House Republicans and Democrats issued a warning to President Obama Tuesday night not to upend U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks before he leaves office by passing a resolution calling on him to veto any effort to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations.
The resolution, approved by voice vote, also calls on Obama to reject language there setting parameters for the borders between the two countries.
“U.S. policy has long and wisely been that only Israelis and Palestinians can work out a peace agreement between themselves, and that effort to impose one would be counterproductive,” House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said on the House floor before the easy vote.
There are two proposals pending at the U.N., one authored by the Palestinians and the other by the French, that lawmakers worry might prove attractive to the outgoing Obama team. Democrats eagerly joined Republicans to pass the resolution.
“As president, Barack Obama said in 2011: ‘Peace is hard work. Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations. If it were that easy, it would have been accomplished already,'” Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., recalled.
“We must heed this advice. Imposing a solution on the parties will not work. In fact, it will be counterproductive to peace. It would undermine incentives for the Palestinian authority to make the necessary changes that are prerequisites to peace.”
If Obama backed a United Nations resolution on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in the face of Israeli opposition, that would represent a significant change in American foreign policy. President-elect Trump’s team has also asked Obama not to make any major moves.
“On big, transformative issues where President Obama and President-elect Trump are not in alignment, I don’t think it’s in keeping with the spirit of the transition … to try to push through agenda items that are contrary to the president-elect’s positions,” a Trump aide told Politico.
Former President Jimmy Carter, by contrast, publicly urged Obama to commit the United States to a process brokered by the U.N. Security Council in light of ongoing settlement construction by Israel in contested areas.
“I am convinced that the United States can still shape the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before a change in presidents, but time is very short,” Carter wrote in the New York Times on Monday. “The Security Council should pass a resolution laying out the parameters for resolving the conflict.”
Royce, like Sherman, argued that Palestinian leadership is standing in the way of peace in the region by inciting violence against Israelis.
“What on Earth, today, at this point in time suggests that Israel has a willing partner in peace? Not at this moment,” Royce said. “Israel is contending with a deep-seated hatred. It is a deep-seated hatred nurtured, unfortunately, by Palestinian leaders over radio and also in direct communication with the population.”
