Kushner appears to sway UN Security Council from condemning Trump plan

In a desperate bid to salvage Security Council support, Palestinians agree to forego the accusation that the U.S. is violating international law.

By David Jablinowitz, World Israel News  

Amid widespread opposition at the United Nations Security Council to a Palestinian effort to condemn the U.S. for President Donald Trump’s recently-released Middle East peace plan, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has dropped its demand to issue a condemnation of the American administration and to accuse Trump of violating international law, reports Israel Hayom.

The Security Council is scheduled to hold a debate on the peace plan on Tuesday. The discussion is to include Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon, along with members of the council.

Non-permanent Security Council member Tunisia was putting forward a resolution on behalf of the PA.

However, the Tunisian leadership fired its ambassador to the UN after he was accused of failing to consult with the foreign ministry on key issues, including Trump’s peace plan, reported Al Jazeera, citing diplomatic sources.

“Tunisia’s ambassador to the United Nations has been dismissed for purely professional reasons concerning his weak performance and lack of coordination with the ministry on important matters under discussion at the UN,” a foreign ministry statement said.

Diplomatic sources, said Al Jazeera, believe that Ambassador Moncef Baati “had gone further than President Kais Saied wanted in his criticism” of the U.S. peace plan.

“Arab nations dialed back criticism of Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan and proposed a more moderate resolution that called for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders but no longer condemned the U.S. proposal directly,” reported Bloomberg News on Sunday. Tunisia, said the news outlet, had circulated a “revised resolution over the weekend along with Indonesia.”

Bloomberg News said it had seen a copy of the proposal, which emphasizes “respect” for the territorial integrity of the Palestinian territories while referring to Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem as “illegal.”

The resolution may be put to a vote on Tuesday, when Abbas is expected to speak to the Security Council, according to the American news outlet, citing diplomats familiar with the matter.

The change in language may have resulted from a closed-door briefing given by Trump senior aide Jared Kushner.

“The latest draft — which diplomats expect to be vetoed by the U.S. but supported by European countries — follows a visit last week by… Kushner,” reports Bloomberg News. “Over a two-hour lunch, Trump’s son-in-law sought to convince diplomats to buy into his vision of Middle East peace,” the outlet adds.

A veto would topple the resolution.

The change in the wording of the draft resolution also came as Danon was said to have been meeting “with his counterparts on the Security Council to enlist their support for the joint U.S.-Israeli action and to prevent support for any Palestinian declarations of protest,” said a statement from the Israeli mission at the U.N.

Jared KushnerPalestinian AuthorityUN Security Council