One of the main justifications given by the US for why it abstained on UNSC resolution 2334 rather than vote against it was because the language was supposedly not as biased against Israel.
Here is the entire paragraph of the resolution that was used in this justification:
Calls for immediate steps to prevent all acts of violence against civilians,
including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation and destruction, calls for
accountability in this regard, and calls for compliance with obligations under
international law for the strengthening of ongoing efforts to combat terrorism,
including through existing security coordination, and to clearly condemn all acts of
terrorism;
Note that it doesn’t mention which side must perform these “steps.”
Guess what? The Palestinian side interprets this to apply to Israel and only Israel.
Their UN representative sent a letter to various UN officials praising the resolution unequivocally, with no reservations about the obligations that the US insists the resolution imposes on them. On the contrary, they imply that only Israel is subject to that one paragraph supposedly aimed at them:
For all of these war crimes, acts of State terrorism and systematic human rights violations being committed against the Palestinian people, Israel, the occupying Power, must be held accountable and the perpetrators brought to justice.
For this reason they don’t even claim that they are fighting and stopping terror – they feel no need to defend themselves from the language of this resolution since they don’t define “resistance” with guns, knives and trucks to be “terror” to begin with.
And the drafters of the resolution deliberately chose language to allow Palestinians to feel that there is nothing in the document that gave them any responsibility for helping bring peace.
Obama and Samantha Power and John Kerry know this quite well, and when they justify the abstention on the basis of the “evenhanded” language, they are lying.
(h/t Irene)
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