How the U.S. came to abstain on a U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settlements

By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, December 28, 2016

On Dec. 21, amid his morning workout, an afternoon round of golf and a family dinner with friends, President Obama interrupted his Hawaii vacation to consult by phone with his top national security team in Washington. Egypt had introduced a resolution at the U.N. Security Council condemning Israeli settlements as illegal, and a vote was scheduled for the next day.

The idea had been circulating at the council for months, but the abrupt timing was a surprise. Obama was open to abstaining, he said on the call, provided the measure was “balanced” in its censure of terrorism and Palestinian violence and there were no last-minute changes in the text.

Skeptics, including Vice President Biden, warned of fierce backlash in Congress and in Israel itself. But most agreed that the time had come to take a stand. The rapid increase of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, despite escalating U.S. criticism, could very well close the door to any hope of negotiating side-by-side Israeli and Palestinian states. Pending Israeli legislation would retroactively legalize settlements already constructed on Palestinian land.

The resolution’s sponsors, four countries in addition to Egypt, were determined to call a vote before Obama left office. A U.S. veto would not only imply approval of Israeli actions but also likely take Israel off the hook for at least the next four years during President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

“People debated whether the backlash to the vote, if we abstained, would do more harm than good, that it would reverberate into our politics, into Israeli politics, and would accelerate trends,” a senior administration official said. But “every potential argument about making things worse is already happening.”

Israel had been a third rail of U.S. political debate for decades, but Obama, aides noted, never had to run for office again. He had nothing to lose.

When the vote finally came two days later, all but one of the Security Council’s 15 members, including Russia, China and the United States’ closest European allies, approved it. U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power, who had just received the go-ahead from Obama, via a call from White House national security adviser Susan E. Rice, raised her hand high in abstention. The resolution was approved.

Reaction was as predicted. Members of Congress charged that Obama had undercut one of the United States’ closest allies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the measure “absurd,” and his government said the United States had secretly “colluded” with the Palestinians on the resolution–a charge Obama aides heatedly denied.

Trump, who had publicly urged a veto, tweeted for Israel to “stay strong” until his inauguration. Trump clearly plans a sharp change of course in U.S. policy. Chief Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon and others close to the president-elect have grown increasingly unhappy with administration comments in recent weeks, especially on Israel. Bannon and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner are leading the president-elect’s efforts on the Israel debate during the transition, fielding calls from Israeli officials and allies, and arranging meetings, according to several people familiar with the internal setup.

Asked by reporters Wednesday whether he thinks the United States should leave the United Nations, Trump said that as long as the international body is “solving problems” rather than causing them, “if it lives up to its potential, it’s a great thing. If it doesn’t, it’s a waste of time.”

But for the moment, at least, according to senior Obama administration officials who discussed the road to the president’s decision on the condition of anonymity, the administration takes some satisfaction in that the issue of settlements and the perceived risk they pose to an eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is back on the international agenda.