President Obama doesn’t think his decision to abstain from a United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory harmed the American relationship with Israel.
Speaking on “60 Minutes” on CBS, Obama said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have been upset by the decision, but the alliance between the two countries continues in other ways.
“Despite all the noise and hullabaloo — military cooperation, intelligence cooperation, all of that has continued. We have defended them consistently in every imaginable way,” Obama said.
Obama’s administration has consistently objected to Israel building new settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. He said not blocking the resolution was an important way of making that point before he left office.
The resolution was a chance to help bring about a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine, Obama argued.
Opponents of Obama’s abstention have argued that the resolution legitimatizes Palestinian claims to the land, taking a vital bargaining chip from the Israelis toward a peace deal. Netanyahu has done little to hide his preference for the incoming Trump administration.
“I also believe that both for our national interests and Israel’s national interests that allowing a ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that could get worse and worse over time is a problem,” Obama said. “And that settlements contribute. They’re not the sole reason for it, but they’re a contributing factor to the inability to solve that problem.”
The pace of Israeli settlements has increased to the point that it’s putting peace at risk in the region, Obama said.
“We are reaching a tipping where the pace of settlements, during the course of my presidency has gotten so substantial that it’s getting harder and harder to imagine an effective, contiguous Palestinian state,” Obama said.
“And I think it would have long-term consequences for peace and security in the region, and the United States, because of our investment in the region, and because we care so deeply about Israel, I think has a legitimate interest in saying to a friend, ‘This is a problem.’ And we’ve said it — look, it’s not as if we haven’t been saying it from day one. We’ve been saying it for eight years now. It’s just that — nothing seemed to get a lot of attention.”
