MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Israel summons ambassadors from UN Security Council member states (not US) over Friday's resolution

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated on Sunday the Israeli claim that US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were behind the UN resolution condemning his country.

Israel's Foreign Ministry on Sunday announced it was summoning ambassadors from the United Nations' Security Council member states, ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said. He added that the 14 envoys are to visit the ministry in Jerusalem on Monday. The representative of the United States' was not on the “guest” list.

 The Council passed the measure on Friday after the US abstained, enabling the adoption of the first resolution since 1979 to condemn Israel over its settlement policy. Meanwhile, all civilian coordination with Palestinians would be cut off, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman explained.

The resolution demands “Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem”.It says settlements have “no legal validity” and are “dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-state solution.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had rejected the resolution as a “shameful blow against Israel”, repeated on Sunday the Israeli claim that US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were behind the resolution. “We have no doubt that the Obama administration initiated it, stood behind it, coordinated the drafts and demanded to pass it,” Netanyahu said at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting.

“This is of course in total contradiction to the traditional American policy of not trying to impose conditions of a final resolution. And, of course, the explicit committment of President Obama himself in 2011 to avoid such measures.”

The resolution itself contains no sanctions, but Israeli officials are worried it could enable prosecution at the International Criminal Court and that it could encourage some countries to impose sanctions against Israeli settlers and goods produced in the settlements.

Lieberman also ordered Israeli security operatives to cease to all cooperation on civilian matters with the Palestinians, while strictly retaining security coordination.

The measures taken on Sunday are in tune with Netanyahu's order to review engagements at the United Nations, including funding for UN agencies and the presence of its representatives in Israel.

Rightwing Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said on Saturday night that Israel should “announce a full annexation of settlement blocs” in response to the resolution.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett of the far-right Jewish Home told army radio that his party would “soon propose a bill to annex Maale Adumim”, a settlement city east of Jerusalem.

After New Zealand was one of four countries to sponsor the resolution, the country’s Jewish community has called on the governments of New Zealand and Israel to work together to keep the Israeli Embassy in Wellington open. She also said that the embassy is playing a pivotal role in next year’s commemorations of 100 years of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps campaign in what is now Israel. “It would be disappointing if the cooperation between the two countries on this historic event was lost,” she said.

“New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Murray McCully has said Ambassador Itzhak Gerberg has been recalled for consultation. The New Zealand Jewish community hopes no further action is taken and both governments will focus on keeping the Israeli Embassy open,” she concluded.