UN adopts Jerusalem resolution despite American threats

Monitoring Desk

NEW YORK: The United Nations on Thursday overwhelmingly adopted a resolution on Jerusalem, calling on the United States to withdraw its recognition of the city as Israel’s capital.

A total of 128 members voted in favor of the Jerusalem resolution, nine countries voted against and 35 others abstained.

The UN’s 193-member General Assembly voted on the resolution rejecting U.S. President Donald Trump’s Dec. 6 decision to recognize the city as Israel’s capital — a move that has drawn condemnation from across the Arab and Muslim world.

Israel, Honduras, Togo, U.S., Palau, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Guatemala voted against Jerusalem resolution.

Two-thirds of UN member states including Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Spain and Greece voted in favor of the resolution.

The American ambassador, Nikki R. Haley, called the vote “null and void,” declaring that “no vote in the United Nations will make any difference” for the decision to move the embassy, which she called “the right thing to do.”

Echoing vows by President Trump to keep score, Ms. Haley said, “The United States will remember this day, in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very right of exercising our right as a sovereign nation.”

“We will remember it when we are called upon once again to make the world’s largest contribution to the United Nations,” she says. “And we will remember when so many countries come calling on us, as they so often do, to pay even more and to use our influence for their benefit.”

Diplomats brushed aside what appeared to be a hastily organized pressure campaign by the White House, including last-minute threats by President Trump to cut off aid to countries voting for the resolution.