Israel yesterday summoned representatives of states that supported a UN resolution demanding it halt settlement activity, while cutting civilian co-ordination with Palestinians by way of rebuke.
Ambassadors from 10 of the 14 countries that voted in favour of the resolution and have embassies in Israel – Britain, China, Russia, France, Egypt, Japan, Uruguay, Spain, Ukraine and New Zealand – were summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, the ministry said.
Sunday is a regular work day in Israel, but most embassies are closed, and calling in envoys on Christmas Day is highly unusual.
The Council passed the measure on Friday after the United States abstained, enabling the adoption of the first resolution since 1979 to condemn Israel over its settlement policy.
The US envoy was not summoned.
The resolution demands “Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem.”
It says settlements have “no legal validity” and are “dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-state solution.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had rejected the resolution as a “shameful blow against Israel,” repeated yesterday the Israeli claim that US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were behind the resolution.
“We have no doubt that the Obama administration initiated it, stood behind it, co-ordinated the drafts and demanded to pass it,” Netanyahu said at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting.
“This is of course in total contradiction to the traditional American policy of not trying to impose conditions of a final resolution,” Netanyahu said, “and of course the explicit commitment of President Obama himself in 2011 to avoid such measures.”
Netanyahu described a telephone conversation with Kerry on Thursday, when Israel and President-elect Donald Trump successfully pressed Egypt to drop the anti-settlement resolution it had put forward.
It was resubmitted a day later by New Zealand, Senegal, Venezuela and Malaysia.
“Over decades American administrations and Israeli governments disagreed about settlements, but we agreed that the Security Council was not the place to resolve this issue,” Netanyahu said.
“We knew that going there would make negotiations harder and drive peace farther away. As I told John Kerry on Thursday, ‘Friends don’t take friends to the Security Council’,” he said, switching from Hebrew to English.
Also yesterday Netanyahu cancelled a visit by his Ukrainian counterpart over the vote.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman was expected to visit on Wednesday, but Netanyahu ordered the trip cancelled after Ukraine voted in favour of the resolution, Israel Radio said.
Israel has pursued a policy of constructing settlements on territory it captured in a 1967 war with its Arab neighbours – the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, areas Palestinians seek for a state.
Most countries view the settlement activity as illegal and an obstacle to peace.
Israel disagrees, citing biblical and historical connections to the West Bank and Jerusalem as well as security interests.
While the resolution contains no sanctions, Israeli officials are concerned it could widen the possibility of prosecution at the International Criminal Court.
They are also worried it could encourage some countries to impose sanctions against Israeli settlers and goods produced in the settlements.
Earlier yesterday, army radio reported that Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman ordered the Israeli security establishment to cease to all co-operation on civilian matters with the Palestinians, while retaining security co-ordination.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the weekly cabinet meeting at his Jerusalem office yesterday.
