The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has summoned the US ambassador over UNSC’s rebuke of Israel. The US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro met with Netanyahu late on Sunday after the envoy was summoned in a sign of Tel Aviv’s fury over the US abstention from a vote at the United Nations Security Council against illegal Israeli settlements.
US senator Lindsey Graham has threatened to introduce a measure in Congress to pull funding for the United Nations unless the Security Council repeals a resolution it passed last week condemning Israeli settlement construction as illegal. “It’s that important to me,” Graham, a member of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, told CNN. Just spoke with the PM of Israel Benjamin @Netanyahu. I let him know many Members of Congress will push back hard against this UN outrage.
Philippines President Duterte says he will “burn down” the United Nations headquarters in New York during his next visit to America. It comes in response to mounting international criticism over his bloody War on Drugs’ policy. Duterte has boasted of personally killing suspects. RT.com reports: “You go and file a complaint in the United Nations, I will burn down the United Nations if you want,” Duterte said, as quoted by the New York Times. “I will burn it down if I go to America,” he added, while speaking at an army base in the country’s southern city of Zamboanga.
Israel's anger mounted for a second day after Friday's United Nations snub, when on Sunday it summoned ambassadors of countries from the UN Security Council for a Christmas Day reprimand for their support of a resolution condemning Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian lands. The vote passed in the 15-member Security Council on Friday because the United States broke with its long-standing approach of diplomatically shielding Israel and did not wield, as a permanent member of the forum, its veto power, instead abstaining.
Following yesterday's unexpected vote in the United Nations, when the United States broke with a long-standing approach of diplomatically shielding Israel, and did not wield its veto power as it had on many prior occasions - a decision Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu called "shameful" - leading to the adoption of a resolution demanding an end to Israel settlement building, Israel said it would re-assess its ties with the United Nations. It also said it would not comply with the resolution, suggesting it may now be a "rogue nation" when it comes to UN enforcement.