The United Nations Security Council, the international body responsible for peace, is reportedly set to vote on Monday on a draft resolution that would call into question President Donald Trump’s decision to designate Jerusalem the capital of Israel.
If taken up, the resolution, which would essentially nullify Trump’s Jerusalem move, will very likely fail, as the U.S. retains veto power alongside France, Russia, China and Britain. This means that any resolution needs nine favorable votes as well as no vetoes from the aforementioned nations.
Trump and the U.S. aren’t specifically mentioned in a draft of the resolution, which was crafted by Egypt, and this appears to have been a strategic move, according to Reuters.
“The Europeans in particular asked us to avoid terms like ‘denounce’ and ‘condemn,’ and not to mention the U.S. by name,” Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s representative to the U.N., told Arab News. “We acceded to their request but kept the active clauses rejecting all changes to Jerusalem and the reaffirmation of previous decisions.”
The measure is expected to be supported by 14 of the 15 members on the council, despite the likely veto that would come from the U.S. And even if it isn’t enacted, the weight of that support will surely press back against Trump’s sole stance on Jerusalem.
One other element worth noting is that the Palestinians also reportedly have a plan if the resolution does, indeed, fail: to take their grievances to the U.N. General Assembly, urging the U.N. secretary general to hold an emergency meeting. The Jerusalem Post has more about what this would entail:
To do so, the [Palestinian Authority] would invoke the Uniting for Peace Resolution 377a, approved in 1950, to neutralize the former Soviet Union’s power at the Security Council, when it was blocking the placement of UN forces in Korea.
Since then, the UNGA has held 10 emergency session under Resolution 377a, half of which have been about Israel.
Mansour said that the Palestinian delegation can send a letter to the secretary general in an effort to get this emergency session on the books. Meanwhile, Danny Danon, Israel’s U.N. representative, pushed back against the draft resolution.
“No vote or debate will change the clear reality that Jerusalem always has been and always will be the capital of Israel,” he said. “Together with our allies, we will continue to fight, once again, for historical truth.”
It will certainly be intriguing to see how it all unfolds.