US Vetoes UN Resolution Condemning Israel on Gaza
Irwin Arieff
It was the first Security Council veto cast by the US since October 2004 when former Ambassador John Danforth opposed a resolution calling on Israel to end an earlier incursion into Gaza.
It was also Bolton’s first veto on any issue since he arrived at UN headquarters as Washington’s top envoy nearly a year ago.
Israel and the United States, its closest ally, had lobbied hard for the measure’s defeat, hoping to let it die for lack of support rather than exercise a US veto. But in the end, the measure attracted more than enough votes for adoption, requiring Bolton to kill it.
The resolution would have demanded the unconditional release of an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinians as well as Israel’s immediate withdrawal from Gaza and the release of dozens of Palestinian officials detained by Israel.
A resolution requires at least nine votes—and no veto from any of the Council’s five permanent members—for approval. The five permanent members are Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
Palestinian UN Observer Riyad Mansour had argued that the Council should view the Gaza action as separate from the crisis along the Israeli-Lebanese border, created when Hizbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers and Israel retaliated with a wave of military strikes on Lebanon.
-Irwin Arieff