Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., slammed the Obama administration Tuesday morning for abstaining from the United Nation’s resolution condemning Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, calling the move “shameful.”
“Israel has to deal with the real world, with real enemies, not with narratives, not with echo chambers. We have to deal in the real world in the Middle East with people who are trying to destroy us day in and day out,” he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.
Worse than the U.S. not blocking the resolution is the fact that America “orchestrated this behind the scenes,” he added.
Dermer also explained why the resolution is against U.S. policy to begin with.
“This is a resolution against long-standing U.S. policy,” he said. “First, in principle, these issues are not resolved in the Security Council. The whole question of settlements, and this resolution goes way behind settlements, but that whole question is a final status issue that is supposed to be negotiated between the parties. And the United States is a signatory to international documents that says that this issue would be resolved between the parties. President Obama himself stood in September of 2011, and he said look, this conflict will not be resolved by resolutions at the United Nations. He said that at the United Nations. So this is against his policy and long-standing US policy since the days of Jimmy Carter.”
Israel will immediately begin working to “mitigate and hopefully reverse the affects” of the resolution, Dermer told Hewitt.