{"id":279017,"date":"2016-12-23T06:45:10","date_gmt":"2016-12-23T06:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=279017"},"modified":"2016-12-23T06:45:10","modified_gmt":"2016-12-23T06:45:10","slug":"egypt-delays-un-resolution-on-israel-as-trump-raises-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=279017","title":{"rendered":"Egypt delays UN resolution on Israel as Trump raises concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Egypt has suddenly delayed a vote on its UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank as Donald Trump made his opposition clear.<\/p>\n<p>A US official told the BBC that it had been considering an abstention, which would have allowed the motion to pass.<\/p>\n<p>Israel then contacted Donald Trump&#8217;s transition team to intervene, an Israeli official told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>Egypt&#8217;s resolution called for Israel to stop building new settlements, which it said breached international law.<\/p>\n<p>It was to have been voted on in the UN Security Council on Thursday, but Egypt withdrew it hours before the meeting was due to start.<\/p>\n<p>The United States, which holds a veto at Security Council, has traditionally sheltered Israel from condemnatory resolutions by voting them down.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Israelis deeply appreciate one of the great pillars of the US-Israel alliance: the willingness over many years of the United States to stand up in the UN and veto anti-Israel resolutions,&#8221; said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I hope the US won&#8217;t abandon this policy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But there had been speculation that the Obama administration might change that strategy in the president&#8217;s final month in office and allow Egypt&#8217;s resolution condemning Israel to pass by abstaining from voting in the Security Council.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier on Thursday, Mr Trump had urged the Security Council to defeat the resolution.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, the US president-elect said &#8220;peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/1618E\/production\/_93101509_hi036986163.jpg\" alt=\"This file photo taken on March 21, 2016 shows US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) 2016 Policy Conference in Washington, DC,\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><span class=\"story-image-copyright\">GETTY IMAGES<\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"media-caption__text\">Both Israeli officials and the Egyptian president spoke with Mr Trump, it emerged<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>After the postponement of the vote, an Israeli official told Reuters news agency that it had warned the Obama administration in advance that it would appeal to the president-elect if the US abstained, and confirmed that it had directly asked Mr Trump to intervene.<\/p>\n<p>Egyptian President Abdel al-Sisi also spoke to Mr Trump by telephone. In a statement, Mr Sisi&#8217;s office said the two leaders had agreed the new US administration should be given a chance to deal with the issue.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Trump takes over as US president on 20 January.<\/p>\n<p>However, four other members of the security council warned that if Egypt did not press ahead with its resolution, other member states would do so.<\/p>\n<p>New Zealand, Venezuela, Malaysia, and Senegal said they reserved the right to move ahead with the vote.<\/p>\n<p>None of the four are permanent members of the council, but are serving two-year terms.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Egypt has suddenly delayed a vote on its UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank as Donald Trump made his opposition clear. A US official told the BBC that it had been considering an abstention, which would have allowed the motion to pass. Israel then contacted Donald Trump&#8217;s transition team to intervene, an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":279020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=279017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=279017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=279017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=279017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}