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital,
and demands "a just solution" to all other
outstanding issues including Palestinian
refugees, prisoners in Israeli jails, and
water.
The Palestinians initially
circulated a draft resolution on Oct. 1
asking the council to set a deadline of
November 2016 for an Israeli withdrawal from
all Palestinian territory captured since
1967.
France had been working
for a UN resolution aimed at restarting
Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations,
setting a two-year deadline for success.
Diplomats said France was seeking
negotiations on the latest draft resolution
in the Security Council, but that idea was
rejected by the Arab group.
The Associated Press contributed to this
report.
