UN Security council members not in favor of US recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

One by one, 14 members of the UN Security Council spoke out against President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel at an emergency meeting on Friday, some with regret and some with anger at the 15th member, the United States.

It wasn’t the first time that the US stood alone in defending its close ally, Israel, in the UN’s most powerful body. Over decades, it has vetoed many council resolutions it viewed as harmful to Israel.

But this was a rare rebuke for an action the United States took that in the eyes of the rest of the council and most of the world clearly violates UN resolutions and decisions that Jerusalem is an issue to be resolved by Israel and the Palestinians in peace negotiations on a two-state solution.

The Trump administration has been working on a new Mideast peace proposal and US Ambassador Nikki Haley told the council that the US is more committed to peace “than we’ve ever been before- and we believe we might be closer to that goal than ever before.”

A sense of how isolated the United States had become was in the air due to the decision announced by President Donald Trump, who since his electoral campaign had expressed an obvious favouritism for Israel’s stance on the matter.

“The status of Jerusalem must be determined through negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians leading to a final status agreement,” the five European nations said in a statement at the end of the meeting.