The Airborne Ranger serving as the U.S. Senator from Arkansas blasted President Barack Obama on Monday for his stage management and failure to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the State of Israel for its settlements on land it seized after Arab nations attacked it in 1967.
“President Obama is personally responsible for this anti-Israel resolution,” said Sen. Thomas B. Cotton (R.-Ark.), who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as an Army officer.
“His diplomats secretly coordinated the vote, yet he doesn’t even have the courage of his own convictions to vote for it,” he said. “This cowardly, disgraceful action cements President Obama‘s richly deserved legacy as the most anti-Israel president in American history.”
The resolution, sponsored by New Zealand, Senegal, Malaysia, and Venezuela, was the first resolution to pass the United Nations condemning the settlements, because in the past the United States has vetoed such resolutions. Because the U.S. abstained, the measure passed 14-to-0, to the sustained applause those attending.
The senator said:
This resolution hurts the prospects for a secure and just peace by targeting Israel for building homes in Jerusalem, its own capital, while not specifically addressing Palestinian incitement of and financial support for terrorism. That’s why President Obama vetoed a similar, but less anti-Israel resolution in 2011-back when he still needed pro-Israel voters for his reelection. Moreover, as a Security Council resolution with the imprimatur of the United States, this resolution surpasses even the infamous “Zionism is Racism” General Assembly resolution in its irrational obsession with the Jewish state.
The United States provides considerable financial assistance to the United Nations and Security Council members. The UN and nations supporting this resolution have now imperiled all forms of U.S. assistance. I look forward to working with President-elect Trump and members of both parties in Congress to decide what the consequences for this action will be.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement after the vote that, like Cotton, he blames Obama for his efforts to ensure that the resolution came up for a vote in the first place.
Netanyahu said his hopes for Israel lie with the support of President-elect Donald J. Trump.
“Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the U.N. and will not abide by its terms,” the prime minister said. “Israel looks forward to working with President-elect Trump and with all our friends in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to negate the harmful effects of this absurd resolution.”
Trump, himself, forced the UN to delay the vote one day after he criticized it. But the UN and the Obama administration would not be deterred.
After the vote, the incoming president let the world know his view:
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