Free Republic

Israel said Tuesday it approved 2,500 new settler homes in the West Bank, signaling a major ramp-up of construction just days after the swearing-in of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose election has emboldened the settlement movement. Trump is widely expected to be more sympathetic to Israel’s settlement policies than the fiercely critical Obama administration, and has also vowed to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem. Israel’s nationalist government has welcomed the prospective change in policy, but it also risks igniting Palestinian or even regional unrest. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a statement that he and...

President Barack Obama will not allow any further United Nations measures critical of Israel to pass during the remainder of his term, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes promised on Wednesday. When asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper if secretary of state John Kerry had indicated in his speech earlier Wednesday that the US would veto any other potential UN resolution that may come forward during the rest of Obama’s presidency, Rhodes said “yes.” Since the anti-settlements resolution passed in the Security Council last Friday, Israel has expressed concern that another measure may come up before the international body for a...

… A spokesman for the British Prime Minister issued a statement criticizing Kerry’s focus on the Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem. “We do not… believe that the way to negotiate peace is by focusing on only one issue, in this case the construction of settlements, when clearly the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is so deeply complex.” The spokesman also criticized Kerry’s description of the current government in Israel as “the most right-wing government” in Israeli history. “And we do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically-elected government of an...

On Dec. 21, amid his morning workout, an afternoon round of golf and a family dinner with friends, President Obama interrupted his Hawaii vacation to consult by phone with his top national security team in Washington. Egypt had introduced a resolution at the U.N. Security Council condemning Israeli settlements as illegal, and a vote was scheduled for the next day. The idea had been circulating at the council for months, but the abrupt timing was a surprise. Obama was open to abstaining, he said on the call, provided the measure was “balanced” in its censure of terrorism and Palestinian violence...

On the same day as the U.N. Security Council passed a controversial resolution condemning Israel, the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on Friday approved a budget that includes $138,700 to fund the compilation of a first-ever U.N. blacklist of private companies doing business in territories disputed between Israel and the Palestinians. Defined in U.N. documents as a “database,” the blacklist will cover companies of any nationality that do business in Israeli “settlements” located in areas claimed by the Palestinians, including Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter. The move, which was mandated by the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) last March, is expected to benefit...

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., made the comments Monday in an interview with MSNBC when asked to react to accusations that the Israeli government has proof that the Obama administration helped influence the U.N. Security Council's vote to condemn Israeli settlements. . . . Israel is now "running their own war against us and our policies" because they are angry that Obama has pushed back against telling them to stop with settlements, McDermott said.

Netanyahu: "Israel has national pride. We do not turn the other cheek" NEW YORK - With President Barack Obama's direction, last Friday the United States departed from its long-held position of vetoing a United Nations resolution that condemned Israel's settlements. The action outraged lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Prime Minister Netanyahu strongly condemned the United Nations resolution and expressed disappointment that the United States abandoned its previous support. Monday he said "Israel has national pride. We do not turn the other cheek." He suggested over the weekend that Israel may consider pulling out of the U.N. U.S. Senator...

The Swedish government has welcomed Friday’s UN resolution calling for Israel to end illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, with Foreign Minister Margot Wallström calling the decision “very positive”. […] In a statement, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the resolution “shameful”. Sweden is scheduled to join the security council for two years starting in January 2017, and will chair the council during that month. …

The United States could have killed a key United Nations resolution that condemned Israel for its West Bank settlements by voting against it rather than abstaining, former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said Friday night, but he thinks President Barack Obama took the action to "box the incoming Trump administration in." "This was a stab in the back against the Israelis," Bolton told Fox News' "Hannity" show Friday night. "It was entirely predictable. I would say this for people in the pro-Israel community in the United States who defended Obama's Middle East policy over these last eight years: You should have...

