An assembly of pro-Israel leaders will head to Capitol Hill Wednesday to urge support for measures that call to repeal a recent United Nations resolution and to move the United States embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Over 260 members of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), the country’s largest pro-Israel lobby, will be pressing for those measures, as well as the confirmation of David Friedman as U.S. ambassador to Israel, in a broad rejection of recent actions by the Obama administration. That includes a United Nations resolution critical of Israel, which passed in December with an abstention from the administration.
“Our leaders across the county have been appalled by the Obama administration’s parting shots at Israel. They’ve been contacting us nonstop, asking that we speak out as effectively as possible,” David Brog, the group’s founding executive director, said in a statement. “We decided that this was one of those times when we needed to give these leaders an opportunity to come to DC and personally ask their senators to do everything in their power to counteract these anti-Israel moves.”
Ahead of the Hill visit, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle reaffirmed their support for the Jewish state and bucked the U.N. resolution, which describes the West Bank and east Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory and says that Israeli construction in those areas is a “flagrant violation under international law.”
“The Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a meeting tomorrow I am certain will adopt this bipartisan resolution, making it clear that U.N. Security Council resolution 2334, which undermines direct negotiations between the parties and was an unbalanced resolution, should not have happened,” said Delaware senator Chris Coons.
Coons, a Democratic co-sponsor of the Senate measure, was joined by South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, also a co-sponsor of the measure, who condemned the U.N. resolution as one-sided.
“This was so gratuitous. So unnecessary,” he told attendees. “The idea that we would take the settlement issue and highlight it to the exclusion of all others really bothers me.”
Their remarks were met with thunderous applause.
The House passed a measure condemning the resolution Thursday and urging that it be altered or repealed, while the Senate is working to pass a parallel measure that also demands no further such action against Israel in the administration’s final days.
