WORLD NEWS | With Ukraine at heart, US frantically avoids Middle East showdown at UN

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 (AP) — The Biden administration is scrambling to avoid a diplomatic crisis at the United Nations this week over Israeli settlement activity that could overshadow and possibly undermine U.S. hopes of a five-day condemnation of the Russian war. Solid focus with Ukraine.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken made two emergency calls on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, where he is attending, but was unsuccessful in averting or preventing such a showdown. It was unclear whether another last-minute intervention could salvage the situation, according to the Associated Press diplomat familiar with the ongoing discussions, who declined to be named.

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In an almost identical statement, the U.S. State Department said Blinken had spoken in Munich with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, without providing details, “reaffirming the U.S. commitment to focused on negotiating a two-state solution and opposing policies that jeopardize its viability” ”

“The Secretary of State emphasized the urgent need for Israelis and Palestinians to take steps to restore calm, and we strongly oppose unilateral measures that would further escalate tensions,” the statement said.

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Neither statement mentioned a proposed UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate halt to Israeli settlements. Palestinians hope to put the resolution to a vote on Monday. Neither statement said how the call ended.

But in his call to Abbas, Blinken reiterated his offer of a U.S. incentive package to the Palestinians to entice them to drop or at least delay the resolution, diplomats familiar with the conversation said.

Those incentives included a White House meeting between Abbas and President Joe Biden, a motion to reopen the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem and a major aid package, diplomats said.

Abbas was noncommittal, diplomats said, but also said he would not obey unless the Israelis agreed to expand settlements on land the Palestinians claim as their future state.

Blinken then called Netanyahu, who, according to diplomats, was similarly noncommittal about the six-month settlement freeze. Netanyahu also reiterated Israel’s opposition to reopening the consulate, which was closed under President Donald Trump, they said.

The U.S. and other countries hope to resolve the impasse on Sunday, but diplomats said it was unclear if that would be possible,

The farce comes ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which will be the subject of special sessions of the UN General Assembly and Security Council on Thursday and Friday.

The US opposes the Palestinian resolution and will almost certainly veto it. On the cusp of a 2024 presidential race, not vetoing would pose considerable domestic political risk for Biden, something top House Republicans have warned against.

But the government is also concerned that using the veto to protect Israel could lose world body support for measures that condemn Russia for waging war in Ukraine.

Senior officials at the White House, the State Department and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations have launched a frantic but fruitless diplomatic effort to persuade the Palestinians to back down. The seriousness of the situation prompted Blinken to call Saturday, diplomats said.

The Biden administration has publicly stated that it does not support the resolution, calling it “unhelpful.” But it also said the same about Israel’s recently announced settlement expansion.

The United States wants to replace the legally binding Palestinian resolution with a weaker presidential statement, or at least delay a vote on the resolution until after the Ukraine war anniversary, U.N. diplomats said.

The Palestinian push comes as Israel’s new right-wing government reaffirms its commitment to building new settlements in the West Bank and expanding its power over land where Palestinians seek to build a future state.

Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war. The United Nations and most of the international community consider Israeli settlements to be illegal and an obstacle to ending the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and Israel-annexed East Jerusalem.

Ultra-nationalists opposed to Palestinian statehood make up the majority of Israel’s new government, which has declared settlement building a top priority.

The draft resolution, circulated by the council’s Arab representative, the United Arab Emirates, would reaffirm the council’s “firm commitment” to a two-state solution in which Israel and Palestine coexist peacefully as democracies.

It will also reaffirm the UN Charter prohibiting the acquisition of territory by force and reaffirm that any such acquisition is unlawful.

Last Tuesday, Blinken and top diplomats from Britain, France, Germany and Italy condemned Israel’s plans to build 10,000 new homes in existing West Bank settlements and retroactively legalize nine outposts. Netanyahu’s cabinet announced the measure two days ago after a surge in violence in Jerusalem.

In December 2016, the Security Council demanded that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”. It stressed that halting settlement activity was “critical to saving the two-state solution”.

The resolution was passed after President Barack Obama’s administration abstained, reversing a longstanding U.S. practice of shielding its close ally Israel from U.N. action, including vetoing Arab-backed resolutions.

The draft resolution now before the council is much shorter than the 2016 document, but it reiterates its gist and much of what the US and Europeans had already said last week.

Complicating matters for the U.S., the Security Council resolution was introduced and backed by the United Arab Emirates, America’s Arab partner, which has also normalized relations with Israel despite its moderate stance against Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

The United States will expect the UAE and other Security Council members sympathetic to the Palestinians to vote for a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and calling for a cessation of hostilities and the immediate withdrawal of all Russian troops. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the body of content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)