Israel is taking retaliatory action against countries that voted for the Security Council resolution against the Jewish state.
Israeli officials have taken several diplomatic retaliatory steps against countries that supported Friday’s anti-Israel resolution adopted by the United Nations’ Security Council (UNSC).
The resolution, which was supported by the US through the abstention of US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, was approved in a 14-0 vote.
The anti-Israel resolution stated that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, “occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem,” have “no legal validity.” It demands a halt to “all Israeli settlement activities,” saying this “is essential for salvaging the two-state solution.”
Assistance to Senegal Cut
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered that Israel’s ambassadors to Senegal and New Zealand, two countries with which Israel has diplomatic relations and which cosponsored the resolution, be recalled.
Similarly, Netanyahu has ordered that all Israeli assistance to Senegal be halted. “Those who work with us will benefit because Israel has much to give to the countries of the world. But those who work against us will lose – because there will be a diplomatic and economic price for their actions against Israel,” Netanyahu stated Saturday night.
The cutting of Israel’s assistance to Senegal will shut down a multi-million-shekel agricultural project in the African country.
Reassessment of Funding to UN
Additionally, Netanyahu, who also serves as Israel’s foreign minister, has instructed the Foreign Ministry to complete within a month a reassessment of all of Israel’s contacts with the UN, including Israeli financing of UN institutions and the presence of UN representatives in the country.
He has already ordered an immediate end to approximately NIS 30 million in financing for five UN institutions, five UN bodies “that are especially hostile to Israel,” Netanyahu said.
“I have already ordered that this be stopped, and there is more to come,” Netanyahu stated.
Netanyahu also decided on Saturday to cancel an official visit by Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman to the country, scheduled for this week.
The decision to cancel the visit was made in protest of the fact Ukraine, usually a friend of Israel, voted in favor of the UNSC resolution.
Liberman Limits Coordination with PA
Minister of Defense Avigdor Liberman on Sunday ordered the halt of all coordination between Israel officials and Palestinian civilian authorities. The security coordination continues as usual.
In the meantime, several Israeli politicians have called for a broader spectrum of action.
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan called on Israel to cut all its funding to the UN and announce the immediate annexation of several areas in Judea and Samaria where there is a majority of Jewish residents.
“There is so much darkness and so much hypocrisy in the UN’s vote on Israel,” Erdan said. “The Middle East is burning and who do they choose to attack? Israel. It’s hypocrisy and shamelessness.”
Minister of Education Naftali Bennett also called for Israel’s extension of Israeli law to area C in Judea and Samaria, including Ma’ale Adumim near Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and Efrat. He called the UNSC’s resolution “a new Guinness world record in hypocrisy.”
Rivlin to Light Chanukah Candles in Beit El
President Reuven Rivlin responded to the resolution by saying that a “united Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel and so it will remain. There is no international body with the power to revoke this status.”
“This disgraceful, serious, and unfortunate decision taken by the UN causes diplomatic damage to Israel,” stated Rivlin. “This is a decision which brings us no nearer to negotiations with the Palestinians, but rather makes such a prospect even more distant. There has never been and will never be a replacement for direct negotiations between the two sides.”
Israel had “expected that the United States – our greatest ally and friend which has stood unwavering on the side of Israel’s security needs throughout the years – would stand by us at this time and not abandon us, leaving us in the hands of a cynical body driven by alien interests.”
Protesting the resolution, Rivlin announced he will light the candles of the third night of Chanukah in Beit El in Samaria, “together with the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria,” as he put it.
By: Aryeh Savir, World Israel News