Netanyahu hopes Obama does not support anti-Israel UN resolution

Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his hope on Monday that outgoing US President Barack Obama does not support a UN Security Council resolution against the Israeli occupation during his remaining time in the White House, Anadolu has reported.

“Between now and the end of his presidency,” the Israeli prime minister said, “I expect that Obama will commit to what he said six years ago, that peace does not come through issuing unilateral Security Council resolutions, but through direct negotiations.”

Netanyahu’s remarks came in the wake of recent comments by Palestinian officials that Arab states would propose a resolution to the UN Security Council against Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki told the official PA radio station on Monday that a resolution against Israeli settlements would be presented to the UN Security Council soon. “Members of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, as well as other friends, have pledged to vote for the resolution,” he claimed.

Israeli and American reports have said that the US administration is studying several options for action regarding the Palestine-Israel conflict to be taken before the end of Obama’s second term in office. These include, revealed Anadolu, not vetoing the Palestinian move, lending support to a Palestinian resolution or proposing a project including mechanisms to end the conflict based on the two-state solution.

Netanyahu said that he contacted PA President Mahmoud Abbas a couple of days ago to thank him for the involvement of PA firefighters in fighting the forest fires. “Let us not trigger fire,” he told Abbas, “but extinguish it and go together towards peace.”