8 December 2018 12:00 am
By Carol Morello, Loveday Morris (c) 2018, The Washington Post Dec 07, 2018 - A resolution that would have condemned the militant group Hamas and its attacks on Israel failed to pass the United Nations on Thursday, despite an aggressive campaign by the United States and Israel to cast it as a vote on peace and terrorism.
Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, argued for a simple majority vote, but a last-minute rule change was passed that foreshadowed the resolution’s failure.
The vote also represented a political disappointment for the Trump administration, which had lobbied hard to get many Arab states to break away from their routine support of the Palestinian position and support the anti-Hamas resolution. But all the Arab states voted against it, even those that have signed peace treaties with Israel.
Their refusal to back the U.S. resolution comes just weeks before the White House prepares to unveil a proposal to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table. Support from the Arab states is considered crucial to getting it launched, and the U.N. vote suggests it might get a standoffish reception.
The Kuwaiti representative, speaking on behalf of the Arab bloc, condemned violence and extremism but expressed concern that the U.S. draft resolution skirted any mention of a two-state solution and sought only to condemn one party in the conflict.