Hannity, Fox News, December 23 2016

A "shameful" abstention by the U.S. in a United Nations Security Council vote Friday allowed passage of a resolution condemning Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. The resolution was put forward by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal after Egypt withdrew it Thursday under pressure from Israel and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. It was adopted with 14 votes in favor, to a round of applause, after U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power abstained. It is the first resolution the Security Council has adopted on Israel and the Palestinians in nearly eight years. Reaction from U.S. Republicans and Jewish leaders around...

President-elect Donald Trump Friday slammed the United Nations Security Council's vote to condemn Israel for its settlements in the West Bank, pledging that "things will be different" after his inauguration next month. . . . Trump's tweet marked an unprecedented intervention by a president-elect in the diplomatic affairs of a sitting commander-in-chief — sparking widespread accusations that he was trying to undermine Obama's position.

An Israeli official is accusing President Barack Obama of a “shameful move against Israel at the U.N.” after learning the White House did not intend to veto a Security Council resolution condemning settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The official said the “U.S. Administration secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme anti-Israeli resolution behind Israel's back.” …

Egyptian officials scrapped a plan to proceed with a United Nations Security Council vote condemning the construction of Israeli settlements, following pushback from Israeli officials and President-elect Trump. "Egypt requested the vote's delay to permit them to conduct an additional meeting of the Arab League's foreign ministers to work on the resolution's wording," Haaretz reported, citing Western diplomats. But the vote might be postponed "indefinitely," according to the report. Israeli settlement construction drew condemnation from the State Department earlier this year, in addition to the rebukes of mo

Outgoing US Secretary State John Kerry expressed disappointment Sunday that his efforts over the past four years have not put an end to the construction of homes in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Speaking at the Saban Forum, Kerry said that Israel is "heading to a place of danger" and that the chances for peace are eroding "by virtue of this continued settlement process." "I don't agree with him that settlements are not an obstacle to peace," Kerry said. "Let's not kid ourselves here– you can't just wipe it away by saying it doesn't have an impact. It has...

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry excoriated the Israeli right, claiming that support for settlement construction stems from a desire to subvert Israeli-Palestinian peace, during a speech before the Brookings Institution’s Saban Forum on Sunday afternoon. A subdued Kerry, wearing reading glasses and referring to extensive notes, notably refrained from committing to veto any UN resolution intended to establish a Palestinian state, only promising a veto “if it is a biased, unfair resolution calculated to delegitimize Israel.” US officials last week indicated that US President Barack Obama had nearly ruled out any major last-ditch effort to put pressure on...

France published an official notification Thursday urging businesses to use labels to identify goods produced in the Israeli settlements, prompting a swift condemnation from Israel. It was not immediately clear whether the notice published in the French Official Journal is binding for retailers or a recommendation. A press official with the trade ministry said late Thursday she was not aware of the notification and couldn’t immediately say whether it was mandatory or advisory. In Nov. 2015, the European Union recommended that its member states put special labels on exports from the West Bank, but said the technical guidelines on the...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday expressed concern that U.S. President Barack Obama, during the final days of his term in office, might take diplomatic steps that could harm the fate of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israel is concerned that the United States might not rally to its assistance in the event that an anti-settlement resolution is put to a vote in the United Nations Security Council and that Washington might not use its veto to quash such a move.

The Palestinians say they are sounding out members of the U.N. Security Council on a new resolution demanding a halt to Israeli settlement building and about prospects for becoming a full member of the United Nations. Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour said Thursday he has met about half the 15-member council in the last 10 days and expects to meet the rest in the next week. He said he will then report back to the Arab ministerial committee which will decide on next steps. …

Republicans in Congress are plotting ways to block the Obama administration from paying insurance companies hundreds of millions of dollars as part of an ObamaCare program. GOP lawmakers say they are looking at “a dozen” options — including a possible provision in the year-end spending bill — to prevent the administration from using an obscure fund within the Treasury Department to pay out massive settlements to insurers. The insurance companies are suing over a shortfall in an ObamaCare program that they say is damaging their businesses. Settling the cases could help insurers deal with losses on the ObamaCare marketplaces, but...