In what appears to be an embarrassing and inept episode, the U.S. withdrew on Friday a draft resolution it had proposed to the UN Security Council because Israeli officials had said they felt it was “inappropriate” — they apparently did not want the Security Council involved — and because Israeli officials, in what has become a standard complaint that will kill any initiative, said that they were not informed about the move in advance.
Reuters has now reported that “Israeli deputy U.N. representative Daniel Carmon told reporters Israel welcomed council support for Annapolis, but added, ‘We feel that the appreciation of the council has other means of being represented and reflected than resolutions’. The brief draft resolution, made available to journalists, would have endorsed actions agreed at Annapolis and called on all states to support them as well as to aid the struggling Palestinian economy. Although Israel apparently had no problems with the uncontroversial text, analysts suggested it was worried a formal resolution would get the United Nations too involved in Middle East peace efforts. Israel and the United States often complain of bias in the world body against the Jewish state. [n.b., it was thought that those complaints are now largely over, thanks to the years of efforts by former UN SG Kofi Annan to make Israel more comfortable in the world body: during his administration, a 1974 resolution known as the “zionism is racism” text, was repealed, and the UN has now adopted several resolutions and a secretariat program of action to disseminate knowledge of the Holocaust, for example)”…
The Reuters report added that “Both Israeli and Palestinian officials indicated they had not seen the text before the United States circulated it to the other 14 members of the council, who do not include either Israel or the Palestinian Authority … Palestinian diplomat, who asked not to be identified, said on Friday his mission had still not seen the draft and therefore had no comment on it”. The Reuters report on the U.S. action in the UN Security Council is here.
The Associated Press added that The State Department said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had decided such a resolution was unnecessary. ‘We have looked at this and, at the end of the day, the secretary believes that the positive results of Annapolis speak for themselves and there is really no reason to gild the lily’, spokesman Sean McCormack said. ‘I am not sure that we saw the need to add anything else to the conversation. Sometimes, the results and the event speak for themselves’. Two U.S. officials, who on condition of anonymity described Rice’s decision to withdraw the draft document, said there were several concerns about the resolution, including the failure to consult the Israelis and Palestinians on the language and the possibility that some on the Security Council might try to add anti-Israeli language to it” … The AP’s updated report is posted here.
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