Trump’s Jerusalem decision stands despite UN Security Council revolt

New York: US President Donald Trump received an extraordinary rebuke before the UN Security Council as America’s friends and foes joined forces in an unsuccessful effort to compel him to rescind his decision to unilaterally recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Fourteen of the council’s 15 members, including close allies like Britain, France, and Japan, voted in favour of a resolution that would have declared that any unilateral decisions regarding the status of Jerusalem “have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded”.

The draft resolution, sponsored by Egypt, was blocked by the United States, which cast its first Security Council veto in six years.

While the US veto effectively killed the measure, the resolution underscored the how isolated the Trump administration is on a number of critical foreign policy fronts, including its opposition to the Paris climate accord, its rejection of the Iran nuclear accord, and its decision to withdraw from international negotiations on migration.

Read the article by Colum Lynch in The Sydney Morning Herald.