World Jewish Congress (WJC) President Ronald S. Lauder expressed deep appreciation to the United States for voting down a UN Security Council resolution "which would have unilaterally condemned Israel and termed its settlements east of the 1967 ‘Green Line’ as illegal."
Lauder said President Obama's decision to veto the Arab-sponsored text showed America's support for the rights of the Jewish state and for the Middle East peace process.
"Had it been adopted, the resolution would have stood in violation of the Oslo II interim accords which still govern relations between the Palestinian Authority and the State of Israel and to which the United States, among many other Western countries, is a signatory," the WJC said.
Lauder called the proposed text "one-sided" and criticized the states which had sponsored it.
"The issue of settlements needs be negotiated bilaterally, in final-status talks, between Palestinians and Israelis. It is exclusively an issue for the two parties," he said.
The adoption of this UN Security Council resolution "would have placed the peace process in even greater jeopardy and lent credibility to illegitimate Palestinian 'back door' efforts to establish a unilateral state by pre-determining the outcome of negotiations with Israel," Lauder added.
"Ongoing unilateral moves to establish a Palestinian state outside the agreed negotiation framework between the sides, based on Security Council resolution 242 of November 1967, represent a gross violation of previous signed agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel", he said.
He added: "The resolution text that was proposed to the Security Council further promoted the fallacy that the 1967 borders have any basis in law or history."
"They never existed nor were they ever part of any agreed upon
documentation concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict and have no basis whatsoever, neither in law nor in fact," Lauder stressed.
The World Jewish Congress urged the United Nations "to stop undermining, condoning, and abetting efforts to assault Israel's legal and diplomatic rights in ongoing negotiations over the future of the disputed territories."