Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

UN Votes 128-9 To Slam Jerusalem Embassy Move In Win For ‘Palestine’

More than 100 countries defied President Donald Trump on Thursday and voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for the United States to withdraw its decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Trump had threatened to cut off financial aid to countries that voted in favor. His warning did appear to have some impact with nine countries voting against the resolution and 35 abstaining. A total of 128 countries voted for the resolution.

Israel rejected the vote.

“Israel rejects the U.N. decision and at the same time is satisfied with the high number of countries that did not vote in its favor,” said a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

“Israel thanks (U.S.) President Trump for his unequivocal position in favor of Jerusalem and thanks the countries that voted together with Israel, together with the truth,” it said.

A spokesman for Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed a U.N. vote on Thursday that called on the United States to withdraw its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

“The vote is a victory for Palestine,” said Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah. “We will continue our efforts in the United Nations and at all international forums to put an end to this occupation and to establish our Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.