UN rejects bid to end Israeli occupation of Palestinian land

The UN Security Council rejected a resolution calling for peace between Palestine and Israel within a year and for an end to Israel's occupation by 2017.

The motion received eight “yes” votes from Russia, China, France, Argentina, Chad, Chile, Jordan, and Luxembourg. However, it failed to receive the minimum nine “yes votes” required for it to have passed in the council. The United States and Australia gave the motion “no” votes while the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Nigeria, South Korea, and Rwanda decided to abstain.

The Palestinian UN ambassador criticised the UN for the failure of the vote.

"The Security Council has once again failed to uphold its charter duties to address this crises and to meaningfully contribute to a lasting solution in accordance with its own resolutions," Riyad Mansour said. "This year, our people under Israeli occupation endured the further theft and colonisation of their land, the demolition of their homes, daily military raids, arrests and detention of thousands of civilians including children, rampant settler terrorism, constant affronts to their human dignity and repeated incursions at our holiest sites."

The United States, a close ally of Israel, reiterated its opposition to the draft motion with their UN ambassador saying that it undermined efforts to “achieve two states for two people”.  

"It is deeply imbalanced and contains many elements that are not conducive to negotiations between the parties including unconstructive deadlines that take no account for Israelis legitimate security concerns," Samantha Power said.

The motion, which was submitted by Jordan - the only Arab member of the security council -had called for Israeli occupied East Jerusalem to be the capital of Palestine, an end to Israeli settlement building in Palestinian territories and settling the issue of Palestinian prisoner releases.

It also called for future negotiations to be based on border lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in 1967.

Several European parliaments have adopted non-binding motions that call for the recognition of a Palestinian state. Palestine had previously warned that it was prepared to join the International Criminal Court to file suits against Israel should Jordan’s UN resolution fail.