British Foreign Secretary: UK helped craft anti-Israel UN resolution

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said that the UK ‘was closely involved’ in drafting the anti-Israel UN Security Council resolution that passed in December. 

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson confirmed on Tuesday that the United Kingdom assumed an important role in the crafting of a UN Security Council resolution that passed unanimously with US abstention on December 23, condemning any Israeli presence in territories won by Israel from Jordan during the Six-Day War of 1967.

“I want to remind you that the UK was closely involved in the drafting of that resolution,” said Johnson, responding to questions from British Members of Parliament. “It was an Egyptian-generated resolution, and we only supported it because it contained new language pointing out the infamy of terrorism that Israeli suffers every day.”

Johnson also defended his US counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry, for his speech on December 28 regarding the Middle East peace process in which he primarily focused on criticizing Israeli “settlements” in Judea and Samaria.  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly criticized the speech, saying it was “almost as unbalanced as the anti-Israel resolution passed at the UN.”

“Kerry was completely right to draw attention to the illegal settlements and he was completely right to draw attention to the substance of Resolution 2334,” Johnson argued.

Johnson’s defense of Kerry was a bit unexpected in light of UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s recent criticism of Kerry’s speech, which her spokesman said focused only on the issue of Israeli “settlements.”

By: Jonathan Benedek, World Israel News

Boris JohnsonJohn KerryNetanyahuTheresa MayUN Security CouncilUnited Kingdom