United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said that the U.S. will vote against an annual UN resolution, co-sponsored by Syria, condemning Israel for its continued presence on the Golan Heights, in a statement issued Thursday.
In the past, the U.S. has abstained on the resolution, which will be brought to a vote Friday before the UN Fourth Committee. This year, Haley said, the U.S. will vote against the resolution because of the resolution’s “anti-Israel bias, as well as the militarization of the Syrian Golan border, and a worsening humanitarian crisis.”
“The United States will no longer abstain when the United Nations engages in its useless annual vote on the Golan Heights. If this resolution ever made sense, it surely does not today. The resolution is plainly biased against Israel,” Haley said.
“Further, the atrocities the Syrian regime continues to commit prove its lack of fitness to govern anyone. The destructive influence of the Iranian regime inside Syria presents major threats to international security. ISIS and other terrorist groups remain in Syria. And this resolution does nothing to bring any parties closer to a peace agreement. The United States will vote no.”
The measure is one of nine resolutions that will be voted on Friday that single out Israel for condemnation, The Times of Israel reported. Other resolutions include condemnations for Israel for building in so-called East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and the reauthorization of a committee that investigates “Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories.”
Among the sponsors of these resolutions are countries with questionable human rights records including Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.
A statement on Friday’s votes by the watchdog group, UN Watch, observed, “a United Nations General Assembly committee is set to adopt nine resolutions against Israel tomorrow, and zero on the entire rest of the world.”
“The UN’s planned assault on Israel with a torrent of one-sided resolutions is surreal,” UN Watch’s executive director, Hillel Neuer, charged.
“Days after the Hamas terrorist group assaulted Israeli civilians with a barrage of 460 rockets — while the UN’s General Assembly and Human Rights Council stayed silent — the world body now adds insult to injury by adopting nine lopsided condemnations, whose only purpose is to demonize the Jewish state.”
Neuer also noted that Syria was co-sponsor of the resolution condemning Israel for its continued presence on the Golan Heights, and said, “After the Syrian regime has killed half a million of its own people, how can the UN call for more people to be handed over to Assad’s rule? The timing of tomorrow’s text is morally galling, and logically absurd.”
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