U.S. Congress Defends Israel Against UN Resolution 2334

A new bipartisan move, led by Senators Rubio & Cardin, is underway in Congress to defend Israel against UN Resolution 2334. This is encouraging

[This is a few days old but definitely worth the read]

With Members of Congress back in Washington to begin a new legislative session, a major bipartisan effort is now underway in both chambers to counter U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, the anti-Israel measure President Obama shamefully refused to veto just before Hanukkah and Christmas.

I commend my friend, Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican, and Sen. Ben Cardin, the Maryland Democrat, for leading this effort to defend Israel, America’s most faithful and loyal ally in the Middle East. Today, they introduced a Senate resolution with broad bipartisan support that strongly opposes the actions taken by the U.N. and the Obama administration and lays out a positive American agenda towards Israel and the peace process with the Palestinians going forward. In the House, a similar resolutionhas been introduced by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY),  which I also commend.

President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence have, to their credit, denounced UNSC Resolution 2334. If they move quickly to enact the Rubio-Cardin recommendations, these will be steps in the right direction.

We need a new way forward on U.S. policy towards Israel and the Palestinians. The Obama-Clinton-Kerry approach was a disaster.

Unfortunately, since 2009 the Palestinian leadership has consistently refused Israel’s oft-repeated offers for direct bilateral negotiations. They also brought the Hamas terror organization into their government and have supported two rocket wars against Israel.

This is no way to make peace. Nor is the UN’s attempt to force a solution on Israel. We must vigorously oppose any and all efforts by the U.N. and other international bodies to dictate terms to Israel, or unilaterally declare illegal Israel’s legitimate claim to Jerusalem, the Biblical and eternal capital of the Jewish people. We must also strongly oppose every effort by the UN and others to delegitimize Israel and isolate her through boycotts, sanctions and divestment (ie, the “BDS” movement). Such efforts are unfair, unjust, and counter-productive. They make peace more difficult to achieve, not easier.

A PDF of the resolution is available here. The resolution:

• Expresses grave objection to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016);

• Calls for United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to be repealed or fundamentally altered so that it is no longer one-sided and allows all final status issues toward a two-state solution to be resolved through direct bilateral negotiations between the parties;

• Rejects efforts by outside bodies, including the United Nations Security Council, to impose solutions from the outside that set back the cause of peace;

• Demands that the United States ensure that no action is taken at the Paris Conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict scheduled for January 15, 2017, that imposes an agreement or parameters on the parties;

• Notes that granting membership and statehood standing to the Palestinians at the United Nations, its specialized agencies, and other international institutions outside of the context of a bilateral peace agreement with Israel would cause severe harm to the peace process, and would likely trigger the implementation of penalties under sections 7036 and 7041(j) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016 (division K of Public Law 114–113);

• Rejects any efforts by the United Nations, United Nations agencies, United Nations member states, and other international organizations to use United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to further isolate Israel through economic or other boycotts or any other measures, and urges the United States Government to take action where needed to counter any attempts to use United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to further isolate Israel;

• Urges the current presidential administration and all future presidential administrations to uphold the practice of vetoing all United Nations Security Council resolutions that seek to insert the Council into the peace process, recognize unilateral Palestinian actions including declaration of a Palestinian state, or dictate terms and a timeline for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict;

• Reaffirms that it is the policy of the United States to continue to seek a sustainable, just, and secure two-state solution to resolve the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians; and

• Urges the incoming Administration to work with Congress to create conditions that facilitate the resumption of direct, bilateral negotiations without preconditions between Israelis and Palestinians with the goal of achieving a sustainable agreement that is acceptable to both sides.