The United States stood alone on Friday as one after another fellow UN Security Council members criticised its decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The debate unfolded at a largely symbolic emergency meeting of the council — no vote on a resolution was planned, as the US has veto power — two days after President Donald Trump reversed two decades of US policy on the holy city.
The meeting was convened by no fewer than eight of the 14 non-US members of the council. This seemed a vivid show of the discord triggered by Trump’s announcement, which included plans to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Asked what he expected to come from the UN meeting, one diplomat said: “Nothing.” Another said the session would show the US “isolation” on the issue.
The British ambassador to the UN, Matthew Rycroft, said flat out that Britain disagrees with Trump’s move on Jerusalem and the embassy location. “These decisions are unhelpful for the prospects for peace in the region,” Rycroft said.
He urged Trump to now come up with detailed proposals for an Israel-Palestinian peace accord, a goal which has eluded the US and the international community for decades.
The status of Jerusalem is one of the most hotly contested issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel seised control of the east of the city in 1967 and later annexed it in moves never recognised by the international community.
