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U.S. Vetoes U.N. Resolution To Stop Israeli Settlement Building

David McAlpine |
February 18, 2011 | 2:34 p.m. PST

Executive Producer

The U.N. Security Council Chamber (Photo by C.K. Hartman via Creative Commons).
The U.N. Security Council Chamber (Photo by C.K. Hartman via Creative Commons).

The United States vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution Friday that would have halted all further building Israeli settlements in the West Bank, calling such action "illegal."

The other 14 members of the Council voted for the resolution draft. As one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the United States' sole vote was enough to strike the draft down.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said the U.S. is not supporting Israel's settlement building on Palestinian land, but said such a measure could make negotiations between Israel and Palestine more difficult.

"On the contrary, we reject in the strongest possible terms the legitimacy of continued settlement activity," Rice said after the vote. "For more than four decades, [Israel settlement activity] has undermined security ... corroded hopes for peace and security ... it violates international commitments and threatens propsects for peace."

In the hours before the vote, Rice tried to get Palestinian and other Arab leaders to remove any mention of calling Israel settlement construction illegal or to demand it stop. The Palestinian Authority refused, saying the language used in the resolution had been previously discussed in both U.S.-Palestinian talks and Security Council meetings.

The United States, however, has made it clear that the U.N. Security Council is not the forum to resolve this matter.

"What we have said is we believe [Israeli settlement activity is] illegitmate, and we've been very clear about that," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told ABC News Thursday. "And we also believe that the best forum for making progress in the negotiations, in the peace process, is in direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians in order to reach that goal of a two-state solution with security for both states. And it's far better to pursue that path than others."

Friday's veto was the first to be used during Obama's tenure in office.

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