UN Security Council Members Condemn Trump’s Jerusalem Move

Haley Says Meeting Proves Anti-Israel Bias

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley sees Friday’s emergency meeting on President Trump’s Jerusalem declaration as vindication of decades of US claims that the UN is inherently biased against Israel.

Yet while Israel was the topic, at least tangentially, the real focus of the meeting was on Trump himself, and what pretty much everyone else in the Security Council agreed was a reckless unilateral declaration that Jerusalem, a contested city under partial military occupation, is the capital of Israel.

Trump’s declaration has been roundly criticized worldwide, with Israel seemingly the only nation to endorse it. Even there, the declaration sparked massive protests among the Palestinian population under Israeli occupation, who see Trump’s move as effectively ending the peace process and certainly ending the pretense that the United States can be an impartial arbiter.

The UN members broadly agreed that the US move undermines the peace process, with Egypt warning the move would ignite anger across the Muslim and Arab world, and Jordan adding that there needs to be an assurance that freedom of religious practice is upheld within Jerusalem.

Haley insisted Trump’s declaration was just “common sense,” because Israel sees Jerusalem as their own capital and has all their government buildings there. It’s clearly not so “common,” however, since literally nobody in the world recognizes Jerusalem in that way, and while a number of nations have consulates in Jerusalem, embassies are exclusively in Tel Aviv.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.