Netanyahu reportedly asked Zelensky to vote against an upcoming anti-Israel United Nations General Assembly resolution.
By World Israel News Staff
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday night to discuss Ukraine’s plans for ending the war, according to Israeli media reports.
A tweet by Zelensky mentioned that the two “discussed bilateral cooperation between our states, including in the security sphere and interaction on international platforms” but did not go into further detail.
According to Axios reporter Barak Ravid, Netanyahu asked Zelensky to vote against an anti-Israel United Nations General Assembly resolution the next day, which called on the International Court of Justice in The Hague to recommend steps to take against Israel in light of its “occupation” and “annexation” of Judea and Samaria.
In November, Ukraine voted against Israel at the UN in a resolution that accused the Jewish state of denying Palestinian Arabs the right to self-determination, negated Israel’s historical connection to the Temple Mount, and urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to render an opinion against Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria.
Ukrainian sources at the time said that the vote against Israel was in response to Jerusalem’s refusal to supply weapons to Kyiv.
Israel’s Ambassador to Ukraine Michael Brodsky slammed Kyiv for its support of the resolution.
“Ukraine’s support of the UN resolution ‘Israeli Practices’, denying Jewish ties to Temple Mount and calling for ICJ advisory opinion is extremely disappointing. Supporting anti Israeli initiatives in the UN doesn’t help to build trust between Israel and Ukraine,” Brodsky tweeted.
Ukraine has repeatedly censured Israel for not providing it with weapons and missile defense systems, including the Iron Dome. Jerusalem has refrained from doing so because it coordinates with Russia before carrying out aerial attacks against Iranian targets in Syria.
The Ukrainian government has thus far refused Israeli offers for a civilian missile alert warning system.
According to Ravid, who cited a Ukrainian official, Zelensky had asked Netanyahu again for defensive aid but the Israeli premier remained non-committal.
Zelensky, put out, then decided not to vote against the resolution, but to abstain “in order to give a chance to the relationship with Netanyahu,” Ravid cited the official as saying,
Netanyahu on Saturday said in a statement that together with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he had succeeded in convincing 11 countries to change their vote on the November resolution.
“As a result there has been a turnaround: The countries that supported the Palestinian initiative were a minority of UN members and those that did not support the Palestinians were a majority of UN member states,” he said in a statement from his office.
A Likud statement noted that Ukraine had abstained from Friday’s vote after the phone call between Zelensky and Netanyahu, but added that “beyond that, we do not comment on the content of political talks that took place between the two leaders.”
Zelensky has recently held a series of marathon talks with several world leaders, including President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, raising speculations that Ukraine is interested in ending the war soon.