In the waning days of Barack Obama’s presidency, Washington abstained from, rather than vetoing, a U.N. Security Council vote calling for an immediate halt of Israeli construction in eastern Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. The resolution opened the door for boycotts of Israel, by calling on states “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.”
JNS asked the U.S. State Department whether a December surprise—like Obama’s, which many saw as a betrayal of the Jewish state and the result of personal animosity between the then-U.S. president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—might be in store for Israel at the Security Council.
“You should not read into this answer I’m about to give one way or the other,” Matthew Miller, the department spokesman, told JNS during a Thursday press briefing, in which he didn’t close the door on a potential high-profile snub of Israel.
“I can’t speculate on how we will vote on resolutions that are not yet even before the Security Council,” he told JNS. “Obviously, we will look at any resolution that comes up before the Security Council and make our judgments based on the interests of the United States, as we always do.”
The relationship between Netanyahu and outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden is also rife with tension. On Oct. 26, a journalist asked the president, after Marine One had arrived at Philadelphia International Airport, how worried he was that Trump “seems to be talking to Bibi Netanyahu quite frequently?”
“Well, you know, the—the criticism is Trump is talking with Bibi, but Trump works for—for—Trumps works—Bi-,” Biden said, per the official White House transcript. “Trump work—talks to Bibi and his good multi-billionaire friend talks to him a lot too. So, I guess they’re all three friends.”
“Are you not concerned at all that he seems to be doing diplomacy while he’s not really representing the United States?” the reporter followed up.
“Yes,” Biden said. “But I’m not surprised.”
The Biden administration has, thus far, protected Israel at the U.N. Security Council, and it has been willing to endure the slings and arrows of international criticism for wielding its veto power or threatening to do so, on several occasions in order to protect Israel and to block calls for the Jewish state to halt operations against Hamas in Gaza.
Despite Trump’s election last week, the Biden administration will continue to work through the rest of its term on achieving an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage release deal, Miller said on Thursday.
JNS asked him if there is a fear that Egypt and Qatar might cooperate less with the administration in Biden’s lame-duck session, fearing that they might draw Trump’s ire by giving Biden a foreign-policy victory on his way out of office.
Miller told JNS that ending the war is bigger than the president.
“I cannot speak for any other government or what they will do or what they might not do,” he said. “I would just point out that an end of the war in Gaza is not a win for Joe Biden.”
“An end of the war in Gaza is a win for the region and, ultimately, is a win for the Israeli and Palestinian people,” Miller added. “I think everyone in the region understands that this is a war we want to bring to an end as soon as possible, and no one should be waiting for 74 days and letting this suffering go on any longer than it should have if there’s a path to bring it to an end before then.”
